Please talk some sense into me! Am feeling jealous of ds' peers starting indepndent schools!

[bobsmum]

I went to a great school - very well known in Scotland. I loved it from start to finish.

Ds is about to start school in August and wil be going to a lovely, tiny rural primary with 5 other children in P1.

But today when I picked him up at nursery, one of his group was wearing the school uniform for my old school. I had almost a physical reaction to it and nearly filled up. I've been feeling a bit sick ever since and I can only assume it's jealousy.

I'm aware that ds will get a great education in the state system - particularly in the primary school he's about to start.

Dh and I will never be able to afford an independent education for our children. I'm obviously comparing buildings/resources/teachers/children constantly. I'm aware that I have to just deal with this attitude or I'll get myself into trouble.

Tell me to be happy with what I've got. Tell me the grass isn't greener (even though it looks pretty lush IME)

Also Ds has a few issues atm and is seeing an EdPsych. I'm always wondering what a better resourced, better funded school could do for him.

Oh please someone, put me out of my misery. Who is Xenia? What job does she do (in the few spare hours per day that she's not on MN)? Her views are unbelievable. Is she real?

Caroline, the 'I'm rich and am helping the commoners out by spending my money' line is a fallacy. Paying for your children to go to private school doesn't do the rest of us any favours. Quite the reverse; by creaming off a substantial proportion of the brightest children with parents who are well-equipped to support educatrion it may well damage state schools.

AND we state school commoners subsidise your schools to the tune of millions of pounds in tax breaks, specifically charitable status.

Spend your money where you like but don't pretend there is anything altruistic about it. There isn't.

lizziehoney - xenia is a lawyer, lives in London. Sometimes goes by the name of Susan. Five children and crap ex-husband.

I would hat people to continually out me on here, we don;t do it to other people so why is it OK to do it to Xenia?

I agree, TSAP.
It's a bit low, IMO.

God forbid that any child who has been educated independently to avoid 'mixing with the poor and distruptive' ever becomes a surgeon and has to operative on 'poor and distruptive' patients. Still, once he/she is qualified I guess they can avoid them by going into private practice.

Tbh, I'm not sure how doctors and lawyers jobs are 'fun'. They make a living from other people's misery - no one consults a doctor or lawyer because they're happy.

I don't know many lawyers but i do know a few doctors and they get immense satisfaction from their jobs.

(I know a number of lawyers - mostly through MN - who are happy.)

I also know a former lawyer - my sister - who was paid bloody peanuts, because she worked for a firm which did family law, and was paid pretty well solely through Legal Aid. She did an incredibly valuable job for virtually no money and loads, loads of grief.

Incidentally the GP I know best - who is also rather happy in her job - sends her kids to state schools. (Her youngest, very charming and bright daughter, is in DD1's class.)She is very much in favour of supporting not just state but local state schools, as are the parents - both senior academics - of DD1's mate who has just spent the afternoon here.

Edam - Ind schools would continue to even if they failed the public benefit test and lost their charitable status. I personally don't derive any benefit from a whole raft of charities but I do not resent them having charitable status or indeed paying for it. How uncharitable of you to not want independent schools to benefit just because you personally do not derive a benefit.

I'm a doctor and I love my job.

State system for me and it will be for dd and any other dc that I have.

Caroline, for heaven's sake. 'Uncharitable'? The point of the charity/voluntary/third sector is to focus upon disadvantage.

suedonim-I consulted a doctor when I fell pregnant. I was ecstatic.

Also I am a lawyer and most of my clients are much happier after my intervention-not all but some!

I have a sneaking suspicion that the charitable status thing is a red herring otherwise how come the (considerable) number of private schools that are not charities, ie. are privately owned and run for profit, charge fees that are entirely in line with the schools that do have charitable status? That has puzzled me for a while, intermittently maybe someone here will know the answer.

