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.

I sent one dc to private for part of their education and the other two to state. It was about the best education for each child at the stage they were at.

Interesting when people are opposed to private but would use grammar schools. It’s like vegetarians saying they eat fish!

We could have but chose not to as had confidence in our child but we could also tutor our own child, both worked in higher education. DH could tutor Maths to beyond A level and physics and I could cover humanities.

I have seen three children I personally know who were privately educated and seen them grow through the system from small children. One is now a teacher in a state secondary school, lovely woman, not outstanding academically. The other is just off to University, she is a very clever young woman, quite gifted. The other is a young man who is now in his mid twenties who is ND. He did well academically but dropped out of higher education and has achieved as far as I’m aware nothing unfortunately. Lives at home and rarely leaves the house. He has had help and his Mum is very supportive but he just cannot communicate with people. I do wonder if he would have been better off in a state school instead of the hothouse sporty environment of the very competitive private school he was sent to. He didn’t make a single friend.

The young man is ASD and not making a single friend has nothing to do with the school, it would've been the same in state. As a teacher surely you should understand this?

I know he could have remained friendless in the state sector but she thought it would be better, I didn’t know her when she made that decision as he was around 10 when we met. She sacrificed a lot to afford those fees.

I worked 26 years in state schools and a year in a private school. My DD got top grades and had a good school experience, then Oxbridge. I couldn’t have afforded private so never gave it a thought.

Autistic young people tend to make friends with other neurodivergent young people and there’s a bigger pool of ND students in state schools. Most autistic students I have known - which is a very large number of students - had friends at state schools.

Why would there be a larger pool of ND kids in state? I assume you mean by percentage, and not in total, as of course it’s the pool of kids in any given school that would be relevant, not the absolute number.

Anecdotal, but that’s not my experience at all. I know a lot of parents with ND kids who have significantly stretched themselves to afford better provisions in private where they felt state was failing their kids. Also (anecdotally) borne out on threads on here.

In the private school where I worked there were five autistic students (diagnosed) and in the previous state school there were 64 (diagnosed) but that’s just because the state school was much larger.

So you are saying that ASD who have general impairment in social/communication skills somehow (miraculously) don't have this impairment when communicating with ND?

My DC1 has ASD and went to state, sorry but what you're saying is a load of rubbish.

Some ASD do have friends, but it doesn't depend on whether the friends are ND or NT or whether the school is state or private. And those who have friends are able to go out, unlike the young man in the previous post.

I can't believe the ignorance of teachers' comments here.

I was privately educated, I was bullied throughout, and it has never opened any doors for me. I think my parents were scammed!

As a result, I would think very carefully before doing private.

ND students do tend to have ND friends because of shared interests, but of course they also have NT friends. I still have ND friends from when I was a child. My 25 years of experience as an autism specialist count for nothing. As you were.

Definitely 100% my fault.

Not yours, but the system's that produces specialists who don't know the very basic stuff about the wide diversity of the spectrum as opposed to "shared interests".

Sorry can't comment further. SEN was definitely a total failure at both state schools DC attended, what they did was absolutely shocking and really harmful. The grammar was excellent in all respects including SEN support, unlike the comps.

No. As far as I'm aware there are no private schools within 50 miles of me and I want my children to have friends who live nearby.

Obviously it would be a different answer if I was a millionaire and there were only two schools near me a good private one and a rubbish free one.

The answer to this question very much depends on where you live especially if you don't drive which I don't

You do realise that your experience of two children and two state schools doesn’t equate to 25 years of experience in different settings and different age ranges? I must have been into at least 80 state schools over the course of my career - of course provision varies widely. Private school provision is also varied. As for shared interests, it’s standard at an ADOS to ask parents if their DC have special interests and often these are shared with other autistic children of a similar age.

I have a PhD in neuropsychology so I'm commenting as a specialist, not as a parent.

I'm sorry you've been to 80 state schools, you must have affected so many lives.

Also, I was commenting a previous post that described a very specific case of a young man. I'm not really interested in discussions on SEN provision.

