To think unless you’ve been to private school you don’t really understand why it’s so valuable?

[huopp]

I have so many people telling me the state system is fine, a private school just has better facilities, that the teachers aren’t any better, that the extra curricular stuff can be done after school at a state school but at a different venue etc etc…

whilst all the above is true, it isn’t what makes a private education valuable? And that you have to actually have lived it, been to one, to get the whole experience it gives you across the board and not just academically?

i think this is why a lot of people with ‘new money’ don’t always spend it on school fees. In contrast those who have been privately educated mostly want the same for their children.

TheaBrandt · Today 07:21
Of course - but no one on this thread is idolising state school boys in a dreamy adoring manner.

Dreamy and adoring? Hardly.
This thread, like all threads on the subject of private education, is full of sneering comments about entitled, arrogant children with names like Tarquin.

Also it works the other way too. My step daughter attended a state school for a bit and was bullied mercilessly for being posh. I guess quite a few posters on here would consider she deserved it.

She has numerous friends from local private schools who are delightful and would never do that in a million years

As a matter of interest which schools are these? St Mary’s Calne and Daunstseys?

Palegazelle

ohthejoys21
I don't think all private schools are equal, just as state schools aren't. I went to a small private girl's school and I don't think it did much for me.. whereas dh went to a top London boy's school and he has always believed he could achieve anything he wanted. He's an expert networker, able to communicate effectively with people at the top of their field as well as anyone and everyone.

His school was the making of him.

Do you mind if I ask which school this was?

City of London

In my experience the local independent schools are vastly different to the affore mentioned 'charterhouse' schools' in terms of the culture, entitlement and attitude they foster. I went to a minor public school that nobody outside the town it is based in has heard of and my old school tie has opened precisely zero doors for me. I'm still in touch with a dozen or so of my old school friends and we have regular get together. Career wise, everyone went to uni, everyone is in a professional role and leading nice middle class lives. The schools main job was to achieve decent exam grades, get you into a red brick uni and inject a sense of confidence and direction into you. That confidence in part was developed via a very impressive cultural, sports and outdoor pursuits programme (stage productions, sailing, climbing, Duke of Edinburgh etc).

The major public schools (Eton, Harrow, Marlborough etc) trade massively on their centuries old pedigree of inbuing a collosal sense of entitlement and arrogance. You were just better then everyone else, you did not need to mix with them, you stuck to your own, in fact you slightly loathe the lower orders and they are best viewed from afar. You have money, lots of it, not from your endeavours (although you like to think that's the case) but from your parents who married well into similar monied families. You don't have to save up for a house deposit, your folks bought you that flat off the King's Road, student debts and overdrafts, what are those, you don't really need to work in conventional jobs, you have a string of half arsed start ups that your friends will support but they are not viable businesses and anyway your folks will provide seed capital for the next venture anyway. On the rare occasions you do enter the conventional workplace, you are largely shielded from normal people. Life is easy as the network you inherited from school will serve you for the rest of your days.

@TheCadoganArms
Apparently VAT on school fees may or may not result in an influx of privately educated children into state schools.
I’m not sure if you have children of school age but if you do, no doubt you will encourage them to share your views with any ‘poshos’ that have the misfortune to end up at your children’s school.

Until the family dries up….and you are no longer so welcome.

I don’t think it is the schools themselves that imbue the entitled attitudes, though, it is the families.

All the schools do PSHE and teach pupils to be respectful and non sexist.

I think if you are thinking of Eton or Marlborough for your child, you probably (on average) are a particular type of parent who wants your child to emerge ‘confident’.

I have been to a state, grammar and private school. The private school was far and away the best for academics, sport, extra curricular activities and socially. When I eventually inherit properties in a family trust I will be selling up to send my daughter private. I come from old money (although currently I'm on a middleclass income as I'm an artist).

