How to complement state school education

[pixaar3101]

We are looking for some advice from experienced folks here. Some background for context. We are an Indian couple - both professionals with masters degrees. For us kids' education is a top priority and we both will be involved in our kids' day to day learning. We have two kids and our elder child will be starting school next year. Younger is a year behind. We were initially looking to enroll both in private school. We can afford it. However, after visiting our local state schools, we were actually very happy with what we saw. We have 3 good schools close by. One is rated excellent and the other two are rated good. We don't read much into it and decided to visit the schools for ourselves and were pleasantly surprised. Children were very well behaved, well dressed and well spoken and overall seemed very happy to be in school. We recently bought house in the area we are in and pretty much all our neighbors send their kids to one of these 3 schools and everyone speaks highly of all 3 schools. So this has changed our mind and we have decided that at-least for the primary school, we will send our kids to one of these 3 state schools and then decide at secondary if they will benefit from private school. We are also in an area (Kent) where we have a number of grammar school options at 11+. So all good so far.

We were both privately educated in India and we know some of the benefits of networking and the alumni network that private schools offer. But my humble opinion is that unless you get into the top 5-10 really elite private schools such as Eaton or Winchester, that alumni network doesn't really provide tangible value.

Wife is of the opinion that we should look to complement state education with things that private schools provide but are not readily available in state schools. Neither of us have been through the British education system so we are not sure what exactly that means. So coming to the question, if you had a child in state school and if you had access to sufficient funds to pay for additional activities, what kinds of activities and additional support would you spend it on? How would you try to bridge any real or perceived gap between a good state school and a private school? We have enough time to figure it out and learn as we go but we were curious to see what people think.

DD is at private secondary so for me the things she is getting that state peers aren't but that you could supplement:

• Tutor for maths + English to push these ahead
• Sports clubs (DD has 6 lessons of sport per week): tennis, swimming, athletics, cricket, running, watersports
• Music + drama lessons/clubs
• Public speaking/debating lessons
• VIsits to art galleries and discussions around different painters (Art History), visits to museums
• Travel to cultural centres and project work around this travel
• Frequent visiting of library to expand range of texts being read= expand vocabulary and conceptual thinking

I think that, for primary, you can be led by your children. See what they show an interest in, and find ways to support that interest. Typical things might be musical instruments, sport, coding, chess, learning to speak a foreign language etc.

You can make sure you generally enrich their lives by having interesting conversations, playing board games, providing a variety of books and reading to them / with them daily, going to concerts, plays etc.

If you have a child that shows particular aptitude for an academic subject, you could also follow that interest. For example, follow up an interest in history by visiting historic sites, museums, themed days at different places etc. For maths, you might be able to challenge them at home with fun family games or perhaps online fun maths sites such as https://www.mathplayground.com/ and https://nrich.maths.org/. I would generally discourage any specific learning to get them 'ahead' of the curriculum though, as it can make school boring.

From about Y4, if your children are doing well at school, you can start thinking towards the 11 plus. For Kent, you probably only need to start any specific prep in Y5, and you can do this yourselves if you have the time, or you might want to consider a tutor if that's an easier option for you.

“Wife is of the opinion that we should look to complement state education with things that private schools provide but are not readily available in state schools.”

Our state school puts on a great show of clubs and individual music lessons.

“We are an Indian couple - both professionals with masters degrees. For us kids' education is a top priority and we both will be involved in our kids' day to day learning.”

Your children will be fine. Your wife needs to relax.

Where in Kent are you? Some of the grammars are excellent and have better results than most private schools.

Just read to your children, speak to them, do a bit of online maths, learn an instrument or two and play cricket etc. Teach them whatever you are good at and also make sure to keep the Hindi up, if you can. Or whatever your mother tongue is. A foreign language is a real asset.

If you can ensure they are keen readers that is half the task accomplished. Read in front of them and debate issues. Talk about your own work.

Thank you. That's a good list. I think the challenge would be to fit in some of these activities in their schedule while a private school can integrate this in their curriculum. It will be interesting to see what kind of interests our kids develop. I definitely don't want to rob them their childhood by driving them from one activity to another.

Thanks for your reply. Both of us were quite academic when we were in school and university but that's not an indication of how our children will turn out and we are not looking to push them in any one direction. Thanks for the resources you have provided.

Definitely agree with you, let them try everything and they will soon find that they enioy but don't abandon chill/family time for the sake of cramming in yet another activity.
The biggest driver will be you as parents, you come over as highly engaged so I'm sure a lot of what's on my list you will do naturally anyway.
I really like what @JustanothermagicMonday1 said about keeping up their fluency in your native language too.

