Would you send your gifted child to private school but not the others?

[bogeyface]

DD2 is gifted.

DS1, DD1 are 21 and 14, DS has SEN, DD1 is average (infact above average in ability but her lack of confidence holds her back in achievement) DD3 (7) is over a year ahead of her class in most things and has a reading and writing age of 11, DS2 (6) is above average in ability but not outstandingly so, his mucking about lets him down, he is very Just William! and DD4, we dont know yet as she is only weeny!

So......ex and I are considering putting DD2 in for scholarships at our local prep, which is also nationally renowned (no pressure then :o) as we feel that a private education would help her make the best of her gifts. But, we would only just be able to do this if she got a scholarship and bursary, there is no way the others would be able to go. If DD3 showed the same level of ability and also got a scholarship and bursary then we would have 3 years of paying, admittedly reduced, fees and I am not sure if that would be doable. Although I would be back at work full time by then which would make a big difference.

So would you send one in the knowledge that you could do it and play by ear for the other child? Or not send one if you cant be sure you could afford to send both? I am erring towards the latter as I feel that truly gifted children will achieve anywhere if they have the mindset......but then I wonder if I am selling DD2 short by not applying?

Arrgghh!!!

WWYD?

i dont think it is offtopic and it shows that it is a situation that CAN work in some familes, the op will be the only person who knows if it will work for her family :)

Hmmm, alot to think about thank you :)

Lucyellensmum if I didnt need to ask then I wouldn't thave done, and I didnt and would never describe my other children as "less talented", they are all very talented in their own areas. DD2 and 3 just happen to be very academic, DD1 has an amazing talent in a non academic area in which school wont make a bit of difference.

My dd had a reading age of 14 and a spelling age of 12, at the age of seven.
She's bright and able. She's not gifted. Just saying...

Ideally we would go for grammar but there isnt one anywhere near us. Our local high school is good more most kids but they dont deal with anyone out of the ordinary terribly well, so SEN (as DS had) or those significantly in advance of the average for their year seem to fall by the wayside a bit. I have an ex colleague/friend who took her son out of there and into private because they simply didnt have the time, inclination or resources to deal with a significantly able child, and I am worred about sending her there.

Which doesnt really leave me with much options as the other schools within driving distance are massively oversubscribed.

But......I really dont want this to be a divisive issue. She is likely to always do well, and I dont want her siblings to think "She is clever AND she got a better school than me" . I know they wouldnt think like that now, but as adults they might especially if she earns more than they do for example.

Just saying what?

Just saying the child in question doesn't sound "gifted" in the true sense. Being on the register is fairly meaningless.

Personally I wouldn't. I would want all my children to have the same opportunities, and yes I would consider private education if we had the money to be able to choose that for all of them, I wouldn't do it if I could only afford it for one. We're saving to be able to help with university costs for both of them (and a third if I can persuade dp).

I think that's partly because the private school near us is actually not as good as the state school dd1 attends. Having spoken to teachers at both schools off the record (I know them through church) the private school pushes 35 'clever' kids into the top set where they are expected to take all of their GCSEs a year early and then do extra GCSEs the following year, ie Maths GCSE in year 10 then Further Maths GCSE in year 11, or Geography in year 10 followed by History in year 11. The state school offers some of that to some of the kids but not in classes of 35. The results from the state school are better too.

Well thank you for that Flogging but I think I will take the word of an educational expert in their field over your opinion! My DD2 has been assessed at aged 10 and is gifted, DD3? Who knows? She hasnt been assessed.

I have two sons and I wouldn't send one private if I couldn't afford for them both to go. As it stands we can't afford for either of them to go so it isn't an issue. However, I would agree that private schools aren't necessarily the best academically either. Our local High school outstrips the private school in terms of results but the private school gives something else in terms of care and confidence that the High school doesn't. The reason that they give bursaries etc to less well off academic kids is to keep up their own exam average up so that they continue to get business from people who can afford to pay - but then i am a cynic!

What do you mean by assessed -by an ed psych? Why?

Being that far ahead doesn't seem gifted to me. Ds had a reading age of 9 when he was 6 and definitely isn't gifted at all. I would say he is above average but not exceptional.

