Did using state schools over private make a difference in your experience?

[Bulblasagnes]

If you chose to use the state sector when you could afford private, for altruistic or idealistic reasons of wanting to participate in the state sector and support the betterment of the state sector for the benefit of everyone, do you think it actually made a difference to other children at your child’s school? Or to the school?

I have always planned on sending my DC to state schools all the way through. I am confident that with our support they would be fine academically and go onto achieve whatever they wanted. DH and I attended top universities and are both in highly skilled professional jobs. To our surprise after a few sharp pay rises we will be in a position to easily afford private secondary when the time comes. In addition, there is an all-round fantastic private school locally (a boys’ school, for DS, the oldest) which has brilliant facilities and teaching in sports, music, drama and so on, in addition to great academics.

Between the two options we have, I still don’t think it will necessarily affect university options, but I do think DS could have a lot of fun and pursue many activities to a high level at the private school, which he wouldn’t be able to at the state. I also think the private school would help with DS’s confidence issues.

My heart is still with the state school option but I want to be sure that depriving my DC of those experiences and possibilities at private school will really make a difference to others. Otherwise it just feels like I’m making them miss out for no reason.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

I think increasingly I just question what is it all for?

When COVID meant exams were cancelled I thought to myself: Why do we actually get so wound up about exams anyway? I think it was an Oxford college that just immediately said they'd honour all their offers anyway and it made me think that Oxbridge pretty much usually do that anyway. They offer on interview much more than on predicted grades. I missed one of the As I was suppose to get for medicine at Cambridge and they let me in anyway because they had already decided I was good enough from what they saw.

I can't get worked up about one grade here or there or even if one of my children is 'underachieving' as long as they are happy with their lives.

I don't need them to be in a class with other high achievers just so they can get one grade more than they would have done. I think it's more of a benefit to them to be educated in the real world with a range of people around them.

We didn’t choose Private school for better grades

No. Oxbridge don’t let in all offer holders normally. Absolutely not. They over offer like everyone else!

I totally refute the notion that private schools are not the real world. It’s a slightly different world in some schools but who really believes DC educated in these schools cannot be great doctors? Quite frankly I’m sick of reading such rubbish.

The article on Australian Education was interesting if slightly flawed due to lack of facts! However one fact was startling. 50% of dc in Melbourne and Sydney are privately educated. So heaven help the anti private school brigade in Australia - you have a very high chance of being treated by an awful privately educated Dr! In fact dc who are in private 6th forms here are nearer 20%. Imagine that 20% of the population have no notion of the other 80%?! It’s just ridiculous.

I cannot say I have been impressed by the outputs of the private schools they attended. This is my own experience and prejudices

So if you’re prejudiced against privately educated people do you think it’s ok for others to be prejudiced against state schools?

Our daughter is in reception in a great state school, only 20 kids in her class. If the school wasn't a good one I'd send her to private school.

The academic side of things are generally better at private schools, and they also offer loads of extracurricular activities.

Having said that, a hard working and bright child who is going to do well academically will likely do so in private or state. A child who really struggles and isn't interested in school will probably struggle wherever they go. I personally think private school probably offers the most benefit to those students in the middle......

And it's not all about academics, there is something lovely about the fact we can walk to our state primary collecting friends along the way! And we've made lots of local friends.

Undecided if we'll stick with state school post 10 or 11.

My dd went to state school all the way and did very well academically. She's also very well rounded, can get on with anyone and has her feet firmly on the ground. I have no idea if that was because she went to state school, but I think it must have played a part. Also it didn't cost me £8k a year (or whatever private schools normally cost )

Me Percy
I do believe it
It's my 'lived experience' in modern parlance
I see it every day with medical students and junior Drs that I try to teach and with my colleagues. A lot of them really don't know 'how the other half live'.
No clue how much the minimum wage is, what's a zero hours contract, who is eligible for social housing or state benefits and who is not.
If you want to segregate your kids from those with 'behaviour problems' or who are 'not academic' then that limits their life experience. Why is that a controversial thing to say.
Being a good dr is not all about academics and never has been.