I think Bink's answer was good (before the discussion turned into the usual 'it's your own fault for not getting a sufficiently high-paying job' routine). I wonder if the regret from the child not getting into the school is the same as not being able to afford it? Quite possibly. I suspect bink is also right about the SN setup -- I've always been impressed by the lengths my dcs schools have gone to to engage children with difficulties of one kind and another.

Bobsmum, I too get occasional pangs at my nephews and nieces in their twee little private school uniforms and on-site swimming pool, but I think the pangs diminish in direct proportion to how happy your child is at the alternative provision. I put dd2 down for a couple of local private schools as we'd just moved house and we'd missed the cut-off date for state school applications. But she's just been offered a place at a really fab local primary school (really fab -- sounds a bit like MI's setup, no uniform, creative, blahdiblah) which I know will really suit her. It's quite satisfying knowing that I genuinely wouldn't trade the school place that she has even for a free place at one of the independent options.

Caroline, you are jumping to conclusions. I merely pointed out the tax break in answer to your claim that private education was somehow doing the state sector a favour. No need to be so touchy.

Frogs, a group of private schools were investigated for price-fixing so hardly a surprise that there is little competition on charges.

I really don't think the results of the Human Genome Project have informed our views on intelligence much, still less private vs state education. I agree with frogs, any pangs go once you realise how happy your own child is, and how well they are being educated. And no, we don't spend the money we save on cars.

But their price discussions did not lead to increases. Where 80% of your costs are teachers' wages it's not surprising the fees are similar and none of them make profits (except a very few owned by individuals). Tax breaks? They don't have to charge parents 17.5% VAT is one which helps parents but remember we already do pay so we're already saving the state £5k a year. They probably don't pay business rates but some are considering not bothering with charitable status anyway as it's a straight jacket. I don't think it would make a huge difference if they cannot satisfy the new public benefit test under the Charities Act 2006 which requires some benefit not just to hte public but the very poor.

The private company group of schools run by Chris Woodhead Civitis? and there's another gorup too Gems - they aim to provide cheap and cheerful, no frills and lower fees than other privates and yet they're trying to make products - seems a weird business model when most of the other private schools plough every penny back into the school and funding education for poor pupils.

Yes, edam, I'd seen that. But they were all major public schools, so you'd expect them to be part of the same cartel.

I just find it mildly mystifying that little prep schools that are run for profit (and there are quite a few in London especially) seem to charge exactly the same fees as the charitable rivals, despite all the bleating about how essential charitable status is to keeping fees affordable.

I guess they all just charge what they think the market will bear. Just like Starbucks, really.

It's because the wagews to the teachers are the main cost.

Okday day seniors...per term all similar sorts of large academic day schools

North London collegiate - £3506
Habs girls elstree - £3,140
Perse girls cambridge £3915
St Paul's girls London £4541.00 (includes lunch)
LEH - £3,900

I think that's fairly different given most of the basic teacher salary costs are the same.

Well yes, clearly the main costs will be broadly similar. But logically, if the 'charitable' schools maintain that charitable status is worth £X to them and that losing it would cause fees to rise by Y%, you'd expect the non-charitable schools' fees to be consistently higher than the charitable ones by somewhere in the region of Y%. But that's not what happens. Presumably for the same reason that the price of a Starbucks Cappucino doesn't go down when world coffee prices fall.

Just downloading the PDF of fees for my former school. No more than £2,700 per term - bargain!! Quite a bit more than our total income though!

I left in '94 and most of my peers were from middle class backgrounds - used car salesmen, nurses, accountants, estate agents, teachers, lecturers etc etc. No aristocracy. But a handful of 6th formers had those hideous Vitara jeeps if that counts

It could have changed now though I suppose.

Doh - have miscalculated - we could actually manage that if I sold an organ or 2.

frogs - what great news about the school for dd2. Is that the place ds is now at?

Very interesting that every Gems school and Cognita ones I just looked up are prep (or one up to 16). Do we know any profit making schools that go up to A level?