What state primaries in London to get into top private secondaries?

[newbieLdn]

We’re thinking of buying a house in London within a year or two. Baby's on the way, hopefully followed by second at some point.

We’d love for the kids to eventually go to Oxbridge, but will not really have the money for top-class private education for both kids for the whole 14 years. Or put it differently, even if we do think we have the money now, we may not have it in the future. We figured it’d be more sensible to put aside some funds for really good secondaries in the future, and in the short term, buy a property in a catchment area of a really good primary. This is, at the moment, the best we can afford. I’d definitely want to avoid the kids the trauma of being taken out of a good private school that they already got used to because daddy can now no longer pay the tuition fees, etc.

Initially, we thought they’d go to really good state primaries and secondaries; but looking at Oxbridge acceptance rates, it seems that all the top schools are private, at least in London and South East they are…

Does our plan sound sensible? I want to stress we’re both quite academically-oriented, and will always strive to help kids with homework, read them stories at bedtime, etc.

A friend of mine insists that at the top secondaries (the likes of Eton, Westminster, St Pauls) majority of students come from private primary schools, ideally – a prep school affiliated with the given secondary. Is it really that difficult to get into these top schools from good state or religious primaries? And which state/religious primaries in London would you recommend?

We were thinking of buying in Islington or Putney/Wandsworth/Southfields/Wimbledon; some place close to the Tube for our commutes. But we’re very open to suggestions!

OP your budget for a house is higher than I expected from the start of the thread. If you've got £1.8-£2m then I'm sure even in decent bits of London you'll have a fair few options if you decide to go down the state catchment area route, even if you do end up compromising a bit on that extra bedroom. Also, it sounds like you'll easily have enough money to pay school fees if you decide to do that instead? There are lots of options open to you. It will be interesting to hear what you decide.....

And please bear in mind that DC may not be capable of Oxbridge! There are plenty of other good universities. LSE for example. Or Imperial for sciences.... Plus all the arts ones. Who knows, DC may even want to go to to The Royal Agricultural College! You just can't predict it yet!

With your budget I really can't understand why you want to go to a state school.

Just choose a private prep school and lower your stress levels.

Not RTFT.

Good grief!

God forbid your child is not academic.

(Double Oxford First and DPhil here. From mediocre provincial comp).

With your budget I really can't understand why you want to go to a state school.
because the budget is based on our current financial situation. As anyone working in the City can testify, these things can and do change drastically. One change of government and half the jobs here may not exist anymore. So I'd like to buy a future-proof house for the family, and not have to make the assumption that we'll have disposable £35-50k for two kids' private education for 14 years, starting 3 or 5 years from now. Also, we were not to keen on "buying" our children a good future - we do believe their sense of achievement will be that much greater if they earn it all themselves, for example, by attending state and not private school.

Then OP consider my earlier (unacknowledged) post. Buy near one of London's good grammars. Other like-minded people will be doing the same so at Primary your child will be with children whose parents share a similar ethos. Somewhere like Tiffin only takes the top 2%, so plenty then go on to other good state schools and other good Private schools. (DS failed the Tiffin test but passed the Westminster pre-test. He is now at University with several ex-Tiffin boys and girls.) If you are lucky you can stay with state all the way through, with the chance to bail out if it does not work.

Oddly you may be better off somewhere where a good proportion use the state system than somewhere like Kensington and Chelsea where only a minority do, and where some state schools, especially secondary, can have quite a mixed reputation.

I would still a bit cautious about suggesting that you care more about education because you are not from the UK. The difference may be that in the UK there is a slightly broader concept of education, perhaps a different idea of childhood, and indeed perhaps different definitions of sucess. Hence "the playing fields of Eton" though equaly applicable to the kid who gains maturity and independence through a Saturday job, the child who gets average grades despite real adversity and so on. Being on a gilded pathway is one way to sucess, though it is surprising how many fall off, but there are lots of others, and in the long term resiliance and emotional maturity will be as important as having the right grades and going to the right University.

OP, another thing you might want to consider once the yet-to-be-conceived sibling is at school is going out to work yourself.

Then the "daddy can no longer pay the tuition fees" scenario you describe in your OP would be less crucial for the plans you have set out for your DCs.

