groaning under the weight of private school fees!

[pearso]

Hello,
I've got one child at private school, the other still at state primary for another year and we're dreading the decision next year about what to do. It's very unlikely we'll be able to afford a second set of school fees. Is anyone else in a similar situation? I'd love to hear from you if you are.... I'm also writing about it in my column for the Evening Standard so wouldn't use names but would love to hear what people think, especially in London and about any experiences good or bad.
thanks!

I pay monthly. We have a program at my DDs' school where they offer to collect monthly with a small admin fee. If you look at the figures, the admin fee is less than the interest you earn by hanging onto your money so it is worthwhile. Over the years, I have had quite a few stressful episodes of trying to find a chequebook the day before the start of term.

At my DSs' school, we have to pay monthly - there are ten monthly payments with a two-month holiday in the summer (which incidentally covers our summer holiday).

Swanny, having taught in comprehensive schools, I know that some are good, with positive and committed members of staff, whereas some are stuffed full of lazy teachers who almost resent certain kids doing well and getting on.

It depends what you live near. This is one reason why we have used both sectors - I tend to pick the best, most suitable school at the time regardless of whether it is state or private, and work outwards from there. I am not convinced the private schools really give bang for the buck round here, so they are not being graced with our presence. It's not just about money.

Whatever, Deep. I only created this username to respond to a particular Mumsnet topic - one similar to this one.

It might seem that I am showing off, but as a result of our choices, we live an otherwise extremely modest lifestyle - and I have to work.

I'll ask her. They use Holmwoods which pays the school and you pay them monthly but I fell out with them when I was paid very late last term so I can't use them again. I'm stuck now. I can cover them but not at the start of the term, it'll take me a couple of months to earn the terms fees. It's like an endless ball of stress. She did allow me until almost the end of term last term which was incredibly helpful. I'm not sure if she'll do this again though.

what about if there were no private schools and children from all walks of life went to thei local school? would that make things beter? very idealistic I know but .....

I've never heard of any teacher sound even slightly resentful of children doing well. And I know loads of teachers. It sounds a bit unlikely.

One friend of mine who has worked in both private and (rough) state schools says that, from a teacher's point of view, it's a choice between difficult parents (private) or difficult kids (rough state) And she prefers difrficult kids.

If there were no private schools I would home ed. ds is a square ped IYKWIM.

I would have thought being able to pay the bills is more important than sending your child to a 'proper' school.

It doesn't seem very bright to go into debt, whatever the reason.

Swanny, I have researched this topic a great deal professionally. I reckon we would need to raise teacher salaries to Luxembourg levels and give it a couple of decades before this would work. If you did this now you would basically decimate the incoming elite workforce in a way that would be really damaging to the country as a whole. Much as I hate to admit it.

That sounds interesting, Boffinmum. Could you give us a brief rundown of how the argument works for that?

why would teachers resent certain children doing well and getting on?

'many parents choose to send their kids to private schools because they are scared of their children not mixing with the 'right kind of people' '

And you know this how?

Oh dear, abraid. Did someone really say that?

Twunts.

Ohh, that's bad! The small class sizes were a big pull for me, not the sort of children that went to the school. There was a mother at ds's old school, she gave us a lift home when her child first moved there and didn't speak to me at all after that. Our house was not big enough!

I have 2 children in private, 2 in state and one baby. (can't afford 5 sets of school fees!). I haven't noticed anyone leaving the private school. People discuss fees alot, and although they say they are struggling, i can't see any evidence of this.

We pay monthly too, and the worry for us is whether our jobs will still be here in a year's time. I don't worry about state provision (at least at primary). For us, a big issue is the huge fall in our equity - we were intending to use some of this to fund secondary education for all the dcs. However, for us private education is not the most important thing, and we would be happy for our children to have a state education.

Whilst watching Top Gear??? Put my professional hat on and all that??? I will have a go but I warn you Clarkson is using a Ford Focus as a beach assault craft surrounded by marines and I have one eye on the telly.

In many EU countries teachers are recruited from the ranks of higher qualified graduates and a premium is paid for postgraduate qualifications. We don't do that - we recruit people from the middle ranks of graduates as a statistical rule, and traditionally we have been paying them as little as possible (although things have improved a little of late).

This recruitment strategy has a knock on effect to how intellectual the profession can be. There is arguably a link between scholarly, subject-based intellectualism amongst teachers and the ability to nurture highly disciplined learning in the top 10% of the population. It is these people who we are relying on to become surgeons, scientists, top civil servants, top entrepreneurs, etc etc. These people keep our standard of living high and our economy competitive.

