response to private school

[plumling]

DS did not get a place at either of our good local schools (live within .5 mile to both) and so after much thought rather than walk 1.5 miles each way to nearest school which I didn't really like(for lots of dull valid reasons) we have decided to go private (5 min walk each way) after much navel gazing and general pissed offness with the state system of catchments etc.

Have been really saddened about friends' reaction in that people at a recent Ds friend's birthday party - got lots of quite intrusive questions challenging this decision (don't know how you can afford it...how will you? etc etc).

Just really curious around the thinking - why is it ok to challenge people going to private school but not when they overtly move into catchment areas? Very difficult to move, my mother lives with us etc so moving wasn't an option but even so going private is a lot cheaper for us than hunting down a house within 0.2 mile etc.

swedes- it is true people seem completely blinkered from the fact that they are buying their childrens' education via their mortgage instead of via fee-paying school, yet think they have the moral advantage.

Op: I've had similar discussions with friends who get very upset about the fact that DD is going private when their children aren't and completely overlook the fact that we live in a completely different village. If we lived in the same village as them, DD would have gone to the village school like a shot but our local school is awful. I understand that they have finally got rid of the alcoholic head master and appointed someone else and if it is sorted out a bit DS will go there, but not otherwise.

Sorry Hester, I know you're being very polite and restrained on this thread, but I would respond to any discussion about the societal impact of educating my children privately with comments about people who shrink catchment areas and massively push up house prices which leaves those that can't / won't move to struggle in the worst schools. At least buying a private school place doesn't take a place at a good school away from someone else who might need it more.

So are all of the people who object to private education, people who've done that, azazello, do you think?

But I agree with you, azazello: I think that all of us should discuss how to improve education for all children. I don't think people should opt out of the discussion because they feel defensive (rightly or wrongly) about the choices they have made. And, as I have made clear, I absolutely accept that by buying into a middle class ghetto I have made social inequalities worse, just as much as somebody who buys into private education.

I accept that we're all doing what we can to look after our children, within an education system that is very far from perfect. My argument is simply that these threads degenerate into defensiveness banter, and so rarely do we explore how things could be made better.

ah but if you say how you think they could be better, you just get called a communist, usually.

True that.

No, I don't think they've all done that Irksome, but in the people I mixed with on a professional basis when I lived in London, those were the two options. The majority of the people I know have decided where to live on the basis of access to the best schools, even if it isn't a conscious move into a small catchment area. Thank you Hester, sorry to sound snippy.

Actually, personally I would ban private schools, church schools and grammar schools but have an education system which divided at 14 into very academic / reasonably academic / vocational along the lines of choice as well as ability and I don't think children should be able to leave primary school unable to read.

Ironically, I had sort of the opposite experience to this op:

Last year my DD's friend was taken out of reception to start at the private school in year 1. When he mum told me she seemed a liitle bit apologetic and said that they had come in to some money, well, if you had the money, you would do the same, wouldn't you?

We were at her son's birthday party so I didn't want to get into any sort of heated discussion about it but two things pissed me off. Firstly, I do have the money, and given the state primary we have in the village, no I wouldn't (still, she didn't know that). Secondly, I am a state sector teacher I am surprised it never occured to her that this might be in any way offensive to me.

Oddly, another parent made the same decision about her DS. I have no issues at all with the reasons they made their decision and I can understand the specific issues they chose to do so.

With the first friend though, It still irritates me that she said it and we have lost contact now.

just tell them you like the summer straw boater, cap they wear. I did exactly that:)

I had the opposite situation last year when ds got a secondary place at the local up and coming boy's school.
Many boys from his school went private, which isn't something we considered.
One mother laid her hand on my arm and said she was so sorry little deaddei was having to go to X school, wasn't it a shame we couldn't afford private.

I'm not surprised at people being threatened or discomforted by 'difference' to the group (we had it in reverse, when we sent dd to the local supposedly 'sink' school which we chose over 2 independent primaries - its now oversubscribed, ho hum) but what does always shock me is the way some people react when they feel threatened in that way: blaming, judging, making someone else 'wrong'.
I think I'm chronically naive.

To be honest you will get it with anything. I still (and my parents still) get comments about the fact that I went to a catholic secondary in Camden with 70% a-c pass rates rather than a 30% a-c pass rates school in Hackney (I'm 24 btw). It was five years of my life! AND we are a genuinly catholic family and always were, never did it for the schools but when the option arose, hey why not.
Some of it is competitive, hey look my life/school is worse than yours. Some of it is genuine ethical concern. However, I don't know how another parent can judge what is right for your child.

