Private school - was it the right choice ?

[Lacey405]

We are having this debate . DD is fine where she is but I feel she could be stretched further . She’s fairly bright but not a genius but she is very interested in things. For example her latest interest is the tudors. We’ve been to see some historical palaces and off her own back has done her own “project” / asks for documentaries to watch / reads books. I know from my own teaching experience that at the moment doing the NC we cover the tudors in year 4 - she will be going into yr 2 this year and she has already covered it . So rather her being a maths prodigy or anything it’s this type of thing she just loves doing . Her current school does very little in terms of stretching the more able and whilst maths & English are fine these are focused on to the extent that there is very little time in the curriculum for history / languages / science / art all of which I think DD would just really enjoy . We can afford it if I work FT (teacher) and we stick to UK holidays for the foreseeable & generally rein in some of our spending . So nothing too drastic but a fair few luxuries would go. If anyone was in a similar position and did this / is doing it are you pleased you did ? Is if worth the “sacrifice” (I realise this is a very fortunate problem to have)
Many thanks

My DSs have been private since ages 4 and are currently 14&16. Their fees at pre prep were less than 10k a year and are now over 40k a year. It's an ever increasing sum that we can afford, but the massive amount now, is making us think about our retirement fund!
We are 13 years older than when we started at Pre Prep and 13 yrs nearer retirement!!
Don't just look at cost today, look ahead to when your DD is 18!!

My dd is at a private international school so slightly different but fees are very expensive . I work there though so she goes for free but it is a phenomenal difference to her state primary.
Class size is 21-22 so she has received lots of attention where she's needed it, she learns a language every day , she has specialist teachers for art, music, PE and ICT and she has just been selected to run against other schools in the under 8 cross country competition. The teaching is broadly similar but the class sizes are favourable and the opportunities she has for a wider learning experience are incredible.
Have you considered teaching overseas?! When we do return home in a few years I will definitely be trying to keep my dc in private education - the difference in her development as a whole child has been amazing.

No sure private will do that much more history than state. At dd prep it's 1 hr/week but rotates with geography. The difference is really more about the amounts of sport, music and drama and foreign languages/Latin and fact that it is taught by specialists. If it's mainly about her love for history, you could do a lot to foster this outside of school and spend your money on trips, books, Horrible Histories DVDs, travel etc. If your DD is very serious about medieval history you might want to consider a prep that teaches Latin to enable her to work with sources. But she could even learn Latin online if she really got the bug.

For us, moving to private has definitely been the right choice. We moved primarily to benefit DS1, who has complex special needs and was having a pretty awful time at the village primary school in spite of full-time 1:1 support. Moving him to a suitable private school with much smaller, calmer classes worked well for 3 years until it was clearly in his best interests to move to a special school.

However DS2 has benefited enormously from the move from that particular state school to the private school we chose. DS2 is summer born and for whatever reason the village primary school plonked him into the lower groups for all learning, solely based on his age in the year group. His behaviour at that school was consistently poor and disruptive and, looking back, we now know that he was incredibly bored as he wasn't being challenged. However having spent his taster days at the private school, they immediately pointed out that he's actually very bright. This may sound boasty but it's a perfectly true account. As soon as my two DSs joined the private school they put DS2 on an accelerated learning programme and his behaviour transformed because he was no longer bored rigid. He's now about to go into Y7 with two scholarships. He loves drama and acting and probably wouldn't have had these opportunities to the same extent at the state school he was at.

Definitely right choice for mine. I had a miserable time at school and I was adamant my children wouldn’t have the same. I have two boys at Prep school. It’s a lovely school which is very holistic. Small classes. Focus on kindness. They love school and can’t wait to start new term. For me that’s everything. We have to work hard to pay the fees and make sacrifices, but it’s worth it.

Regarding particular interests eg history, my state-educated DD has a couple of times entered a new school topic with a lot of prior knowledge, and the school has handled it pretty well.

In Reception she was really into space, and the teacher changed the topic for the whole class. In Y3 they were doing ancient Egypt and she knew more than the teacher about the scarab beetle and what it symbolised for ancient Egyptians - she shared her knowledge and was encouraged to extend it further through research.

She's really into history, so it will happen again, but it's surely not uncommon, and most teachers will be able to handle it easily enough.

An advantage for us of sticking with state education is that we can afford for me to work part time and pick her up from school every day, and we have the time and money to provide extra-curricular activities that suit her, and to take her to interesting places. Of course, many parents of privately educated children can afford to do the same!

The best thing that we ever did was take our children out of our village primary and put them into a prep school. It has been and continues to be worth all the sacrifice. However all I would say is that not all state schools and prep schools are created equal, and you need to be sure that the one you choose would be worth the investment. There are some excellent primary schools, and poor prep schools out there.

I think there are lots of DC that get interested in a particular topic and become mini experts! However it’s often a very narrow expertise. Egypt great: Maya culture? Not so great probably. State schools can always teach DC something new and history may not be great in a prep. We tried to expand the knowledge of DDs in all sorts of areas. If you can do that and pay for private, that’s great. But don’t expect private to be able to facilitate mini experts any better than a state school can.