I went to different schools because I was a child prodigy in a creative field I chose not to pursue, so I moved schools to the grammar school that had the best program and teachers for that particular talent (but wasn't nearly as good for every other subject or activity). We then moved to a rural estate so the only option was state. That was a lot of fun tbh because there was no classroom control, the teachers didn't care and instead the pressure to achieve I could just be a teen. However there is NO WAY would I want my daughter in that environment, I saw so much potential in fellow students that in a private school, or even a grammar would have gone on to achieve far more with their lives.

The other thing is safety, I never once saw anything even verging on violence in a private school, in the grammar occasionally and almost daily at the state there were fights between students and awful bullying.

I don't see the value in spending more on a car than is necessary to provide something that is big enough for my family's needs and that reliably gets from A to B.

I still think VAT should be payable on expensive cars.

My reading of this thread is not that anyone thinks there is no value for anyone in private school - more that they don't see the value for themselves (perhaps because of good state options or poor private options), they see that there is different value in going to state school and appreciate that more or, that there is a value in going to private school but not at the cost required (the money would be better spent in e.g. house deposit).

Most people do not choose to pay for something that they could get for free unless they see value (perceived or actual) in doing so.

I don’t think it is the schools themselves that imbue the entitled attitudes, though, it is the families

Put another way, I don't think the schools exactly discourage it either, or being diplomatic, they can't see the different between confidence and entitled arrogance.

We have a DD who has moved from a London state comp to a private (boarding, old, big name) school in Year 10. She was very happy in her old school but has a massive fee award at the new one due to a specialist talent, which is why she has gone.

She is in more of a position to compare than most I guess - and we've found it really interesting.

Her view is that the teaching is pretty much the same overall (so maths better at her old comp, english better at new school), classes smaller, and behaviour is 'surface better' so she can get on with learning, but actually outside that surface bit kind of worse in that children routinely cheat in exams and low level disruption isn't really noticed - whereas at her old school they would crack down pretty hard.

She is concerned by the lack of interest in current affairs among her new cohort, finds the boys misogynistic and not as nice as the boys she knows locally from our local state schools, but loves the focus on the arts and the very nice facilities. She has made friends and settled well.

She doesn't see physical fights in school at her new school as she did in the old one but said fights never impacted her learning anyway, so doesn't particularly see that as a plus. She loves that she can now go to the toilet without it being a major issue or them being locked outside break time. She loves being able to ask for academic help when needed without feeling guilty that someone who is struggling needs the teacher's time more.

I asked her if she'd send her own children private. She replied 'it seems like a very mediocre improvement for a lot of money, so unless someone else was paying, probably not'. Which made me laugh.

I think entitlement comes into it for some people. paying for grandchildren and going without ourselves because daughter thinks her kids should have private education but won't pay for it herself and scared her kids won't be bright enough for grammar school though lives in good school area. does anyone remember grammar schools have produced top earners and prime ministers so speaks for itself. Some kids now are taking advantage of parents to school their kids.

That’s so interesting achange yes similar to dds view especially the misogyny and looking down on others which is depressing. Also taking for granted being given top range cars at 17 etc.

Just a shame that some of these young men (not the girls and presumably not all the boys) at these top name public schools with every advantage in life behave like that. That was why Dd mentioned it - she’s had a wide variety of friends from various types of school different states and local private ones and no one has been rude to anyone about their social status - except for that group.

@TheCadoganArms ,

Having taught at two private schools (mid level, well known but not super famous), schools just don’t teach pupils to be arrogant. If you think about it, most teachers aren’t privileged and they hate it when pupils look down on them.

My first school was a quite religious girls school in central London (the school, not the pupils) and I can honestly say the ethos was to pretty much ignore the sometimes ridiculous wealth. The head was very much about the Christian idea of the servant king (Jesus) and was always strongly enforcing that privilege implied duty.

In one of my classes a fairly appalling girl in Year 9 said that she hated state school pupils and then proceeded to do a (not very good) cockney accent. Another lovely and very high performing girl then replied that, until last year, she was at state school. It was a great teaching moment (I didn’t intervene at all)!

