Why do some parents think private school at primary is a waste of money.... but are secretly saving for secondary?

[Tallandgracefulmum]

AIBU as my little one is starting prep school in Sept. I was asked by a friend at DD's nursery my plans, said private all the way and was told I would be wasting my money and should save it for secondary when it matters.

I hate this ..most parents I know would send kids private all the way through but cannot afford it so are saving for secondary. But to be honets if your not used to paying shed loads monthly for schooling, you will not suddently 7 years later ( and higher fees) start doing it for secondary.

What some people don't seem to get is that some parents value educational experience over material possessions or fancy homes. This friend in question said she will use the money she saves to provide education experiences for her children and give them a lump sum for uni.

My thoughts are she just can't afford it and wants to make me feel bad for spending my hard earned money.

How many parents actually compare a range of private school fees, then calculate how much it would cost to send one child then save the relevant monthly amount ready to give each off spring at 18? Doesn't happen. What's wrong in providing the best educational experience you can afford for your kids without others constantly telling me I am wasting my money.

FWIW I can understand private school bashers who hate all forms of private schooling, but not those who bash primary but would send kids to secondary in a heartbeat!

I think another factor (that is often evidenced on mumsnet) is that many people feel that they have the intelligence, capability and confidence to bridge any perceived short falls in their children's primary education themselves.

One of mine went to private secondary from a state primary and one went private Fromm the off.

The difference is astounding.

Happy but many state primaries can offer more,our's isn't even Outstanding.

And I totally agree with Jin teaching quality and the basics of reading,writing and numeracy are crucial to me.Above and beyond anything else.

The extra curricular activities our school offer are an extra bonus.

Why do you need to pay to be a high flyer? I'm pretty convinced that if either of my younger 2 desperately want to go to, for example, Oxford then they'll be able to get in from a state secondary. Especially now I know the top public trick (if you don't get in the first time apply again).

I'd expect 'top' preps to prepare for CE - otherwise what's the point of them? Not convinced by the benefits of specialist Latin/Greek teaching from age 7 for any reason other than CE though. And I write that as someone who's youngest stated teaching himself Latin aged 7. I'm more interested in whether a school offers Forest School tbh. And the sports stuff sounds hideous for a non-sporty child. At least if you're not forced to spend hours on sport you can spend it on activities that interest you.

*top public school trick

So Jensai I think we're in agreement it all comes down to personal circumstances, what are hopes plans for the future is and what we want outbid education.
I by the way didn't mention the numerous visits from outside specialist speakers every week, endless trips to theatres, residential trips every year from year 3, a strong link with another schools abroad etc but they are all there as well. When you have children 24/7 parents expect a broad and diverse curriculum. All children also have a form teacher who knows them but of course living alongside your teachers mixing with them at work and play enables pupils and staff to build exceedingly strong relationships with each other, my DS1 (now 17) and many of his friends are still in communication with his old prep school science teacher.
Interstingly DS1 is dyslexic, completely misunderstood at his state primary, he struggled in the compulsory morning lessons of English and Math as he was unable to demonstrate his qualities. He did better at prep because as a "walking encyclopedia" and a history addict he found that having 5-6 history geography lessons a week with equal emphasis on them as well as math and English both he could demonstrate his extra ordinary knowledge and was praised and admired by the staff. In history in particular his writing improved and this crossed over into English.
I disagree with you about the Latin, to be good at Latin you have to put a lots of work into it, the grammar is complicated, my DS is exceedingly good at Latin, he feels what he learnt and the rigour required to be good at it has crossed over into the other MFL's he's learnt in particular German where much of the language is shared. As one teacher said of you get yourself this good at Latin then all other languages are going to be a walk in the park and this seem to be true for him. He's also loved the set txt in particular the Virgil he finds the sentence construction beautiful, it's given him great pleasure reading it and has improved his written work in all subjects considerably.

I do wish more state schools offered Latin at secondary though. Ds2's does although I'm not convinced he'll take it beyond year 8 as it's not really his cup of tea. Nice to have it as an option though (& I suspect ds3 will enjoy it if he goes to that school).