I tend to agree with you. We are in Sevenoaks. All 3 state schools we visited offered a ton of activities and sports. We might even be spoilt for choice. A school mentioned possibility of cross registering with other schools for specific activities - not sure how practical that is but good to know that can be an option as well.

You are right in that it's too early to start planning for these things before knowing how your child adopts to the school and whether they will need specific additional support. I guess the wife is feeling a tad guilty about sending the kids to state school. Husband concurs with you.

Something I suspect would be useful but hoping private school parents can confirm, is getting them used to speaking to a group? I understand this is really common in private school and I don't think there is the same focus in state. I hear a lot about an instilled confidence in private school, to expect to be heard and have your perspective listened to. In the world of work I notice these traits in successful people. I wonder how this can be done if DC don't like drama etc?

Yep very common that's why I included public speaking/debating on my list. DD has lessons in this and they all take part in regular whole school debates from Yr 7 and there is then the Debating Society as an additional club they can join if they show a flare for it.

Thanks @twistyizzy I missed that. I wonder how to access similar if not in private

@Persiana I'm honestly not sure but our local theatre runs school holiday workshops so that could be 1 way although if your child isn't in to drama it could be a barrier obviously.

It's funny you say that. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, both of us were privately educated in India - good private schools. Husband has no stage fear and presents in international conferences all over the world. Wife is smarter and more articulate in smaller groups but is afraid of public speaking. So I think it's a combination of learned behavior and innate aptitude. But a very good point to keep in mind. Thank you for your response.

The thing about confidence/public speaking is so true.
get your kids used to speaking to people from a range of backgrounds and a range of ages, help them build problem solving skills, independence and confidence.
Drama can help with this, and I agree with music lessons and languages.

Stagecoach for drama in the holidays.

Our kids did plenty of assemblies in state primary standing in front of an audience and read in church regularly. No issues with public speaking. They also did Lamda lessons in state primary for a while.

The thing about private school is they get exposure to a little bit of a lot of things as part of their school day. Most parents then still do out of school activities with them for the things that are their main passions. Most state schools don't have the finances to provide the same broad array of experiences though will usually do a good job at a couple of co-curricular offerings.

The main things are:

1. language tuition
2. lots of sports and physical activity (3-4 times a week including swimming)
3. art and design & technology
4. music
5. drama
6. coding
7. morning and afternoon clubs including martial arts, science club, maths club, dance etc
8. specialist teachers

If you are both professionals with full-time careers, it can be difficult to fit in all of the extracurricular activities you'd have to do to imitate a private school offering. Especially if you are dependent on the wrap-around care - by the time you pick them up after work, in the younger years they are often too tired for any further activities. Many people around here have nannies as that's the only way to enable their child to access the best enrichment activities when they're working. And of course many private schools embed such activities during the school day, before school and during lunchtimes, so the children aren't faced with extra long days of multiple after-school activities. Having a tutor and doing more academic work for 11+ after a normal school day, on top of usual homework, is going to be more tiring than doing 11+ prep during the school day.

My two went exclusively to state schools (and we couldn't have afforded private even if we had wanted to) and honestly, there's so much you can do as parents. We started them off on museums/culture/nature very very young so that it was just a given. They still love going to nature reserves, museums and stately homes and they're young adults now. We followed their interests, which was ancient history and culture with the eldest, marine bio and conservation with the youngest. We talked to them about news and current affairs at home. We listened to music together and talked about it. They both took up archery because we did it. I read to them every night until eldest was 13 (and we had run out of Terry Pratchett). So much of it is about what you do as a family and you sound perfectly equipped to do that enrichment without spending a ton of money.

My DS went to a prep school and I teach in a state primary so I can comment on the things he did at his school that he wouldn't have done at mine.

1: Started learning to play the school's choice of sports properly from Y2, weekly matches for ALL from Y3 (rugby, hockey and cricket). My school teaches themes like 'invasion games' but does not work towards everyone (or in fact anyone) being able to play a match.

2: Swimming lessons every week all year form YR-Y8. My school do one block in Y4.

3: Put on plays on a proper stage twice a year, over time everyone has speaking parts. My school does a Y2 play and a Y6 play, not everyone will have a speaking part.

4: Science taught in a fully equipped science lab from Y3 (by subject specialist science teachers). My DS developed a love of chemistry- he wouldn't have been able to do all the experiments needing bunsen burners, fume cupboards etc at my school.

5: Latin & Class Civ taught by a Latin teacher from Y5 (you may or may not value this). My school does have a subject specialist MFL teacher.

6: DT taught in a workshop. He's used electric drills and saws, a kiln and 3-D printers which my school don't have.

