Private Vs State school

[Ilikepinacoladass]

I know this is a controversial subject. But genuinely trying to decide if private is worth it.

I see loads of comments saying things like I didn't send mine to private because I went to a comp and was at the same uni as loads of privately educated people and got same results etc.

But surely the GCSE / A-level results speak for themselves? Lots from the comps won't have even made it to uni whereas maybe they would have if they'd gone to a private school?

A-level results from 2023
56.5% got A/A* - local private school
39% got A/A* - local grammar school
20% got A/A* - local state school

I don't want to waste money, but I do want the best for my child (as we all do!) and trying to decide if having more local friends / a free education / short walk to school etc (state school) would be worth the potential loss in opportunities a private school would offer.

For us private school was about:

Opportunities - rich and quality options for development in sport and other extra circular programmes.

Academic support - not an A level machine but robust opportunities for success are in place. We never needed a tutor outside of school as school provides the extra time if needed, and if the pupils wanted it.

Relaxed atmosphere - this is very important to us. The local comps at c.1500 pupils looked scary. Our school surroundings are beautiful, calm and uplifting. Kids have a lot of space and state of the art facilities. (What's not to like?)

Food - they do a good job at feeding the kids! At least in our case, they eat so well and have great choices for alternatives.

Cohort - one can never guarantee the quality of the group you'll end up with, but when looking around, we felt the PS option we considered had a much higher chance of getting this right. Our experience so far is positive and DD does have a great group of friends and is very happy.

Confidence - for those who don't have much confidence in my experience PS can help with that. Our DD grew up to feel quit able and empowered to have a go at anything thrown her way.

Schools are so much more than A-Levels-results generators. The learning and developed experience should be seen as a much wider set of objectives and in the context of your child's personality and your family circumstances. In our case our choice was to pay for what works best for us and thankfully we can (just about) afford it.

Just to be clear, you can definitely find the same qualities in state schools but you will need to look hard and way beyond your immediate geography sometimes, and then move right next door to the school to guarantee a place. This wasn't a realistic option for us.

unis contextual policies vary hugely

some you can tell easily online what the offer will be and how it is calculated

others are very opaque

Some have a calculator where you can input your postcode and or your school and one has a tick box if you’ve ever been privately educated

But the whole point of contextual offers is to “level the playing field” so the child from the less good school who gets a “B” is arguably as clever as the child from a private school who gets an “A” because they’ve done it with their hands tied behind their back. Actively disadvantaging your child to get a benefit meant for a disadvantaged child seems immoral and frankly mad to me.

In our small city only the one most challenged school in the most deprived area gets contextual offers anyway. None of the other state schools do. Cannot see a parent who has paid for education actively choosing that school. Plus what about the child’s happiness going from private to the most challenged comp?!

“In our small city only the one most challenged school in the most deprived area gets contextual offers anyway. None of the other state schools do.”

which uni? They all vary. Not all use POLAR quintiles etc

Contextual offers for unis are a bit like public benefit for private schools with charitable status. Most Russell Group unis are too elite so they are discharging their basic duties offering some contextualising. Of course it is easier for them to take middle class kids from educated households whatever their schooling background. So if anyone is accusing them off playing off one group of kids against another from the same educational and wealth bracket that is relevant if the figures actually back it up. Type of school is just one small facet of “educational” background. I am pretty sure my DC would be educationally advantaged no matter which school they would have attended.

If you look at the most recent data, it is working class boys with FSM from around the country, particularly North and North East that are the least advantaged group with the least participation in higher education. If you contrast them with children in London on FSM from different ethnicities the contrast is really stark. The government and unis absolutely have to do something about this group.
I read somewhere that Eton College is partnering or opening some sixth forms in the North. I hope they aim to take FSM boys and not just middle class parents gaming the system.
A disenfranchised group of white working class males is a problem for the whole of society. It needs addressing in education across the board from infancy to higher education. There are probably lots of cultural expectation issues as well.

Exactly! I think the whole 'don't forget about contextualised offers' when thinking whether to go state or private is a massive red herring. You'd have to be a bit bonkers to chose a low achieving school for your child in the hope it would mean they could get a contextualised offer. Not to mention quite cruel for the child.

Most seem quite transparent on their website about what quiteria you'd need to meet to get one too.

If they applied to all state schools there might be a point there, but seems to be mainly just the bottom of the state schools that are eligible

The higher grades achieved by going to grammar are mostly because the only take the brightest children to begin with, so that would be ridiculous if uni's were holding that against them.

Unis don't hold it against you if you are lucky enough to go to a high-performing school. They recognise your privilege though, and accept that clever DC from low-performing schools and areas of deprivation are less likely to go to university and have a tougher job to get outstanding grades. It's still easier to get to top universities if you go to a private school or grammar, so any attempt to iron out the unfair advantage that comes from your family's circumstances is a good thing I think.