It was honestly a lovely school. Of course there were some brattish entitled pupils and parents, but they were few and far between.

My second school in SW London was mixed and non religious. I did find a fair few of the boys had an entitled and misogynistic attitude. The school definitely didn’t encourage it and dealt with the more egregious examples, but I don’t think they discouraged it enough. I felt it was kind of tolerated, especially in the boys who were good at sport.

I do think the mixing of all classes at state is healthier and my own boys have genuinely poor friends as well as quite wealthy ones.

I don't think it's a case of not seeing value, it's a case of not seeing ENOUGH value to make it worth the huge amount it costs. It's no longer a free ticket to good jobs and opportunities.

The number of people who could afford private school is much larger than the 6% that currently attend. But there's very few people for whom that wouldn't be a substantial proportion of their household income.

There's a lot of things you could do with £15k a year, and people who have that sort of income left after the bare essentials are usually spending it already on things like having a bigger house, a nicer car, nice clothes, holidays, better food in the fridge and wine in the cupboard, nice extra curriculars for their children, days out. It might be that they don't think private school is so valuable that it's worth giving all of that up and going back to a very basic lifestyle.

Or they might not need any of the above and decide instead to put away £15k a year for their child's future, and I think we'd be fairly hard pressed to find an 18 yo who was privately educated who wouldn't have to pause for thought if asked whether they would rather have gone to state school and now have £200k in an account.

I'm not decided either way and may consider private as an option for my daughter's secondary education, but I do think that the price means you really have to weigh up whether it's the best way to spend that money, if you're fortunate enough to have it.

I went to a standard state primary, then grammar and then my parents were posted abroad for years so I did Sixth Form in a private school but it was more free thinking and international, think Atlantic College UWC type of school.

It was amazing at the time and we all developed into proper adults then and there and had a lot of experiences and opportunities and it then led to me living in lots of different countries all through my twenties as well. I am really pleased I went.
State grammar was fine, I was always academic anyway but it was quite stifling and dull in comparison to the private school I went to, because the latter had people who had come from all over the world with lots of different life and educational experiences and as a result, classroom discussions were fascinating. The grammar was just the same people I had known all my life and a local bubble.
I am really trying to get my DC to go out there and travel when they are young and work for international companies with postings abroad and ideally also some uni education abroad, if that proves possible.

My husband went to very good private schools for the entirety of his education. I went to state schools. We both attended top universities and now both have successful, well-paying careers.

I believe I got where I am today in spite of, and not because of, the school I went to. I was bright and motivated and had parents who were invested in me achieving my full potential. I absolutely hated my secondary school. The facilities were rubbish, the teachers mediocre, very little emphasis was placed on sports, drama, music etc. and the discipline as poor. I was also bullied and the school dealt with it very badly.

On the other hand, my husband enjoyed his school years, and got a lot of advantage from the non-academic experiences that he had, particularly being able to play lots of different sports and doing so all the way through school.

I went to a university that had a high percentage of privately educated students and found that these students had so many more skills and interests than me, because they had lots opportunity to do sports, music, drama, debating etc etc. at school. And, yes, they were more confident.

My husband and I really tussled over how to educate our children as we have the luxury that we can afford to privately educate. We live in an area that still has grammar schools, so we are sending our kids to private prep schools and are hoping they will then be successful at getting places at grammar school.

The prep schools our kids go to are so lovely and nurturing and the children all seem very happy to be there. Our children get so many wonderful opportunities and experiences and from day one have had specialist teaching in sports, art, languages, music, drama and technology. The small class sizes mean the teachers know them very well and they are encouraged to reach their full potential in all different areas and to give new things a go.

Most of the families at the schools are middle-class, hard-working people who are just trying to do what they think is the best for their children. The children are polite and kind and not at all arrogant.

We don't want to our children to grow up in an elitist bubble, but we want them to be well-educated, well-rounded, polite, kind and happy. I am sure our kids would have been absolutely fine at state primary schools, but we do feel that all the money that we are paying is worth it.

