Private school education - Is it really worth it?

[Mememe1234]

My husband and I earn a good living which is well above the average however we both come from humble beginnings. I was raised by a single mum so money was always tight and my husband was raised by mum and dad who worked in admin and as a tradesman. This means that we have always had limited financial means.

However now as adults we have worked incredibly hard to improve our financial situation and both degree, master degree education, living in an expensive part of the UK etc... Some of our neighbors come from vastly different backgrounds to us, private school educated, parents with high profile jobs etc...

Now my neighbor and i have this on-going conversation about private school. She has no doubt that her only son will go to private school whilst my eldest son is currently in state school. I'm pro state school however i have looked into private. We could afford it but it would mean using a huge proportion of our income etc... We also have two kids so having 1 would be a lot more affordable.

For anyone who has kids in private school, what is the reason you chose it? I know its got smaller classes etc but i could hire a private tutor instead which would be even more focused. I personally benefitted more from private tutoring when a kid as large group setting was challenging when i wanted to ask a specific question and be heard as I've always been more introverted.

The cost of private school is £24k a year. With two kids its £50k including lunch and doesn't even include summer holidays, inset days, half terms etc... The thought of spending that much money makes me feel a bit sick.

Now tell me is it worth it?

Came across an article the other day:

in Edinburgh, one in four pupils are educated at independent schools.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23709036.private-schools-one-four-edinburgh-students-attend/

I would say it depends on your circumstances entirely. The state schools/versus private schools you would be deciding from and how much money you would have left over. In our case, we have an excellent state school primary and decided to save private for secondary if the dc want to. When I say want to, they need to have the motivation to actually get in, as the schools around us are highly competitive to get into. My first one got in to her first choice and now my ds is motivated and wants to try for it. My third is too young, but I assume she will also want to try for it.

I went to an independent school age 2-18 and loved it. It gave me so much more than good exam results. The extra curricular activities were endless.

I’m very grateful to my parents for the opportunities that school afforded me - and now in my 30s a bit regretful of my current career and financial situation.

I’m not now in a position to send my children to independent school and that does disappoint me at a very minor level. Our local independent school is not all that academically and so I don’t feel that my children will unduly miss out.

If we had more disposable income and also better access to a quality independent school then I would send my children there in the hope they had the same opportunities and experiences I did.

@Mememe1234 we just want to give ours the best education possible and we can afford it. We just thought what better could you spend that money on than there education? Teachers are much better paid and seem to genuinely be passionate about the children , much smaller class sizes, it feels as though the teachers genuinely get to know each child and their personalities. They learn how to hold conversations with adults from a young age, have respect for their peers and other adults. I think ours is quite strict but I have no regrets although I appreciate it wouldn't be for everyone

Purely depends where you are. Strategise to either spend the money moving to an amazing catchment/grammar area and get tutors, or on private.

A good education is worth it-wherever it's from. In my experience, private education provides a lot of stuff at school included in the fees that you only get at after school clubs at a state school.

Honestly OP - it's a how long is a piece of string question. Some private schools are dire and I wouldn't drive past any local state primary to use them. Others are absolutely excellent and I'd portably pay them anything I had! Some are perfect for some children and not for others. Mine are at an absolutely perfect prep school for them and for us and it suits our family in every way. It's very expensive but worth every penny in our view. I live in fear of anything changing at it!
Rather than driving yourself mad with an abstract question, I would advise you to identify the private school options you have available to you and go and see them, making sure you ask any and all questions you have whilst you are there. Then go a second time. Then see if you think those schools are worth it for your family.

Surely it depends on the quality of your local schools and also the temperaments of your children. Our catchment secondary isn't great and one of my children is bright but has asd and I thought he would struggle socially in a large comprehensive. We obviously have a higher than average household income but not wildly. We make a lot of sacrifices to be able to afford it and for us it is worth it.

Honestly OP - it's a how long is a piece of string question. Some private schools are dire and I wouldn't drive past any local state primary to use them. Others are absolutely excellent and I'd portably pay them anything I had!

This. I worked at a (pretty well-known, extremely long-established) private school to which I wouldn't have sent my own dc for free.

Thanks. Yes this makes sense. My son is in a state school where he has absolutely thrived. He's 5 and can read and write and has been told he's above average in Maths. I can't complain about the school at all so i find it hard to justfy why a fee paying school would be better when he's so happy where he is. He thrives in big groups and is very sociable. Having less kids in the class sounds great but i don't think he needs it as he's very vocal and if anything he's one of those kids that wants to answer the question first and lead the group.
Like you said i should prob see the secondary schools and see if its really worth it. I think it'll depend on what state secondary he gets but we are actively looking at houses close to good state schools as i'd like to have the option to be close to a top state school.

I'd be more than happy to pay for after school clubs as my son already does football, gymnastics, tennis and dance after school and swimming at the weekend.