Some kinds of Drs it doesn't matter so much. I'm sure you can be a good orthopaedic surgeon or cardiologist without much appreciation of your social context. A good GP or psychiatrist? It's possible but you'll have to work harder, be open, educate yourself and be willing to challenge your assumptions on certain stuff

I have no idea about Australia. It's likely an entirely different school system. I don't see that there would be any immediate parallels.

Don't these private school kids you're talking about know any less well off people? Certainly within my own extended family (who I'm close to) and friends there are many with minimum wage jobs, living in humble rented flats or council housing etc (as well as others in professional jobs, nice houses and the usual middle class trappings). I can't personally picture a world where my extended family and all my friends have the same extremely privileged financial circumstances but maybe that's how it is if you're "old money"

Anyway, I'm not concerned about my DC on that front because they will be exposed to plenty of people with more challenging circumstances and that will be just as "normal" to them as the life they experience at school.

I'm a current student at a Russell group uni, and the big difference isn't between independent and state, it's between badly performing state schools in deprived areas and everywhere else. I went to an extremely good state school which was academically on par with the independent sector. Of my group of around 20 mates, only one went to a poorly performing state school, and this complete gulf is where the divisions are. Either you are extremely bright, or parents can afford fees or a postcode which gets you a good education, I'm always very surprised given that how folks in favour of equality favour the current system over a selective system like in Germany.

At Cambridge I knew a lot of people who attended Eton, Whitgift, Trinity, St Paul's, Marlborough and other prestigious public schools and I would say that no they did not know many 'normal' people.

I was amazed at how enormous their houses were when visiting in the holidays and they were equally amazed by how small mine was. Their parents were City lawyers and bankers. Mine were teachers. They had gardeners and housekeepers and in some cases chauffeurs.

How can you tell unless you send identical twins to state/private? And even then that is not foolproof.

You will get the same old prejudiced tropes from both sides. Thick rich kids, yob state school with very few having experienced both.

@bluejelly

My dd went to state school all the way and did very well academically. She's also very well rounded, can get on with anyone and has her feet firmly on the ground. I have no idea if that was because she went to state school, but I think it must have played a part. Also it didn't cost me £8k a year (or whatever private schools normally cost )

More like £8k a term for secondary

There’s a lot of rubbish being written here. Who really cares if a doctor knows their patients background or not? Occasionally yes but surely their skills are what we value? I couldn’t care less if my eye surgeon knows my lowly family history. I just want him to do a great job.

Quite a few ordinary people send dc to private schools. The bursary dc can have quite humble backgrounds. There are often extended family who are less well off. And why does it matter? Don’t we want social workers and teachers who were privately educated? Or what about nurses? It’s so utterly stupid to say a type of education means you have no empathy or compassion.

Most Drs are not surgeons still less eye surgeons. The NHS has not got a great need for more people to operate on cataracts. It actually needs more GPs, geriatricians, emergency physicians and psychiatrists and in those sectors technical skill is not all that counts, an ability to establish a rapport with people from diverse backgrounds is arguably more important.

There is a big drive for medical school intake to be more representative of the society that it serves. That's not just my personal opinion it's the opinion of the GMC, the BMA and the Kings Fund.

We absolutely need intelligent, committed people to be social workers, teachers and nurses but these are not highly paid jobs and you don't need top grades to enter those professions. Are these therefore the jobs that parents who pay for a private education are aspiring to for their children? Do many privately educated people choose such careers I wonder?

I was amazed at how enormous their houses were when visiting in the holidays and they were equally amazed by how small mine was

Ovoid Why did you spend time with these privately educated people if you despised them so much.
Also were they really ‘amazed’ at how small your house was? My children were privately educated as their grandparents paid. Our house is small and scruffy but none of my children’s visiting friends (many of who had extremely well off parents) would’ve dreamt of being so rude as to show ‘amazement’ at its smallness.

Covoid not Ovoid

We could have sent DD to private school but all her friends were going to the local state school. That was the decider for us. By no means known as a brilliant school but DD and friends have thrived there and are all A students . But it’s personal choice and nice to have the choice do what’s right fort
Our dc and know that you change if things don’t work out

My friends went to a mix of state and private. A huge mix ( including posh kids at the state and not middle class kids at the private through bursaries) of classes and backgrounds. Nearly 30 years on the most successful in a rounded way were the ones with supportive parents no matter where they went. I would also say the privately educated ones struggled at uni and also felt failures for becoming things like teachers so we're less satisfied in their life (we are all nearly 50 and know about 20 of them still).

