If you can afford it, would you send your children to an independent school?

[Fiona2011231]

This is a hypothetical question, and I would greatly appreciate your insight.

My question is based on this assumption: In England, if you want your children to have a better chance in life (great success, joining the elites, etc), a good independent school is a requirement. Of course, few have enough money to afford it.

But suppose you have enough money, would you send your children to an independent school? Or would a grammar or a comprehensive school be good enough?

Thank you.

"whilst I think relieving the state might be a happy by product of going independent, I could never use it as my reason, even in my most ironic moments"

Yet government after government, on the left as much as on the right, acknowledges that outsourcing the education of the gifted & talented to the private sector is of significant benefit to the UK education budget. You might naively think of it as a happy by product but governments view your sort as essential.

Eh? Plenty of bright kids in state schools. (Even despite the private schools' attempts to boost their own results and thus bring in more fee-paying pupils by offering reduced price places, if that's what you mean.) Plenty of thick kids in posh schools too, come to that.

My local council certainly counts on a good proportion of parents going private, hence the lack of state primary places.

Excellent. 'thick kids'. Nice. I think that poster needs to ask herself why it's OK to call children at private school 'thick'.

"tim nice but dim"
oh, and this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24850139
backed up by this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24868614

vice versa

I wonder what mother inferior would have made of me repeating 3rd year and
an October Birthday at my last resort private school ending up with
5Es and 1D at Gcse.......

Private school would be purchased over my dead body unless my child was utterly miserable and private school was the only way I could see to make them happy. This is because private school is wrong, in my opinion.

I think we have all missed out an important concept when we discuss private schooling. Most will always endeavour to compare results. Yes I agree that is one key area. Yet it is so much more than that. Good private schoooling is also about self confidence. Its about learning to think outside the box. Its about making a child become the best that they can be. They achieve this by having small classes and attracting motivated teachers and staff who are commited to this end. Yes most children are from middle class famlies who take a keen intrest in their childs upbringing. So yes there is selection. Creating a school with children who are well supported by parents. That being siad disturbances in class can be dealt with easier than in a state school.

Its only been one half term and we have already had a progress report. In which the children are asked how can they improve for next part of half term. Teaches them the need for self improvement. To compete agaisnt each other but also to compete against oneself. That is why good private schools turn out winners.

You'd probably think my child was 'thick'. She has mild learning difficulties and problems with hearing. State school would have been a bloody disaster for her. She's thriving at her private school. She'll have to work very hard to get a B in maths but I know the school will do its utmost to get her there. They care about her in a way that they could not at the huge faceless local state. Her abilities in sport are valued so highly it had given her a huge confidence boost and has, with no exaggeration, turned her life around. She was at an outstanding state primary before where being 'thick' meant you held no interest for the staff whatsoever. It has also proved to be an amazing environment for my other child who is very academic. I think we are incredibly lucky to be able to afford to educate our children in this way.

A progress report at half term.... Wow. We can only dream of such things in the state sector. FFS.

If the left want to tell people to "bogoff" because they state the fact that private school paying parents save the state 500,000 x £7000 a year in what it would cost to educate their children, I suspect it says more about left wing posters than anything else. People might not like these facts but they are facts and the brighter private school educated children do give an awful lot back to the state over their lives too. I am not saying charity and good moral principle is the only reason to send children to private schools but it certainly is there and if that is unpalatable to some then so be it. The argument is exactly the same as if middle class people with enough money for food clogged up food banks taking all the resources.

Assumption behind the original question that paid for/ independent is always better but there are many very poor independent schools and
top quality free state schools.

If the option was between a very poor state school or paying for a good school I would pay. I do know of parents who feel that their local state schools are THAT bad. Fortunately for us we have a good choice of excellent schools in my area and my children are in them.

I do think there are some complex reasons for choice independent schools, however. Eg some offer long hours with extra activities, which can be perfect for some families.

