Are private schools worth the fees you pay?

[lupo]

Hi

I was looking for some advice from those of you who send your kids to private school. I have one son and recently went to visit Staines Prep School and really fell in love with it.

The thing is we could just about afford the fees, but I will need to work more hours (full instead of part time)as well as few sacrifices along the way. not planning on having any more children, and would like to go private as classes seem smaller, and sounds like children get lots of help and support.

Just wanted to know of your experiences of independant schools and whether good ones are worth the money. Any advice much appreciated.

Like the school but am going on gut instinct, and it is one of the few we could just afford.

cant find the quote anywhere

I used to get detention all the time at my posh girls school.

B/c I was disruptive.

I argued w/the head, b/c I didn't see where reading a book which I'd artfully tucked into my textbook was disrupting anyone.

The craps games in the girls loo, okay, b/c people were lying to get hall passes to get out and come gamble, but that was during study hall, anyway.

i was head girl
obviously

OMG!

'Daggy' music. 'Hoons'.

See, bet you wouldn't learn that in a private school!

My sister was head girl.

Little suck ass bitch.

i learned to smoke at mine

( teh private one)
gave up by the time i hit state

My mother learned to smoke at hers, too. When she was 15.

All the 'cool' girls smoked Pal Mals.

Well, it was 1956.

LOL, at her school back then, all the senior year girls - ages 17 and 18 - were able to smoke openly!

So of course, they did. And carried their cigarette packets proudly displayed in the left-hand pocket of their white uniform blouses.

expat - you sound like me. I spent large amounts of time in detention. but it was probably deserved. with hindsight I think throwing chewed up gobs of paper at swotty Sophie probably was rather disruptive. Painting my nails in class probably wasn't great either. neither was kicking up a stink about not having done my homework - either challenging teachers to call me a liar because I claimed the dog had eaten it or by demanding a rational explanation as to why I should bother with it at all. I hated my private school with a passion. but - again with hindsight - they did a good job on me where elsewhere I would have sunk.

Some disabled children are very clever and not disruptive in class. I never said otherwise. Some need help and as a teacher said on this thread it can interfere with the teaching of the other children. Virtually all parents on this thread will be cross when a class has a very difficult pupil in it. I never said disabled children were always disruptive. But people can choose to twist my words if they want to. Without doubt some mental disabilities in class affect the rest of the class and many parents would not want that disruption however much they're behind in principle inclusion. Some parents of disabled children lobby hard to keep them out of mainstream schooling. It's by no means a simple issue.

I think I preferred it when I was writing about lakes and high heels though....

Still think the £1.5m of income before tax has/will be worth it and it's mym money to spend as I choose. Also I've saved the country a lot of money so the state school parents on this thread shoudl be patting me on the back - all the more money for their children out of mine and other people's taxes.

Gosh Xenia, we are not worthy.

Now we're dropping figures here. What next? Names?

Have you ever made any celebrity friends by bumping into them on the street?

Hat, I never disrupted in class. I knew that would merit the wrath of my father. But I did try to do other activities during lessons - such as insert other reading materials into the page of text I was supposed to be studying, tuck crosswords into my workbook to do, write notes or letters, draw parodies of people during lectures, etc.

£1.5 million. How very common.

"mental disabilites;" dear god.

I chose ds2's private school because it has a far better reputation for children with conditions such as AS and HFA than our catchment state school (which is top of the league table and known to "hound out" (not my words) almost any child on the autistic spectrum that they come across). DS2 is NT but I didn't want him to go somewhere where autistic children are being treated inappropriately, so he goes somewhere where the children in the school with HFA/AS (and there are some- high functioning- but I managed to spot them accurately ) are valued. And we pay for the privilege. It was a BIG part of our choice of school.

I've lobbied hard to keep DS1 out of mainstream schooling. I think I'd lobby hard to keep ds2 and ds3 out of Xenia's school

Xenia - I really don;t think people have twisted your words - but, it is possible that you have failed to express yourself well. You might want to re-examine your words (ie what you have said, not what you think you have said - remember the rest of us only have the former to go on.) I think you will find -

• offensive and ill-informed generalisations ("if you're paying £10k a year you tend to be a bit committed to the school and less likely to say - school never did me any good so you just stay off today.");
• ignorance of how education works ("The class sizes at the very academic private schools are not that small because everyone is working together on the same work to the sames stands")
• a dismissive attitude to complexities ("It's a very simple issue I'd expect most people to agree with.");
• and last, but by no means least, I'm afraid your post about "disabled and disruptive" children was one that you must be able to see was ambiguous - it could mean children who are disabled and children who are disruptive, or children who are both - if you meant the former then it is staggeringly offensive because you go on to express doubt that such children should be educated with others. If you meant the latter it still leaves you open to valid charges that you are being highly unthinking about your attitudes. have the good grace to re-examine your own words and admit that people have very good grounds for being offended:

"You're not likely to have disabled and disruptive children and children from homes where the parents can barely get them to school on time in most academic prep schools. I am not convinced it helps other children to have those children with problems in the same school."

Jimjams, I congratulate you. You have done your part to spare the taxpayer.

Dunno expat- ds1's education will be costing the taxpayer around 70 grand a year (actually I think its less, - 40 maybe?- but SLD/PMLD schools are not cheap). Paying 3 grand a year fees (definitely not 10- perhaps we get a discount as ds2's school admits children with "mental disabilities" ;o) is the least I could do to spare the taxpayer. Of course if I shunted him off I'd have time to earn 1.5 million (yawn )

Actually (whispers) Social services pay for ds2's pre and after school care- so even some of the school fees are taxpayer funded (shock)

Yahs, JJ. And then perhaps you could pay for him (DS1) to be privately educated one and one so that he won't be so . . . disruptive . . . to others.

I know I feel sooo guilty for burdening the planet with a child who has learning difficulties.

Hmmm, maybe we need a link to the thread about doctors who want to 'euthanise' babies born with disabilities!

omg - so glad we are not in the UK and my child with sn will not have to attend a school where parents like Xenia lurk!!

fwiw - we are trying to decide between private or state - especially important is that the local catholic school (private) has had a number of children with sn go before dd1 and have a lovely inclusive atmosphere.

I did not go to private school but was university educated and managed to have a profession that enabled me to work in other places around the world.

OMG at the teaching children to speak with an acceptable accent - bloody hell - what next....

personally again - what is best for you and yours is what matters.