When do we reject state school place?

[JadeVS72]

We have accepted a place for our DD at a local private school for secondary. She also has an offer for our 2nd choice, oversubscribed state school.
When would you turn down the state offer? I am paranoid if we do it too soon one of us will lose our job and we will want to scale back and do state 😆 we will be funding mostly from savings but if something unforseen happened we might need those savings! When do most people finalise their decision?

Do what you feel you need in your circumstances. No it's not ideal but if you eventually pull away, even if it's last minute, someone would still benefit and you are also not taking up a funded place.
Some people do need a back up plan. It's not being selfish! People who go private are not all loaded like some imagine, and at the with the current economy and international relations, of course some would fee morel like they need a safety net.

I let go of DD's grammar place just before Easter as I was genuinely struggling to make up my mind, but I hated hearing people tell me 'let the school know asap, someone might be desperate' - yet in a few months' time after rejecting the place, I could have become one of the desperate people, regretting the rejection? Noone knows! Businesses are failing and people are getting laid off everyday.

@JadeVS72 Do what is best in your family situation.

Of course not, where on earth did you get that idea?

I'm saying that school closure is another risk you need to mitigate against, even if you're sure that you're OK financially. All the kids in the year looking for another school at short notice would be pretty hellish. It's exactly what has happened to over 100 private schools since VAT was introduced - about 4% of private schools, twice the usual rate - so not a risk to ignore.

Keeping your fairly allocated state school place until a few weeks before term starts isn't selfish, it's entirely sensible.

And your post reeks of partisan selfishness.

What a ridiculous thing to suggest that state school parents are experiencing stress from school allocations that private school parents can't even imagine!

Parents are the same. Children are the same.

Why should a parent unnecessarily risk their child ending up with no school just to make life slightly nicer for another family - who you clearly think is more deserving. They'll still get the school place, just won't have the certainty so early. Far less harm than potentially having no school due to giving the place up and then circumstances changing!

Partisan - prioritising families you identify with over families you clearly despise. And selfish to demand the families you think so little of give up their own best interests to benefit you.

I was so paranoid about the school saying they don’t want my child anymore (she’s autistic) or some other reason it would have fallen through (like announcing closure or something) I didn’t turn it down immediately. I waited until after May half term to say no, so I hoped they would be able to offer her place to someone else and they’d still go to their transition days in July.

If your financial situation is such that a major occurrence like a redundancy or serious illness would make you need to pull your child out of private schooling then it's best not to start in the private sector. Only accept the private place if you are committed to it for at least 5 years no matter what happens, and have enough of an assets cushion that you can ride out a temporary dip in income.

If you are going private then reject the state offer asap. There are less fortunate families who are desperate for that place.

@sunflowerdaisies I can understand that and there will be a very grateful parent somewhere because of it. May half term is early enough to make a positive difference to another child's situation. Having a child with additional needs does make things more complicated.

It's not only monetary value.

Every child needs to be educated. There are limited school places, both state and private. Some schools are better than others: both objectively better and better for that child (eg size, location, philosophy) Every parent is responsible for getting their own child into the best school available to them at the time they need it.

If a parent has accepted a private school place but then they're not able to use it, then their child still needs to be educated. In almost all cases, the state school place is a good backstop for the different things that could happen in 6 months:

1.job loss. No, people don't only put their kids in private school if they're so rich that they have 7 years of school fees and living expenses saved up beforehand . They make sensible risk-based judgements.

If I had no job at a time that my child was about to start, that might change that risk-based judgement

2.the school closes - as 4% of private schools have in the last year thanks to VAT. It's a risk parents must consider

Any sensible parent will consider both those possibilities. In only a very small number of cases will neither of those risks apply.

Not only for a child with SEN, for any child.

A private school parent is not selfish to wait until a few weeks before term before giving up their fairly allocated state school place. They're just thinking clearly and taking a risk-based approach with risk mitigation and a back up plan.

The many posters on this thread demanding that parents intending to send their child to private school in September - currently 6 months away - to 'reject the state offer asap' are giving terrible advice to other parents. And worse, putting judgement and social pressure on them to do it.

I know a family where the child got an offer at a very selective grammar on the day before term started for year 7. They had to buy uniform quickly and the child had to get used to the idea of going to a different school with more travelling the day before she started.

It's selfish to hold onto a place for that long.

We turned down the state school offer as soon as DS had the offer at the private school, why wouldn’t we? Gives someone else the chance to be where they want to be and get uniform etc.

If your thinking is that you’d need to take up the state place if you lost a job before she started, then how will you manage if you lost a job once she’s already there? I wouldn’t let her start at a private school if affordability is already hanging in that balance. It’s disruptive for children to have to change schools at unusual times (like other than at year 7 and year 12), especially in secondary when friends are everything to them.

