Useless poll- How many of you state secondary teachers send their children to independent senior school?

[duchesse]

Alternatively did you switch to independent school teaching when your own children made the switch?

Please name change if you want to!

I have a pet theory that discipline in many state secondaries is so poor that many teachers prefer to send their own children into independent schools at secondary level. I have personally only taught in one state secondary of around 12 I've been into and had experience of where I would have been happy to send my own children. I am not talking about exam results, but about ethos and how discipline is tackled. If we still lived in that town, I would not be paying a large amount of disposable cash every year to send them to independent school.

I teach in the independent sector now, but even when I was teaching in maintained schools, my children were in independent schools.

My experience in the state sector definitely validates our choice to go private.

With 5 children, it's not an easy decision, but definitely worth the sacrifices.

mine are not secondary age yet but will go to state school when they are

DS is at a selective secondary. At the state where I teach, outer London, most teachers use state for primary then go to one of the local grammars or pay for private (just so long as it is not a two-teacher family). We do not live in a 'grammar' area.

"just so long as it is not a two-teacher family" You mean because of the salary?

Ironic, really - teaching's one of the jobs where school fees would make a huge dent in the finances. One would almost sense it's deliberate...

School fees are do-able on two teacher salaries - particularly when you're management and experienced. I've known people do it. Hardly know anyone atm who chooses to, but then we're in an area with good state schools so really it's nuts to pay for education

DH and I teach both teach in state sector. Dcs go private. Not an easy decision but when it came down to it we put our dcs first. Local schools not up to much and we know this from experience not snobbery.

When the dcs are in secondary paying for both of them will take up most of my part-time salary but we value the dcs' education (or rather the whole school experience because our decision was not based on academic results alone). Also when I say the local schools are not up to much this is not a criticism of the teachers but rather an awareness of the sorts of problems (academic, social, behavioural, attitude etc) that so many of the students bring with them.

They're certainly not do-able on the salary of a teacher and the freelance income of a part-time writer and part-time freelance tutor/educator... I wonder how so many writers manage to a) live in London and b) send children private?

UnquietDad..you'd be amazed at what goes on though. In many cases, grandparents contribute to school fees. There are also various weird funds that parents can tap into (some parents I'm convinced make fee-seeking into a full time job) eg I even know of a kid who is funded through the freemasons - they pay the entire fees!!
Also - and this is the really worrying thing - some parents are borrowing up to the hilt - I've known parents take out huge loans which is madness because the bank could pull the plug anytime, and I also imagine these parents will have a lifetime of poverty trying to pay it back. So it's not all as it seems on the surface.

We have some grandparental assistance... The rest is my entire income. We couldn't afford to do it in the South East on two public sector wages even with the grandparental help, as my teacher's/translation income wouldn't pay the difference. It's going to be tight enough next year with 3 x £9000, as it is. The following year our oldest will be going to the sixth form college.

There's huge variety in fees. Don't think we could afford it in south. Our morgage is relatively small cos we moved up north from London. And we had saved before children. Then we were used to paying nursery fees and actually private school fees are quite a lot less. It's not that we pinch pennies exactly just that since having the dcs we've stopped saving and having expensive holidays (which we wouldn't have been doing anyway while the dcs were small). Don't know what we would be doing if the dcs were in state school now. Probably a lot more saving. Perhaps paid off more of our mortage...

And compared to some parents at our dcs' school we're better off. There are single parents, parents who work 2 jobs etc.

It's incredible what you find other people spend when they can (i.e. when they don't have to worry about school fees) and have very little to show for it though. E.g. I know people who spend £150 on make-up in one go or £200 on a pair of shoes etc. This just would not happen in my family.