Ok retro I've told you what "top" preps offer it's your turn now to tell me what even non outstanding primaries offer.

But of course you're going to be doing extra curricular activities at school if that's where you live all the time. Ds2 does hours of performance related extra curricular activites each week including specialist workshops and activities with those working at a high level. He just does it outside school (& there's no way he could have done what he has if he was boarding)

retro do you really think that teaching quality, basics of literacy, numeracy are not crucial to these preps or their parents. Schools like Summer Fields et al will have quite a few of their boys who are successful in the KS or Election they are not going to achieve this with poor teaching or by not ensuring the basics of literacy and numeracy have been established.

But saintly they're not just getting extra curricular activities all the time these are done at the end of the day or in lunch breaks although the standards of these activities as I demonstrated are often significantly higher.

I think you'd have to be a pretty specialist school to e.g. provide better gymnastics facilities than the local gymnastics club - if for no other reason than the local gymnastics club draws from a wider pool of children.

Higher than what? I seriously doubt the standard of extra curricular stuff your DS does is higher than that done by JimJam's DS. Or my DCs for that matter.

"Why do you have to pay to be a high flyer"
Where did a I say that why I pay?
Are we talking about "high flying in school or high flying once you've left school?
If we're talking about high flying in school and for example aiming for and being successful in the KS/Election this is an individual parents desire and decision, those parents who have no interest in doing it have no right to criticise their choice than they have to criticise choices in nappies. I've got a couple of work colleagues whose children are in both sectors who are "high flying musicians" it's not for me even if my DS's were that musical. I wouldn't want to put that level of effort and commitment into it but I accept that this is what they and hopefully their DC's want.
We recently met a boy who does DS2's sport very seriously he's in the top 5 nationally they (the family) live breath eat sleep it, best of luck to him but again not for me but I wouldn't criticise them and for doing it the boy seems very happy and dedicated.

So you tell me what top preps have and I am only allowed to say what all state schools have ,not just the top state schools.Hardly fair but here goes.

Bang up to date,constantly scrutinised and held to account teaching in all areas that is continuously improving even in the non "good" schools which are becoming increasingly rare.Any school that is "good" or better will have good or better teaching.Obviously the Outstanding schools will have Outstanding teaching and Oustanding grades in all areas.

All manner of extra curricular activities,accountability,dedicated and imaginative teachers able to motivate and teach even the hardest of classes.

Kids that can cope with learning in all environments,decent SEN,honesty(no need to keep parents happy because they pay the wages),fab pastoral care.....

Sure those more up to date can do better than me but that is what I've noticed.

Re your basics of literacy being crucial,where is your accountability?From what I've seen prep schools can set their own targets,standards and say what they like as regards grades in the primary sector.Don't see a lot of measures holding them to account.

The point is, as a state school chooser, I do not feel remotely threatened by the fact that a very tiny minority of private schools offer significantly more than my DC's state primary and comp.

The proportion of privately-educated children at those genuinely top secondaries / preps is very tiny - do Winchester + Eton + not very many other schools (some of the other very academic day schools are also 'academically elite' but offer nothing like the range of other stuff which happy rightly points out make the tiny minority of private schools significantly different) make up more than 1% of the privately-educated population? I don't know, but I doubt it.

So 99% or so of privately educated pupils gain very little over and above what our local state schools offer - definitely not worth getting in a froth over.

I think 'high fligher' referred to the OP's 11.58 post.

teacher as far as I understand they make up a high % of the cast of 'Made in Chelsea'...

I think boarding is a very different thing, happy, and we'll all have opinions about the merits and demerits of a boarding school education.

Obviously, kids at boarding school will inevitably have more time for stuff in school and more input from the school, and you obviously think that's important. That's a perfectly valid point of view. However, there are only 24 hours in a day for all kids, and no amount of money can change that. Therefore, the extra time that your kids have in school is at the expense of time spent with family, and for me, this just wouldn't be an option. For me, there are certain aspects of my dd's education that I think should take place at home, within the family setting, and weekends/holidays wouldn't really be enough. And I know what my friends got up to at boarding school. This is not a criticism of your choices, merely a reflection of different values and beliefs.

