Would most people choose private education if they could afford it

[mids2019]

My children go to reasonable state schools but especially from my older daughter I keep hearing about a succession of cover teachers and general malaise in the school system (governments fault not the schools)

That for me asking the question would most people choose private education if affordable in their heart of hearts or are there egalitarian parents who would still choose state on ideological grounds?

I am in two minds about this but certainly the private sector locally is attracting quite a few.

Every single Prime minister from the 1970s and 1980s was educated by the state
Edward Heath :Chatham Grammer
Harold Wilson:Wirrall Grammar
Jim Callaghan : Portsmouth northern Secondary
Margaret Thatcher: Grantham and Kesteven Girls Grammar
John Major :Rutlish Grammar

in the 1960s and 1970s Oxford and Cambridge had the lowest proportion of privately educated students in history , same at Durham and UCL . There’s a lot wrong with the Grammar system but since its widespread abolition almost all prime ministers and people in power have come from the elite public schools .

All of which can be said for many (not all) private schools. DDs school has many kids there on bursaries and scholarships.

SallyWD
I think with money people would probably try to make the best decision for their children, which may be state but may not be, or it may be home education. It depends what sort of education the parents want.

If money were no object and such a school existed near me, I'd have chosen a Montessori infant school or independent Nordic model school for my children over a typical state school with the government-driven curriculum. I'm in favour of starting formal education later, but also appreciate why as a country we've chosen the route we have.

Some Mumsnetters would hear "private education" and, because of their own assumptions and biases, assume my children were insulated from the real world, never met normal people, and would grow up to "other" people who are different to them.

In reality they'd have a few more years of play-based learning, they would still live in our area, still play with children in the street, still attend their local clubs, still go to forest school in the holidays, still mix with a range of children, and progress to a state school at a later point.

There are 166 universities in the UK. In the list of numbers of privately educated students, Oxford is 6th and Cambridge is 10th. The first five places are taken up by stereotypical posh universities (except perhaps for Imperial). UCL is at 8. Number 1 is the Royal Agricultural University…

By place 20 (Leeds) the percentages have dropped from Oxford’s 31.4% and Cambridge’s 28.2% to 17.4%.

I really don’t think it’s true that Oxbridge has the same demographics as “many other UK universities”.

Incidentally, does anyone know the selective state figure for Oxbridge students?

@twistyizzy I don't disagree and neither am I anti private schools. Equally, there are many excellent and mixed state schools. I chose not to send ds to a private school simply because I thought that the state option was a better 'fit' for him. I just think it's a shame that these threads degenerate into polarised and entrenched views ('state schools all have huge problems with disruption' -some do some don't - equally nasty is the 'all private schools are elitist' arguments -some are, some aren't). But it's ridiculous some of the sweeping statements (e.g if you can afford to send your dc to private school but send them to state you are 'selfish')

I might be missing something here … but if 7% of the population are privately educated, and 32% of the students at Oxford are privately educated … surely that means there are more than 4 times more privately educated students at Oxford than one might expect?

But it's ridiculous some of the sweeping statements (e.g if you can afford to send your dc to private school but send them to state you are 'selfish')

Whatever I think about the arguments, I don’t agree with that, i.e. what’s in the brackets.

I think it depends on circumstances and dc interests. We decided to do state for primary and private for secondary. We could afford it for primary, but we have a good state close by. I did not think it made sense to pay for it during primary. The main benefit to me is sports when they are a little older. My dc are very sporty and thrive on doing sports. DD is now at private secondary and absolutely loves doing the sports and fixtures in school with her friends. She also continues to do her sport out of school too. DS is still in state and does his sport out of school, but the little sport they do in his primary he enjoys.

Yes, that's true, there is a higher proportion of privately educated dc than you might expect. The flip side of this thread are the threads which discuss how private school children and now being 'discriminated against' somehow because more state school dc are being admitted. State school oxbridge bias | Mumsnet. Proportions are increasing, partly because of outreach work by the universities but I would hole also that state schools are encouraging more applications rather than the narrow 'not for the likes of us'

Proportions are increasing, partly because of outreach work by the universities but I would hole also that state schools are encouraging more applications rather than the narrow 'not for the likes of us'
I'm glad they are because I had an awful experience visiting one university for a taster event.

I've no doubt students in the room were a mix of private and state educated. Most were friendly to talk to and you couldn't tell. There were a couple of Hooray Henry types that were awful though. The way they tried to talk to the academics was smarmy and entitled and they insisted on dropping their school name into irrelevant conversations. By 17/18 they had already internalised the idea that they're going to be the big important people running the country one day.
The academic dealt with it brilliantly and it gave me the signs that within classes that type of Bullingdon Club style attitude wouldn't be tolerated but it put me off applying to the university overall because I felt like I'd spend 3 years never quite fitting in.

No! It's just the same.

I'd choose a Steiner school

@LolaSmiles a slight derail, but this might make you smile. A friends dc was being interviewed at Oxford for PPE (pre 2020 when they still did 3 day interviews) and there was indeed a very confident public school educated candidate who came out of his interview saying he had 'smashed it'. To then turn quite pale that one of the other candidates was....Malala....

