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.

Re-read my post, ffs. I didn't say all kids at private school were thick. I said there were thick kids at private schools just as there are bright kids at state schools.

And while I probably shouldn't have used the word thick, and apologise if it offended, I do find the assumption that all bright kids are hoovered up by generous scholarships equally out of order.

I live in a fairly revolting part of London, btw, and am in catchment for an excellent comp.

This report is interesting....
www.suttontrust.com/news/news/top-comprehensives-are-more-socially-selective-with-only-half/

Ok: kids who aren't particularly bright academically, then. I am not, obviously, referring to kids with learning disabilities. If that's what you thought.

Or 'the kids who would be written off by the 11+ as more deserving of what would euphemistically be termed a more vocational education, rather than educated within a school that offers them the opportunity to develop later'....

I agree with Salbertina.

You do what's best for your kids. If you have the money, and you can get something better if you paid, so be it. Why is everyone going on about people who do so being 'snobbish'?

Look - no one is equal in this world. Newborn babies are not equal. And it all starts even before they are born. One mother may have lived a healthy lifestyle whilst pregnant. The other smoke and drank.

Plus - if intelligence had anything to do with genetics (as every other trait we have seems to be), then I assume intelligent and educated parents are more likely (but not exclusively) to give birth to intelligent kids. Presumably, they would also value education enough to educate them accordingly. This alone shows that straightaway, kids are not going to have equal opportunities in life.

Why on earth - when it comes to education, do some people suddenly take a higher ground and argue otherwise???

'thick kids' is nasty. Do you refer to your dcs friends who may not be as bright as your kids as 'thick'? Or do they not have any' thick' friends as like tends to find like even in 'non - leafy comps'?

Eh? What makes you assume my kids are bright?

Look, it was a perhaps unfortunate choice of words and I've apologised. More to the point, I was answering a post that implied that bright kids were removed from the state system. Plenty remain.

I can afford it so I do.

But I have to say that I absolutely resent paying twice. The fact that fee-paying schools offer such a greater educational experience is a disgrace. I think that the state system is letting our children down.

Wuldric -how do you suggest the state system gets the money, facilities etc it would need to improve to private standards? A lot of finance would be needed to gain the extra staffing, grounds, opportunities.

You're not comparing like to like.

I read Wuldric's post as objecting to having to pay the fees, not the taxes.

If you live in an area where the state schools are so good they beat many independents then it is hardly sacrificial to say no to the private sector.

Personally, I'd never give it a second thought after choosing private.

Wuldric
I do not feel that the state system is letting my kids down.
They are far happier and doing better at school than myself.

Of all the people i know, many were educated at private schools a few from grammar schools, they have all done well either in business or in professions.
The people i know who went to comprehensives are either on the dole or earning basic wages, with the exception of a very special friend of mine who was labeled a dummy at her comprehensive school.

Sorry It was a "MODERN".

my husband went to a comprehensive.
he pays the bills for me to shop at waitrose and spend my mornings doing yoga

I went to a comprehensive and on to Oxford. I'm far from the only MNer who did. I am not rolling in money but that's because I'm a freelance journalist

lets see, DHs school friends from his sahth lunnun comp

• v rich programmer
• quite rich project manager
• comfortably off accountancy practice manager
• supermarket manager
• another programmer
• yet another programmer
• one lives in the states doing something techy

yup, disasters, the lot of them

My contemporaries include a clutch of university lecturers, a rather good musician, teachers, a theatre designer, people working in finance and computing...

Mmm mine? Um teachers, designer and not a few shop-workers. One Oxford.

My ex's from posh public school all high achievers, many Oxbridge.

OOH, ooh, my chums from my naice selective private school

• housewife
• housewife
• divorced housewife
• freelance journalist raising kids alone
• wife of d list celeb
• works for the above
• works for the above as well
• internationally famous research chemist
• horse trainer
• manager of phone sex line company

Wow, the money our parents spent was useful

The comp from "Gideons" constituency town did very well providing Y.T.S though.

The comp my friend who was labeled "Dummy " was in kent and since her sister went to the grammar i guess it was a "Modern".

You all must have gone to different comprehensives than i or some of my friends went to then....

The comprehensive was also in the supposed richest town outside london/south east, then again London and the South East is totally different
from the rest of the country.

What amazes me though is that the people you describe are mostly in the top 1 to 2% of the population yet going to schools that cater for 90% of the population.
So what are the other 95% of the kids from those schools doing then.

This site is amazing in that everybody apart from me seems to have been to University. Statistically only 20% of the population have been to University so i don't think your examples represent what the vast majority of kids educated at comprehensive schools are doing for a "Living" not a career.

soul DH and I both went to comp. Mine was worse than his, but by a margin.

He's a senior partner at a magic circle law firm.
I was a lawyer, now I'm a writer.

However, you will never ever get DH and I pretending that this was easy or usual. Our school peers for the most part did not pursue education past 16. I am the only person in my huuuuuge extended family