It's not OK.

My DS was at an "outstanding" primary. We hated it. Drippy HT and no competitive sport (no competitive anything actually) We disliked lots of things about it and moved him at the end of Y2 (now Y6) to the local Prep.

Every single one of our so-called friends, but one, "dropped" us because of this (or at least, used it as an excuse to "drop" us).

"How dare you move him from here? Schools don't get any better than this. We moved so we could get DD to attend this school, how come it's not good enough for you, have you won the lottery?"

People feel these kind of comments are acceptable - I don't know why.

Good luck!

I have had a Mother I had just met at a birthday party badger and badger me into telling her what School DD is starting in Sept when I finally told her (Selective private with top results a rep. for being v strict/ formal) she literally backed away from me in steps and blanked me for the rest of the time there.

It IS actually embarassing for me to tell good friends our choice but you know I am sick of adding a "disclaimer" to it; well she is my only one, well our 2nd choice was X state school etc, We have a modest house and car and it is for a myriad of reasons that we can afford this. It is so disappointing when we see the faces drop and the conversation killed whenever we mention it but understand the assumptions people make - human nature I suppose.

You don't need to add a disclaimer - to be honest, I'd feel the same no matter what the disclaimer was, so it's not worth bothering.

Irksome, I had to laugh at that!

What bugs me is when the kids have a go at my daughter because she is going private in september! It is not just the parents

What gives anyone the right to be so judgemental about anothers choice of school?

Who cares if little jonny goes to a private school?
That means one less bum on a seat in a class of 35 with a teaching assistant standing at the front. Which is what alot of schools have to offer our children.

Lots of private schools are not that good either.

So many more important things to get angry about.

Your question merely reveals the tiny group of people amongst whom you are willing and able to mix. The vast majority of people in this country do not have the luxury of a choice between an expensive house and a private school education.

Amongst those with the luxury of some kind of choice, I don't think there is a moral difference between buying your way into a good catchment area and buying your way into a private school. However, there are plenty of questions raised by your choices. What style of education do you favour, what are your views on class sizes, how do you make your financial and lifestyle decisions, what sorts (or proportions) of families and children are you attempting to avoid (if any), what is so wrong with the schools you have rejected that you are opting out altogether at considerable personal expense? What do you want your children to learn at primary school and what, at the end of the day, do you think makes a worthwhile member of society? And if your child's educational experience is entirely different to that of your existing friends' children, how much are you going to have in common and be able to share when you meet up? What of any great depth have you ever shared with these "friends" who are now questioning you, or have you merely got on because you assumed you were all pretty much alike?... Maybe you aren't as alike as you thought you were - but looking on the bright side, you are likely to make friends with parents at your child's school who won't ever have to wonder whether they share the same philosophical views of education and can therefore assume they have lots in common with you, and you can start all over again.

Does that mean that we can only be friends with people who have the same political & philosophical views? That because a person chooses to send their child to private school then they can't maintain any friendships with pre children friends?
Seriously.

Irksome you couldn't be more wrong. I have had the rudest comments from the people who drive expensive cars and go on extravagant holidays and live in vast houses, and yet send their children to not particularly good state schools. It really is puzzling to me why they are so sneering about my choices when if they really cared about social welfare and class division they'd work in jobs which actually made a contribution to society or pay large sums to charity.

The situation isn't black and white. I send my DSs to private school due to the totally inadequate provision in the previous state school for SN. It was a decision I made with great difficulty, struggling with my social conscience and something I find difficult to fund.

What I find so objectionable is the fact that those who sneer at me fund hugely extravagant lifestyles (while I shop at aldi), and comment constantly (but seemingly without awareness) of the pretty grave problems with the schools their kids attend. And I'm not allowed to say to them - well I think you're a shit parent for putting your so called principles before your child!

Does that mean that we can only be friends with people who have the same political & philosophical views? That because a person chooses to send their child to private school then they can't maintain any friendships with pre children friends?

Goes both ways though, at an NCT evening out I was asked how I felt being the only one "having" to use state schools

It absolutely does go both ways, and it's ridiculous. I repeat, if we spent 5% of the energy we put into defending our choices into trying to make the choices better for ALL children, we might start getting somewhere.

And don't get me started on the BS that is grammar schools - they're so much better because the children their are clever not rich. This might once have been true in our parents' generation, but now every child who gets a place has been coached to within an inch of their life by the expensive tutor that their parents have spent a fortune on. Oh yes, grammar school places are bought too.

yes, but you assuming everyone who uses state schools lives an extranvagant lifestyle is a bit silly too.