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.

Bink it is really fab news. It isn't the same school ds is at his school had already done their nursery allocations by the time we applied and only have a tiny nursery section anyway. But I think this school will actually suit her really well, as it's a bit more free-flowing and creative than Catholic primaries are! And once we've got a feel for both we can decide whether to move her to ds's school for Reception.

I'm another medic, and my children will be going to our local state primary. We can afford private education but our kids can walk to the lovely local school with all our neighbours' children, and we have total faith that they will provide a great education. I went to state schools and achieved a first class degree (+ medical degree and later a PhD) from a top medical school. Bobsmum, take heart - I definitely had a smoother ride through medical school from the education I'd had in the state system, as I could truly relate to the spectrum of patients I treated. Some of my contemporaries from top public schools floundered horribly; the tide has turned since the days of Sir Lancelot Spratt and many of them found they had no way of talking to the hoi polloi without patronising them and annoying them (several failed finals as the 'patient' complained about they way they were spoken to by the posh medical student!). Sometimes a public school education is a disadvantage.......

May be but day private schools can ease the path and today more than in 1960s apparently richer children are doing better - the gap is worse not better which is why Blair is trying to tinker with university admissions (if your parents went you're less likely to get in etc). If you take the plc board members under 50 at most British companies or any other group of people of people in that kind of position you will still see a disproportionate number of people from private schools, often day schools these days. My brother is a doctor and his children are going to private schools. He has never had any trouble speaking to all kinds of people and nor have I. I never really understood that point - does it mean I wouldn't understand their accents?

Isn't that why medicine became a post grad subject? IS it here in the UK? It has been in Queensland, Oz, for 4-5 years now. Basically the med schools were finding their intake consisted ever increasingly of privately educated Chinese girls, many with limited communication skills in the English language. These girls were academically brilliant but frankly, weren't succeeding on the coal face of medicine which is, of course, patient interaction. It's not that the girls concerned were desperate to be a doctor, it was purely what was expected of these children when they got their straight 'A' equivalents at 17 (17! at Med School!), that or law. That was it. That was what they did. The idea is that now they will go to university, get a relevant degree (usually in biochem, nursing, radiography etc), THEN, with 3 years' more maturity decide whether medicine is REALLY what they want to do. Post grad entry also allows people with even arts backgrounds (who have done some science 'catch-up') but are patently awash with people skills and a burning amibition to become a doctor to get in.

But back to the OP- and I really don't mean to be patronising here so I do apologise if I come across that way!-, as others have said, if, after careful consideration about what's going to be best for your DS you decide the private school you went to IS the one, you may need to find ways to try and get him in. Obviously it's got to be REALLY IMPORTANT to you and you really have to feel he's getting the 9-odd K a year's benefit over and above what you're already paying for a good state provison. You have to resolve that you won't feel a low grade sense of irritation with your DS when -or maybe I should say 'if'! I speak of my OWN DSs here- your DS appears to be slacking off, not making full use of the available facilities you're paying for or generally not 'keeping up his part of the bargain' ie parents bending over backwards to secure this 'excellence' and him shrugging and saying "YOU chose to sacrifice to send me there".

And one final point,- I'm sure you've researched this!- will the school in question be happy to take a child who may need (expensive) additional help, if indeed there are any problems at all? I only ask because we've had an incident at out state infants with a pushy, overbearing father who's apoplectic that his Sept son isn't going up a year but is staying in the mixed year group (as is my DS2) BUT the father doesn't acknowledge the fact his pleasant DS is rather dyspraxic. The father marched his DS off to a local 7K a year private school who don't actually 'select' as such but who made it clear they haven't just undergone a huge building and amalgamation project with 2 other local private schools (GIRLS schools thus academically higher-achieving!) with a view to improving their own SATS and league table position then to take on kids they could obvioulsy see had some educational issues. So they politely told the father they weren't interested!!

Parents always worry that they're not giving their children the very best, but Voltaire hit the nail on the head when he said "The best is the enemy of the good."