When did I say I despised them?
They were, and 20 years later many are still, very good friends of mine. Coming from different backgrounds didn't preclude us being friends and amazed doesn't have a negative connotation. Literally we were just very surprised by one another's different circumstances.
I obviously didn't say anything to my friends parents about my amazement because, as you say, that would have been rude but with my friends we did used to joke about stuff like that and talk about it seriously a bit too like you do with uni friends.

I went to a private school which smashed my self esteem with a sledgehammer and then went to a state school which finished off the job because I was relentlessly bullied for being the 'posh kid'
I'm not a fan of private school unless you are sure that your child's face will fit with the teachers.

Im sorry to hear that @daisypetula (great name!). What was it about the private primary that destroyed your self esteem? Always thought private academic preps help build it

DH went to a public school and is a teacher (has worked extensively in both state and private). His parents were entirely supportive of his career choice, as it was all he ever wanted to do, and they never gave two hoots about 'status'. Ironically, DH's choice of career is the only reason we are now able to afford to send our DC to a similar school (staff discount). One of our children has already said that he might want to be a teacher, and I'd be delighted if he was.

@daisypetula I find your post sad but also quite surprising. My general experience (through DH) is that teachers tend towards being left of centre, and that this is still true (though perhaps to a lesser degree) in private schools. After all, teachers are still teachers, and many have taught in both sectors. If anything, DH and his colleagues tend to feel greater kinship with the staff and bursary kids than they do with the really wealthy kids, simply because their lifestyles are a bit more similar. (That's not to say they're prejudiced against the very rich kids, who are generally nice people - just as teachers are teachers, so kids are also ultimately just kids.) But I guess your experience goes to show that not all schools are the same.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity
I really enjoyed reading your posts, thank you. As a child of a GP Mum myself I watched her amazing empathy with people and when she retired watching the community give thanks to her was humbling. She grew up in a community, went to local schools, and understood how they worked and how a sense of community is important and I know this served her in great stead as a doctor in a different community to the one she grew up in . When she trained there were 70 men and 3 women on her course and the men got the jobs with lower graded degrees than the women. Let’s be grateful that at least has changed and push on for other parities in the future.

@Andante57

I was amazed at how enormous their houses were when visiting in the holidays and they were equally amazed by how small mine was

Ovoid Why did you spend time with these privately educated people if you despised them so much.
Also were they really ‘amazed’ at how small your house was? My children were privately educated as their grandparents paid. Our house is small and scruffy but none of my children’s visiting friends (many of who had extremely well off parents) would’ve dreamt of being so rude as to show ‘amazement’ at its smallness.

I don't despise people with lots of money. I am myself in a position I would have never dreamt of. My parents were illiterate; my mother was a domestic worker (live-in type) from the age of 14 as a migrant and started working much earlier in her home country. My father was looking after cattle from the age of 5. As an adult (over 20 years old) I got an internship in an international organisation; I could not believe my eyes when I was invited to some houses. It was beyond amazement. I was totally thrilled! These people could have never even imagined a world similar to the one where my family comes from. Many are still minimum wage workers working on farms/crops/cleaning. It is very difficult to escape your own circles. State schools are pretty much the only chance to widen your social horizons properly. There are many prejudices and stereotypes that are based on some facts and reality. Obviously this is true for the group and not individuals. I would never judge someone who prefers private. As I said my eldest is about to start in a very exclusive boarding school and I have supported her in this decision. But I also agree with @CovoidOfAllHumanity about 'what's the point'.

Why do you think privately educated dc don’t understand the community they work in??? Of course they do. They have, after all, chosen to work there.

There are shortages of doctors in certain fields of work because it is perceived to be crap working. So all the ordinary folk who want to be doctors are expected to do the crap work because they are so humble and do not expect to aspire to be surgeons? Really? Keep them in their lowly position that’s shunned by everyone else. Great. Aim high is my mantra. Whoever you are!

If dc don’t like any school, move them. Nothing is fixed. The DC that has removed herself to an exclusive 6th form amazes me. One assumes she knew the money was there! And the deposit paid and the firms signed? Even though mum has no role in it? At least we talk in our house.