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.

I think she looks like Joan Collins in Dynasty

I don't think disabled means disruptive, of course not. There are all kinds of disabilities and also lots of able bodied children who are very disruptive. I was objecting to children in a class who disrupt the other pupils and hold back the standard in the class as a whole. I think mixed ability teaching is hard to do well.

What makes you say I'm prejudiced against the disabled? I know a reasonable amount about all this. My father and brother are psychiatrists and my sister's a clinical psychologist. Some disabilities will disrupt a class and some won't. Schools which allow those children into classes who will disrupt the class but allow that child to integrate may benefit that child but at the expense of the other children which is a price too high to pay in my view - to suit 1 to the detriment of 22.

Sounds like Margot in "The Good Life"

Oh no, please don't dis the Marg; I think she's fabulous!

Does anyone think Xenia's posts have a tone and turn of phrase not dissimilar to a poster that 'left' MN a while ago and had legal connections

But children without disabilites disrupt. Just because your parents can afford private education doesn't mean you are better behaved or brighter than those that can't.

And my dd is disabled but very bright. In state school too which I'm started to be very grateful for.

And there can be disruptive children in private school. And there can be parents with dreaful attitudes to education

If you were to say that smaller classes mean the teacher can give more time to each child, I'd have no argumant with you, since this is very obviously true and the reason that mine go to Provate school.

But , thankfully, they are in classes which rangege from the very bright to those children who need a lot of help. And because the classes are small and well supported, guess what, they get the help they need, and thus do not disrupt.

You are placing the blame for poor behaviour in the wrong place. It isn't the kids (usually) it is the lack of funding that places 30kids in a class, many of them educationally needy, and lacking support.

If you were to say, 'I send my kids to private school because classes are small enough that the teachers can actually teach the kids' I'd have no argument with you.

Instead you just seem to want to keep 'lesser' children out, which is just plain vile!

Yes, I know there are and there are lots of private schools who are brilliant with various disabilities. I just don't think disruption from any source is helpful in class. Don't know why you picked on the disabled comment as if it's a word we're not allowed to use.

I think children behave better in private schools for all kinds of reasons by the way. Something else I feel I pay for. I said my daughter had mild dyslexia and is bright. Of course I understand all the possibilities - disabled clever good as gold, able bodied clever really naughty, etc etc. You still down to most parents in whatever sector perferring their children not to have a disruptive pupil in class.

(And no I've never posted on here under another name by the way - I found mumsnet as I was asked by a journalist to comment on the topic we're not allowed to talk about). I certainly hope I've no prejudices about the disabled or anyone else for that matter. We all die naked and alone and it's whether we've lived a good life which counts for most. I just don't see why giving children an economic and academic advantage which a lot of parents, not just me, feel they get at a ogod private school should be something that then means you just want the children to earn a lot of money. Why not give them good chances but also a good moral education too? I also agree with those who have said the home is the most important influence of all and one reason I'd never send them to boarding school.

mb, just on that, that's interesting. 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 facing the teacher etc and you can manage that with a bigger class. So I never really sought smaller classes as the thing I wanted in a private school although obviously some are smaller. I suppose we all pick what we think is best, though who have any choice at all.

"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."

Why do I think you are prejudiced? I think it's the way you lumped them all in together really without qualification. Disabled, disruptive and chav. Let's make sure that we don't mix with them, eh?

...typos galore....I obviously went to the wrong school... amusingly my private school was not one of the best ones.... there as no one at all academic there, most girls did not get to university, very small, and in some ways worse than some state schools.

Absolutely agree MB - I went to private schools (prep and selective secondary), grammar school and a comprehensive, but the only school where I was really taught properly was a small, odd, international school, where classes were seriously mixed ability (people would regularly start in the middle of term with no English) but were max 15-20. I left that school when I was 14, and got through some of my 'S' Level English four years later on what they taught me then.

