Private vs State

[kittydetective]

Ok so I need opinions ...

I went to a small private school, it suited my nature, personality - did me no justice with academia .... equally I just wasn't academic.

I have the money to send my DC to private school.

What would you say are they advantages vs disadvantages for private / state?

Agree with Lowdoor
It's all about your DC and what is available.
Deciding early on what was a priority and what was merely desirable did help me make my choice.
Best of luck

perhaps resting thinks all services in life should be income tested? so services are only free for the lowest income bracket and those with highter incomes pay more....oh wait sort of like the way the tax system works...
the uk has a huge diversity in types of schools available besides state and private, some villages have tiny classes, some small state schools have a tiny intake and are in wealthier neighborhoods some are very big.
you need to see what is available to you, visit and research.

OP this has been done to death on MN. Basically it will turn in to a massive bun fight and follow a predictable pattern.

Anyone care to guess how may posts in before Bertrand hops on to tell us how immoral the Independent sector is and that everyone should be sending DC to their local comp because none of them are shit really? I predict it will be before page 4

And btw my view is that of Lowdoor on ignoring the state / private issue and just picking the best school for the child.

In fairness if done before approach were adhered to on mn it’d be v quiet
Working mums, breast feeding, mil, babies in nursery have all been done to death
Some mn topics are perennial. And that’s to be expected

It depends on your budget, what you personally want from education, and your DC’s.
If you have 40k a year to spend on each child, believe in boarding want a broad curriculum offering both academic subjects and loads of extra curricular activities, if you want small classes, stunning facilities and a big name school you can drop when you talking with friends at a dinner party then your going to have to pay because ultimately only the independent sector can really offer all of this.
But in the real world few have 40k pa to spend on their children and I suspect that the vast majority who do aren’t starting threads like this on MN.
My DS’s moved between the two of them over their school life between attended a very big name independent boys boarding school with matching fees, a crammer for the grammar prep, a traditional boarding prep, a microscopic village school and small village school in special measures an “outstanding high achieving” comp and a well regarded 6th form college plus a few others. I learnt that for most people there is no one answer to your question.
There are good bad and indifferent in both sectors, Contrary to what many like to say on here there are crap teachers in both sectors, the best teachers my DS’s have ever had we’re a math teacher in the comp; he must have been outstanding my severely dyscalculic DS2 passed math GCSE, a yr 2 in very average prep and an amazing old renegade teacher in the big name boys boarding school. Others will say that there are unqualified teachers in the independent sector, Ive no idea if this is the case but i do know that the independent sector is not rammed with unqualified teachers and let’s not forget that state schools have unqualified teachers training through Schools Direct.
Many will tell you children in independent schools are spoon fed to get amazing results our experience was the complete opposite.
Many say they choose the state sector so that their DC’s can mix with a broader section of society that this is an important life lesson I agree that in the state sector this is often more likely but we are live in a rural very affluent white MC area this is reflected in our local state schools. Yes DS2 at his big name boarding school mixed with the unbelievably wealthy, oligarchs billionaires etc, (we are not one of these) on leaving school during his gap year amongst other things he worked as a labourer with those on the very minimum of wages and lived with a incredibly wealthy family even flying in their private plane both he took in his stride. His experience at his school has made him realise that money does not make you happier cleverer or a better person or protect you from ugly divorce illness and or death in a tragic accident. This is IMO as useful a life lesson as that gained by going to school with a broader cross section of society.
Neither sector guarantees results polish or entrance into top universities or as important happy children.
Try and work out what you want from education, not just results or outstanding inspection reports etc but think about what you believe education should be about and practical factors like being able to work to school, or extra curricular stuff etc and then try and find a school that ticks most of your boxes no where will tick all of them.
Finally my children are at university now but if I was looking at schools the two things that would worry me about the state sector is : 1. The governments endless interference and the very serious funding crisis in all aspects of the public sector. I suspect that when the chips are down and if and it’s a big if this government has any significant extra money that it wants to divy out it will bow to massive public pressure and give it to the NHS and not education I think this is worrying for state education. Through work I’ve recently been involved in state schools and in the past I’ve done the same thing in the private sector it’s very apparent that there is a serious funding crisis in state education which amongst other things is having a serious impact on staff moral. I personally don’t think you ca ignore this.

If its a private school with a good reputation, small class sizes and you can afford it - why wouldn't you?

Dd is at a great state school and her teacher is fantastic. But with 30 kids in the class she's inevitably coasting in the areas she's good at and not progressing in those which she needs extra encouragement/support. There is very little in the way of sport or music. We do a lot with her outside of school to compensate.

