Can someone help me here please with their point of view? Am going mad.

[2sugars]

Two different girls, two different personalities. I can see that dd1 would benefit from the independant system, dd2 (at the moment) wouldn't give a hoot.

H was 70 this week, money's not great but we have a comfortable life.

I'm wondering if I might send dd1 for the entrance exam. H says if I do so, she will fail, since every other child is being tutored to pass. Moreover, (he says, as an ex Bursar) if their admissions are short this year they will accept her anyway.

Do I put her through it, without a tutor, and suffer the consequenses? They would be mme not being at home for dd2, me finding a job and being able to, and just basically turning what's gone around for the last ten years upside down.

I bump into people near where we live/people I used to work with who have two children, one of which goes to an independant school, the other doesn't.

Thoughts desperatly needed. Thanks.

Message withdrawn

It sounds like you will have to make pretty major life changes to do this. Your younger daughter may not resent the fact that she dosn't get sent to private school (if that's what you decide), but she may resent the fact that you have to go out to work to fund her sister's schooling as that will impact on her.

FWIW we sent DS1 private when we came to Australia last year (started him off in the local public high school but pulled him out after 7 weeks!!) and the intention was to send his younger siblings public (State) for primary, then give them the same high school experience. However, it didn't take long to see that DS1s school was SO much nicer than the local primaries, and as it takes kids from 4-18 we sent them all in the end. It seemed unfair to have such a disparity in the quality of education they would receive. They give pretty hefty sibling discounts though which helps and private fees are much cheaper here than in the UK.

I agree with what sunnydelight says about your younger daughter may resent the fact that you have to go out to work to pay for her sisters fee's, but you might start to resent it as well.
Friends with children at private schools keep complaining about the fee's going up all the time. You need to be very sure that you look at the full cost involved, fee's, uniforms, extra activities & trips that everyone else is going on, childcare in holidays (which are often quite different). You also need to consider the non financial impact, all the stuff that you currently do (washing, cooking, cleaning, shopping etc) still needs doing. Will your partner help or will you end up doing everything in the evening or weekends. Can you get a job that will cover all the expenses and give you enough left over to make it worthwhile working.
By the way I am not knocking working, I work part-time and my nursery fee's were higher than my wages for 2 years, but I did not want to give up my job, and knew that the situation would improve eventually. However I think there is a difference between wanting to work because you love your job, hate being at home or needing to to pay the mortgage and working to pay school fees. Only you & you family can decide how you feel about that. However if you are happy with your families work/life balance now, I would think very carefully about disrupting it.

When I was growing up, my neighbours had 2 girls 5 years apart. The first went to state school, but their finances were different by time 2nd went to senior school and she went to private school.

I have never met more mixed up kids. The oldest felt she'd been hard done to, the younger one felt she could never live up to the expectations of her expensive education.

20 years on neither of them are happy adults (although I doubt this can be blamed entirely on their education). One has been married 3 times and currently divorced and the other was pregnant at 16.