Is private education worth it?

[motherofggs]

I have two children they are both in private school, one in primary another one is in secondary (age 9 and 12) We used to have really good income before so we never considered and searched about the state schools. We will shut down the business and find a job with my husband we both have master degrees from UK but still I am not sure if we can cover the all school fees with our salaries. Our school fees currently 34k for both of them per year. It’s increasing each year and lunch, uniform and piano lessons are not including in this fee.
My kids are doing great in school. They are both above average with out tutoring. Specially little one so talented she will sit IGCSE exams next year. Her teacher says she is gifted and role model of the class. Both my children also good in sport and art and they speak 3 languages. My older one got scholarship (25 percent off from school fees). I do believe little one will have more as she is more academic and she can get 50 percent when she will sit her 11plus assessment in year 6.
Unfortunately I am still in stress as I know lots of parents which has degrees like us and both works full time and they can not afford independent school fees for 2 children. Meanwhile by saving I mean we have one holiday house in our country which cost about 150k and one additional (off plan) property which will be ready in 2023 (we paid 90k) for that property in 2009. And we have a mortgage around £2000 with service charge and 2 cars. And if sell the house we living in currently we can have around 300k because we paid high amount of deposit when we bought the property. We still can pay next years schools fees from the savings but if our income do not gets better we need to sell one of our properties later.
I would like to know what would you do if you were in that situation. Many thanks

I don’t have extensive experience of lots of different schools but one thing I have noticed about state schools is that when looking at potential schools at secondary level it’s possibly worth finding out whether they are streamed for all subjects and how early that happens.

My DC in a comprehensive intake school were set in almost all subjects and they are all reasonably academic so were in top or second from top sets. This meant that there were very few, if any, disruptive children who didn’t want to learn in their classes and the teachers could get on with teaching. Just saying this as I know it is one of the concerns many parents have about state schools but it has never been an issue for us. (Obviously could be an issue in lower sets of course).

For sure, the range of extra curricular activities and facilities generally are less than in a private school and my DC all do lots of sport and drama outside school - but that’s easy to do in London where they can travel to things independently on public transport etc. In fact, many of their sports clubs use private school facilities particularly at the weekends.
I think if you live outside a large town/city travelling to extra curricular stuff is not so easy and this I feel is where private schools really provide a benefit.

I’m not saying all private school kids 🙄 touchy much 🙄.

Dh went to a state school miles away from home and it was a pretty miserable long journey every day few local friends so for us proximity was an important criteria - state or private.

I was top set and pretty disruptive cos I wasn’t pushed enough and found the work so easy! Just saying!!

My experience is in London state selectives. My DC have been stretched enough. Can't see what more we would be paying for if we had gone private tbh.

Sorry should have said I was in the most selective school in the City! I was the same in Science English and Maths! I really think the teachers had no idea what to do with me!

Depends on the schools. Many private schools employ unqualified teachers who are largely unmonitored and their approach to learning can be very much stuck in the dark ages

Er, no! There are certainly not 'many' private schools employing unqualified teachers. In fact it's the opposite. The good private schools employ teachers who are the highest qualified in their chosen fields.
If you care to look at staff lists for any well known private school, you will find that the only employees without at the very least, an honours degree, are the support staff. Some of the teaching staff will have doctorates.

@RedMake88
Well yes I guess you can always get a lazy teacher who despite having a class of bright students doesn’t bother to engage them successfully or maybe a teacher who just doesn’t know how to engage students successfully. Combine that with a lax approach to discipline, it’s probably not going to go well!

We’ve probably been lucky that the teachers at my DCs school are generally pretty good.

@RedMake88
Btw I was also top sets and always found the work boring too but my approach was to daydream rather than be disruptive (I didn’t like getting into trouble!). It never occurred to me that maybe the teachers should try harder to engage me - that just wasn’t something you expected in a state school in the 80s 😂
Our expectations are so high now!

For me, definitely yes sending DC's to private school, from Year 7. My DC's need full time support with dyslexia. The state schools where we live have support but limited. The private school, they have full time help and it has been brilliant for them.

@motherofggs

Meanwhile my girls are in one of GDST girls only school. ISI report is excelent in all areas. And our local state secondary and primary options are Good by OFSTED. How do you understand if it is excelent state school. Do we need to check the Ofsted report only?

I think the best way to tell is to talk to lots of parents of children at the state school. I don’t go by ofsted ratings at all. I also think that once a school gets an excellent rating it is rarely reinspected (although this might have changed) so can actually be worse than a school which got a good rating last year.

@Magnoliayellowbird I think the poster meant they might not have a teaching qualification. I know teachers are private schools who have doctorates but no teaching qualification.

@Ginandcrispsarebliss

For me, definitely yes sending DC's to private school, from Year 7. My DC's need full time support with dyslexia. The state schools where we live have support but limited. The private school, they have full time help and it has been brilliant for them.

Same for my DD, the state school where we live was useless as she wasn't "dyslexic enough" so they didn't have the funds to support her.

Apart from the academic support I find the extra curricular activities at school are great. My DD is very sporty and enjoys swim squad, water polo, netball squad, tennis on Friday evenings and as she is currently not ready to get the train the school has a late bus so working parents don't need to worry about trips to the school to pick up.

One major thing- your kids are already in private school.

I was privately educated until 12, when a change in family circumstances meant I had to switch to the local comp.

The comp itself was great, oxbridge entrants, excellent results etc.

But as a kid used to classes of 15, challenging classes, lots of sport, swimming etc where I could excel, the comprehensive environment was not for me.

