Help: panicking State till 8 & private deadline

[Martini1908]

We are torn. We have 2 children (2025 & 2026 reception starters) and although we can afford the private school fees, we'll find it uncomfortable now that the new VAT tax is being implemented.

We have a good/outstanding State school option and live in South-West London.

We definitely want the kids in private school from year 3 onwards and can afford this.

We are trying to weigh up the pros and cons of State till 8 vs Private and hope to pick the brains of those who've either been through private school from reception to secondary and their views on how much reception, year 1 & year 2 impacted their child's education and whether it is really worth the £150+k for those 3 years (for 2 children) and from those parents who did State till 8 and their views/regrets/experience/advice.

I really worry that if we do State till 8 the transition may prove disruptive and mean be difficult for the kids to break into established friendship groups, adjusting to a new school at such a young age, finding a school with a spare place for both children at the same time in year 3 and in year 2 (other child), playing catch up academically and even the possibility of it being more competitive to get into a school in year 3 now that VAT may be forcing many parents into a similar route...

Any thoughts would be really appreciated please as we have to put a deposit down on a private school next week to start reception in 2025 and I don't want to do that if State till 8 is the more sensible choice...

Primary state is absolutely fine and in fact better due to local friendships. Take the state places.

Private school definitely isn’t worth it unless local school options are dire or there are personal circumstances that make it necessary to have small classes - eg child has dyslexia etc. DH and I have been to a mix of private and state settings and so have our kids.

If your state primary is decent then there’s nothing wrong with state til 8. Kids who move do fine.

I’d say it depends on which private at 8 you are targeting for the 7+ and whether it’s an academic school. Unless on waiting lists you may have missed the boat re reception for 2025 and possibly 2026 depending on schools. - edit I see you already have a 2025 place - need to RTFT properly!!

Personally I’d always try for a non selective reception or at a push the 4+ than putting a 7 year old through the 7+ process. We chose a non selective private primary for a number of reasons at nursery - it’s a ‘local’ school so almost all of my DC’s friends are within the local area so friends etc are close. I personally wouldn’t have chosen a private primary which I had to travel to or had a large catchment of pupils as for us local friends were important.

Also, for us we were considering state and private secondary (vat means probably state), and strongly believe for our child the particular school and support provided to them has set them up well for the local state secondary. A lot of kids from the private primary opt to go there, and do well.

It's the reverse that's hard. State to private is an easy move.

@Herewegoagainnnnnn thank you so much for your thoughts. Now I'm feeling very I'll prepared because I didn't think about 7+. I just figured the private schools that have spaces in year 3 would make room for kids coming through. I didn't realise kids had to sit exams and that it would be so difficult to find a place for them.

I guess this is a big reason people fork out from nursery eh.

It will depend which schools you are targeting- our school has a regular input from y3, no test required, but our school is nonselective.

we’ve seen major benefit for ours from private early years / ks1. Less around academic advancement, as I don’t think the difference is that big in terms of progression vs. state at that stage (at our school anyway), but more so in less obvious areas like interpersonal skills, confidence, attitude towards learning, resilience and perseverance. One of mine is ND, though, so I think the extra support has an outsize impact. Obviously the extracurriculars and enrichment courses (science, art, language, music) are more robust than at state, but in many ways those are the easiest differences to address on your own.

personally I think private adds more value in primary than secondary, but recognise that the common wisdom holds the opposite to be true.

Eldest did state til 8 and youngest moved at end of reception. The prep they are at is non-selective and always has spaces - not the case for all the local preps.

I would have happily kept youngest in state until 8 too but childcare/logistics/work meant moving earlier made sense for me mostly. It is easy to support the academics at home yourself in a state school in infant school. The transition was also easier because infant and junior are separate near us so everyone was leaving at end of year 2 anyway.

Ifeel like the gap is bigger between state and private is pretty big for junior school. Specialist teachers (science, French, computing etc) and the varied curriculum (sport, art, drama etc) make the experience very close to the early years of secondary and miles away from the local state junior with one main class teacher.

@Labraradabrador I fully agree that in many cases private primaries set up children well for state secondaries (and not just grammars), and many many families from our school opt to go to non selective states and it’s not a ‘hard’ transition and they do very well.

@Martini1908 as the PP said your local preferred privates may not have 7+ but many in SW london do - especially all through schools - and it can be quite competitive (I have friends who have done it!). I think the state until 8 motto is a little out of date as it used to be pre-preps, preps (7-13) and then seniors (13+) so a big transition in general at the 7+ stage but a lot of schools now mirror the state system and main intake is reception then go to year 6 and people do 11+. Those that take at 7+ also sometimes have a smaller amount of places (very school / area dependent though).

Given the main benefit of private school is the network, you can wait until secondary as 8 year olds are notoriously poor networkers.

If you're not bothered about networks go for state plus tutors as you can screen the tutors qualifications, whereas private teachers don't have to be qualified.