Not seeing the school is a good thing I guess, I had no idea people were being discriminated against for jobs and uni's because of which school they went to.

Really? Did you think that all those (mostly) white, privately educated (mostly) men in positions of power are there simply on merit? Here you go:

www.suttontrust.com/our-research/elitist-britain-2019/

Most unis don't take school type into account for contextual offers. They are looking for known barriers to academic achievement and progression to HE, so nearly all use POLAR and ACORN data, which identify areas of socio-economic disadvantage and low progression to HE. They ask whether an applicant has been in care and whether the parents are university educated. They often look at % of FSM at the schools where you took GCSEs and A levels. Oxbridge will also look at your academic attainment in the context of your cohort at school. Then they take into account other mitigating circumstances, like bereavement or disability.

No university has the resources to look closely at the lives of individual applicants and make a judgement, so there will always be the odd one from a middle class family who gets a contextual offer because their nice big house is on the edge of a poor neighbourhood. But in general they are simply trying to identify and encourage those who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own. Universities can be a powerful force for social mobility, so it's really important to make admissions as fair as possible.

'Not seeing the school is a good thing I guess, I had no idea people were being discriminated against for jobs and uni's because of which school they went to.

Really? Did you think that all those (mostly) white, privately educated (mostly) men in positions of power are there simply on merit? Here you go:'

Umm meant the other way around, people with great grades being turned down because they came from a good state school, grammar or private school.

And those people you reference fair amount of them are in those positions because they've achieved well not because people are favouring the school they went to!

I was asked about my school in 2001 in a job interview for a professional City job 🙄. Was mortifying as I had been to a comp that despite living in the area the partner “had never heard of”. I got the job through.

Tables are massively turning now though there is a concerted effort to promote other groups so I wouldn’t necessarily factor future employability as a tick in the “reasons for going private box”.

Agree with your OP. We moved into a grammar area and DC went to a state Primary (really great village school). Pass rates for 11+ were ridiculously high, largely due to a majority of parents paying for 11+tuition, some from Y1! DC all passed 11+ without tutoring but did not want to go to the grammars. One had a class full of very rude girls who all thought they were the "best" and formed a clique of Queen Bee girls who went to tutoring with them, shunning anyone who didn't and outright telling them they wouldn't be friends because "you won't get into grammar". Obviously this meant my DC decided they'd rather not be in the same year. Second DC has dyslexia and one of the parents actually said in front of them at the park that it was not hugely likely they'd get in because although they were good at maths, grammar schools only take "children who can do both Maths and English", in a very smug way. This made both of us reconsider - DC because they became aware it might be something they'd be picked on for at a grammar and me because I wanted to discover more about their SEN...which was not very good at all.

DC are now thriving in a school that gets far higher results, has huge and varied extra curricular options that the grammar kids don't, lovely classmates who wouldn't dream of putting other people down because they weren't as "bright" or in the same school, smaller class sizes and more 1:1 for any kids struggling, kinder parents who aren't all about results but see kids as real people with interests and far less bullying and mental health issues than the kids who went to grammar. I personally really don't understand parents who chose bigger houses/better cars/flashy holidays over their kids' happiness. Grammar schools seem to be far worse for creating societal divides these days due to intensive tutoring and the attitude of the kids that comes along with it.

Umm meant the other way around, people with great grades being turned down because they came from a good state school, grammar or private school.

What's your evidence for this? (I mean that they're getting turned down because of their school rather than because someone else is a better prospect.) Bright privately educated DC are still more likely to get a place at Oxford for example, than bright state educated DC.

And those people you reference fair amount of them are in those positions because they've achieved well not because people are favouring the school they went to!

If you read the report you'll see how certain schools and universities are over-represented and that we do not live in a meritocracy. There are three times as many DC getting high grades from state schools as there are from private schools. Yet privately educated people are more likely to occupy positions of power in society.

We're kind of going off point here. My original post is about students achieving higher grades in private than grammars and state schools.

Then people mentioned the fact it might go against them having been to these schools when applying for uni and jobs.

And I said I was surprised this was happening.

'we do not live in a meritocracy. There are three times as many DC getting high grades from state schools as there are from private schools. Yet privately educated people are more likely to occupy positions of power in society.'

I never suggested we did live in a meritocracy.. and this supports my original point that going to private schools makes it more likely you'll get good grades and therefore into uni. Rightly or wrongly morally.

'There are three times as many DC getting high grades from state schools as there are from private schools' - but in what sense? If we are looking at pure figures - for example, the number of students getting 3x A* at A-level - then of course you would expect to see a higher number of state and grammar school pupils with that result, simply because such a very small percentage of students in the UK are privately educated (I think it's 6 percent of the entire school aged population).