Just ignore the righteous indignation of those who feel the need to add nothing to the discussion but their own judgement. You didn't post in AIBU. Just take the constructive posts and don't address the rest. Don't be drawn into a debate you don't need/want to have. You don't need to defend whatever path you choose.

Needmoresleep great tip, thanks. I'll look into those. Kingston certainly looks (ish) affordable & commutable, so a house not far from Tiffin school may work. I'll also google other grammar schools in London - we want to make it work for the kids, but also for our own commutes.

And I can't take someone seriously who has put a post like this on a public forum! Earning 6 figures was not my "lifetime" achievement but given that you seem to make such an issue over you and your DP being so academic and high achieving city types (which somehow means you are more entitled to expect the best for your (unborn) offspring), I wanted to point out that there other people who also might also be academic, city types who are not quite so narrow minded. And yes, the fact that you haven't paid into the system yet plan to cherry pick the best places in the state system when you can easily afford private does irk somewhat.

Please do read this thread in five years time. I think you will cringe.

Presumably you have visas to allow you to move here and be entitled to free schooling? Or are you moving from the EU? In which case please do factor in the referendum to take place in the next 2 years as that may also scupper your best laid plans.

CandyCrush WOW. Just wow.
Judging by the frequency with which you felt compelled to keep posting, you must be quite worked up by now. Let me summarise your last 3 posts:

Immigrants coming over here; taking up your jobs and, gosh, school places. Not paying into the system yet feeling entitled to wish the best for their offspring. How awful. Thank God good born here citizens such as yourself will vote the right way in the upcoming referendum and get rid of cheeky entitled foreigners like us once and for good!

We've been living here for the past 10 years; are naturalised UK citizens; moved to the UK straight after graduation, meaning we had consumed ZERO public resources (e.g. healthcare at pregnancy and birth time; schools and universities until graduation) while paying the full higher and/or additional income tax rate pretty much since arrival. With due respect, I'm pretty sure our "net contribution", as clearly that is the only way you evaluate foreigners in YOUR country, has been higher than yours so far.

I'd love to see on-topic posts in this thread from now on. Thank you everyone for sharing useful tips so far.

newbie Good for you. My hubby foreign born - damn those foreigners! Just employed his 3rd employee. Don't get us started in talking about how difficult it is to recruit British born candidates. But we have a mix staff base including myself and we may our taxes alright.

It's horses for courses. And I for one am aiming for Oxbridge for my dc's .. And why shouldn't I? That's my bar. If my dc's don't make it, then I'll aim for the next highest bar for them, in whatever... And so on. Nothing wrong with having high aspirations. It's flawed, and doesn't sit right for everyone but our capitalism allows us to pay our bills plus THREE other staff mortgages and bills and taxes to the government and so on. Don't shoot us down for having high aspirations, when we are the least likeliest to rely on the state. I

Sorry Newbie feel free to report my post as it was off topic.

How awful. Thank God good born here citizens such as yourself will vote the right way in the upcoming referendum and get rid of cheeky entitled foreigners like us once and for good!

Reading this thread, I just had my first glimmer of understanding of why some people are threatening to do just that. You are breathtakingly entitled.

We've been living here for the past 10 years; are naturalised UK citizens; moved to the UK straight after graduation, meaning we had consumed ZERO public resources (e.g. healthcare at pregnancy and birth time; schools and universities until graduation) while paying the full higher and/or additional income tax rate pretty much since arrival. With due respect, I'm pretty sure our "net contribution", as clearly that is the only way you evaluate foreigners in YOUR country, has been higher than yours so far.

I have an increasingly serious suspicion that there has been an influx of new posters pretending to be immigrants, posting as provocatively as possible in order to whip up anti-immigration sentiment.

I can't think of any other explanation for some of this week's posts.

I got the impression that in the UK, the top faculties are fairly concentrated between Oxford and Cambridge, in the sense that there isn't "the" university for medicine that would be different from Oxbridge, or "the" university for sciences, another for PPE, etc; if you want to aim for the best, Oxbridge sort of ends up being the default.

Actually you are wrong. Oxbridge does not have the monopoly on the best departments even in the sciences, nor do they have a monopoly on broad student experience. Aim to help get them into a good university on a course that interests them, there's no point doing anything different if you want them to be happy.