@Herewegoagainnnnnn thanks so much that's really helpful. I'll need to figure out if the private schools are selective from 7+ onwards then because they aren't from reception...why is this all such a difficult minefield? :/

If you can afford it with some sacrifices, then there’s no better investment than a child’s education, and this definitely starts at early years.

We started at state and it was an absolute nightmare for my boy. Then moved him to an okay non selective private for a year purely because the one we wanted was full - we were too late in applying.

2 years after he joined the semi selective school, he was the only child who won a scholarship at 7+. Fast forward 8 years, he is now at super selective senior school.

I happen to share the opinion that private is more important at primary stage, and not for academic purposes, but personal development.

These are crucial formative years and, even though parents are still the main influencers at this age, school plays a very important part, too. Private pupils are often taught to be confident and pro-active, encouraged to try new things and go the extra mile. This helps later in life whatever DC may choose to do, and it's more difficult to instil these attitudes as the child grows up and their personality becomes less malleable.

Have done private for both. Not at all sure that state for first few years makes much difference. And the main thing even joining year 3 is 8-11 is sport and music. Academia more marginal. Our private secondary takes about half half from state and private. Only one scholarship (academic/music/sport) went to a state school student (these offer nominal fee reductions, the school rightly saves its money for means tested bursaries) and this was academic.

But even up to age of 8 keep an eye on sport and supplement the dire absence of sport in the state sector. The kids joining private secondary from the state sector don't have a hope of getting into the rugby / hockey / cricket team unless you have supported their sport outside school.

Our DCs’ prep is non selective for reception but there is an “exam” for places at age 7 or 8 etc. There is no official 7+ entry and same applies at most of our local preps - so you would be depending on others leaving, and child performing well enough in the exam to get one of the opened up spaces. As you say, more may choose this route in future so it may get harder.

Having said that… If fees will be uncomfortable, I would advise state till 8. The kids who joined us at y3 or y4 fitted in well, in fact their novelty value helped them socially. Choose a school that mixes up the classes at that age. Or even do fully state primary and tutoring on the side for secondary entrance exams, this is common and probably the best value approach but won’t get you the bells and whistles or smaller classes of private primary.

Update, after a recommendation on here we decided to have a chat with Ed from ESB Consulting Ltd. He was super informative and helped us weigh up all the options. He was the deputy Head at Kings so is really knowledgeable as to what schools are looking for and has seen many children from both State and Private navigate their way through this minefield. We have decided that because we have an excellent State school option it is best to go with that and then switch to private for year 3. Ed brought up many factors we hadn't considered. If anyone is in a similar predicament to us I suggest getting in touch with him too. Many thanks everyone

I would certainly try your state school and see how it goes. Little point in paying for reception and years 1 and 2.
In our experience the basics (learning to read and maths) are very similar at state and private schools. If anything the private school classes can be too small - 7 pupils v 23...
For me so far the differentiator is in the other subjects.. English, history have been much better in private school and sports, art 100 X better.
That said once you get to years 7 and 8 I think the kids need proper secondary school teachers rather than primary school teachers so I'm not sure staying at prep school is ideal..

So many children join at 8 that it really doesn’t matter

save the cash and start off with state

In our experience kids join every year so mixing in is not a problem

@sheep73 I agree they'll need proper specialist teachers. We'll do State reception, year 1 & 2 then our local independent till year 6, then independent secondary 😃

@minipie good point on choosing an independent that switches up the classes in year 3, thanks 😊

DS was in an independent school for years Reception to Four. From Year 3 the school was a traditional prep school, so end of year 2 is a natural moving on year. The cohort became larger. So if you are talking about age 8 - they are 7 when they start year 3.

Lots of children joined in Year 3. Quite a few left for other private schools at the end of Year 2. Most private schools will have entrance exams for entry at Year 3 upwards. Locally, I would say that any private school that doesn’t probably isn’t worth wasting money on.

The main reason we left was that the school wasn’t working for our DC. Academically, it was offering quite a stale curriculum. There was too much sport and definitely a feeling that sporty kids got on better. We switched to state because we’d missed traditional entrance exam timings when we got to the end of our tether with just about everything there. Small local primary were ahead on maths teaching and the topics and learning were much more interesting.

We are through sixth form now. Lots of kids from his cohort at the private school ended up in state sixth forms. There are all sorts of reasons for that. A couple of common ones are that we have a very good state sixth form that’s top 5 or 6 nationally; the whole process of private sixth form can be stuck in the past and include Saturday school, lots of sport, wearing suits.Those who went on to the minor public school get all that, those at the more academic private senior school just the suits 🤣 but if they stay they are at the school that achieved amongst the best nationally this year.

I was planning to do state till 8 but in the end she did state until year 9!

(and she ended up with the best A levels of all my dcs - the others had less state education)