Everyone who lives near me and can afford it seems to be sending their kids to private schools…

[sanssucre]

That's it really, I guess I've just been really surprised that none of them has even considered the local primary schools. DD will start school next year and I'd just always assumed she would go to one of the decent primary schools nearby (there are several and I'm confident we'll get into one).

Thing is, we could actually afford to go private (it would mean some sacrifices but it's do-able), we've just always wanted her to have local friends, go to a nearby school, mix with a wide variety of people etc so I haven't explored the independent option at all. However, in all honesty, the fact that so many people in a similar financial situation to ours haven't even bothered to look round the state primaries is making me wonder if I'm being hopelessly optimistic. But seriously, is it really worth spending thousands of pounds a term to teach a 4/5/6-year-old? I'm not being sarcastic or judgy, it's a genuine question, I just honestly want to know what can be so terrible about a reasonable state primary school that so many people wouldn't even give it a second look.

I appreciate that my post might raise a few heckles. I know we're very fortunate to be able to afford private education if that is the way we choose to go. I also understand that this is a very contentious/emotive issue but I'd be really grateful for some honest opinions.

I also have a cousin who went to the local comprehensive while I went to the local private school

We both ended up at Oxbridge

At family gathering she always buttonholes me to tell me he how my parents wasted their money , even though it was 20 years ago now

I am going back for a family gathering this weekend and will have to suffer hour upon hour of every relation telling me I'm wasting my money...

I'll be tempted to respond with 'Where did you get them hair extensions? You was robbed'

But I won't cos how fold spend their money is up to them right?

I have taught in inner city Salford and Middlesborough. And shock horror!!!! many kids there were also polite and civilised and also got level4/5 in their SATs.
Manners come from parents. A great deal of intelligence is inate.

I didn't pay to avoid swearing and batterings in the playground. Anyone who does either lives in a seriously challenging area or is dillusional.

I think people have very varied reasons for privately educated. Certainly threads on MN throw up all sorts of reasons: wrap around care, better SEN provision than local school, smaller class sizes, no state place offered within a reasonable distance etc etc...

But no one ever wants to accept this unpalatable truth. They want to peddle the usual crappola that everyone has the same motives

-they're frightened of state education (unlike the brave brave souls using their local outstanding faith school or grammar)

• they were pribvately educated themselves
• they wish to separate themselves and their DC from poor people.

Let's not let the truth get in the way of a good dogma though eh?

Exactly wordfactory. Well said.

Yes Wordfactory and every independent school is like Eton.

I don't understand wordfactory

As far as I can see a small but significant proportion of parents do send dcs private precisely for the reasons you've said are crappola

They went to private schools and have been brought up to think alternative is second rate. And I hear all the time "I couldn't send ds to XX school, because he'd be in a minority/most children there speak English as a second language" ie most children there are black/immigrant and live on an estate.

I'd didn't say no-one has those motives - am sure they do.

I'm just saying that the suggestion that those are the reasons for most of us, is crapola.

We know that many parents who send their kids private went to state schhols themselves. We know that many parents who send their kids private are or have been state school teachers.
We know also that tons of DC change from state to indie at eleven.
This means that all these parents have an understanding of the state system and are not inherently against it or frightened of it.

They just have their own reasons which are highly relevant to their DC and family for making the choice they have.

But let's ignore all these perfectly normal families and focus on the few (that everyone coincidentally has experience of) that make a better example to prove a point.

As a white woman though, with white children, I wouldn't send my dcs to a school where they would be a minority or where many children had english as a second language unless it was private and it meant many nationalities as opposed to one.

And whether we like ot or not playgrounds across the country are divided into ethnic and religious groups.

I had a mixture of English private, English state (top notch grammar) and overseas education.

It has left me with an abiding horror of state education!

But would you send your children to a school where they'd be the only ones (or minority) in their social class, Crapola? Genuinely interested, not having a go. Because I think that's what many parents fear, though not many admit it.

weird spammy post there

Why Bonsoir?

I think that if you have visited the local state schools and are happy with them then that is all that matters. Your instincts count...I visited ours and it was dreadful. It literally stank...of poo...it was dark and dull...no pictures on the walls and a broken fence....lack lustre teachers...I went around some more and they were great but I knew we wouldn't get in...nor could we move as the areas are full of million pound houses...so we chose a reasonably priced private school which luckily is within walking dstance.

we have had an influx of kids from the local (smelly) primary...this year...and it's great. Many kids are local...so it feels like a proper community school now.

I am angry that a state school in a good mixed area has been left to it's own devices....the area is very mixed economically and the kids who go there seem lovely. But why should I send my DD there....to a place which stinks and has terrible results?

I also had very bad experences as a child in state schools. Huge, faceless secondary, tiny crap primary with poor teachers...some truly scary kids in both.

Its not like that now Bonsoir...

Honest truth?

The state school was dull as ditchwater because it lacked all the fun stuff that money can buy - and that was as true of life inside school (ie the facilities) as outside school (the kind of lives led by your peer group and their families).

Really Bonsoir? My DDs private school isn't full of things which only money can provide....what fun stuff are you talking about?

Mum....No I wouldn't, not if they were going to be the poorest. I got a scholarship to one of the most expensive schools in the country (I come from anice area) and my parents, despite the 100% scholariship, didn;t allow me to take it because I couldn't keep up with the clothing, sports activities (most girls had a horse) and general lifestyle.

For example, school trips. All my experience of school trips in state schools (in England and in France) have been of dull places that didn't cost much to get to or stay at. At private/overseas schools there are fantastic trips to faraway or imaginative places.

Jeepers. We must go to a shitey one then...our trips are basic. Wales...theme parks....

Crapola, what about the other way round, if they were going to be the - shall we say - most middle clas? Again, not having a go.

'it feels like a proper community school now'

Hollow laugh.

Once you've removed all the people who can't afford fees from your community, yeah? How nice.