If you lived in catchment of top 4 secondary in country....,

[Whowherewhywhat]

Would you still send your children private? I ask as we have 3 children in prep currently and trying to decide to move them to top 4 secondary or independent secondary. Prep has and is excellent and the extra focus on more than just the academic has been fantastic. However I am a secondary school newbie so not sure how well a top secondary compares to a good independent , does anyone have any views?

lljkk

To my mind, the whole point of independent schools is that they offer a broader educational experience. If that is important to you, the independent school is the obvious choice (and the proximity to a state school with good exam results is neither here nor there).

When we looked at secondaries, our main criteria were

• quality of school and fit for child
• distance and practicality for both DC and us in terms of fitting in with family life generally.

We were lucky enough to have a choice that ticked both those - we ruled out an equally good (and on some fronts better) school on the basis of distance / logistics. Totallly agree with a PP, 4 hrs per day commute and tight finances sounds miserable to me....

I know quite a few parents who have gone from Prep to State secondary and been very happy. You gain in more free money - so you can afford to spend on extra tuition, to pursue hobbies etc. You also gain time, both together and to pursue hobbies which aren't part of the school offering. And your DC learn to survive with "ordinary people" not ones privileged by money or motivation.

DD2 has started in an outstanding state secondary after been in private primary and it is an excellent fit for her as she is in top sets and is a good fit for the very strict discipline. She says however that the lessons that are not set are terrible (music, drama, ICT) because the children from lower sets are annoying and messing about. DD3 is much less able academically than DD2 and more rebel and disorganised so she might end up in the middle sets receiving lots of negative behaviour points in that school. I will probably keep her in her mixed ability private school. It is a difficult decision.

Really appreciate all your comments, I've visited a number of indie secondary's locally as well as the 2 HR commute one and they are all good, though they would be single sex so need to be at least 2 school commutes......but I'm sure they would be great. I haven't visited the state secondary, so will make this first course of action.
Threeschools, that is my concern that the state will suit 1 or 2 of my children but not all ( at least one of them needs s classroom with little disruption to keep his focus) so then I would feel guilty if one went to state and one to indie, and that, no matter how hard we keep everything equal for them, that one would feel less or more favoured than the other.......

You may well have the best school on your doorstep (state or private), but it may not suit your DC? You need to visit & do your research. I now realise how easy it was for my parents who only had the local secondary school to choose from.

You also need to be honest with yourself about the implications of going private. Could it have a bigger negative impact than any positives it may bring? We did a mix of state & independent education for our DC so I understand your dilemma, but I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to 'get it right'.

Sorry, but on what basis is this school in the top 4? On what measure? It can't be academic results as that would mean that it is a superselective single sex grammar school.

It seems a bit odd to have looked around various indies and then choose one too far away, but not have visited the local state option before asking MN for a view?! You have to go and see it, and compare it. In the same way that the nearest indie doesn't seem to be your preferred choice, the same might be true for the state school.

It always make me where the sweeping statement about discipline is trotted out when talking about state schools. Threeschools how do you know that the children in the middle sets who are messing about are not children who went to private preps? If your daughter is there, presumably other parents took the decision to go from prep to state and not all of those children will be in the top sets.

I agree namechanger. My dd attended an Outstanding secondary school and pupils of all abilities behaved well. The fact that some pupils at threeschools dds school misbehave in certain lessons sounds like a stereotype to me too especially since she has already stated that the school has a good reputation for discipline.
Why is it always the lower/middle ability pupils who are labelled in this way. I went to a grammar school and remember that some high ability pupils can mess around too e.g. if they are bored (this is never mentioned on MN though).

Ha makes me laugh. At both my state and indie schools that I briefly went to, it was the brightest kids who mucked about the most as they didn't need to study as hard to get the grades they needed. So easy to say that it's the lower academic ability DC that are the ones who cause behaviour issues. That's not what I hear from our local state high schools at all. One behaviour code for all.
Maybe the teachers in the subjects mentioned just aren't as strict. Maybe they like a more creative classroom. Maybe her DD is just too set in her academic ways to realise you can learn whilst having fun...

Do any of the local private schools have coaches laid on for pupils? They do around here.

I too am slightly concerned about the label of the 4th best school. How is this measured? If it is academically, then it must be selective. Or is it value added? If so, then probably religious. Are you certain all your children will get into it, OP?

We live in a grammar school county and my eldest passed to go to a grammar school with a very high mark. We still chose an independent school though. Lots of the girls did weekly boarding as the boarding fees were not so much higher than the day fees. This suited working parents very well. Have you considered schools that offer this? It very much reduces the difficulty of several school runs and trying to get best fit for all your children would be easier. I refused to have one of mine at an excellent grammar school and the other at a mediocre secondary modern, so both went to independent schools so they had exactly the same opportunities for sport, drama, dance, music etc as well smaller classes for academic subjects.

