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 don't feel that my state primary (which is in special measures) is a better school than local private junior schools. I do feel that the extra curricular activities that all kids in state education can access should they wish are perfectly capable of being as good or better than those on offer within private schools. Even rowing (that crucially important sine qua non of civilized life) if you live in the right place. I have concrete evidence that the extra curricular activities open to all kids where I live are at least as good as those provided through the private schools, because so many private school kids (especially the ambitious ones) choose to engage in the open to all activities instead of the ones provided as part of their school fees. For some of those activities, the same people provided them both within the private schools and outside, and it is the particularly gifted kids from the private schools who are invited or encouraged to attend the higher level extension activities outside (not just arts based either, there are sports academies devoted to the main sports (or the ones with outside funding) round here which all kids who have ambitions in those areas are desperate to get into). It may be the case that going to a private school improves your chances of being selected for the good stuff but it's not a given and there are plenty of state school kids involved.

I also feel that it's ridiculous to suggest that all the kids who go to private junior schools are more original thinkers than those that go to state primaries. DD2's best friend has been educated at private school from the start, they know each other from selective extra curricular activities, her parents have consistently encouraged the friendship because they feel she is much more on their (gifted) child's wavelength than the other kids she mixes with at school. I actually wish Dd2 was a less original thinker to be honest, life would be simpler and easier.

It is ridiculously arrogant of you to suggest that all of your DSs extra curricular activities are provided at a higher level than any state educated child could possibly achieve because even if he is number 1 in the country at something, he will do other extra curricular stuff where state school educated kids are getting better or equal provision - and if he is number 1 in the country at something, that will be more down to his own personal qualities than the provision from the school. You can't buy being number 1. It doesn't work like that. Your DSs school may have lessons from the best possible teachers of DD1's instrument available in this country - but so does she, on a regular basis. What happens after that is up to the individual not the type of school they attend.

In the context of the OP it's probably also worth pointing out that primary schools don't offer rowing.

I don't think I said you had you to restrict it to bog standard primaries I was trying (perhaps unsuccessfully ) to say you can choose any type of primary you like.
Preps are also inspected with frequently little notice and most importantly like all businesses they are accountable to their parents. The vast majority of parents are paying for results if teaching is of poor standard parents will know because their children will fail to pass entrance exams, exams like the KS and Election are significantly better indications of standards of teaching than sats ever are or ever will be. Even success at CE, not lower level, but at level 2/3 indicates good standards of teaching. Retro you're clutching at straws I detailed in great detail how my DS's prep was significantly better than his old "outstanding and well regarded primary" you have a yet to make the same comparison. It is ridiculous to state that teaching in top preps is of poorer standard results at these preps don't back this up, many are over subscribed (why would they be if they weren't delivering the goods?), they achieve entrance into schools parents want often against fierce competition, and success in their entrance exams. Parents are fickle (ask Tescos, M and S) once they get a whiff that the school is not delivering what they want they vote with their feet and take their money somewhere else.

Who gives a shit if primary schools offer rowing.Anybody can get themselves to their local club.Not spending a small fortune on school fees you're more likely to have money to fund it.

Sadly the school my DD's attend/will attend does do lacrosse. As did my comp (and it still does). :( Not the best sport in the world for dyspraxics to be forced to do, it has to be said. Marginally better than hockey (which they also officially have to do, even at primary school. It's a health & safety and insurance nightmare!

I know very little about teaching at top preps, happy, but I have observed some teaching at some of the "elite" public schools, and I was very underwhelmed in some cases. I also have friends who have taught at some of the big name schools, who are subject specialists but not qualified teachers. One of them hated teaching in any case.

I think the quality of teaching at independent schools varies, as it does in the state system. It's a pity that they weren't all inspected according to the same criteria, so that parents could make an informed comparison.

I am using primary to mean state or private. My point was that you don't usually start rowing till you are in secondary school as you have to wait till your body is more developed before you can put that level of strain on your body.

Therefore you'd be disappointed if you were sending your child to a prep school for the rowing. I haven't heard of any primaries (public or private) playing lacrosse either.