My experience of private schooling was that they taught you loads about passing exams, but nothing that was any use for later life. I was bright, and should have done well at both grammar school and private school but was mighty bored at both of them - the lessons were hard, but they were also dull.

And fwiw, I would have real problems with using private education, just because I think they have become far more polarised since I was at school. I couldn't bear any child of mine turning into one of those strange, expensive, polished, flicky-haired kind of children that private secondary schools seem to produce these days....

No class is ever 'all working at the same level' even if they are streamed. Any teacher who thinks that is a crap teacher. Any parent who thinks that is misguided. Smaller classes give all children a significant advantage. It is simple maths

and we are allowed to use the word disabled, Xenia

we're just not happy with you using it in the way that you are doing

Flipp'n 'eck, you go for an educational day out to take your state-educated children to a roman museum, and this happens!

With MI and dino, bravely trying to get back to the OP, I would say that the principal difference between my state- and privately-educated contemporaries at Oxford was that the state school kids had a clearer idea of what they were doing there and why. That doesn't mean they all worked harder some dossed around on punts for three years and got thirds but they had made a conscious decision and effort to get themselves there. Whereas quite a significant minority of the privately-educated people had got there because they were above-averagely talented, had been well-taught and had good connections, but were noticeably lacking in terms of focus and sense of where they were going. And several very talented types from very pushy schools completely fell apart after leaving -- they were so used to jumping through other people's hoops that they didn't know what to do with themselves without that structure.

The same is true to in a different way with my dd1, who has just escaped to a grammar school (her decision) after 7 years in a very difficult class in a somewhat mediocre primary school that manages to hide its mediocrity behind high SATS results. Dd1 has a determination and focus that I don't see in her privately-educated cousins and friends: I'm not glad she had to spend all those years being called 'nerd' and 'boff' in a class where armpit farts were the highest form of wit, and I often felt quite guilty for not being able to offer her an alternative. But I think it has given her a very strong sense of what she wants and how she's going to go about it. Which I think will stand her in better stead in the future than lakes.

i think you mean 'special needs' rather than 'disabled'. it's your ignorance that's so offense, xenia.

am leaving this thread pretty quickly as I have been here before with xenia, this debate will go on for months. do whats best for yr child.

C, I feel wrongly construed on that. You linked them not me.
I think it is a fact that more state than private schools have one or more of those:

disabled - yes because more private schools refuse to take disabled pupils than state schools

disruptive children - probably are more in state schools because the selection at private schools means there are interviews and chances to check what children are like before they are taken to a greater extent than in the state sector

and children from homes where the parents can barely get them to school on time - 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., Not saying anything other than a small minority of parents are like that in state schools but more than in private schools. I bet more state school parents take them out of school for holidays too.

no you bloody linked them. It was a direct quote from you

It's not the word Xenia but the 'You're not likely to have disabled.........children' comment which people find offensive. As if children with disabilities are undesirables of some sort.

Xenia's attitude absolutely stinks. You make me sick.
How dare you decide whether or not a child has a right to an education or not.
I have a "disabled" child as you put it who is infact statemented and fully supported.
Where should she go then if you don't want children like mine in school?

Am I supposed to say special needs not disabled?

and why would private schools refuse disabled pupils anyway? on what grounds?

We're quite lucky... our kids go to a school most parenst don't want to go to as it is on a council estate, there is a high number of SEN... so they have 12 to 15 kids per year with teacher and TA... guess what they have had FAB SATS results for the past 2 years and I expect it to continue... I am "laughing" as my friend changed her son to another state school with far better results and he is struggling! I expect my son to be one of the top of his class and get great SATS... he has so much one to one from teachers far more than his friend in top notch state school which has 33 in his class!
Sometimes average OFSTED reports and schools that don't look appealing can hide a gem in the making...

I don't really give a toss what you call it.

I am leaving this thread now before I explode.

Thank god people like you are "hopefully" in a minority.