if you could afford to go private, should you?

[tankerdale]

Sometimes I worry that we've got our priorities wrong. We've ended up in a lovely large home with high running costs, we've got some but not loads of savings, most of our 'wealth' is in our house. Income is very good on paper but month to month we only manage to save a small amount, if any. I work 2.5 days, DH is full time. We have a nice lifestyle and I guess eat out a bit but I don't think we're otherwise extravagant, don't spend much on holidays, run 1 car, don't spend loads on clothes etc.

3dc, 2 already at primary school. We live in the catchment of what is considered a very good non selective state secondary but it is massive.

As it stands we couldn't afford to put 3dc through private secondary (there's a nice one nearby). But have we got it wrong? Should we move to a more modest home and prioritise paying for their education?

Feeling a bit guilty that we're not putting them first. Dc1 seems v bright and will probably be ok anywhere, dc2 I'm not so sure about and too early to tell with dc3.

If they go to the state school and have any problems I'm going to wish we made a different choice I think.

So - in principle, if you can pay for private - should you?

But user it isn't just selective schools that screen out SENs. It is also private schools that promote themselves as non selective and that have a reputation as inclusive of SENs. Yes there are a few private SEN schools but they are extremely expensive and extremely specialist. We also visited those. In a state school you may have to push like bloody mad to get help EHCPs etc but there is some leverage. In the private sector there is literally no obligation to do anything. When I talked about morals I was trying to explain why WE chose not to privately educate not making any moral judgement on anyone else. As far as I am concerned each family make decision based on their own situation and values.

Anyway we got sidelined but it irks me when people try to justify the private sector as broadly inclusive of SENs. In our area they very rarely are.

Each pupil going private represents a loss of around £4k to whichever state school the child would have attended. Arguably.

Well, one can dispute this. If the number of pupils in the state sector suddenly increased by 5%, the government would be likely to decrease the funding per head to keep the total education budget the same.

And my DC would have attended an over-subscribed outstanding school which is already more than full. That school wouldn't get more budget - it would just have meant several other children wouldn't have gotten in. They would have gone to a neighbouring "good" school pushing out a few children who would have been sent to a "failing" school. The last one in the chain would have gotten more money, I guess.

Umm...user it is not automatic that children who don't get a a place at a popular state school end up at a 'failing' school......or that the choice is always polarised in this way.

(Though this seems to happen a lot on MN)

I didn't say it was. I said it was the case with my specific location and catchment areas. The neighbouring schools to our Ofsted "outstanding" school are Ofsted "good" schools. A number of kids from the catchments of two Ofsted failing academies next to these do manage to get places in these "good" schools. It is a factual statement that the order of schools on most parent's preferences go (1) our catchment school (2) neighbouring "good" schools. Had we taken up places in our catchment school, we would have pushed out children who got places from the edge of catchment/just outside.

It is also a factual statement that a house in our catchment costs around twice the price as a similar house in the catchment of the "failing" academies which are not that far away. Schools really are very polarised in my area. I did not claim that this is the case everywhere.

Yes 615 that's precisely why I added the word 'arguably'!

4. Social standing and networking begins at the school which continues into university (broadened social network) and then again in the working world - essentially nepotism -

I have said this before so I feel like this is a drum I have started banging without actually having taken up arms,

Others can disagree but by and large I do not believe that any private school - other than a few isolated incidents - which are probably not school but other factor related - give you any meaningful "network" or "connections" . Yes university gives you a wider sphere of friends but that to some extent is different from the school you came from.

I wouldn't base a cost benefit analysis on school fees vs "connections" - it wouldn't stand up.

I would go state..tough times are coming..prepare for the worst, hope for the best. You can always supplement with tutors if they need extra help

Having been at a an average private school myself I think a good state is a much better option. All sorts of reasons I can give but learning to get along with others from a very diverse background is so important now and will be in the future. Also I think private schools are driven by a need to demonstrate academic success and this is at the cost of skills development, which I think is what will be required in the future.

Of course I lucky because we are in the catchment of a great state school. I may well feel differently if that wasn't the case.

The 'connections" thing might apply to the top 4- possibly 5 - boys schools. St Custards in Nether Wallop not so much.

Yes, the connections things always puzzled me too. I never had a useful school connection at all (in the NE of England) and nor would I have dreamt of using a connection for anything anyway - it would be too embarrassing that I'd need it. My daughters certainly have friends they went to school with still which is lovely. All those girls know each other but I cannot think of a single example where they have recommended each other for a job even those who are in the same career. None of them has got a job through connections either - they tend to a recruitment consultant, say they want a job and they are offered jobs or not after interviews like all other applicants. Life is hard for most people and those without much money often think there is some kind of dead easy process to get top jobs, whereas in fact it's usually because that person chose not to socialise and to pass exams instead or they are the only one prepared to work without pay 6 weekends in a row and then work all night on a deal and still be the smiling nice person everyone wants to have around.