Not all is rosy in the private sector - there's enough threads in Mumsnet on that to make a very big blanket. Bobsmum's DS can boast that he made it without all the fancy schooling his mummy got.

As m says if it's important make it happen. If it doesn't matter to you let it go.
(on medical entry I don't like delayed entry. I wanted to get on with life, babies, career very early on and all this studying until you're 40 like in Germany leads to adults rendered still children for far too long but I can see the issue with the Chinese girls. I have done so many careers evevnings at my daughters' schools where the Asian, Chinese and even Jewish and presumably a good few Christian of any background too etc parents force them to 3 stalls only (no other careers exist) medicine, law and accountancy.

I am really appreciating everybody's views on this thread. Thank you all so much It's helping get my head round this.

On special needs depends on the need, in my view. I think in some areas dyslexia is better dealt with in some private schools. Some autistic children who are brilliant academically can fit in better too in some small private schools. Some other special needs you might find better dealt with in the state system.

WEe haven't got a diagnosis of any kind as yet. I'm not sure if we ever will. THis has just been rumbling on for ages and ages. At 4, ds is probably still too young.

His difficulties are really slight; concentration on things he finds boring and a few problems with certain transitions. He actually seems to be growing out of a lot of the things which were presented to us as huge issues last year.

As his future primary school has a staff to pupil ratio of 1:5 I suspect most of his perceived problems will either disappear or be easily managed. Interestingly his secondary school will have just over 900 pupils which is several hundred less than many independent schools I can think of.

Can you tell I'm talking myself out this guilt now?

Yes, don't feel the guilt. It's pointless. In fact it's parents feeling guilt which holds them back in life, at home and at work. Ditch the guilt is the best thing any parent can do.

great post from miljee

Xenia - that's an odd attitude to guilt, from someone who often posts on the "morally superior position"

Enid - I agree.

My brother always got the "sacrifice" speech from my parents. I was a girly swot, but he was constantly in trouble and was suspended. It was eventually suggested he "should continue his education elsewhere". Not before he'd got some excellent exam results without lifting a finger though

And with all that private education, he's 28 and still delivering pizzas.

I agree with Xenia's position on parental guilt. Never felt it. My children are lucky to have me and dh researching their education and to make all those choices (taking into account finances, whether one or both parents work, whether there is time to ferry to activities etc). But once the decision is made - end of, short of a crisis.

We do the best by our children within our resources. Provide them with a supportive environment which values education, The rest is up to them. A lot of what they go on to do is intrinsic anyway.

The morally superior position? I am not sur what that is. I think all parents should do the best they can for their children. I am happy to give the view that sometimes those parents are wrong - e.g. those putting them in a local sink school where they are out of place and will do badly because the parents are communists - that's objectively and morally wrong but apart from that kind of thing parents just have to do their best. It's quite helpful having 5 children however because you kind of spread out your expectations a bit and also it's difference once you've got them through the teenage years too - you're just glad they're still alive sometimes.

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

You're full of surprises Xenia! Thank you - I like that a lot

I had that book about 35 years ago

David got there first though:

Psalm 127

1-2 If God doesn't build the house, the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn't guard the city,
the night watchman might as well nap.
It's useless to rise early and go to bed late,
and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don't you know he enjoys
giving rest to those he loves?

3-5 Don't you see that children are God's best gift?
the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior's fistful of arrows
are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don't stand a chance against you;
you'll sweep them right off your doorstep.

I promised myself I wouldn't do that......

It's all a bit patriarchal I suppose in either version - our children as weapons and arrows, breeding them in masses of numbers to populate the place to outdo others' children, may be.

Or just as a defence against loneliness?

I suppose arrows and quivers were much more de rigeur in those days. Not sure what the equivalent would be nowadays?

True... although sometimes we wish the arrow would have shot them a further distance away... all 5 are home today. Mind you that's rare and rather lovely. The university ones are back too. Two will be at far distances across the Atlantic I think in a fortnight's time.