However, if you were to consider how likely a student is to get 3 x A*s in a state school OR in a private school, I am pretty sure that the likelihood is far higher in private. I might be wrong, but my suspicion is that the above statement is a bit misleading.

Anecdotally it totally depends on the childs ability and personality though. Dd and a few of her friends who are academically bright and work hard have offers from strong universities and top academic grades though they are at state school.

Friends kids who are not as academic or hardworking but are at private schools have lower grades and are doing more practical courses or not going to university. Whether the school is state or private doesn’t change the situation it’s splitting hairs as long as the state school is decent. You realise this as they get older - you can’t force the child to be or do what you want. He may refuse to even apply to Oxford or Cambridge despite the school suggesting he does so (like mine did!)

Private school is a symptom of privilege not the cause.
In the past, if you had put Harrow on your CV with your grades some guy in asset management might have offered you an interview based on having been to Harrow himself and assuming that you knew the “old boy code” and are “one of us”. What we are moving towards is not that Harrow will work against you, but that it shouldn’t be an extra CV point via the back door for those in power able to offer the jobs in the first place to those like them (consciously or subconsciously). So it just becomes blind to school and name of uni too.

People will eventually just stop putting the name of their school down. Unless it was deprived, it shouldn’t matter where you went to school. There are some rumours that certain banks are not meant to hire Etonian’s but may just be rumours and may just be because in that particular bank there are too many Etonian’s in place hiring people and it would look bad from a governance point of view/corporate social responsibility. Really HR should just avoid anyone interviewing from the same type of background. They need to implement robust recruitment processes that are not discriminatory. It is the same with unis- they need to keep looking at their recruitment process and adapting it to the newest data. Any system can be gamed and won’t be perfect but it is still better than not having anything.

High grades at A level just don’t mean anything much anymore as there are so many top achievers. Maybe unis will eventually do a US type pre test too.

That's my original point though, there's lots of examples of people doing very well at state, but on the whole, looking at the figures, it seems you are just more likely to do better at a private school? Obviously not all kids will do well there, and not all kids at state won't do well. But on the whole, statistically speaking..

There doesn't seem to be a consensus on whether having a private school on your uni or job application gives you an advantage, goes against you, or will even be shown. So makes me think it's not worth taking that aspect into account.

What does always look good though is high grades. And for me it seems the best bet of achieving those (not a fail safe!) but most likely is from private, or grammar.

But those stats are meaningless because the private schools only take the self selecting small percentage of the population that can afford the fees - the state school has to to take everyone in the vicinity. So it’s like comparing apples and pears.

The danger of thinking grammar is like private is that as soon as you get into a grammar catchment, the state options go down. There may be 1 or two semi decent ones if you are lucky. Grammar schools, as you said in your OP don't get better grades than most private, which again I think goes on area. Our grammars score low compared to others in the SE yet so do the privates (although higher than the grammars). If you move to a better scoring grammar area and compare, the private school scores seem to go up as well. Adding grammars into the mix changes the landscape.

Nowadays it could be argued going to Uni doesn't mean you will be better paid. Blue collar workers out earn a fair amount of jobs that you'd expect a degree for. In our area bin men earn more than junior doctors, for example. The main thing, surely, is to give your kids a happy environment to learn what they want to to forge a happy life and not be bogged down in achieving everything all the time and becoming a sad adult with great grades/top uni results but no hobbies or friends.

Exactly IfI. Can’t comment on grammars as never lived in a grammar area so our comprehensives are pretty good (well full of lawyers and doctors kids and lots going to RG universities if that’s a definition of good).

I think if your children are tiny it’s easy to get quite literal about statistics and of course it’s important the school is decent and their peer group matches your values and most of all that they are happy and have nice friends. But as they get older it all broadens out and they make their own choices. Which is actually (usually) a brilliant thing, I love seeing all the different paths friends and neighbours kids choose to take.

I think there’s a slightly outdated belief among some parents and schools that the definition of “success” is achieving good A Levels and going on to Oxbridge or a Russell Group University. Those things alone are good, but not enough. The world of work is increasingly far more international. UK students are now competing much more globally than even a generation ago. Many of the decent private schools recognise this and prepare students for this. Great A Levels and a degree from a Russell Group university won’t make you stand out any more. Top employers want much more - sporting achievement to a high standard, international work experience, Masters/PHDs etc.

I haven’t chosen private school just so my children get good A Levels and a decent university on their CV. I got that myself from a comprehensive school. I’ve chosen private school for all the extras it offers.

Definitely not just about earnings. But about choices and fulfilling careers.

Junior doctors may earn less than bin collectors, but they definitely have more choices in terms of moving into other careers, and career progression potential etc.