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!

50% of the medals won at the Olympic Games went to those who were educated independently

The question is how much of this is correlation not causation. It is difficult to be elite at a sport if your parents don't have resources.

I don't know many people who are hostile to independent education per se. I do know many people who are hostile to arrogant and incorrect claims such as the one you made that the extra curricular opportunities available to your DS are better than anything on offer to state educated kids. You cannot possibly know that this is true. And my direct experience indicates that it is unlikely to be true for some state educated kids. Perhaps not many. But it only takes one to disprove your claim. And there is likely to be more than one state educated kid with access to certain extra curricular opportunities that are either on a par with or better than those available to your DS. If you stopped making inflated and generalist claims you'd probably find more people agreeing with you about your main points which seem to be that some private schools are amazing. Which is clearly true. Some state schools are too though - and so are the extra curricular opportunities available to some state educated kids.

I am not a mathematician, they way they teach math nowadays if different to how I learnt.

I am not a peripatric teacher.

History, Science and English would be my subjects.

Anyway my education was great, thank you Herc! It has enabled me to go to one of the best uni's in the world, finish top of the class on my post grad course and get a well paid job which I love and of course pay for education. :) If thats being smug as some have suggested, well, I don't care. Because I can remember being young feeling hungry, waiting for school the next day so I can eat at lunch time. Having no gas or electricity until mums pay day before we could charge the key and when I think of where I am now... WOW.
My post only wanted opinions on why some think it is a waste of money, but they would do it in a heart beat if their own circs changed, not for your snide comments.

Sorry only half message posted.

HercShipwright
Nope, Im not talking about buying bond books and home tutoring etc.

I am talking about, sending DD to the local state offering and bridging the gap between what she would have received to the private school and the state. Not possible.

I only speak 2 languages fluently alas, can't bridge the gap in the additional language DD is learning (books, tapes, etc not enough).

I am not a mathematician, they way they teach math nowadays if different to how I learnt.

I am not a peripatric teacher.

History, Science and English would be my subjects.

Anyway my education was great, thank you Herc! It has enabled me to go to one of the best uni's in the world, finish top of the class on my post grad course and get a well paid job which I love and of course pay for education. :) If thats being smug as some have suggested, well, I don't care. Because I can remember being young feeling hungry, waiting for school the next day so I can eat at lunch time. Having no gas or electricity until mums pay day before we could charge the key and when I think of where I am now... WOW.
My post only wanted opinions on why some think it is a waste of money, but they would do it in a heart beat if their own circs changed, not for your snide comments.

happygardening - I think you admitted yourself that your ds1's school is not the best at sport.

I fail to understand how you could have anything OTHER than a high percentage of children from the "top" public schools getting into the top positions in public life when the vast majority of them come from very wealthy, well connected families and a fair proportion from very powerful families. If the number of children from these schools getting into the "top" positions is morally unjustifiable, then so are the extremes of wealth and power of their parents...

As a ex competitive horse rider merry no one knows that more than I do but horses, and probably sailing aside (probably others but I can't think of any off the top of my head) success is not all about parental recourses it's as all top riders will tell you about you as an individual, you have to practice, morning, noon and night you have to live, dream, eat, sleep it and it's about obsessive attention to detail and never being satisfied with what you've done.
Of course Milfield generates lots of top sportsmen particularly in equestrianism because they have amazing facilities on site that their students can use in their lunch break, before school after school etc. It's also about opportunity to train alongside other very capable individuals, it puts your own performance in perspective and also enables you to learn from those who are so much better than you. Independent school charge huge fees and therefore have the recourses to do this what
in a huge variety of sports.

And DON'T tell me that powerful, wealthy people are not going to ensure their children get to the top one way or the other, because I won't believe you.

Or if your parents aren't interested. Or set an example of drive and discipline. I am not saying these parental attributes are lacking among all children in state schools, but I'm guessing that in that troubling bottom group of low aspirational white working-class boys and girls, there is probably the same lack of commitment to getting children to sports training sessions (with the exception of football) during the week as there is to getting them to practise reading or spellings or do homework. And this group doesn't feature in the private school demographic.

If you cut out this group and just looked at middle-class and/or aspirational families in state and private schools, I wonder how much of a difference would remain?

Actually, I think success in nearly any sport (and music, dance etc) has a lot to do with parental resources, and it's rather naive to think otherwise. As I mentioned, my neighbour's dd excels in gymnastics, among other sports, and competes at a national level. Just getting to the competitions is a huge financial strain for her mum, then there are costumes etc to sort out.