Would you send your kids to a failing state school?
Would you be worried if your kids said that no teaching was taking place because there were a couple of disruptive kids in the class who took all the teacher's time?

Part of the issue is that a lot of people hear “Private school” and instantly think of the likes of Eton. The fact is the elite private schools are the exception rather than the rule. Yes those schools are the preserve of the very wealthy and the elites, but your “average” private school is much more diverse.

The private school closest to us, which we are considering as a secondary option, is a rural cathedral school and historically educated the choristers and local farmers children. Now it attracts the children of academics, scientists, etc from the nearby city as well as oversees boarders.

We know 5 families with children at the school. Two of the families are European immigrants, in one the mother and father are a teacher (state school maths) and a scientist; the other family I don’t know what the parents do for a living; the third family the father is an arable farmer and the mother a SAHM (they have help from grandparents to pay fees) the fourth family the mum is a TA at the local primary, but I don’t know what the father does; and the fifth family one of the parents is a teacher at the school itself so the children get discounted fees.

There are a higher than average number of children from Asian families, but that is repeated across other private schools in the area and having attended a few open days I would say the school is much more ethnically diverse than state schools in the local area - eg there are only 6 non-white pupils in DD’s year at state primary (60 pupils).

Oxford is also just a university.

Funny how denial of privilege and luck works. We are often blind to our own, but quick to judge when it happens in others.

I love this talk. Reminds us of how much of life is about luck, which should help us stay humble as well as realistic. Plus, it's funny.
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My point was more that the figures support the argument about hypocrisy - of people who will only send their kids to state out of principle “because they should mix with all types of people”, but then are very keen for them to go to Oxford or Cambridge, where the demographic is still skewed.

In cases of such strong belief, surely there should be a strong desire for the kids to go to the local ex-poly where the demographic mix is potentially more suitable to the parents beliefs.

I am beyond happy with my children’s state schools, they are on course to achieve excellent exam results and plan to go to elite universities. I live in a deprived area and my children have friends from a diverse range of socioeconomic, ethnic and religious backgrounds. I wouldn’t change any of that for the world.

The conclusion I've come to, having looked into it a little bit, is:

If my child is doing well enough in state school that they might pass the entrance exam for a private school, then I have no argument with the education they're getting and no reason to move them..

If my child is being failed by the state sector so badly I'd want to move them, then they won't pass the entrance exam for a private school.

I have one child in each category.

I just think it's a shame that these threads degenerate into polarised and entrenched views

I actually feel this thread has been quite nuanced. People sound pragmatic.

@zigzag716746zigzag
Not 4 x as c.17% of sixth formers are privately educated.

More or those 17% are likely to meet the basic prerequisites for Oxbridge courses in that most privately educated sixth formers will be doing at least 3 academic A levels and there are some courses taught at Oxbridge which state schools can’t really prepare you for, such as classics.

If you also adjusted for A level results I doubt there would be a private school bias, except in that private school students are likely to get better results, not just due to going to private school but also socioeconomic background.

@LolaSmiles
Not to discount your experience but to give a different viewpoint, in my time at Cambridge I never once heard anyone talk about going to private school. That was in around 2007. The only time I ever heard anyone mention their school was when they talked about coming from a state school in the context of admissions. It was not fashionable to have gone to private school even then.

Maybe that was down to the college I went to or my social group but I never like people to get the impression that they won’t fit in at Oxbridge if they didn’t go to private school.

Circe7
I've got friends who had similar experiences to yours as well. My own university experience was like yours that most people didn't talk about it unless it was relevant to the conversation, and even as an adult most people don't talk about how they were educated as children doesn't come up.

I found the Hooray Henry types tended to keep themselves to themselves, usually in political and debating societies, and even other privately educated students tended to think they're arseholes! In hindsight I shouldn't have let them put me off, but as a teen from a working class home it did. If more had been available on widening participation I think I might have had the confidence to not be put off by them.

@zigzag716746zigzag
In cases of such strong belief, surely there should be a strong desire for the kids to go to the local ex-poly where the demographic mix is potentially more suitable to the parents beliefs.

In reality most 17 years olds will make their own decisions (or at least mine did) about where they want to study. The school encouraged and supported. And they have met a wonderfully diverse range of other students from a huge range of backgrounds and nationalities. And surely that's a good thing - to be able to mix comfortably with people regardless of their backgrounds

If you read my post, you will see I was a WC applicant from a poor school where virtually no one went to any kind of university, the child of a cleaner and a binman, and thus hardly ‘privileged’. In fact, I had a fairly deprived and dysfunctional childhood. My parents, neither of whom was fluently literate, tried to dissuade me from going to university as it was ‘only for rich people’.

Or does having gone to a particular university, which is, yes, just a university, somehow negate the poverty of my upbringing? I met a lot of privileged people there, sure, but at that point in my life, meeting people who grew up in a 4-bed semi with parents in white-collar jobs was pretty much as exotic as minor aristocrat Old Etonians. I just liked being somewhere where it was a good thing to be clever.

The amount of hysterical projection on this thread is crazy.

I did read your comment, and if you listen to Tim you'll see the point he is making is we all benefit from luck and privilege at various times in our lives. Your WC background does not negate the privilege that a degree from Oxbridge confers.