None of the sport I loved, i was clever and going into mixed ability classes meant I got bored very quickly, and checked out. The class sizes meant I could easily sit at the back and read my book.

I also struggled socially. I had an RP accent and stood out among the local kids.

So while I agree bright kids will generally thrive in comp or private, i don’t think switching from private to comp is a great idea.

[quote JS87]@Magnoliayellowbird I think the poster meant they might not have a teaching qualification. I know teachers are private schools who have doctorates but no teaching qualification.[/quote]
That wasn't the impression I got. I think she was saying 'many private schools employ non qualified staff,' meaning that anyone without a qualification, teaching or otherwise, could work in the private sector. Which is clearly not the case.

I'm only going by my own experience of private education.

I have taught in both the state and private sectors, my own children were privately educated and two grandchildren are now in the private sector - one of them at an extremely academic London school.

All the teachers I've ever worked with or heard of have had both teaching qualifications and degrees and sometimes doctorates.

It's quite normal to do a degree in your chosen subject, followed by a year's teaching qualification.

Can you move for a good state? In London and home counties however, you pay a high premium near a good comprehensive.

For those who have motivated kids with an idyllic upbringing and smooth state education (both selective and non selective) - this isn't always an option for all families nor something that all children will necessarily thrive in.

Agree with @Magnoliayellowbird@Magnoliayellowbird

Glitch, sorry - hate the new site!!

Where I work, the vast majority of teachers have a teaching qualification plus subject degree (or doctorate). You might get one or two older teachers who don't have a PGCE but have 30 years of teaching experience to make up for it, or very very occasionally a newer member of staff who hasn't done a teaching qualification (perhaps has been teaching overseas), but is an exceptionally good candidate so is chosen over and above a qualified teacher. But we'd never employ an unqualified teacher just because we don't care about teacher training, or because we can't find someone who is qualified.

Similarly, with teaching practices, we do lots of CPD and keeping up with new developments - we've got the time and the money to do it. In fact, we quite often support local state schools with this, because they don't. We're not dependent on the government telling us how we need to teach, so we're free to innovate when we want to.

Of course, there might be some private schools where the teaching isn't great, but to say that 'many' schools are employing poor teachers is just nonsense. If anything, I'd say the recent MN thread on teacher recruitment in the state sector is well worth a read... There are some great schools and great teachers in the state sector, but there's also a massive recruitment and retention crisis, with lots of teachers bewailing the current state of affairs, and parents complaining that their children have had a succession of primary classes taken by TAs or secondary classes under long term cover.

I think it depends on context. State schools are much better than they were 20-30 years ago. Public schools often seem to create a certain confidence (some would say overconfidence) in boys, but I'm less convinced of them for girls. Private girls' schools can be real magnets for eating disorders and social misery and resulting insecurity - or they can turn out superstars

I don't really see the point of prep TBH, where parental input is the most important thing at that stage, but I can understand secondary, especially if your state options are actively bad and with low aspirations.

DH was privately educated all through and when we first met I think he was set on doing the same for his own kids, only we fall into that gap where you can't privately educate kids on the equivalent of the income our parents had - I never cared about this but DH was initially I think a bit upset when it hit him.

I was slightly scared when it came to secondary and DH wanted to look at a renowned private school for DC1 - he even asked about bursarys, but as I expected we were neither able to afford the fees nor get a bursary (nor should we get one TBH). But to my suprise he said, while the facilities were great, it didn't seem leagues better than any of the state schools we saw. DC1, and DC2 from September, go to a small, local state school that actually feels quite like a private schoool with smaller classes and lots of opportunities for activities anyway.

My husband went to a quite well known boarding school, he is now an actuary and bilingual (hmm, thats a cheat though as he was sent to the UK for school). He found his professional learning very very hard, he was used to being told what to do and getting a lot of assistance, I don’t know if its still the case, but universities used to find that private pupils found the academic adjustment harder. He lacks self motivation, it isn’t something he has ever needed.

I went to a comprehensive, I’m also an actuary, I’m multilingual and I did much better than him at both GCSE and A-level, passed my professional exams quicker as well.

The most important thing is parental involvement and actively teaching the importance of education.

It’s not just this year and next years fees you have to find, but about 6-8 years x2 kids. With no jobs? Put them in a state school. Are you near a grammar county?

The people I know who went to private school, and I know a few, have perfectly ordinary jobs, (like mine, earning the same as me and I went to a dire state school). I do think their parents wasted an absolute fortune on their education. I know the stats show privately educated do well, but I suspect that is due to types of families who send their kids there, well connected and ambitious, rather than the private school itself.

If I had money for private school I'd do education myself, at home. One person to one child, tutors, educational days, socialisation with other home educated children, a rich life full of opportunity.

In fact I do this even though I am not wealthy because I can and I think it's a wonderful opportunity for a child to be able to have such input into their education from someone who is so dedicated to their education and wellbeing.

Have you considered home education as an option?

not at all. I’m a second generation immigrant with very working class roots. Parents worked 2-3 jobs a day/shift work foundaries, mills, manual labour. Their focus for us was to get the best possible education (State). I was bright and determined my brother less so. He would have done much better in a Private school.

if you’re off colour you need every step up in the right direction. No chance my kids will forget my roots/their roots. Feel very blessed I can do this for my kids.

I work with a local Primary on a governance basis and I can see how hard the teachers work to provide the kids with a solid education but budgetary restrictions mean they really struggle to go above and beyond. School isn’t just grades it’s an entire experience. It’s friends for life.