Loti, that is so cheering to hear about dh's fab relationship with dd2.
The education costs thing is a total red herring imho. We have two phds in this house. Mine via an ok faith school (5 people in my year got firsts at university, which is in itself a way of categorising a school's success but nevertheless true).
DH went to a crappy school, and if memory serves, didn't get a mark lower than 80 for any of his final year work at uni- given that much of it was completed on the bus on the way to handing it in, this is especially remarkable!
In my experiences as a third level teacher, and having discussed this at meetings on the issue, I'd say a bright child from a half-decent comp is generally a more flexible, risk-taking and therefore successful learner than a child with similar ability from a private school who is much more likely to do well on closed, highly structured activities.
Go to any university department and ask around-only a tiny minority of staff will have been privately schooled. As a senior academic said to me, this is because privately educated children have enough cop on to go into well-paid careers. Still, it is a 'true fact' as ds would say.
And now I will go on the issue of private schools.
I don't want to read any more picture books.