First post: what is wrong with considering private schools?

[dietcokeisgreat]

Dear all,

I just starting looking at mumsnet last week and joined today. Some of my work colleagues talk about it and i am thinking about options for education for my son, who is just 3 and thought i would take a look. Well, i just starting the thinking, so it is early days.
We could pay for school, or maybe not, we don't know yet. He is our first child, we are having problems getting pregnant again, so unsure if there will be more yet.

I was surprised at some really negative comments on lots of threads towards people posting for advice/ whatever about private schools. Why are they doing that? What is wrong with people thinking about different options? Or asking about a school they know that is private? Twice i read something 'well i can't pay for school' as a response. For me, its no different to whether or not people have cash for other stuff. I can't afford to live in the smarter part of town, or pay for a boarding school but that doesn't mean no one should be allowed too!

Just wondering...don't want to post something that will enrage others or be and be upset by responses ....

Thank you.

3kidsandme the private school my dcs attend has no problems with alcohol or drugs ...but it is primary.... the state school is also primary but has problems with both...from the dcs and the parents.....I do not want my dcs mixing with these dcs....would you? Given that your DCs don't go to the school, is the drink and drugs problem actually identified in the OFSTED report, evident from the kids drinking, smoking and taking drugs at the school gates or do you actually have friends with DCs at the school?

Our household income is 50th centile, I think, not 93rd: 35k gross combined - no mtge though, paid off about 8 yrs early through overpayments.

HmmAnOxfordComma
you can afford to pay fees out of any full time net salary

Ooh, I'm excited now.
50% of the population earn FT salary of £23,500 or less
that is £18800 net
allowing for mortgage and council tax of say £700 a month
that leaves £10400 a year
then food and clothes and bills of around £300 a month
that leaves £6800 a year maximum
name that school

Out of the second salary was what I clearly meant: full time nmw job would leave you about 100 a mth short to pay senior fees of £12k pa.

Yes, we have a few parents who are teachers in the state sector, at the private schools my DC attend.

There's one who not only teaches at the local outstanding faith school but lives in the ludicrously expensive catchment for it!

Yet each day, her DDs walk past it and catch a bus to DD's school.

HmmAnOxfordComma Actually lots of my teaching colleagues and friends have dc at private schools (often prep only or senior only tbf). I wonder what the statistics are for children of teachers going private. I know 4 teachers and only one has opted for private for their DCs. Mind you, given they are in Dubai and they don't pay any school fees, not sure they should count.

One friend is a teacher at a local private school but both DSs are in state schools. Admittedly they teach at an all girls private so her DSs are not eligible to attend so won't benefit from any fee discounts.

NMW is £6.50 per hour, 35 hours per week, 52 weeks a year = £11830 gross
which is £11244 net
how on earth could somebody pay school fees out of that unless they did not eat or have any bills.

£12k school fees is more than their pre tax income
FFS
so many posters on MN have absolutely no idea about normal household incomes.

Full time is 37.5 hours so that would top it up to the amount I said (about £100 short of senior day fees).

I said if the second wage were spare.

I said this is the position I am in. I earn less than £15k gross and pay school fees out of my salary.

Ffs, how much closer to 'a normal household income ' is a couple on £20k + £15k!!!!

Actually lots of my teaching colleagues and friends have dc at private schools
I am a teacher, currently doing supply, and my DC are in indie schools.
Unless parents have actually been there in the classroom, they have no idea of the reality of the current state comp classroom.
I am lucky enough to be fully employed as I can manage behaviour effectively and so ensure the students achieve the learning objectives - bit the prevalence of low level disruption in all the comps I have been in is horrific - and it is interesting that I am often called back to schools because of sickness from the same staff members (not long terms sick - one or two days at a time) - whose pupils books show scant evidence of marking.
Place with lovely shiny Y7s in pristine uniforms and feral Year 11s are very common. As are staffrooms with people at their wits end.
It does seem to me that while the surface is glossy and shiny - the reality is pretty grim.
I do ask my DC about their experience and they are astonished when I ask about fights and throwing of pens/paper etc and rudeness - in their indie they have never seen anything like that.
Do I think they should be exposed to that to give them 'experience of real life'? as often expounded on Mumsnet.
No, because in no workplace I have ever been in, apart from the classroom, have people behaved in that way. Why should they need to accept that? It is not acceptable.

Mumtrying....yes it says in the OFSTED report that the school deals well with the social and drug related issues.
Talkinpeace.....I did not say people who earn the minimum wage had dcs at private schools ( they may have, I have no idea) , I said some teachers in state schools have partners who are high earners and can and do pay for private education.....who said anything about the NMW??