Scholarships these days are worth very little (10 - 20%) so it is worth checking what sort of income you need to qualify for a bursary. However you may need to get a scholarship to be able to access any available bursaries. Ds's scholarship is worth 50% and for what it was awarded for he is exceptionally talented (choral) but I wouldn't even rank that as gifted.

I wouldn't have a problem about choosing the most appropriate school for your dcs but I wouldn't build my hopes up that she would get a scholaship.

DD2 is gifted, DD3 is the one that I mentioned how far ahead she is! Read the post please!

I said that if DD3 showed the same abilities we would enter her too, I am not saying she will.

My eldest is at a very selective private school on an 80% bursery, my youngest is 9, at the moment isn't showing signs of being very academic, so although we'll enter him into the exams, at the moment, I'd say it was unlikely he'll pass. so he'll go to the local comp where I'm sure he'll be fine as he is very hardworking and motivated. My elsest is not very hardworking (age 12) and so I'm hoping that his school will challenge him.

It is a very tricky situation, we chose the school that was best suited to my eldest, It doesn't look like the same school will be the best for my youngest.

My parents did - not that I was G&T but I was brighter than average. I went to a private school, my siblings didn't. To be fair to them, my brother didn't want to go to the boys' "nobby" school and my sister would not have passed the entrance exam to my school - so they both went to the local comp instead.
Do they care now? No. Did they care at the time? No. They took the piss out of me a fair bit but neither of them were unhappy with the choices our parents made.

Thumbwitch, I wonder what your siblings privately think. In any case it's not the point. The fact that your brother called the boys school 'nobby' means he could have benefited.
If you can't afford private school for all of your kids it seems quite cruel to single one out for special treatment. You could argue that the 'less able' child would benefit more. Would a compromise be to pay for extra tuition?

But in our case, we could afford (with burseries) for both children to go to the same school, but it's unlikely (at the moment) that our second child would get in.

LookBehindYou - neither of my siblings are backwards in coming forwards about what they think, don't you worry. They couldn't care less. And as for your extremely snide comment about what my then 10yo brother thought, says more about your own snobby attitude than his.

I think you should send your child to the school best suited to helping them in life. I sent my ds to a small private school last year because public school just couldn't educate him. (Dd was still in public school) The move was a huge success for ds. So this upcoming year I am going to send dd to private school. A different one, with a completely different emphasis. It might work and it might not. Dd never felt that she was getting unfair treatment because she was in public school while ds was in private. She is smart enough to realize that ds need a different environment. And by the way, the positive aspects of sending ds to private school were not just ds getting a better education.....they reverberated through our family life on all sorts of levels and meant that ds was ill less, I was therefore less stressed and had more time and consequently dd got more attention.

If your dd is gifted, then she will do well academically in state schools. I believe that different schools suit different children, but in your particular situation I wouldn't use private.

My point is that he was a young boy and therefore couldn't possibly have known. It's up to the parents to decide, not the child. The child shouldn't have to stand by a decision he made at 10!

I would worry a bit about the younger siblings as they are also already showing some promise in terms of becoming gifted. Having said that, if DD2 is really that gifted and that is the right school for her, I wouldn't hold her down for the sake of the other ones. I spend hours complainin about my child being h

Your point was bloody rudely put then, LookBehindyou.
It's debatable as to whether or not he would have benefited from a system he didn't want to be involved in, and it's equally debatable as to whether he would have actually passed the entrance exam; but as he was adamant that he didn't want to go, my parents saw no need to force him.

Oops pressed 'send' by accident

As i was saying, I complain about DS loosing interest and getting bored by not being allowed to move to far ahead of his peers. So, I don't see why the home should be different. If you were saying should I stp DS from playing football as his siblings are not really sporty, everybody will be telling you not to be silly.

My siblings and I attended different schools and that made us very different individuals, I don't resent them a bit. Actually, I rejoice in our differences.

I chose private becasue, my son is of a difficult character . They have no setting in the local secondaries (which will be great for my ds2), and I know he would be involved in low level disruption (just like in primary school). He is thriving with peers of a similar ability, and being challenged and generally worn out! And even though he is still a bit chatty, it's nowhere near as bad as last year in primary (according to my son)