The kind of sports and activities you can do at a high level before you are 12 don't tend to be the kind of sports and activities on which private schools have a monopoly.

Sorry but I think many parents think paying for education means better quality(it doesn't) which can lead to over subscribed schools.It's an emperors new clothes type of thing.

Sorry I'm pretty sure if parents wanted it most local primaries could get kids through ce,the maj don't however want it so prep schools preparing for ce is neither here nor there.

Sorry being accountable to parents is not the same as being accountable to Ofsted and the gov and as for inspections sorry I have friends who teach in both sectors.The inspection systems for both sectors seem to be poles apart.

The fact that state and private schools are inspected through different bodies, with the ISC not perhaps being wholly impartial, and also that no comparable exams are taken until GCSE, makes direct comparison, especially at primary level, very tricky.

You see, I could say 'no child at private primaries achieve level 6 in SATs, unlike at least 20% of children at the local state primary', while you could say 'no state educated child passes CE, whereas 70% of those at the loca prep do'. Because there is no overlap between who TAKES those exams, the comparison between the two is meaningless.

Exactly.

Sorry for all the sorries in my last post.

In the absence of such comparators, many parents are swayed by 'the reassurance factor' of private - 'Private must be better because we pay for it, surely? And they will all be nice children from ice families. And it's what my friends do so I don't want them to tell me I'm failing my children ' [People tell me this, about my own children, all the time]'

I think people also look at gcse and a-level results, and make assumptions from these about the quality of teaching or whatever. However, I'd live to know what those results would look like if you could control for variables such as parental income and education, parental aspirations and support, social class etc. I suspect you'd be looking at a very different picture.

Interestingly, I have had the opportunity recently to sit in on some lessons in the kill-your-grandma-to-pay-the-fees-for-coaching superselective grammar.

I will describe myself as 'very unimpressed' - definitely a case of easy pupils making for lazy teaching, even though results are stratospheric.

The best young rower I know is state educated (although I do know an Olympic gold medallist as well & he was very much public school). Rowing is an expensive sport to run (in terms of equipment) but if it's your thing you can certainly find rowing clubs in most cities. I've rowed at 2 within a short - as in ten minute - drive of here.

I think accessing high quality coaching is more dependent on geographical area than school. For example locally there are Olympic coaches in fencing & diving. Their clubs are very good at finding future olympic level athletes from amongst the local kids. Other areas will have other sports that are specialist in that area just because they happen to have a high level coach working there. Nothing to do with schools though - at that level the coaches don't give a damn about background.

saintly, I read that initially as you having started rowing at 2 years old! I thought it was a bit precocious! :)

Snort - no I started rowing at 18 & was pretty crap.

Incidentally quite a few of the state schools around here offer surfing (which I started at 40) - far more fun than rowing. Some of the kids go on to represent their country as well.....

Having read happygardening's description of the supposedly outstanding state primary school her children went to briefly, I can only say that I am underwhelmed by Ofsted's opinion. It doesn't sound remotely outstanding to me. But then I was equally underwhelmed by her description of the top prep school - I agree with Jinsei on the benefits of genuinely well taught cross-curricular teaching (but only if outstandingly done - it can just be a big mess). Having got rid of the last awful headteacher, my children's state primary is doing this incredibly well: it makes sense to me, it's exciting, the children are actively involved in their education, and yet it is also far more rigorous than it used to be. To start teaching in a box-like fashion, via different subjects taught by different specialist teachers making no particular reference to the teaching of any of the other specialists sounds like narrow thinking to me. I can see it being amazing if all the specialists got together and created a whole linked curriculum, but not as separate subjects with separate curricula from the age of 8. I'm surprised happygardening values separating subjects out like that from such a young age when she also talks of the values of Div and the broadness of thinking and understanding it can give you.

Ultimately though as a parent seeing your child thrive and happy is paramount. Mine all started at the local outstanding primary, frankly it was shocking from every point of view.

We ended up moving them to a prep where they are receiving what I feel is a normal education- no overcrowded classrooms, no string of supply teachers, a choice of competitive sports and reasonably high standards.

