Private - Primary or Secondary???

[bgt]

Me and the OH keep on having debates about when to send our son to private. I think secondary would be best but he thinks primary. How did you decide? The more I read the more confused I am.

If you go for primary you have to be prepared to stay in the private system for secondary imho .

secondary

Secondary.

If you can only afford one then go for secondary but be prepared that you may need to get extra help if you want to get into a selective indie secondary. If you can afford both then do it.

My DS goes to a state primary and will go to an indie secondary. The indie is actually a primary and a secondayr too. he is currently in year 6 in state sector and soon to go to indie (into year 5 - he is August born). We are hoping he will stay there for his GCSEs. i am a teacher in a grammar school and I just couldn't send him to any of the non GS options in our area. So we are paying praivate for end of primary and secondary.

sorry littered with poor grammar and sps - long day - got to work at 8 and just got home an hour ago

We did this debate and chose primary on the basis that if your child doesn't develop an interest in learning at primary school age it is a bit late by the time they get to secondary school. We are in GS area and I'd hope ds will be bright enough to go to GS. If he isn't then we will stay private.

we are aiming for secondary. At the moment I don't think academics are that important, they love the school where all he children of our street go. I sometimes do worry about them getting into sec indep schools, as have no plans for extra tutoring (they do enough in a day at the moment, don't want to "force" them to do more.)
Must admit that I grew up abroad so don't really have the "feel" of it all and may well be wrong in my ideas!!

It depends hugely on exactly what state and private primaries and secondaries you have in your area. Also on how academic your child turns out to be, which you really can't begin to be sure of until KS2. Or for that matter how sporty or arty or musical...

Which isn't a very helpful answer, except to reassure you that its not suprising you're confused!

We've been thinking the same thing. Big issues for us are;

A)Competitive sports/games. Not an optional extra; as important as numeracy and literacy, in our opinion.

B) It's cool to be clever/swottish - the merest sniff of an anti-intellectual atmosphere, that so often transmogrifies into bullying, will see us out the door sharpish.

C) Knowledge comes before 'skills'.

One would 'assume' that indies tick above three boxes more than state.......but do they?

As mentioned above, will depend very much on the area and what sort of secondaries you are talking about. The independent secondaries near me in South London are oversubscribed about 8 to 1. The exam/interview process is tough and few state school children gain places. Which is not to say there are no state school children admitted - just that the prep schools tend to be the feeders.

I suppose the first question is what can you afford?

Two schools of thought:

1 - primary gives them the right grounding to succeed whereever later on (& best chance of state grammar maybe if that is an option).

2 - secondary is where the important stuff goes on & is where the most difference in outcomes is achieved.

Bottom line is, both viewpoints are valid. Children have done well both ways (and also, it hasn't worked out for some children both ways). Only you know your child and the local schools - you have to make the choice. Remember you will never know how things would have been if you'd made a different choice too.

Look around the options & see what you think - it may be obvious that the state primaries are actually very good where you are or maybe you really will/won't like the feel of the independant secondaries. If you find somewhere that you think, this would really suit my child then that helps the decision making a lot.

I have friends who sent their twins to private school from scratch. They intended it just to be for the primary years in order to give them 'a good start'. When the time came, they simply couldn't pull them out.

If you really only have the budget for a few years, then I think secondary is probably the better option.

A lot depends on the quality of your state schools locally and whether you can get into a good one.

I think it depends on the quality of local schools. In a grammar school area, private primary might be the best option to ensure your child passes the 11 plus and gets into a good state secondary. On the other hand local primaries might be excellent (in parts of London for instance), but secondary options less good. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to your dilemma - depends on lots of factors.

My daugther is in her second year at private , we sent her for the last year in prep school before moving onto the senior part and felt this really helped as she is glad to have made this choice too.

certainage is irght - depends where you live.

we are doing private primary as we like the school -great facilities, big on sports, great results - and the primary school option near us has just failed its ofsted.

secondary near us there are grammars so that is the aim.

If you can only afford one, definitely secondary but be aware that private secondary
a) only starts at 13 so you will need to send them to a prep school when primary finishes
b) costs a good deal more than a prep school - £7-12k p/a for prep school and at least £20 for senior

If it is either primary or secondary, and you couldnt afford both, then generally I would wait till secondary to move them to private.

I think it depends a lot on what the actual schools are like though. My children are in a state primary school, because in the area I live my catchment school was better than the local private school, so sending them to private at the moment would not have been to their benefit.

fibilou - private secondary doesn't only start at 13 most day schools around here (S London) start at 11 or even 10 - they'll have an intake at 13 but it's generally pretty small - it's only the top tier public schools (St Paul's, Westminster, KCS) here that start at 13 and plenty of people don't send their kids to the attached preps until Y7

sorry pressed post before I'd finished

the average cost for secondary here is £12-£13k per year - not £20 I can't think of a single day school around here which would be that much

Mimsum, the public school I went to and every single public school around here starts at 13 - unless they are 2-18 which are generally single sex. I can't speak for London as I live in Sussex

I have just checked day fees at my old school. £18k per annum for day pupils and £26k for boarders

in that case, Fibilou you need to be saying in my experience, in my area etc not giving a blanket proclamation

the fees you've been talking about would be prohibitive for the vast majority of MNers who educate their dc privately - the fees I know about are much more reasonable - and these are for schools very high up in the league tables so they're obviously not skimping on quality of education with their smaller fees

Oh, whatever. I'll say what I like, based on 14 years in private education with all of my friends from private schools, my family from private schools. I do feel that that gives some experience of the private education system.
Obviously I come from the so called "top tier" of public schools so my opinion is worth nothing