On the plus side the discipline is excellent (as it has to be with those class sizes).

The only reason we didn't choose a private school was because the only ones we could logistically manage drops offs for were single sex.

Its London. There are a lot of people and not enough school places. More than one teacher of a local school has said they rely on some parents opting for private.

Why wouldn't you?

I wouldn't because of precisely what you do yourself. I far prefer to spend my money doing things with DD outside of school, then spend it simply to access smaller class sizes. Her GCSE results later this year are unlikely to be any better or worse then she would get in the private sector and that's without the advantages London state schools seem to have over the rest of the country these days.

Stickerrocks - but its a struggle. We both work and its getting harder to find the time to plug the gaps.

Would we prefer dd to be learning to play an instrument and playing a sport or two at school (and also having extra help or extension work to suit her abilities)? Of course we would.
Doing this outside school is out of necessity rather than choice.

We're not teachers (or musicians or athletes) so we'll be paying others to provide this support either way. I'd just rather it was all through the school (but completely understand why state schools can't offer this).

It gets easier as they get older. We both work FT in professional roles as well, but as she gets older her sport sessions get later in the evening. Off to the velodrome this evening to watch her track cycling, channelling her inner Laura Trott! I certainly wouldn't be able to afford that on a regular basis alongside school fees and I don't know of any private schools which have their own velodrome. Lots of theatre trips/ national screenings booked in too.

Resting Quite frankly it's a moral question:if you can afford to pay for your child to be educated how can you possibly think it's ok to make the taxpayer bare the cost instead?

I think Resting has got this wrong. There is a massive benefit to the state system if people who can afford to pay use the state system instead. If everyone who goes private if they fail to get in to grammar, or goes private instead of grotty underperforming local school were to go into the state system, then I think it is likely that these would be the kind of parents who would encourage change for the better within some schools. They would be more questioning and demanding of standards. they would be more active within PTAs/school community. They would likely have children better behaved than the average, so pull the average standard up. So you can easily argue that the moral choice would be to go state.

OP: Look at your local schools. Would paying for private be good use of your money? Can you afford it for the duration of the school? If so then go for it, if not, then don't.

Grinch, that's a bizarre argument. It isn't about if you can you should. Education is a right, so the state should provide. Same for healthcare. Taxes should be raised to pay so that all are catered for. We all pay taxes, so we're all entitled to state education, etc, etc. If you then choose to buy private, that's your choice, but essentially you're paying because you think you can get better for your child by doing so. Surely that's the only reason people pay for private education?!

Personally I wouldn't ever pay as for me a major part of education is learning how to be a member of the community/ a good citizen. To do that you have to mix with all people from all backgrounds, which is nowhere near as easy if you're hived off into an elite environment.

Private has the advantage of smaller class sizes, but in the EYFS, I don't think it really makes any difference. Unless your state schools are simply just no good based on Ofsted inspections, you would be best to start in state, and transfer to private in the later years.

Stickerrocks "We both work and its getting harder to find the time to plug the gaps."

I totally get this. My DC were at a fantastic state primary in London which I couldn't have been happier with, but as a working single mother it was going to be harder for me to keep up with the affluent families sending their kids there with SAHMs or money to throw at the problem of picking up all the extras to be done outside of school - whether this be homework, music, sport - all the things which top up a good state education and round it out a bit.

Due to other circumstances we had to relocate, and my DC now attend a prep school on a bursary. I have various angsty issues with this as I wasn't privately educated, but from a purely practical point of view they have landed in a fantastic school in an idyllic setting, all the sport/music activities done on site, and with wraparound hours making it easier for me as a working parent. It's not all about small school sizes, if anything that's one thing I was worried about.

Op have you been to see the local schools (state and private) and done your homeowner (exam results, any scandal, destination unis, etc)?

How will you 'invest' in your child's education and wellbeing outside of school - not just money but time and attention. It's very easy to spend the money on school but kids are rounded out more by having a happy home life. Think of the balance.

And Traalaa as someone else said on this thread, from my experience you can't generalise about the diversity in state vs private. We've come from a massively diverse central London state primary to a rural part of the UK. The local state school here is 100% white and with a fairly homogenous class intake. I can't comprehend how you think that's 'mixing with people from all backgrounds'... it's mixing with local white middle class/lower middle class people. The prep school considers itself an integral part of the local community, not isolated from it, and has far more diversity in its intake.