I’m happy to say I’ve affected so many lives for the better. People can have different views and that’s OK. I’m happy to agree to disagree.

I don't have particularly strong ideological views either way. For our children the costs of private schooling completely outweighed the benefits of it. Choice of subjects was pretty similar, musical provision was far better at their reasonably decent comprehensive, sport was (in some respects) better at private school, but what wasn't we covered outside school. We never paid for tutoring. One might have got a couple of grades better at private school, the other wouldn't have (i.e. got top grades). They became friends with children of doctors, lawyers, firefighters, lecturers, construction workers, politicians, cleaners and so on. We worked on making sure they were confident, articulate, well rounded and so on - and were making good progress. Both went to excellent universities and have benefited in other ways from the money we saved.

I can only speak about personal experience (and can't say whether this is general) but a surprising number of parents I know who sent their children to private school were either outsourcing parenting (mostly because they were time poor) or there was an element of social climbing.

My Dc have been to all sorts of schools and we tried to pick the best of our options, at the time, for the child in question. I don't approve of private education when there are inequalities to be plugged but for my own children I did the best I could.That didn't always mean private schools but we were in a position to make choices.

I think it very much depends on your state options. All the ideology in the world is likely to go out the window if the state option regularly has say drugs and violence issues and has a track record for teaching the wrong syllabus for at least one subject a year. Your kids get one chance and unfortunately the government can’t change the effects of underfunding overnight so, especially for children currently in senior school, parents who can may take the pragmatic option.

Its crap though. I was state educated and had a great education. The example above is my local state school. We spend every penny on an old grammar school style private as what I had doesn’t exist anymore. I just hope things are different when my children have children.

We were both state educated but due to our local secondary options our son sat and passed the entrance exam for a local private school as a back-up to us getting a state school we were happy with. It wasn't a route I was happy with ideologically, but my son's education would have trumped that if we really weren't happy with our allocated school. In the event we went state.
We could have afforded private at the time but 5 years later my DH left/was forced out of his job which would have made it unaffordable. Our son did incredibly well at his state school, went on to university and made some great longstanding friendships with a diverse group of lads where the private option would have been definitely white/upper middle class.
All in all, very happy with our choice. He couldn't have done any better academically, the money we've saved is now there for a house deposit, and he was more comfortable being with "people like him".
But it depends on your options and your financial situation - I wouldn't like to criticise any parent for their choices for their own children's education.

I absolutely and unreservedly would send my kids private if I could. We did, for two years, as a stop gap as a planned house move took ages to fall into place. We eventually moved back to state as continuing in private was getting too expensive. We were planning to go private again for 6th form but are now priced out thanks to VAT.

The difference between state and the (middling, non famous, average) private our children went to was immense. Private was just loads loads better. The teaching was more bespoke and engaging for the children. Our children thrived and loved going to school. The teachers were always accessible to us as parents for a chat about the children, and relationships between parent/child/teacher was so easy to develop. The parents were actually very very nice, engaged: it was a proper school community where everyone got on. The friends our children made were just kind, funny and lovely, and they have kept up those friendships. There was hardly any bullying. Unkind behaviour was dealt with very quickly.

Our state school could not compare as the community was just very disengaged (barring the few middle class PTA parents). Everyone is stressed, including the kids. There is just blatant aggression in and out of the classroom and it infects everything. I would go back to private in an absolute heartbeat if I could. It's just way too expensive now, mores the pity.

Only two reasons to stay with state schools if money is genuinely not an issue - either the parents are idealists or the child has secured seat in one of the best grammar schools. Pastoral care is near non-existent and staff is more interested in filling forms and documents to show to inspectors than actually caring for the children. Subject choices are limited, hardly any focus on academic rigour and meal portions (in London primary) are getting smaller by the term. I moved my daughter to state primary in London for Reception, after nursery, and I regret the decision. She hardly learnt anything new except picking up slang, age inappropriate language and that the bullying and racism exists even at this young age.