Partisan? This is a word you seem fond of @strawberrybubblegum . You’ve accused two of us now of being partisan. My understanding of the word was that it means to blindly adhere to one faction or opinion, a prejudiced, zealous follower of one ideal usually over the opposing ideal. I would say, if anything, that applies more to you. However I am not the one bandying unusual terms of insult around here.

I stand by my statement that it is selfish to hold onto two of something, anything, when others have not got one of that thing yet. Especially when the system in place is supposed to ensure that in a fair society everyone has fair and equal access. Families who are able to choose a private school for their children opt out of this system. To hang onto a place in the system you have opted out of, just in case, is selfish when it affects other families and children who are not able to opt out. THIS is what privilege is - the ability to choose, and when it comes to being able to choose a private education it is almost entirely down to having more money than others.

If you had somehow managed to be offered two state school places, you would have to choose straight away. The system designed to ensure fair access for all would not allow you that privilege. The fact that the only reason you are able to sit on two offers is because you can pay for it is what makes you privileged. The fact that you cannot see or are unwilling to see this makes you ignorant.

You speak of the potential situation that you are imagining where somehow, between deciding to send your child to a private school and the first day of term something terrible might happen that would cause you to have to send your child to the state school, and it being awful if you had given up the state school because that would leave you without anything. The state system would not leave you without anything - but it might allocate you something less favourable. Perhaps farther away, or not being strong in the areas you prefer. You claim that the child who is displaced by your child hanging onto their state offer will not be as disadvantaged because they will only suffer displacement and uncertainty for a bit. This is blind or willful ignorance.

I have no skin in this particular game - my youngest child is nearing the end of their education. But I can see the unfairness in saving your place when you don’t intend to use it. I don’t despise parents who choose a private education for their kids, as you imply. I despise anyone who uses their privilege to improve their own position by disadvantaging someone else.

@backinthebox couldn't have said it better myself!

Your insults might not be unusual @backinthebox but there are plenty of them: "selfish", "ignorant"

Someone is partisan when they prioritise the state family over the private family, simply because they identify with them and so think they are more 'worthy' of the better state place because they didn't have the option of private.

As I said, it's either that or not thinking clearly.

I don't understand people not considering risks, probabilities, mitigations and back up plans for important choices. Must be a constantly surprising way to live.

I despise anyone who uses their privilege to improve their own position by disadvantaging someone else

Very much an example of not thinking clearly.

The privilege of being able to choose private school in no way disadvantages someone else. Nor does keeping the option of the state place until they judge the risk small enough to let go.

If child A doesn't have the privilege of private school (or chooses not to use it), they use the state school place they were allocated. Child B on the waiting list for school A but has to go to the different school B they were allocated.

If child A does have the privilege to choose private school and gives up their state option 2 weeks before - or even the day before term starts - then Child B on the waiting list has a new option. They can either stick with how things would have been if child A had no privilege (school B they were allocated) or else they can now choose to take up the now-free place at school A. They benefit from Child A's privilege. They get a choice (school A - even if last minute) they might prefer, which they wouldn't otherwise have.

If Child A gives up their state place early, the only difference for child B is that they get that benefit a little earlier. That is more comfortable for child B - but doesn't change the advantage they get from Child A's privilege no matter when the place is released.(ie an option to choose school A which they wouldn't otherwise have). Child A doesn't owe then that extra comfort at their own risk.

I'm not going to bother explaining this again. If you can't follow the logic then you never will.

I'm not going to bother explaining this again. If you can't follow the logic then you never will.

Right back at you. It is selfish to have your towel on 2 sunbeds while someone else is sitting on the floor. I could explain it in loads of different ways. Saying ‘ah, but they are still able to sit down, even if it is on the floor, and if I take my towel off one of the sunbeds then they are benefitted by my actions because now they have a sunbed they can sit on too!’ probably isn’t going to cut it. You don’t get it. Your privilege means you actually think your actions are benefitting the person you are disadvantaging, and you will never understand that.

As for this: I don't understand people not considering risks, probabilities, mitigations and back up plans for important choices. Must be a constantly surprising way to live - I manage risks, probabilities and mitigations every day in a professional capacity. I love a back up plan. It is possible to love a back up plan though and still see that some plans are unnecessarily selfish.

When you give up a state school place, there is no guarantee it won’t be taken by someone far richer than you, especially for oversubscribed state schools!

In fact, I have seen this played out in real life time and time again. One of my DC’s had a good friend who got a top academic scholarship to a well known public school and moved from a sought after grammar. Guess who took the place? Not a kid on a FSM like the original kid, someone from a top London private school.
Equally, there are plenty of people up and down the country buying 1-3 million pound houses all over in catchment for the best state schools professing they do not agree with private schooling “on principle”, but are perfectly happy to take the best state school places. Because apparently buying your way into a state catchment is less privileged than purchasing private education? At least the latter is an honest way of purchasing privilege.

