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.

Er, yeah.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude MumTrying You can find out a bit more about the bursaries in Eton's Accounts. I suspect the required academic level is more out of my league than the affordability (although that most certainly is too)

MustChooseASecondary

TBH, I knew somebody would provide some evidence (either in agreement or disagreement) which is pretty lazy of me. Thanks and soz.

As Agapanthus said Personally for me the most unedifying thing is the parents who insist it is unfair and then spend lots of time and money getting into some very oversubscribed state school.

I have no problem with people spending their hard earned money on private education. However, I do have a problem with the state financing schools, such as grammar schools, that only kids from privileged backgrounds can ever hope to get into - cost of tutors, parental interest, parental time, right post-code, etc. To me, that is state funded inequality.

I am now your minion MarriedDad!

I wish parents wouldn't do that, too. Like Diane Abbot (and surely she's due a mention by page 6?), such parents allow pro-private arguments conveniently to ignore, or at least not to engage with, arguments which are heartfelt, honest and made in good faith by the very many parents who haven't moved and wouldn't move into a 'leafy' area for good schools, and to work on the assumption that nobody who supports state comprehensive school is doing so from an honest perspective.

I'm no economist, but I've certainly come across papers (like the one referred to here: www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/26/imf-inequality-economic-growth) that suggest that inequality hinders economic growth, and that countries with fairer distributions of wealth and opportunity are more successful.

Happygardening - your post makes perfect sense, but I don't think there is any point discussing schools like Eton or other public school with Hakluyt as she will always sneer at them.

Educate your child how you want to, its as simple as that.
There are those who will choose a different form to you for a variety of reasons, it's not their decision.
My 3 dc between them, by the end dd has finished school years will have experienced community primary, Catholic, CofE, community high school, CofE high school, H.ed and hopefully private boarding school.
It makes no difference to anybody else what we as parents choose to do.

Amber we'd have a better economy if education were made more equal by raising the bottom end. We'd have a worse economy if we made education more equal by cutting off the high end.

The easy, cheap way to equality is to "cut the tops off of the tall flowers."

Dapplegrey- I don't sneer at them- that would be foolish. I am, however always amused by the shapes they and their supporters get into when trying to show how egalitarian and inclusive they are, and what a force for social good. They provide a fantastic education and a lot of opportunities for a tiny, privileged, wealthy minority- the attempt to make them look like anything else than that is distinctly unedifying.

Well not that tiny actually. About 15% at A Level age. Over 10% for secondary sector.

A small minority, but not tiny.

Aga- I was accused very specifically of sneering at schools "like Eton and other public schools" and I was replying to that accusation. I would have replied very differently if I had been accused of sneering at AN Other Private School.

Ok yeah fair enough. Eton is in a world of its own compared with other private schools even. Not every private school has West End quality theatres, robotics labs, etc.

But a lot of people on here who don't use the private system seem unable to make that distinction. There's always take of 30k of fees, boarding, coat tails, old boys network etc.
my children attend a large day school who allow themselves to be inspected by Ofsted as well as the independent inspectorate. The come out as excellent/outstanding on both in all areas. Fees in infants start at 6k a year rising to 8k at year by y6. Secondary is about 11k a year. Of course the parents aren't poor but it's a world away from Eton.

My DS was at Eton. His best friend was on a 100% bursary. I got to know his Mum quite well. Eton also paid for his uniform, school trips, travel to school, laptop and mobile phone.

No-one in the boy's family had ever been to a private school (or to university).

Eton's headmaster went to the school himself as a full fees Music scholar.

grovel - private schools only provide bursary places for outstanding students, and these students usually come from families who are fiercely supportive (whether educated or not) and often extremely pushy. These are the students who tend to do amazingly well in the state sector.

The students who are not and will never be the recipients of private school largesse are the ones who'd most benefit from the small classes, strong pastoral support etc that the schools offer: less bright children from backgrounds where there is little will or ability to support education.

Personally all the people I know who are in receipt of bursaries are pretty sharp-elbowed.....

Please don't take offense, grovel, I am sure your anecdote is entirely accurate- I have no rqson to think otherwise.

But if all the people who've gone to the great public schools on full bursaries were put end to end.......

It's a bit like pieces of the True Cross, or the people who were in that post office in Dublin in 1916....

The fact is, the vast majority will never be able to afford Eton, and the vast majority will never be offered a free place there, either. Poor people will always be in an absolutely tiny minority in such schools. What such schools offer in full bursaries is on a similar scale to the days of old when the Lord of the Manor would occasionally take kindly to the gardener's son and pay for his education (particularly if he was, actually, the boy's real father ...). I'm not sure, therefore, of the relevance of talking about it and dredging up the rare examples.

Hakluyt, absolutely no offence taken.

I was merely responding to a couple of posts upthread which questioned whether bursaries always went to children of OEs and whether they covered all the (considerable) costs of attending the place.

rabbitstew, the vast majority of families wouldn't want a 100% bursary for their son at Eton anyway!

It's a boarding school for starters. And then there's the image of the place.

I think there is a lot of over-analysis on mumsnet on this topic TBH. What it boils down to is: people who send their children to private schools are making a very public statement that what is good enough for 93% of children (what HAS to be good enough, because they have no choice) is not good enough for theirs. I say this as one whose dc went to/are at private schools and have had a lot of lively debate with the left-leaning rest of my family for years.

grovel - that just underlines the point it's a bit of an irrelevance...

rabbitstew, I agree in the big scheme of things but guess that parents of the 70 boys currently getting a free education at Eton think it's highly relevant for them.

"rabbitstew, the vast majority of families wouldn't want a 100% bursary for their son at Eton anyway! "

Really? I would have thought that loads would bite their hand off!