Slightly loathe to start this thread .. but I honestly want to know with regards to Private Education...

[Twiglett]

I can understand when people say they choose private education for their particular child

But I'm not sure I totally understand how to analyse one's child to see if they would be better in private education

what are the key areas of a child to look at (in your opinion) .. and which ones would be better served in a private rather than a state school (again in your opinion)

I'm not trying to be contentious .. I should just like to know how I should look at my 6 year old who's school life is rather a closed book really

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I'm not sure about the nanny thing. If ours went to private school, we'd still need a nanny to get them there and back and to cover the holidays. Most people we know whose children go to private school and don't have a SAHP, either have to have a nanny or an aupair (who can drive!) in addition to the private school fees.

Foxinsox - yes, there is probably an overlap period of nanny and private school. But don't you get all sorts of wraparound care at private schools? And au pairs are very cheap.

Sweety, yes many. It's a socialist issue although that survey I found said 47% of British parents would pay if they could afford it. That still leaves 53% who would do it even if they were millionaires. Paul McCartney didn't on principle. I think his daughter public criticised him for not buying her a better education than the local comp actually.

A few schools yes have set up in the Far East - I think Harrow and Dulwich College and 1 or 2 others. In China they cannot technically yet take locals so has to be Chinese from abroad and foreigners I think although they're trying to get that rule changed. I think one school terminated it's franchise agreement between there was a dispute with the local company.

Some English boarding schools are mostly foreign students and although it might seem racist to say it I do know a few people whose daughters have had a hard time - e.g only a few English girls out of 16 Chinese from abroad doing A levels etc so you can get a bit isolated.

ahh but to have an au pair, you need a house with room for one .

I can see what you're saying and I must admit, having paid out around £1200 per month for dd's nursery care when she was a baby (and I was working), I did actually start calculating the comparison between her fees and private school fees but it's the holiday care that would have had us stymied (and then we had another child anyway!).

I think the money no object question tends to get the answer "yes". What I think is more interesting is what if it's a struggle. What level of struggle is worth it? Of course it depends on how much you don't want the offered state school. But it's how people work out the complexities of income, sacrifice, choice, assessement of what's good enough that varies and fascinates. And of course it's a political and national disgrace that some state schools are the way they are.

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FIS - True. With more than one child it's more complicated. People seem to work out holidays though. Time off work, activity weeks, swapping play dates. Without a nanny, it's all a bit make it up as you go along but I know many dual income families who pull it off.

Private schools have more facilities and more freedom to embroider the curriculum. I wish I had had the chance to attend one.

NKF - you are completely right that the complexities of working out the choices are fascinating. MN gives wonderful insights into people's priorities.

I also think that these complex decisions are far too often left up to women to manage and bear. Lots of men just don't want to know...

There's wraparound care at many private and state schools.

NKF - but does one want one's child to spend its life at school?

I'm also interested in the way that some kids do make it through very terrible schools and emerge with good results. And they do. Amazingly. Why do some kids get beaten to a pulp for being a swot and others manage to do well and be left alone. Family influences? A certain sort of personality? Lucky in their peer group?

Anna, I'm not arguing for it. It really began with pointing out that many people find schools fees bearable because they've had a nanny.

NKF - no, I didn't think you were actually. I was just saying that it is a complex decision, even when childcare is relatively easily available and affordable, just to know whether or not to use it - how much time do children need to spend at home versus how much in institutions?

NKF - in my experience the one's that get 'allowed' to be swotty usually also have some other skills such as being really sporty. So something which their peers can associate with positively.

It is the nerdy children who are highly academic and rather detatched from their peers that usually come in for some abuse!

Sorry for that misplaced apostrophe

I would be interested to know how many parents who could comfortably afford private school for their children choose not to. I imagine that the proportion would not be high.

trice - my uncle, who could comfortably afford private education for all four of his children, sent the eldest to a state grammar and the younger three to private boarding school.

It happens. In my uncle's case, his eldest son was much cleverer than the younger ones, passed his 11+, and wanted to go to the grammar school. He could have gone to a private school had he wanted.

But what is "comfortably afford"? You'd be hard pushed to find agreement on what that phrase means.

NKF - well, in my uncle's case, he and his wife have a big house in the country, two flats in London (one for the couple, one for the children), six to eight holidays a year, they eat out frequently...

Anna, well that seems clear enough. But the choices of people who have no problems not finding the money are, to my mind, less interesting than those who do. I know people who send their children to very good private day schools in London but they live in areas so shitty they're almost scary. I also know families who live in tiny flats close to good secondary schools. Different ways of spending an income that doesn't buy you everything you might want.

NKF - I quite agree, it's much more interesting to look at the tradeoffs of the less comfortably off. I was just responding to trice, as I did have an example to hand.

My sister and her husband have recently had a theoretical argument about school fees versus a second home. My sister argues that, if one day they can't afford school fees (which they currently get paid as part of an expat package) they could sell their holiday house in France to cover them. Her husband would rather keep the house (which formerly belonged to his grandmother) and send the children to state school. It's that kind of debate that is interesting. Obviously, when people start having really impoverished lifestyles (horrible house in horrible area, cheap food, no new clothes, no holidays) just to send their children to private school, you have to wonder whether they are being wise and shouldn't try to move to a part of the country with better state schools.

Some people would live in a horrible area, dress in charity shop clothes and buy supermarket value food range in order to afford private education. I know many people like that. Big cheap houses close to some really hardcore estates, Lidl shopping but their kids are at St Paul's.