I was also thinking that if there were more and more international but really high quality private schools in France and Spain that offer a boarding and cultural experience at a fraction of the cost compared to the British big name ones and do the IB, then I might be tempted to send my youngest for Sixth Form to get a different experience. Apparently private schools in Spain, for example, are far cheaper and I just love the culture there and the country. Or even Holland or Scandinavia etc. I think that will be the future choices many British born but internationally minded parents will make.

When comparing private schools to state schools, I encounter two key aspects.

First, there’s the funding disparity—around £8k-£10k per annum—between the two.

Second, some private schools employ a selective admission process, leading to a more carefully curated student cohort.

Regarding the funding difference, while it theoretically contributes positively to the educational experience, its tangible impact varies. For some students and families, it may be transformative, while for others, it might not significantly alter their learning journey.

Interestingly, the government could argue that narrowing this funding gap doesn’t universally enhance education. They might even consider reducing funding without compromising educational outcomes—an intriguing contradiction.

It is with individual perspectives shaping the discourse.

They will take one at the 12-14 week summer holiday and think twice. The U.K. has world class schools sought after across every continent why would you choose to send them to a mediocre Dutch or Spanish school?!

@Meetingofminds - is UWC Maastricht not good then? Youngest of 4 is very mature for her age, by the time she gets to Sixth Form we will be through uni with the others and can afford to spend a bit. But by then UK boarding schools will be 70k plus VAT potentially, so I am confident international schools will offer better value, especially with no VAT and local Government subsidies. It is the same with the foreign unis. The landscape is changing due to interferences and underfunding by our own governments.

I don't see the value in spending more on a car than is necessary to provide something that is big enough for my family's needs and that reliably gets from A to B.

I still think VAT should be payable on expensive cars.

Yep I think this is a good analogy for me. I don’t run a car, because I live in London within 10 minutes walk of my work and DS’s school, with two shopping areas within 15 mins walk, lots of parks, great public transport links. So why would I spend £20-40k on a car plus money for insurance, petrol/charging, MOT and insurance?

I don’t dispute that some families may be better off with a car (if public transport is poor locally, or you have a disability). But I don’t think cars or petrol should be subsidised, and I don’t think drivers are doing me a massive favour by not taking up a seat on the bus.

I wouldn’t feel sympathetic to drivers threatening to coordinate a mass bus travel day to force the government to cut petrol prices (private parents on here have threatened to coordinate applying en mass for state school places in September and then not turning up, to cause disruption). I wouldn’t be worried, there’s plenty of space on most buses (and in many state schools), I’d just think they were twats.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-02-08/debates/50D8C7F3-1BC4-4D2D-AD29-47F2DCDFC5D6/TransportForLondonFunding

@Saschka - alright for some, innit.
As long as your transport gets subsidies from the Government who cares about the rest of the country? In particular, the most deprived areas where they are already struggling to get GPs and will be even more of a struggle once preps in those areas go bust.

As someone who was not privately educated and has done just as well as some and far better than others I know of the same age that were privately educated and remembers the drugs and liberal attitude to sex at some of the parties the privately educated kids had back in the day that myself and my friends excused ourselves from I am afraid I'll take some convincing of your point.

she’s had a wide variety of friends from various types of school different states and local private ones and no one has been rude to anyone about their social status - except for that group.

TheaBrandt you obviously think Marlborough school has a hand in these boys’ behaviour or you wouldn’t have mentioned it by name.
Therefore if some boys from Anotherton Comprehensive behave in an antisocial way - graffiti, theft etc. then Anotherton Comp’s pupils are criminals and wrong ‘uns.

Quite happy for the rest of the country to have subsidised public transport too, and think state education should be well funded across the country.

i actually live in a very deprived borough, and 40% of the children in my child’s primary are on FSM. Apparently it’s unthinkable to some on here that I would send my son there as a MC parent, and yet he is thriving and happy.