Social standing and networking begins at the school which continues into university (broadened social network) and then again in the working world - essentially nepotism -
Basilik I think it does happen but a DC has to have the personality to make a wide circle of friends at school and be remembered positively and be comfortable to contact that circle of friends post school (just as adults need the right sort of personality for effective networking later on).

From my perception the social network (when made) is not helpful necessarily for getting that first very competitive job but will later be a positive for interactions with certain clients and other fellow professionals.

You say that very regularly on these threads bert. And with such authority .

But actually, you'll find that the small private schools have such a strong sense of community that the connections you make there are brilliant. Put together a small yet highly successful group of people with a common purpose and you're bound to make fantastic connections. This parental exchange of ideas and information is priceless.

Obviously it's unlikely that you'll meet the PM, but then what would that benefit most of us?

send I think in the initial stages it's the parents who make the connections. So prep and smaller private schools lend themselves to this ( though you have to be the sort of person to recognise it and avail yourself of it - reciprocally).

As parents, DP and I have made loads of friends "connections" through our DC's school. These friendships connections involve many things including the exchange of ideas on how to create educational opportunities for our DC. I have endorsed DC for summer camps, written references, introduced tutors and our DC have had countless informal conversations with people in the industries that interest them etc etc. These things are facilitated within a comparatively educated, international amd well-off community. Like minded people flock together and help each other out, and school is one way for people to flock.

We'll, obviously there will be connections in any group of people. There's a father at ds's school who can regularly offer temporary work in a track repair team on the railway, for example. A lot of my customers are school parents. And so on.

I don't think that's what people mean when they talk about "connections" in this context, though.

I suspect that the people who send their kids to schools where "connections" are a thing are generally pretty well connected anyway. And already move in those social circles.

What counts as a friend "connection" for you, Bertrand? A celebrity sportsperson? An international music star? A partner at a top investment bank? The European head of a New York law firm or Boston consultancy? A government minister?

Depends totally on the school. Ive had some dreadful experiences with private schools however some of the other parents think it's the best thing since sliced bread. State schools tend to be more rowdy and you have to be quite self motivated however if the teaching is consistently good and you can support at home then results are as good if not better as no pressure to be on hockey team do loads of sports plus be in Orchestra etc

"What counts as a friend "connection" for you, Bertrand?"

I don't know-but they must be something pretty special and much more significant than normal human interactions if you have to pay mega bucks and go to private school to get them! .

broken that's true.

But most of us have connections in reasonably limited fields ( that's just life). School throws people from different fields together. So you get a pool of ideas and expertise well beyond your own.

And actually this exchange is probably a lot more useful than anything else.
The days of someone giving someone else a highly paid and coveted job because they were in the same house at school are (almost) over.

bert you don't have to pay for them.

Human interaction and information exchange is normal. We all like to do it. Especially with those people with who we have a common purpose.
School offers the perfect environment for this.

Paying school fees just creates a critical mass of the type of people who have high levels of expertise in their fields.

Paying school fees just creates a critical mass of the type of people who have high levels of expertise in their fields.

Indeed.

Although I have to say that this, in itself, is not part of the reason we chose private schools. The main reason for us was provision of subjects/tuition not available in local schools (triple science, further maths, choice of modern foreign languages, latin and greek).

Knowing many kids of barristers, civil servants, hedge fund managers, doctors, academics, management consultants, engineers etc does mean that my own DC have a clear idea of what these careers involve.

user3615 - my experience is that having longstanding trusted family friends comes into its own for career information when DC are much older - at university - and really trying to get to grips with the options available to them. Certainly my DSS1 leaps at e.g. multi family picnics and parties (the kind he turned his nose up at when he was 15) because of the opportunity to talk to people with whom there is a very high degree of goodwill and trust about their fields.

"Social standing and networking begins at the school"
Connections don't begin at school, its parents who create connections, my friend is a very successful corporate lawyer at well known firm, she sits at dinner party, one of her friends says she knows someone ( a banker at a well know investment bank) who wants his DS to get work experience at a corporate law firm, she happily suggests he interns with her, in return she hopes that her DS will get an intern with his firm in the future and low and behold her two years later her DS does a summer intern job a the bank then next summer a paid office boy job etc etc. Exceedingly high earners (I'm not talking about the wealthy middLe classes here) don't need connections from their DC's school friends they've already got them.
"But most of us have connections in reasonably limited fields ( that's just life). School throws people from different fields together. So you get a pool of ideas and expertise well beyond your own.
And actually this exchange is probably a lot more useful than anything else."
My DS2 went to what was a very well regarded prep with lots of hereditary peers, investment bankers, hedge fund manager and Sunday times rich listers, he then went onto what I suspect is one of the four or five boys schools that Bert mentioned up thread, this school is known to have some of the wealthiest parents. Yes he's sat at the dinning tables of lots of people from many different fields as have I, but I rarely discuss with any of them what they do or who they work for and have never once felt that I've a experienced a useful "pool of ideas and expertise well beyond my own". I don't even know what that means. Secondly I don't believe in the concepts of connections or "getting on in life through your connections" its a idea that frankly I find repellent.