I did: I said if you're used to living off one partner's salary, you could technically get a nmw job and pay one set of school fees (almost) out of that.

Most teaching friends who have kids in private are on more like 2 x experienced teachers' salaries.

Almost all the teachers I know are married to other teachers, or if not, people on similar or lower salaries, not higher.

Anyway, the economics are irrelevant, my point was that if you have inside knowledge on your local state schools, is it more acceptable to send your own dc private?

We are lucky in that we can afford to pay fees. However we know other families who are making big sacrifices ( no new cars, holidays abroad, smaller houses etc.) in order to pay the fees because it is what is important to them. It clearly is different for others and that is fine. It would be boring if we were all the same.

At my dd's comp they get same day detentions for being five minutes late in the morning, or forgetting a book. More serious infringements are dealt with very seriously. It really is not 'pretty grim'.

The most disruptive child in her primary school was a very mc autistic boy. The most disruptive child in my younger dd's class is a recently adopted boy with a past that would make you cry. Yes they both make things more difficult, but there's no way I would want my children to go to a school that didn't welcome children like that. Actually my elder dd learned loads from having the autistic boy in her class - about how to relate to people who are different, and about how to concentrate and get on with your work when people are being disruptive around you. Both hugely valuable life skills, I think.

it is acceptable to send your own dc private regardless of insider knowledge. Insider knowledge may just strengthen your determination though.

That could have been my Ds: mc, disruptive, autistic.

Now in year 9 and still very autistic but no longer disruptive, thankfully.

I think that if you are a teacher, you have a better idea than most about schools. You know the things that help pupils progress and those that hinder them. You can make judgements about the things that really do make a school 'good' and which are just flannel. And of course, if you are working there, you are much more able to make that judgement.

If with all that knowledge,you decide the school is not good enough for your child and you have alternatives, I think it is entirely reasonable to send them elsewhere. Why would anyone knowingly send their child somewhere that isn't good,especially when they have a pretty good understanding of the day to day and longer term consequences. It's when you have that knowledge and there are no alternatives, that things are really depressing.

For sure, and I don't claim that it's fair that not everyone has this as an option...

And to everyone who has their child in a well-run Comp, that is great news. Of course there are lots of good state schools where pupils are well-taught, the place is well run and disciplined and people go off to great futures.
It would all be fine if all schools were like this. But sadly they are not......and when you are in one of the poor ones, or that is the school your child will be allocated, I do understand why people move Heaven and earth to get somewhere else for their child.

"Moving heaven and earth" is not paying private school fees. It's keeping your reception child at home waiting for a place in a reasonably good school, possibly for several months, and probably constantly hassling your LA. Which is what parents in some areas (including mine) have had to do before the LA started to tackle the school places shortage. Parents, that is, who could never afford to educate privately, who can't or don't want to move, who nevertheless care very much about which school their child goes to.

hear hear elltee
If my two had not got into any other schools I'd have home educated which would have been torture for all of us while going through appeals rather than have sent them to the local school.

If we could afford it, we'd send our DS and any future child to a private school in a heartbeat! The schools in our area are awful and I want the best for my children. Some people will view it as a snobbish outlook, one of my friend took a offence when I said I wanted to send him to a private school, but it's an each to their own situation.

Don't be put off by rude people.

Talkin. Do your Believe in "Selection"?

I know you say you don't but you obviously do, hence you would have had no problem with the children at your local school and your DC going there.

By 'moving heaven and earth' I simply meant, parents pursuing whatever alternatives are available for them. It might take several forms, including keeping your child at home and hassling the LEA, as you say. However, it might also involve moving house, applying for in-year admissions places....or paying if you are able to. Yes, some people have more alternatives available to them than others and some people are more willing to pursue certain alternatives (such a moving house) than others are. I was simply saying that parents will go to great lengths to get their child what they consider decent schooling.
Although both options might not be open to many people, I don't see keeping a child at home and hassling the LEA for a number of months as more worthy or more 'moving heaven and earth' than the sacrifices some people make to pay independent school fees. I know people who have moved to a smaller house, taken on an extra job and who never have a holiday in order to fund the independent school fees,to get their SN child the education they felt they needed in a private school. Whilst I don't expect anyone to feel sympathy for them, as clearly even with these sacrifices many people could not even consider this option, I think it is wrong to see only the way you dealt with unsatisfactory options, as the best or most sacrificial or worthy way.

Not my direct experience, Chocolate Wombat, but that of several of my friends and neighbours. Believe me, my answers here are not all about me.