Likewise, I know a lot of kids at my dd's dance school who have had to quit due to finances. For dd it's just a hobby, but even then, it costs a small fortune!!

I try not to think about how much all the music drama and dance stuff costs. :(

Rabbitstew

It is not just the wealthy that want to ensure their children get to the top. Cleaners can also wish that their broad get to the top but to make it happen it just takes true determination and a lot of hard graft for that to happen. The back breaking stuff many posters have commented you don't need to do, just for schooling.

I think you mean DS2's school rabbit Win Coll walks it's own path! It always had done but there are a very wide variety of sporting opportunities available at least three times a week, from fly fishing through to fencing and the obligatory cricket and football. The school generates some surprisingly very successful sportsman, including an Olympic rower or sculler amazing on the piece of river they have. My DS's own reasonable success at his sport can only be attributed to the fact that he doesn't have to stand on a cricket pitch three times a week.
I agree rabbit the those from top schools go on to top jobs because they are from elite families, not once have I said it was morally justifiable.
I'm sorry Herc not one person on here has convinced me that the extra curricular activities offered by state primary school or the breadth and depth of the curriculum is superior to that which "elite" prep,schools offer. I have read carefully what you've all written, I also have one DS in state ed, I walk my dogs with friends whose DC's are in state ed, I work with people whose DC's are in state ed, I work with children who are in state ed, my DS attends a sport specific club in his holiday and I listen to what parents say their DC's get at their state schools, not one has ever told me that that their DC's are getting what the children in those "elite" schools are getting. Do I or have I in the past lived in an area which chooses not to channel recourses into extra curricular activities or a broad curriculum, many of these schools are consider ofstead outstanding what are you saying that this is meaningless grading for those I meet but not for those schools your DS's attend? We are talking about 6 different counties here but maybe that it. Is there some part of the world where state primary schools are providing wonderful extra curricular activities, a a hugely different curriculum from all these people/children I meet. Are these parents lying to me or are their children secretly receiving Olympic standard coaching in basketball?

Yes resources and geography jinsei - if we lived near London ds2 would have many more opportunities available to him. Lots of things that come up that would be suitable specify living within an hour from London.

Millfield isn't known for its academics though is it?

Some things probably are easier to get into if you are for a wealthy family (performing arts spring to mind - as you can't always get fees paid so have more options if you're loaded). But I'm pretty certain if either ds2 or ds2 want to try for Oxford they'll have as much chance from their state secondary as they would have from a mega expensive school. If course if you want to work for a British bank then going to somewhere like Eton will help (or did 20 years ago anyhow) but it made no difference to non-British banks.

rabbit you should know by now that I do believe that the powerful and the wealthy will ensure their children their children become equally as powerful and wealthy. I do believe it's got jack shit to do with the school old boy networks it's all to do with parental connections. The powerful and the wealthy mix with the powerful and the wealthy and perpetuate the power and wealth for their off spring.
We are living in an advanced capitalist society this is how it works 1% of the population have all the money and power.

Arb
Your post got me thinking ..
You mentioned aspirational white working-class boys and girls.

I am/was working class white and born poor to 5 generations of poor and uneducated people. It took the 6th generation to change that cycle. Yet I knew kids from my school (st Dunstans) who had working class black west African or East Asian parents who by hard graft were able to change that cycle within ONE generation and provide for their kids what they never had/could have.

My mum said when she was doing all the early morning cleaning, factor work and shite jobs etc, she was the only WHITE lady amongst the staff, every other low paid workers were all black african or south american women, all doing 3/4/5 jobs to raise money and many were sending money home for school fees or paying to put their children through private schools or to move to a better area.

I think the middle classes have always had it so good, and now, things that used to be within their reach are now out of grasp and some are not willing to do the back breaking stuff, retrain, etc to maintain.

But just my little ol mine opinion.

Who said Milfield was academic I didn't? Mind you a friends daughter has just left they were pleasantly surprised by how very well she did.
Who said children from state schools didn't stand a similar chance at getting into Oxbrdge as this from independent schools I didn't?
My DS works with the top bankers many aren't form Eton and neither it would appear are then new ones coming in. Anyway I sincerely hope my DS2 doesn't go onto to be in either a position of power or work for an investment bank English or foreign

You cannot get away from the fact that 7% of children are at private schools and yet they get 50% of the best university places despite universities giving priority to non privately educated children and the huge numbers of privately educated children in most of the decent jobs, over 80% of judges, many in the cabinet, a huge number of senior doctors etc. There is little a woman can do better for her children than pick a career which enables her to pay school fees.