Actually the whole "Oxbridge isn't the best for XYZ" is a bit of a red herring anyway. Assuming that this nebulous putative DC ends up wanting to do Artificial Intelligence at Sussex or Marine Biology in Southhampton or whatever, then they'd still presumably need the best possible grades, tuition and guidance in order to get onto to the best course for their preferred subject, and for that, an excellent, ambitious secondary school (whether state or private) can only be an advantage (except insofar as it is counteracted by contextual offers).

We've been living here for the past 10 years; are naturalised UK citizens; moved to the UK straight after graduation, meaning we had consumed ZERO public resources (e.g. healthcare at pregnancy and birth time; schools and universities until graduation) while paying the full higher and/or additional income tax rate pretty much since arrival. With due respect, I'm pretty sure our "net contribution", as clearly that is the only way you evaluate foreigners in YOUR country, has been higher than yours so far.

Why do you think your net contribution is higher than mine? I've been paying higher rate tax since 2 years after starting work so for the last 18 years compared to your 10. NEVER claimed benefits, used public resources any way except NHS to give birth, oh and the library.

I haven't said how I will vote. I would in fact probably vote to stay in. And yes, your attitude surpasses "cheeky", it's entitled and superior, like your unborn offspring somehow deserve better.

Your posts are also confusing. You yourself raised the fact that you are "foreign" as you put it and said that you were thinking of moving to London in the next year or two. You also claim to have no knowledge of the education system in this country. You then claim to have been here since graduation and to have worked in the city. So which is it?

CandyCrush, this is the last time I'm replying to your post, sorry.
Yes I've been here for 10 years. No, I don't know much about the education system, and why would I? I didn't go to school or university here, and before starting to plan a family, it wasn't really of much interest to me. you were thinking of moving to London in the next year or two no, I'm thinking of buying a house in London, which is not the same as moving to London, where I've been for the past 10 years.

Now please stop posting here, thanks.

Now please stop posting here, thanks.

It doesn't work like that.

Did you not attempt to absorb any of the MN culture?

Perhaps you should set some money aside for the therapy you are going to need to reconcile yourself to the issues you are building up already about the child you think you are going to get compared with the child you actually end up with.

OP, I'm going to try to do this in a balanced way.

DS' dad and I were both 'Oxbridge'. FWIW neither of us went to a private school - it is doable (he was at a comp, me a grammar).

I loved it - it was great. I met some of the brightest, most open-minded people there (this echoes your assumptions). I also met some people who I believed and still believe were complete psychopaths (one of them did actually turn out to be) and who I wouldn't want to be in the same room with again. It was also one of the most stressful environments I've ever been in - and I was suited to it. I can't imagine how bad it would've been if I'd been trained for it by education, but not had the baseline aptitude.

Now I, like you, come from a background and a family that value education extremely highly. A lot of us are 'Oxbridge' at some point in our academic careers and the assumption is that you aim for the best you can within your field.

However, would I sink thousands of pounds, hours of time and buckets of sweat into trying to ensure DS went to 'Oxbridge'? HELL NO. It isn't worth the investment, compared to any other university that's consistently in the top 10 in the UK. Trust me, it just isn't. And it may not be the best for your child, or for you.

Is it the best education? Maybe. It's certainly pretty unique, but 'best' is a debatable concept. Will it give your child an enviable network? It could, but that can easily be avoided or missed. Will it make your child happy? I suppose you'll find out in approximately 16 years.

I'm of the firm belief that with parents like you (by which I mean obviously motivated, solvent and caring parents), your child will make it to 'Oxbridge' if they're meant to. Whether or not they go to Eton.

OP, you probably realise you've pushed people's buttons big time - if you want to understand why, try talking to friends whose children have finished or nearly finished secondary school. You cannot realistically make a detailed long term educational plan for a baby and as others have said "Oxbridge" is not automatically the best option for every subject or every individual. If you work in the City, you possibly see a fairly rarefied slice of London life: assuming you'll spend time on maternity leave, try looking at a different one and find out a bit more about others' perspectives. Oh, and read carefully. Educational choices are something of a touchy subject as you might have gathered.