We’re doing a bit of financial planning at the moment – our 5/10 year plan – and the issue of schooling has come up. We’ve been leaning towards state education for the following reasons.
A private education is very, very expensive these days and I’m not sure what you get over a good state school is worth the money. A not very scientific survey of people we know (I’d say roughly half are state-educated) suggests to me that the key to being happy and successful in life is a stable, loving family and a can-do attitude/’drive’. These things seem to have more bearing than whether one is state or independently educated.
We could, at a push, afford independent, with a bit of help from our parents. However, it would mean watching the pennies and no fancy holidays. It would also mean that we would both have to work very hard, full-time. At the moment, I only work part-time and DH works full-time but with a good work-life balance. Also, we’d be more dependent on inheritance to fund a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, and I guess there are no cast-iron guarantees with that. In the likelihood that we do get the inheritances we’re expecting, we’d have more cash to help our children with buying homes etc.
We’re in the process of moving house and the area we are moving to has a choice of very highly regarded single sex state schools (non-selective though) or a good, mixed independent school. All the primaries we would have a chance of getting into are ‘outstanding’. There are plenty of extra-curricular activities on offer in the local area. We’re deliberately not buying a particularly flashy house, so we have the choice of what to do with our money. Tying it up in one property/ having a massive mortgage scares me!
The reason we’re wavering is that state education is an unknown to both of us. No-one in either of our families has been to a state school so we don’t know the reality of it. The class sizes concern me, I don’t understand how each child can get enough input – will I really have enough time to do all the extra needed at home? People seem surprised that we would consider state if we can afford independent – do they know something we don’t?