Tall is right. I find so much more in common with all our local immigrants and second generation hard workers in this bit of London where they work as i do, often 7 days a week, don't take maternity leaves and basically work hard. That is my work ethic and it works wonderfully well. Not everyone has it but if you have made a huge effort to move countries you tend to be the kind of person who has that drive. As most people don't work very hard and turn up late for work and appointments it's not too hard to get ahead in the UK. In a sense those who do work hard are very lucky so many are slackers as you can through dint of hard work and effort do better than they do.

So what got my grandparents out of poverty (one left school at 12 - white English NE of England and one was widowed in the 1920s after a year of marriage with a baby? Well the women had to work - no housewives so that was a good feminist start. Secondly education. He might have left school at 12 but he read and read and read and set up his own business and waited until he was 40 to marry to be able to afford it. My parents both were clever and got to state grammar schools in the 1930s. and waited 13 years after marriage so my mother (a teacher) could support my father through medical school and waited until they could afford to buy a house and afford school fees. So again it was putting off today to do better years late - that delayed gratification thing and planning and of course years of very hard work when their friends were out enjoying themselves.
No one had ever been to Oxbridge from my private school until my sister went. We all did well because of all that family work ethic and I hope we are passing it on the children of the next generation.

But you are still comparing boarding with day. Of course public schools will incorporate more sports time into their curriculum because the school day is much longer.

Of those activities you've just mentioned ds2's school offers all of them - even the ruddy fishing! Actually not sure whether they do fencing at school at the moment - they might be, but the Olympic coach is only a ten minute walk from school so it's easy enough to access if that's your thing.

Lots of the kids participate a high level in a wide variety of fields - they just have their dinner & bed at home.

I have to say I know a lot of old Etonian/Winchester/rugby boys & not one of them participated in anything at what I would call a high level. I'm sure they had fun doing whatever they did but it didn't translate into anything more than a college team or a band.

My daughter has been away playing lacrosse all weekend and last year was picked for the England team. As our local state school is pretty dire I suspect we can be pretty sure her life long pleasure from this (she's graduated now) came from the fact we worked very hard to be able to afford her school fees from age 3.

Thread seems to have gone a bit off course in any case, as it was about the advantages of private education at primary level, not secondary. In fact most of what is being said now reinforces a fairly widely held view that it is at secondary that paying is most likely to make a difference.

Of course because the vast majority of privately educated primary school children go on to private secondary school it might be difficult to judge whether the primary bit on it's own makes much difference. However I don't think that there are any stats that suggest those that go to state primary and then to private secondary do any worse than their private right through peers.

To me all the extra curricula stuff is just nice to have. Obviously it's easier for parents if they can access everything through one institution because that's much less work than finding and accessing community resources. For working parents it may well be the difference between your child doing stuff or not (when we lived in London our children really only did swimming outside of school because we didn't have time to get them to anything else).

However lots of the perceived advantages of private schooling are really advantages of wealth. A more concerning issue is whether the sort of generational shift that the OP was talking about are possible now. Social mobility has declined significantly, and that's a problem for everyone.

Was she playing lacrosse at 3? Would she not have played lacrosse if she'd joined her lacrosse playing school at 11 instead?

I'm not really sure what you are arguing happy. Of course boarding schools have good facilities. They have a whole load of well funded children to entertain. If you have the funds to send your child to Millfield great, but that isn't the standard private school experience.

If your primary school child is a potential international sports person you send them to the tennis club/gym club/sailing club/riding club/athletics club/ice rink/swimming club/cycling club, not school. Many London prep schools have rubbish sports facilities and tiny grounds. It doesn't really matter to the parents because they take them to do these activities outside school, as do their chums at the outstanding very expensive catchment area primary down the road.

Children have access to these things because their parents are clued up, supportive and well resourced. If you are really arguing that most Olympians are taught at school, outside rowing, I just think you are wrong.

xenia, do you not think that there are families who choose state education who have the same work ethic?

And once again, if you control for all other relevant factors, do you think university admissions would still reflect such a gulf between state and private? I assume that your private school taught you to see that issues like this are far more complex than they may appear on the surface.

"No one had ever been to Oxbridge from my private school until my sister went."

I have lost the thread a bit - how does that make a private school better than a state school?

Oh dear god I do wonder at the intelligence of posters who cant grasp that if your child gets a place at a selective Independent they are likely to be in the top percentage of intelligence rather than at the bottom anyway.
Yes so of course these children will get the best university places- selective independents are not going to admit children who will damage their reputation
I have intelligent DC- not a sporty or musical gene between them- state educated.

DC are : DC1 vet. DC2 medical student .DC3 - still at school.