private vs. state WWYD

[primary2015confused]

Looking for different opinions and advice on what to do re 2015 primary admissions for dc1.

We live in an area of london dominated by faith schools and we don't meet the criteria to get in. All are oversubscribed so we won't get in under the any other children criteria. Locally there are two good community schools and 3/4 years ago we would have gotten in. We would not have received a place last year or the year before and its unlikely we will this year. The only other options available to us are the three worst performing schools in the borough. The SATs results for the school are poor, ofsted results are not great and they have terrible reputations.
Dc1 has a place at a local prep school. Its a friendly, nuturing school with good academics but is not a hot house. However I'm still unsure about turning down the state option for a prep school because:

• the cost. We can afford it but its still a lot of money which could be spent on fab holidays or a bigger house
• I don't want to wrap dc1 in cotton wool. Sending them to a prep school will be insulating them from the real world somewhat.

However I do want the children to reach their full potential and worry that might not happen with the state option.

Any thoughts or advice is welcome.

We've gone down the private route and for us the trade off iso cheaper holidays and smaller house So similar to your situation.

I suspect you will get posters,saying that if parents,like you (and me) send their dc to the unpopular school then it will improve- personally I didn't want to take any chances.
it depends how bad the state school is? What sort of behaviours will he pick-up? I will get flamed for saying that I know but it shocks me when I hear some 4/5 years old swearing etc in the local park.

Visit the schools you are rejecting.

I don't think any child educated in London is really wrapped in cottonwool. The Prep/Private route may just lead to different pressures.

I would go private in a heartbeat if I could. There are no private schools near me.

I wish heartily that the state system were better, but have been disillusioned by what I have seen.

Thanks for the responses.
I have visited all the schools and liked the teachers a lot. However they are massively stretched (they said so themselves) as the intake is 70% EAL and FSM. They are under massive pressure to increase the SATS results and hence the more able kids get overlooked.

Intresting comment about the other pressure s at prep school and I agree although the school isn't a hot house and we declined places at schools that were.

Thanks really.

I would dearly love to send dc1 to a local school but the over abundance of faith schools massively skews the schools in our part of london. Within a mile we have eight faith schools and none accept non faith children.

also, look to your MP / local council and write letters to complain about the lack of choice for families that don't want faith schools.
fairadmissions.org.uk/

There is an election on and local issues like this matter!

Thanks will take a look and see how I can get involved. Unfortunately we have an awful tory mp who is in favour of faith schools.

Not sure I get the cotton wool comment, can you explain? What are you worried that you child won't get exposure to?

Perhaps I used the wrong phrase.
Just worried that a prep school isn't as representative of the real world as a normal school and hence I won't be preparing them for the real world.

I just wanted to shout out a bit for the state schools. You say you liked them, but the more able kids aren't stretched? Are you sure? Are you just projecting that on it as it's a wide demographic? The reason I say that is my son goes to an inner city primary in a poor area. Most people told us not to touch it and when he went there it was in special measures. He's in his final year now and has had a really good education. He's doing well academically and is most definitely being stretched. The teaching's interesting at the very least and often inspiring. It's also a very caring school with a great sense of community. One of your schools could be just like that, so maybe have another look - talk to parents whose kids are there already. Also, I'm just saying it as you mentioned it, but the majority of the kids who in the top groups at my son's school are FSM, have English as a second language. That's not unusual.

Op I totally get your cotton wool comment. We have been considering the same in that I don't necessarily want DC in an upper middle class bubble where everyone's parents are lawyers/accountants/bankers etc with a nice house, weekly cleaner, Ocado delivery and half term at Centerparcs, not that there is anything wrong with that but it isn't representative of the community as a whole. And I think growing up in a broader community would do DC's development and empathy a lot of good.

I'd go private in a heart beat if I could afford it. I'd not worry about the mollycoddling aspect of it - look at it this way, the social elite all go to private school and they seem to cope pretty well at ruling the real world for us plebs!

Are wrap around care and 11+ preparation relevant to you? Those seem to be offered by all the private primaries round here, but wrap around only at some of the state ones and 11+ at none of them. Have you checked how often fees would be payable and done a cashflow for 7 years including above inflation fee increases, and extra charges and a cover for few extra weeks of holiday at private? I think most private primaries in London will have a fair amount of cultural and ethnic diversity, although obviously most families will be relatively well off (even if all the dosh goes on the school fees!)

I live in a similar area. I would keep your options open. If it's in SW London be aware that an awful lot of people move when their children are in the infant departments and then some more move to the indy sector at the end of Year 2. Places come up more often than you might think at the sought after church schools.

I also know a family who moved into the area when their daughter was about 7/8 and sent her to one of the less sought after schools. They were delighted with it and how it encouraged her. She moved from there to ......... Cheltenham Ladies College.

PM me if you are anywhere near SW19 and I'll give you more low down. In any event if you have the money to spend I'd save it until they are bigger.

I'm really curious about that idea of not wanting the upper middle class bubble - that is exactly what I do want (and probably won't achieve!) for my dc. I am trying to engineer things to avoid them being surrounded by kids whose parents dont give a shit about them, aren't working at all, and the kids are being sent to school hungry because there's no food in the house and tired because they've been up all night playing GTA at the age of 9. Give me ocado deliveries and a delayed interaction with the real world, please.

