Outstanding state primary or private prep school?

[strawberry34]

Dh and I are planning to move to a new area soon. We have the option to have a smaller house in the catchment area of an 'outstanding' state primary, where prices are higher, or we can get more house for our money in the catchment area of good/satisfactorily sta're primaries.

If we moved to the bigger house we'd probably want to send dd to a local private school. So my question is really whether 'outstanding' state primaries are comparable in quality to a private school or whether private is better?

Thanks in advance!

Interesting debate! We are going through this at the moment. Long story short, our little boy didn't get into our local outstanding primary so we started to look into private education, it would never have crossed our minds if he'd have just got in.

We went to visit a few and really liked one, it was by far the most progressive compared to the other private schools.

However, someone has dropped out so now our little one has a place at the local primary and we are in a big dilemma!

Do we go to the prep school where he'll have more opportunities or send him to local primary where socially he'll have local friends...

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sabz, this is a zombie thread, you're better off starting a new one.

My own opinion, if money were not an issue, I'd go with a local 'good enough' school (be it state or private) rather than one further afield (state or private) that might or might not actually be better.
I would completely disregard OFSTED 'outstanding' - as in, give it zero weight in my decision making - unless it were less than two years old. And then I would take it with a big pinch of salt. I think outstanding means 'good at doing all the forms and ticking all the boxes, and good results' (where the good results might have little to do with the quality of the teaching at the school).

I would definitely not assume that prep or "outstanding" state is the best option. We actually chose a prep to avoid the "outstanding" state primary we had on offer as it wouldn't have suited our DC. One of the other areas we were considering we would have definitely gone for the "good" state primary over the independent prep that would have been our other option.

I'd go for the prep.

My eldest is now 13 and we have friends both in the private system and the state system and when applying to secondary schools, it was so much easier for the prep kids.

Almost all the parents and children around us wanted to apply to the top private secondary schools and the prep kids, they were, well... prepped. They had the knowledge needed for the secondaries. Especially with maths and science they were miles ahead. They had the manners, they had interview practise, they had a completely different type of confidence that helped them a lot.

I have two friends who subsequently moved their younger children to prep schools after this experience with their older children.

Also, we live next door to an Outstanding school and I meet the parents all the time at the park etc. They are way more snobby, superficial and arrogant than the parents of the kids at our prep.

@LeFaye that was one of my main concerns, the 'snobbiness' of the parents at prep school. We are nowhere as rich as the ones who own a yacht in Monaco! But we will be working hard to pay for what's best for our children, but then don't want them to feel socially isolated due to class difference..

Thank you so much for your advice, it really is something to consider. We are having a meeting with the headteacher at our local primary, to see whether they would help support our child alongside us, in preparation for 11+.

@brilliotic it is difficult to compare and judge schools with ofsted ratings, like you said big pinch of salt! I've learnt that from visiting a few and you can see the quality of teaching, or not!

@HolesinTheSoles I think once we've had the meeting on Wednesday we will have a better idea. Didn't think it would be such a headache, atleast once we decide what we're doing, it will be sorted for our other children too!

Just be careful if you go “outstanding state school” route that it really is outstanding. Many “outstanding” schools have not been inspected for 8-10 years and in that time standards have dropped quite a bit. In fact when “outstanding” are eventually re-inspected, some are rated poor or needing improvement. The strange thing is that they’ve often stayed popular with parents the whole time because people believe what the label tells them - even if the actual evidence before their eyes says something different.