Also, as mine are in grammar schools it happens all the time that the kids taking the grammar places off the waiting list already had other grammar schools (just less competitive) or outstanding comp allocations. That is how things work in the real world. The pass the parcel of the most sought after state school places does not typically go to some desperate single mum with a FSM child, far from it.

@Araminta1003I don't think people were focusing primarily on children who live in poverty. My example was of someone with an average income in a 2 parent household, whose life was profoundly affected by the lack of a convenient school place.

@Hazlenuts2016 - you gave an example of someone who moved and tried to engineer a good state school place for her DC and it did not work out. They spent money trying to get good state education access and it backfired.

All I was saying is that when it comes to oversubscribed state schools, then typically you aren’t giving access to some poor kid. That is a fact. You’re making way for someone else who has tried to buy their way into the system, so let’s at least be honest about that.
And often people taking the oversubscribed places off the waiting list already have perfectly decent options already. They aren’t automatically going to those without school places especially in the normal allocation rounds we are talking about here.
So I think it is not on to guilt trip those entering into huge financial commitments. They need to do the spreadsheets and maths carefully and consider the long term impacts in a very rationale manner on pensions, mortgages, future of DC. We are looking at spending equivalent to most people’s pensions/houses here.

@Araminta1003the example I gave wasn't of someone who could afford private, but yes people do move for better schools. In my example, there wasn't a nearby option that would have been a good fit for the child and he may have been the only non white child in his year. His mum was concerned about racism as well as the academic side.

Interestingly, at my son's secondary, the more you move out of the deprived neighbourhood surrounding it, the less chance you have of getting in. So in my case, if I kept a school place for him while also keeping a private sch place, I would likely be taking the place away from a child on FSM. The school is very sought after and oversubscribed with a big waiting list. The academic results are excellent relative to other schools in the city.

I think people are JUST trying to say, if you can give up a place as soon as possible, please do because it will make a big difference to someone else. I don't know why some people on here are fighting that so strongly and it does come across as entitled. OP was very quick to understand once people had explained the potential impact. Nobody is asking anyone to bankrupt themselves and go private if they can't afford it.

OK @Hazlenuts2016 - I think I agree with you. At some point, those going for private education have to make the decision in a rationale manner and the sooner the better for everyone. My point was more do not do it in a rushed manner because it is a massive financial decision with long term impacts for most people making it (contrary to popular belief that all people using private schools are loaded and could use the money as bog roll instead and not notice).

@Araminta1003 yes that makes sense

I know youre going to decline - well done.
But wanted to say what happened to us
dc didnt get the choice 1 secondary. Would have got in majority of other years..
We did an appeal - rejected despite good reasons and sen.
Her only friend was going to choice 2 and they had transition day (where she still wasnt happy). The day after choice 1 called and said do you still want it if so go to the parent tslk. But obviously we had missed transition to that school. One other friend made new friends on the transition day.
The school said the dropout kid went private but the parents hadnt bothered to call ! The school found out when they called parents about him not turning up.

Obviously because of people holding places that they then dropped out of
consequences

—-i had to prep appeal taking loads of hours
—-dc missed transition to the new school
— dc spent first 2 years in a class with no friends as the classes had been set up for transition day

— put in incorrect maths set as data wasnt sent over correctly
—huge meltdown for 2 hours about going to choice 2 with suicidal, why am i always so unlucky
at least one kid allocated their choice 2 didnt stay on waitlist so my choice 1 may have lost that kid and then their siblings later on.
— i couldnt buy much second hand uniform as the place was still uncertain at that point
— and it meant friend who went to choice 2 got put in a class with no friends either.
dc also didnt get offered any transition at all to school despite adhd and social anxiety and obviously there were also 0 spaces in the summer holiday transition days.
— in fact as the yeargroup is in 2 halves she might pretty much never have been in class with the one friend at first choice.

Obviously lots of state school parents are also holding onto places they dont want but unfortunately that is the system as you have to have ‘ a place’
But if it does cost for appeals how much of that cost is down to private school parents holding 2 places.

Equally, there are plenty of people up and down the country buying 1-3 million pound houses all over in catchment for the best state schools professing they do not agree with private schooling “on principle”, but are perfectly happy to take the best state school places.

Its not either or, plenty of private school families live in expensive houses in catchment for great state schools.

The school said the dropout kid went private but the parents hadnt bothered to call ! The school found out when they called parents about him not turning up

It’s a complete headache for schools that have parents dropping out the week before or as you said just not turning up.