Thanks all. Really appreciate the comments. Lots to think about. Hopefully tomorrow when I know exactly which school we are allocated things will be clearer.

I am in nw london but imagine sw london is similar.

Want the children to have a decent crack at 11+ (state or private) if they are academic. They may well not be and that is fine.

Bosswitch - through uni and later at work I have worked along side hundreds of people that were privately educated. So many of them lacked any common sense, struggled with quite basic jobs and were arrogant. I desperately don't want that for my kids but I also want them to go to a school where they reach their potential.

That's fair OP. For what it's worth, I've taught in state and indie, although secondary school not primary. In state at the moment, new school in sept which is private. I won't - except to save myself from starving - be going back into the state system. I think it's broken.

Hope you come to a decision that works well for you.

Bosswitch I do get your views and if the choice is binary yes it is the Ocado world. I'm hopeful that my child will be able to get into one of the few local schools where, from what I see and hear, most of the parents care enough, the kids are largely suitably looked and the results /Ofsted are reasonable but the background/income if the families are more mixed.

I'm in SW London and my child is attending a school which, when the primary allocations were given out way back when she was in preschool, people actually cried about being allocated. Genuinely (I know it sounds bonkers) people were sobbing at preschool drop off because they'd been allocated a school round the corner from their house (mainly because it didn't have a v good Ofsted at the time, though it's since gone up and others have gone down, meh). I chose the school as my top choice because I thought it seemed like the kind of place that would be friendly and welcoming and treat each child as an individual. It doesn't get great results, tbh, but it does tend to do its best for all its children.

Anyway, four years on, DD is doing really well academically (she appears to have reached the average level of a child leaving primary school at Y3), she is happy socially and yes, she has been exposed to 'kids whose parents dont give a shit about them, aren't working at all, and the kids are being sent to school hungry because there's no food in the house and tired because they've been up all night playing GTA at the age of 9' and it hasn't done her a scrap of harm. If anything she has had her eyes opened to the world around us and now says she wants to be prime minister when she grows up as she has very definite ideas about what she'd like to change in the world.

Honestly, honestly, it's what's going on at home that matters most and if other kids have bad stuff going on at home it isn't necessarily going to affect yours negatively.

I don't think the education system is broken yet. Our experience of it has been unbelievably positive.

I do think that state primary is a good move as there are so many good ones in London and if your child is hoping private at 11+ they will have experienced a much broader spectrum of life.
My daughter is at state primary and she was preparing for SATs when the prep school kids were preping for indie schools. Yes she may have been at a disadvantage when applying for private school but she got in on her own merit.
She has been to massive Nigerian family parties and belly danced at an Algerian female only birthday party. She loves Jollof rice and jerk chicken. Yes she also has two kids in her class who's Mums died during her period at school. Kids with Dads in prison and a drug using parent coming into the school off his head having a go at the teacher in class. She has heard gossip about kids at the local secondary taking a gun to another school as they are having a 'beef'. None of this has done her any harm but I hope it has opened her eyes to other peoples circumstances and made her aware of how fortunate she is. I am confident that she will move onto the private secondary option with her eyes open.

If I was in your shoes definitely private.
We could never afford it and had the worst school at the worst time for one of our ds, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
It was similar to the one you described, and they did the best they could with what they had. Your child deserves to reach their potential and some schools can't offer this.

I went with an 'outstanding' church primary (am not religious) I have no idea how we scraped a place. I dithered because I got a really bad feeling about it before joining, after a parents induction day, just a bad vibe that I didn't get when I spoke to another school. In hindsight I was terribly foolish to ignore this and I have regretted it. Look at location, workability in terms of hours etc. Don't pin too much on the perceptions you have about a school from reports, but do try and visit schools. I am really trying to move DS school as in year application but entirely impossible. If all else fails I'd go private but I think state primary certainly for early years is fine no matter where they go.

For me it would depend on why the state schools are bad.

If they're bad academically it wouldn't concern me too much at this age. You can easily help your DC to catch up afterschool and on the weekend. I'd maybe look at a private school for the juniors, but wouldn't waste my money for infants.

If it's bad in terms of pastoral care e.g. problems with bullying etc. then I would go for the private school. Unlike the academic side, you can't fix the emotional damage that will be done by this sort of bad school at home.

I would worry only about his happiness at this point. How happy will he be at each school and how much would he like more space at home/holidays/days out etc? How will the money most add to his happiness.

You can worry about academics a bit later.

My 3 dcs all went to a state school which went from outstanding to satisfactory to good whilst ive been there, i would say they have all had the same standard of teaching but since the new head arrived the school has been fantastic. My middle dc struggled all through the infants and was way behind, i battled with the head and SEN dept to try and help her but just got no help, the new head came and she got all the kids who were behind checked out, changed the SEN dept and teacher. My dd got outside help as she possibly has some processing problems, end of year 4 with the extra help everything just clicked, shes in YR6 now and expected to get 5's in her sats, something i never ever thought possible, her teacher said she has never seen a child go up so many reading levels so fast or come back so fast from being so far behind. The new head really helped her. I guess what i am trying to say is a lot can change quickly, schools in measures usually get extra help, a new head can do wonders, certain techers in a rubbish school can be excellent

I'd go private, if you can afford it. See what tomorrow brings but I wouldn't take the risk with the 'bad' schools you have described. It's a crying shame all state schools aren't of a decent standard but given they're not, do the best you can for your children.