We'll have to disagree about Latin, as I've managed to pick up a number of languages quite easily without it. I did some Italian when I was at Cambridge alongside a girl who had got an A in A-level Latin. I had assumed that she would find it very easy, but it was actually me who took to it much more quickly. As for discipline and rigour, lots of languages can give you that - I did Russian at my state secondary, alongside French and German, and that was fairly challenging.

Herc above I compared in great detail above the standard of extra curricular activities offered at my DS's old prep to that offered in their old outstanding state primary and our two local outstanding primaries. This would also appear to be backed up a the point recently raised by the head of ofstead about the number of medal winners at the Olympic Games and that fact that 50% were educated independently. I happen to know that five rowers in the junior GB team all educated independently in fact I believe the whole boat is educated privately. The top five in my DS's sport all educated privately.
As ever we are never going to agree. Most importantly as long as we as individual parents feel our chosen school is offering what we want, need or expect then that's fine. Tragically for all of you who think that your state primaries are in every case better than any other school in the independent sector they would appear to be a whole raft on here who clearly don't feel the same. They are fighting tooth and nail at appeals, devastated when they loose, moving to better catchment areas, home eding and of course paying. Let face it the vast majority of independent schools mediocre or not only survive (I'm not talking about Eton et al) because parents genuinely believe that their state option is not offering what they want be it academic rigour, extra curricular activities! Small classes or 300 acres of manicured playing fields and Olympic lakes. Are you saying all these people are wrong?

Incidentally, from what I've seen, the attainment levels at our local prep are significantly lower than those at dd's state primary despite the specialist teaching for each subject. That could well be because the intake is generally less able than the intake at my dd's school, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Standards are higher compared to what?? I can guarantee no school offers some of the activities my son accesses outside school - however much you pay.

If any of mine happened to be big into fencing they could access the British team coach in school or our of school. Same coaching team in the private schools & state schools.

Like anything - if you do it to a very high level than you will need to do it outside school - even top preps won't be at a high enough standard.

The extra-curricular acrtivities thing is a bit of a red herring, though, because it is not comparing like with like.

Many private school pupils - especially boarders - can only access extra-curricular activities connected with the school. So the quality of those determines the quality they can be exposed to.

Whereas for state school pupils, the extra curricular opportunities are those offered by the school PLUS those in the local community. Of course, in some communities, both may be lacking. However, in many, the quality of the community provision matches or exceeds anything available in private schools.

For example, in dance (DD's thing) one or two of the local privates have a dance club or offer once weekly dance lessons. In the community, DD has a choice of 2 very high quality dance schools (she dances 10+ hours per week), and 4 or 5 more offering a range of genres at recreational levels. She could in addition get involved in e.g. associate classes should that be appropriate - these are run at times when the private schools are still in saturday school. In that context, it doesn't matter that her primary offers 'only' an enjoyable after school dance club that is definitely recreational - it is not the only option available.

I think a lot of them are wrong to assume that private is better, yes. Again, there are plenty of threads on here about parents who are unhappy with their kids' independent schools. Perhaps it is just inevitable that parents will complain about schools sometimes.

I don't think anyone is saying that some private schools couldn't possibly be better than state, merely that we haven't seen or heard anything yet to suggest that this is the case.

The point about sport is an interesting one. Certainly, for sports like rowing, kids are more likely to be exposed to this kind of thing at private schools, so it's inevitable that the independent sector will produce more rowers. Similar with a number of other sports. However, even for many of the more mainstream sports, it takes a huge amount of investment to pursue these seriously, and that simply isn't possible for families in lower incomes. Until there is sufficient funding in place to level the playing field, I think we'll continue to see a lot of our sportspeople coming from more privileged backgrounds.

It is very rare to find a non-private school that teaches rowing and there are certainly sports like lacrosse that you don't tend to encounter outside private schools. However, these sports are in the minority.

There is also a cross over in the set of parents who can afford to support their children in a sport to a very high level, the set of parents who can afford private schools and the set of pupils who require the flexibility that private schools offer if they do an activity at an elite level.

The vast majority of people who participate in anything at a very high level are not coached in school.