Yes Namechanger, that's exactly my point, a private school can expel such disruptive kids, the state school has to sort them out. In the meantime they annoy everyone. I stick to my guns though, an outstanding state good with strong discipline is brilliant for hard working motivated kids, and undoubtedly for SEN kids, for the kids in the middle I am not so sure.

I don't think any one can influence OP tbh as indie seems to be the preference as she's not been to the state school to have a look. There is zero reason why middle of road DC should not be pushed as hard and behave as well. If as school is rated outstanding and top performing that should be a given - or the rating is totally wrong.

We did prep and state secondary, a high achieving comprehensive, also academically one of the best in the country. No regrets at all

Behaviour throughout the school is generally outstanding and the school has a very strict code of conduct and sanctions which appear to work well regardless of the set the child is in. You don't get close to 90% of your cohorts year in and year out getting 5a-c's and the majority of those being a*-b if you've got disruptive behaviour at any significant level. I've no doubt that there is silliness at times and pissing about especially in music, drama and subjects the children don't have an interest in but it's not an issue and my child was shocked when I asked him if lessons are ever held up due to behavioural mangement issues.

Anyone who thinks that there's no poor behaviour in private schools is living in lala land. There may not be chair throwing etc, which incidentally is not standard in state schools either but there will be plenty of smart Alec kids, they're teenagers after all. I've heard several stories recently of seriously unpleasant behaviour in a leading academic boys private school. Not because they're bad kids but because they've identified a weakness in a teacher and have milked it for all its worth.

threeschools - thats not necessarily true, disruptive pupils can be expelled at any school.

Its the generalisations that I have a problem with. Independent schools do not always equal strong discipline nor well behaved pupils not bright motivated students. Similarly state schools do not always equal lax discipline or unmotivated students or a glug of less able students in the bottom sets that can't behave.

The OP needs to see the schools which are options for her child.

Moving house and a two hour commute would be just bonkers, IMO.

There comes a point where a school is a school, and education is an education, and you have to ask yourself what it is about your children that needs you and your DH to spend 40 hours a week between you travelling (and whatever massive expense that entails in petrol or fares) just to get them a little extra something? Which may or may not be realised in reality anyway.

Thanks Blu, that's exactly the dilemma. Our eldest child has been transformed by moving to the prep both academically, sporting, musically and performing arts wise, I'm afraid moving him from such a closeted environment (even though he will have to move from prep for yr 9) will somehow be detrimental to him.
My other 2 children are doing just as well, but to be fair were also doing well at the state school, so I guess my bigger dilemma is can you really only give one child private education and not the other two, as I think they will do well at either type of school.
Re question of top 4, it's top 4 non selective state school as per the GCSE grades ( that's published by the newspapers etc , assuming they have credence??).

it's top 4 non selective state school as per the GCSE grades

Is there any such school which is really non-selective? Isn't it effectively selecting by the demographics of its catchment?

I live in the catchment of a very high achieving comprehensive. It's not really "comprehensive": a huge fraction of parents have bachelors degrees and higher degrees; barely any of the children entering year 7 are low achievers (according to KS2 results); a tiny fraction of the pupils are on free school meals and the average price of a house in catchment is very high.

Progress 8 (though flawed) is probably a better measure of a school than raw GCSE results, that reflect intake and demographics.

Spending shed loads of money on one child and not the other two can open up divisions based on equity in the future. You may well get your state educated children adding up the sums spent on their sibling and throwing it back at you. Be prepared for this. You will presumably need the state school from Y7 - not Y9. Where do the other children go from the prep school? Surely they don't all travel 2 hours to and from school? Investigate school transport and car sharing.

Thanks everyone for your input, have decided to stick with the independent route as I will always have a 'what if' if children don't do well, whereas we will have done everything we can to give them the best educational start as we possibly can, that's all we can do as parents. Really appreciated everyone's responses 👍

Shadowboy
The rules these poor kids followed was ridiculous
Can we have examples? (Nosey.)

disruptive pupils can be expelled at any school
Really? Not easily in any state school I've worked in.

Student threw calculator at another today - violent, offensive, swearing. Sanction - isolated for total of 25 minutes. I work in an outstanding in all areas excellent state school.

Threeschools description is spot on. Middle sets of 30+ students normally including 8 disruptive boys (further generalisation there, but it is true). Bottom sets of 12 students, around half who are not interested in learning, violent and verbally abusive

Danica- they had cloakrooms (even sixth formers were not allowed to carry their bags round) so all kids hung their bags and coats like at primary school. They had 45 minute lunch but had to sit with their teacher for the first 20min to ensure they ate well. One of my pupils was expelled for etching into a table with a compass- nothing rude, it was a star and moon.

3 hour long lessons for year 7!!!

To not be allowed to take a subject at year 9 options unless they were likely to attain an A/B - the list goes on.