My point being that this varies massively from school to school and area to area. I would have felt very uncomfortable with my children moving from a massively diverse state school to a 100% white state school.

Agree totally with Lowdoor and Zero2Hero. It is what is best for your child in your area. We have great primaries that are small enough to know and work with the strengths and weaknesses of all the kids. So few kids go to the private preps this side of town. We are in a comprehensive area for secondary, and this area fell pretty near the bottom of that recent list for pupil mobility. The comps are excellent for those kids in the middle/low ability range as they use the Progress 8 funding to get as many of them passing 5 A to C GCSE and are very good at doing this. Therefore, if DC falls into this category, people choose state. If you have a higher ability child, they are not stretched, schools don't get the funding for them. Those that can, then send higher ability kids to one of the three excellent private schools. Vicious circle, as the comps lose the brightest kids, so don't focus on those and therefore are not able to cope well with bright kids where family cannot afford fees or get bursary. It's a grammar school system by payment. Remember also, that many private schools have academic selection criteria, so you pay for a bright child to be with other bright kids, if that suits your child.

heroin addicts don't put kids through private education

heroin addicts don't put kids through private education

I'm pretty sure Mick Jagger put all 8 of his in private schools!

But more to the point, nobody on this thread said they do.

I think a lot depends on what the choices are in your locality, OP. Where I live there are great state schools and I would never have considered educating my DDs privately. My sister, however, lives in an authority that still has grammar schools, meaning the schools for those who don't pass 11+ are pretty dire. During primary schooling it was looking as though one of hers would pass 11+ fairly easily, another might pass with extensive tutoring and loads of pressure, and the third was highly unlikely to pass no matter what they did. So rather than live with the pressure of 11+ and probable separation of her children with at least one of them feeling like they were getting a raw deal, she sent them all to a lovely small-ish all-through independent school. My children thrived at our local state school and hers thrived at her local independent. So I don't think it's as easy as private trumps state or the other way round - it depends on the options available and on what's best for your children.

Everyone my age in my family went to state school, got top GCSE and A Level grades, and still struggled to get into the top universities and internships because we did not have the connections or the ability to go through the application process properly (the state schools did not really care about university).

Cousins with a similar background, lower grades overall, but a private school background didn’t have this problem because private schools train kids up to succeed later on and give them connections. They also provide confidence training - cousins used to take personal and group presentation classes.

"IF MONEY is no object would you send your DC private"

I am ideologically opposed to private schools but sent DS to one for 2 yrs (for pastoral care, crap school academically, though). And DD will probably go private for 6th form (excellent academically... I am putting aside my principles, she wants THAT 6th form).

imho, from my interactions with mostly state & some private, the difference is not the schools but how the parents feel about what they want from the schools. The private school parents are much more protective and much more concerned that they must move heaven & earth to get best education available. The private school parents are convinced that many schools are crap so they must be very attentive to make sure the school their child attends is excellent. Nothing but the best is acceptable. They don't think of their children as possibly benefiting from adversities, they don't want their kids held back by riffraff, they want their kids to get every possible exposure to an aspirational envt -- and potential future networking.

So your decision comes down to whether you strongly identify with what I just wrote & can't understand people who wouldn't.

In contrast, The state school parents say things like "I want to keep her local" and "It's good enough." or simply "Why would we look elsewhere."

State schools are not necessarily representative of the area they are in.
I used to work in one in a very leafy suburb, but our school only pulled from the poor estates. The kids who lived in the immediate area were all shipped off to private schools.

I'd agree with other posters that it depends on where you live and the individual schools. Had we stayed where we used to live we'd have sent the DC to private schools because there were several excellent private schools and the state ones were not great. Probably a vicious circle. Where we are now the local schools are great so there are few private and they're the fall back option rather than being first choice.

I teach in an all through private school but in the past I have worked in state and my dc attend state primary. Imo:

Private
Smaller classes so more opportunity for faster progress when younger.
Better facilities
Classes tend not to have very poor behaviour in but low level disruption still exists.
Very expensive uniform including PE kits, school coats, school bags.
Long holidays - nice for the kids, extrea hard for childcare in families where both parents are working.
Teachers are happier because they are under less pressure from ofsted and slt therefore this is projected on their more relaxed classes.

State
Realistic social mix
Some excellent excellent teaching and behaviour management
Teachers are more accountable which some parents prefer
More affordable uniform
Friends tend to be more local then spread out

In conclusion, i do not think it's really worth the money at infants level. From then forward if I had the money and was confident I could keep up the fees for an entire education then I would pay from 7 or 8 years old.