Since the effective privatisation of many grammar schools in 1975, after the demise of the Direct Grant system, we now seem to outsource this scholarly professionalism to independent schools, and there is a subsequent tendency to educate these high flying children outside the state sector, at the expense of their parents. This is harmful for social inclusion, and perpetuates a polarised society.

My proposed remedy would be to recruit more graduates with first and 2:1 degrees, encourage study for postgraduate degrees via special premiums added to the current pay scales, give regular teacher sabbaticals to promote contact with business, industry and academe, raise per capita grants for pupils to independent school levels, and revise the National Curriculum to improve Science, Mathematics and Modern Language teaching across the board. I would also fund extended schooling generously to ensure a social net that encouraged learning amongst all social groups.

However this would all be far too expensive in the current climate, so we should just be grateful people are saving the country the bother of dealing with this problem for the time being, by educating 7% of children privately.

In the meantime we have to suffer from an inequitable system that short changes children from the lowest social groups, as indeed the grammar school system did, but to a lesser degree perhaps.

I always find this quite amusing as there are some HORRID children in my son's newish prep school.

There are some lovely children, too, but then there were at the old state school.

And strike me down if we don't have some families from 'common' backgrounds there as well. Like builders and hairdressers. Can you imagine? I pay all that money and my son has to sit next to a builder's child. I thought they'd all be stockbrokers or gentry.

Hilarious abraid !

I know exactly what you mean - I have met some right horrors from the Prep schools around here. Annoying in very different ways to state school annoyingness !

Okay, so essentially the argument is that the state sector across the board (presumably with individual exceptions) doesn't have the right quality of teachers adequately to meet the needs of the top percentage of each cohort?

Therefore that 10% would be adversely affected by not having access to that kind of intellectual teaching?

Hmm. I can kind of see that, but I also knew lots of people who came to Oxford from not terribly academic schools who really took off there. And some people who came out the other end of the high-flying school/Oxbridge conveyor belt and were really lost without people holding out the next hoop for them to jump through. Some of these hugely talented people crashed quite badly post-uni, and never really recovered. Most of the rest became barristers, which is essentially just a perpetuation of the Oxbridge thang.

(I have one child in a v. academic selective state school, and another just coming up to secondary who might end up at the local desirable, v. mixed but rather funky comprehensive, so I declare a vested interest here.

There are two 'thugs' making ds's life hard at school, one from a state school, one from another private school. Both are annoying and precocious. Both act as if they know it all.

It's not a blanket 7% of children that are educated in the independent sector - that is the national percentage. The London percentage is higher, reaching over 30 or 40% in some boroughs. Not that that changes much - if you can't afford, then you can't afford it. But everyone I know is prioritising the school fees, and even if they are being hit this year, they are dipping into savings/equity in order to keep their children in until they get their income sorted again.

Kind of, frogs, but as I say, only if you look at the bigger picture statistically. Some state schools do brilliantly well with bright kids. As I said, it just depends where you live.

LadyMuck, the London situation is highly distinctive and doesn't apply to the rest of the country other than contributing to the calculation of the 7%. I have published work about this recently and will send you the reference if you would like it - boffinmum at hotmail dot co dot uk.

Oxbridge is the salvation of our system on many levels, in that it provides a more level playing field for the bright, once they have worked out how to get in.

I am, er, struggling to get my head round the flush toilet "analogy". And failing. I'm an intelligent sort of chap, so I fear the failing may be in the "analogy", not me.

It's not fear that is "driving people to the state system" - it's a very simple thing called m-o-n-e-y. Or lack of it.

I do find it very ironic and almost amusing. Because for me it brings home one very simple and very important fact - for all the pontificating on here about "choice", and "principles", and wanting "the best", and "independent" schools, and what "kind of child" you have and "square pegs and round holes" and the supposed awfulness of our state schools and so on, it comes down to one simple thing. You can't send your child to private school if you can't afford it.

And in these straitened times, a new tranche of the middle-classes are having to learn this hard lesson - one which was learned by the vast majority a long, long time ago. And suddenly, that state system with all its supposed inadequacies and hand-wringing "oh-so-not right-for-Jonty"-ness is suddenly, mysteriously, OK again for some people who previously spurned it.

There is a lesson here.

Think about it.

Looks like someone has beaten OP to it (as if it hasn't been done to death already) in today's Times 2 (don't know how to do links).

They have, fortunately, 'survived' the great leap from private to state sector. Phew.

Dead right, UnquietDad. And they may suddenly discover that state schools aren't the ghastly hell holes that they thought they were when they actually look at them!