Honestly OP - it's a how long is a piece of string question. Some private schools are dire and I wouldn't drive past any local state primary to use them. Others are absolutely excellent and I'd portably pay them anything I had!
This.
I'd say similar for state. There are some schools with a 'good' rating that I'd be willing to send my children to, and others with good/outstanding ratings that I'd rather home educate than send them to.

You've got to make the right choice for your child/ family based on the options available and what you feel makes a good education.

3 different families could look at the same school and come to different conclusions, not because the school is objectively better or worse, but because their family views on what a good education looks like differ.

Depends on the quality of your local state schools.

My DC were at a school where the teachers couldn’t spell or add up (they even marked correct homework as wrong because the teacher had got the answer wrong!) Worse than that, bullying was rife and the teachers just shrugged and said it was law of the jungle.

So we moved to private, which has been epic. Luck to be able to afford it but would be luckier still to have a great state school nearby.

In the prep school I can see how confident and happy the kids are who have been there from day one and I do massively regret not sending the DC there from the beginning.

But hopefully none of thet applies to you and you have better state schools near you than I do.

Also, I’m sure there are some terrible private schools too.

We chose Private for Secondary for the following reasons
Small classes
Classes grouped by ability
No overt drug problems (I’m not daft enough to think it’s a completely drug free school)
No regular Police Presence
No weekly TikTok’s of fights being circulated
Aspiration beyond getting a 6 at GCSE
Proximity
Facilities
High discipline standards and expectations of behaviour
Teachers who worked at The Comp warned me not to send DD there

This was based purely on the 2 schools we had available that were Private and State, not Private vs State in general
And yes, very much worth it in our case whatever exam results/jobs my DC get. That’s not what it’s all about for us

Independent is better not because of doing maths and english though. It's the sports facilities, foreign languages available, extra curricular on site, music tuition. Things that state schools do not do.

For example, the independent primary here does French and Spanish. It has swimming pool and regularly weekly lessons. It also does junior duke of edinburgh.

Mine are at state and they have irregular barely-teach-anything Spanish. We have 20 min instrutment lessons with up to 4 kids with the county music service (I hear that's very rare to even have county music service). You are not garantee to be able to join after school sports. It really cannot compare when you talk about the extras.

What you would be buying is a.connections, to give your DC jobs etc later on, and b.avoiding the hoipolloi, like me. Some private schools will inflate grades too if that's your cup of tea. There's no evidence than any system provides a "better education" because it's a meaningless term.

A well rounded upbringing is a different thing altogether and may not need involve school fees.

@Mememe1234 "I'd be more than happy to pay for after school clubs as my son already does football, gymnastics, tennis and dance after school and swimming at the weekend."

I have to say it was the one thing I was jealous of my private school parent friends. School finished later-but the school day was over- no dashing to drama or cricket!

Where humans go there will always be corruption and abuse. Private schools are not havens. My first issue with private schools is that the children (if they are boarding) are living with strange adults. My dad went to private boarding school. He said that it was full of sexual abuse by the teachers and by the older male students. He said the older male students would pick a young good looking first year student and abuse him. And this was somewhere that my grandparents sent him to get a good education. They basically sent him to be abused.

My second issue with private schools is the elitism and snobbery. And the issue of "shouldn't equal education be available to everyone"?.

Why should rich people be able to afford better education for their children. Education is the one thing that should be standard and universal for all children

You do realise that the private (independent) school has more classes and more facilities, because students pay to go there. The money improves the facilities.

State schools do not get the same amount of money flowing into them.

@Mooshamoo of course I realise this. My children's state primary is in a funding crisis. Even simple things like playground equipment has to be fund raised.

The OP is simply asking whether private is better. I'm saying it is because of the better investment to a wider curriculum. It's not just english and maths.

I live in an area where lots of my neighbours were privately educated. For some they just can't imagine anything different because that's their experience. Whereas I'm a bit that money could be spent on X & Y.

Not every private school is great so it depends on the options in your area. It also depends on your dc.

sports & music are often better in private but you can do these yourself.

An impossible question. And I say that as someone who chose independent all the way through for both kids.

If I were doing it all again, I would probably start off at a local primary. But I think on balance I would still chose independent at secondary as the nearby comprehensive is just enormous and gets very mixed results. But that's my own bias - I've never actually looked round the place.

The only way you can decide is to go and look at the different options and do the maths. If it seems a scary commitment then it's probably not the right decision?

There's no evidence than any system provides a "better education" because it's a meaningless term.
It's not meaningless, it's just different to each family.

If the system was ideal and/or money no object I'm sure my idea of a better education would be very different to some other mumsnetters. None of us would necessarily be wrong. We just have different priorities and different beliefs about what a good education is.

I think in general more money will yield better education. Otherwise why people asking for more funding for schools.