Prettybird, if we lived in your catchment we wouldn't have gone private! Unfortunately there is such a divide in the State schools in Scotland which is being made worse through the Council's implementation of the Curriculum for Excellence. Our catchment school only offers 4 Advanced Highers- English, Maths, Biology and Graphic Communications. DS' Edinburgh independent school offers 23 Advanced Highers plus 1 A level. I wish all State schools were like yours!

I can say that all the things mentioned by Kenlee happened at my (state) school (albeit I will acknowledge it was in a leafy, middle class suburb) and still happen at ds' (state) school - a very non leafy school with a high proportion of EAL, asylum seekers and FSMs.

Maybe the difference is that I am in Scotland

There are good schools and bad schools in both the public and private/independent sectors - so I would still challenge the premise of OP that independent school is a requirement to be successful and the implication that if you can afford it, you are somehow letting your child down if you choose not to send him'her to one.

I went to private on a scholarship. My parents did not have the level of wealth that most of the parents did there and my grandparents contributed. I enjoyed my time there but don't see one single person from school nowadays.
I would actively choose NOT to send my children to private school. The attitude of entitlement that so many of the girls had was deeply unpleasant. I have a lovely but very snobby friend whose children go to private school. Already she can't see how privileged they are. She thinks that lots of the parents there are just average earners. I have tried to explain that people who are average earners do not have thousands of spare pounds a year to spend on education but she is already in the bubble.
Luckily my dc are bright and we are in a grammar school area so hopefully not an issue for us. I do have an issue with 40% of grammar school places being taken by children from private schools. All the extra training/coaching they have to get them there and then some of them struggle once in grammar school seems to be a real problem here. I want to say, if you can afford to send your children privately then don't take a grammar place IF your child is not going to thrive there.

Gosh 40per cent! I'm hoping mine will get into grammar as the alternatives aren't great . . . But if they're up against that level of coaching :-(

Grammars aren't an option for us (thankfully, as I went to one and I would rather not send my children to one) but I am interested in the concept of 'coaching'. What's the difference between good teaching to a relevant standard ie the 11+ and 'coaching' (horribly frowned on). Are we assuming that the teaching at private preps is so good it gives child an unfair advantage? That the children who go private would never have got in without this miraculous 'coaching'?

To be fair, the interim report is only a table detailing their effort, behaviour and homework on a scale of 1 to 4 for each subject, plus an attendance record (which I had to challenge as he was showing as late for some sessions despite being at school but they have now fixed that anomaly).

We will have a parents' evening in January or early February to help inform us in the choices that ds will have to make for his subjects the following year. The S1 Parents' Evening is in November to let the parents get an early view of how their kid is settling in at secondary school.

Taz1212 - yes, the one weakness of CfE is the different way it is being implemented across the country. Ds has friends in a neighbouring council area who were made to choose their subjects in February of S1 . I know another parent who is a principle teacher at a school in Ayrshire who thinks ds' school is wrong in making them choose subjects in S2 as that goes against the broad general foundation principles of CfE and that it should only be done in S3. At least ds' school they are being allowed to choose up to 7/8 subjects.

I think the main difference and benefit at private school is choice.

It may be that some state schools replicate each and every aspect of an independent school that a parent chooses, but the essentail difference is that you don't get any say in getting a place in said school. There is no meaningful choice.

Perhaps somehwhere in the UK there are state school offering everyhtingmy DC receive in their independent schools? I hope so. But I don't have any choice about getting a place, do I?

What I despise is parents who fault others who use private. Yet their own child attends a grammar/ state which is not open to the poor... ie catchment area. If these schools are funded by the state they should open their doors to the poor.. say 50% local catchment area and the other 50% from deprived areas. This is what we call leveling the playing field. leave the Private schools alone. We have paid into state and Yes it should be equal....

It's a unique British thing that opting for private is seen as a "snobbish", class issue. And as others have said, often so hypocritical with the catchments issue.

Where i live/have lived overseas it's simply assumed - and never questioned- you do the best for your kids and pay if necessary and it's affordable for you.

Don't forget those who move themselves into the catchment of a good school to ensure their dc gets a place.