I am sure other schools state and private offer the same but you are limited in your local choices. I know a number of children in my dcs old primary have done well but that is in spite of school rather than because of it. What I mean is huge amounts of tutoring from year 3/4, carting around to clubs every night and a constant presence at the school for yet another issue.

Having lived the above for years on end I feel I am also paying for my own sanity!

To be fair, rabbit, under the old inspections, it was possible to get an outstanding rating even if the teaching wasn't outstanding. I completely agree that cross-curricular teaching has to be done well if it's done at all.

The separate subjects thing is interesting. I think there are subjects - music, sport, languages, maths, some science - where subject specialists can potentially teach better than generalists. There are other subjects where cross curricular work adds such richness that it would be a shame to lose it. The state school I teach in sets for maths (and we take sets according to our strengths), has a sports specialist for PE and a variety of music specialists, as well as an MFL teacher, and we do a lot of joint / shared planning so e.g. the historian and the scientist sit down together and share expertise in the two subjects.

merrymouse,

I agree. I can put my hand up and say I cannot bridge the gap, even with my education :)

Sovery, I agree.

teacherwithtwokids do you mind elaborating about your experience at this grammar school? What do you call lazy teaching? Is this why superselective grammars underperform in comparison to superselective private schools? I think most schools have some patchy teaching (with different skills needed for different levels of ability) but it is difficult for parents to differentiate value added at the top end of ability especially if children are self-motivated anyway.

Tall but that surely is an indication that private isn't always best. I can certainly bridge the gap. And I went to one of the south London comps (with kids from Peckham in my year group, although not many I'll grant you) that you claim couldn't offer a decent education.

Herc I didn't state that children who went to state schools primary or secondary are not original thinkers or that children who went to independent schools are all original thinkers. I responded to a "ridiculous" comment made up thread by someone, who implied that they were involved in university selection/admission. She stated that independently educated children are generally not free thinkers whereas those from the state sector often were.
I've also never stated on this thread or any other that teachers in independent schools are better I think just like in life the are excellent good average and mediocre in both.
You all can endlessly tell me I'm talking crap and of course you are entitled to your opinions as am I. I will carry on paying because I believe that what my DS gets is unique and is not offered in the state sector, after all on three occasions I was told quite clearly by teachers in the state sector they couldn't or wouldn't offer what my DS needs. I have found that much of the hostility towards independent ed is because parents see it as buying your children something better that those of their contemporaries in the state sector have and also rightly or wrongly advantages in the future (although I personally don't buy into this old boy network stuff). As I said above I'm not the only one who believes this, my DS's school is experiencing the highest level of interest it's ever known, 6 people apply for a place at Eton, the likes of SPS, Harrow, Westminster Marlborough College, and many more are over subscribed. The two "top" prep up the where a I work are also completely over subscribed and a friend is moving to work in another one again over subscribed. In my book the results these prep generate at 13+ are a reflection of the standard of teaching, it doesn't matter how I look at I just don't accept that children can be successful in the KS or Election if teachers are rubbish, or get loads of art, music drama and DT scholarships again if the teaching is rubbish.
50% of the medals won at the Olympic Games went to those who were educated independently I don't believe that the majority went to the rowers, it's easy to site this and dismiss this comment but it's not only in rowing do independently educated adults excel.
As I said up thread the decision to pay for primary aged children, depends greatly on your circumstances including financial and what your hopes dreams and plans are for your DC's future schooling, no one person is in the same position, every child is unique (that's the sort of thing we have on our work headed paper) but it's true and as parents we often want different things. Money buys you more choice in the first place and can also buy you the sort of education that you fits with your own ethos.
I personally hope all children from what ever background have easy access to the sort of state schools you are describing above, that they experience a broad curriculum, they are suitable challenged and can pursue their individual interests to the standard they wish without their parents having to ship them half way round England. As I said for me personally I'll carry on paying, there is a light at the end of the tunnel now, after all the luxury holiday, expensive clothes, (not really me maybe I'll go back to horses) can wait.
Thanks for your interesting points, and best of luck to your children wherever and however they are educated.