7: Orchestras and ensemble groups that perform regularly. My DS isn't involved in these through choice, but he wouldn't have had the choice at my school as we don't have an orchestra or any instrumental groups. We do have a choir.

8: Opportunity to board occasionally. My DS likes to do this sometimes- they put on special nights with themes or particular activities.

You could re-create most of this. However, it is useful for a lot of it to be covered in school time, especially the things they are not sufficiently into to warrant an after school club. For example, my DS wouldn't choose to do drama out of school but I'm really pleased lots of it has been included in school time as it's been really good for him.

To complement rather than add to formal education, I send my kids to Beavers/Cubs/Scouts. It teaches them team work, independence and lots of opportunities for fun!

Honestly, at primary I don't think it matters that much. A few clubs in whatever your children find fun and interesting will be plenty and you will probably find that the schools offer quite a lot of clubs and activities, usually after school.

DD went to state primary and is now at a good private secondary in her GCSE year and at primary in different years she did choir, musical ensembles (she had recorder, ukulele and guitar in different years as part of the curriculum and did violin and piano in school time as part of the county music services), yoga, sewing, musical theatre, tap dancing, French, ballroom dancing, maths (fun logic puzzles rather than curriculum), extra ukulele, athletics (as part of county schools competition) and probably more things that I have forgotten! There were a ton of others - gymnastics, ballet, football, police cadets, coding, animation, art, chess, I can't even remember them all! I don't think her school was unusual. It was a very ordinary primary and although it was in a nice part of London it had a very mixed catchment.

Most of the clubs she did at school were either free or very low cost.

Out of school, the only things she really did were ballet and drama and she has continued with the drama club but only did ballet when she was quite small.

One thing I would suggest is swimming. They did not get a lot of this at state schools and it's an important skill. DD didn't do much (I think one six week summer holiday course) because she really hated it but I think if I did it all again I'd make more of an effort to keep her going longer.

I don't think you need extra maths or English tuition unless you feel your children aren't keeping up or need extra help or maybe some to help with 11+ prep later on.

If you decide later on that a private secondary would suit your children better, it is absolutely possible to get in from a state primary. The thing that helped us most here was some exam technique preparation which you can get from a tutor or do yourself. Some people also tutor at this point to teach extra content which may also be helpful.

I think what you lose at state primary is having to try a lot of different extra-curricular things. What you gain is a lot of time (shorter days, very little homework) to spend on things your child loves.

It worked for us (state primary, private secondary) as I worked p-t and had flexible childcare and could organise and get them to ballet / tennis / drama / recorder lessons after school and at the weekends. If we had relied on After School Club, they would have been able to do none of these things.

Agree with @twistyizzy

I think private schools offer a good all-round cultural capital & it isn't just about extra academic lessons.

I teach in a very diverse state school and we have students who want to do medicine with no extra curricular & all they have done is study. So not much for their application.

Besides things like drama give confidence for later life in speaking to people. So would for example be footie for someone wanting to do law or business. Sport teaches how to work as a team. Lots of social contacts made through sport.

Lots of things can be cheap like museums, galleries, National Trust.

Thank you all very much for your replies. We don't have time to reply to each one but we appreciate all the input. We tend to agree with most of what is being said here. Private schools have their place and can definitely provide a more structured approach to extracurricular activities.

We can categorize your responses in five broad categories.

1. Academics
2. Physical Education & Sports
3. Music
4. Arts & Culture
5. Confidence building
6. Career guidance / role models etc. This is less relevant in primary but will start to become more important as kids move to secondary and start forming their views on what they want to become.

We just did a quick scan of what our local state schools offer and while they don't offer everything I think they tend to cover a number of activities. We think we can work around what our state schools have to offer and bridge any gaps. Things like swimming are part of our weekend activities anyway.

As far as academics are concerned, we are less worried as both of us are fairly academic. One of us used to tutor kids for competitive exams and we are more than capable of covering that aspect (Engineer & Economist) or get specialists tutors if situation demands (i.e. English)

Based on your responses we feel quite validated in deciding to send our daughter to state schools for primary.

Great thread. DH & I try similar with ours. There is absolutely a gap between private & state.

Try & do plenty of foreign travel with your dc.. Our local prep do annual ski trip from year 4 & apparently most are already very competent skiers as they've been going since very young with parents.

Learn an instrument privately, extremely costly but again music is very well taught in private schools

Languages, are they bilingual already?

My son is an air cadet. I didn’t know much about it but it’s been marvellous for his confidence, maturity and leadership skills. Through cadets he will have the opportunity to learn to fly, and regularly gets opportunities to take part in STEM activities. He’s at camp next week and and has a huge variety of things to do.