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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

How to help children feel that state isn't second best

79 replies

FlimFlamMam · 13/12/2016 20:04

Hi,
any advice welcome I have twins in y6. A significant minority of children at my children's primary are going to private secondary schools. We can't afford to send our two but they are acutely aware that some of their friends are going private and there has been lots of talk about how much better private schools are, nicer facilities, better results, smaller classes. How can I make them feel ok about the education that they'll be getting at the local comprehensive? Thanks.

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nickEcave · 15/12/2016 13:56

I would point out that only 7% of children in this country are privately educated.

wandaabout · 15/12/2016 17:41

I do find the idea that something being private makes it automatically better very annoying - lots of things that are private are actually worse (eg trains). I've also worked in a private school briefly (well, in their building not for them) and the atmosphere was horrible - they knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.

roundaboutthetown · 15/12/2016 20:57

Every school is different. Every child is different. Private schools do not guarantee success, state schools do not guarantee failure. Plenty of successful, well-adjusted, well educated, confident people come out of state schools. Being a resilient, resourceful person with high levels of self-belief is what is likely to bring you success in life. You are handicapping yourself from the start if you actually believe you need small classes and posh facilities in order to succeed - killing off your self-belief and turning yourself into a "second class" citizen before you've even started. If others want to cripple themselves financially in an attempt to stack the dice in their favour, then good luck to them, they might well later on wish they had spent their money in other ways. If they can afford the fees easily, then they have a whole host of other advantages to throw at their children, and probably useful contacts, too, anyway, so how much difference the school is making to their success is debatable, but certainly not £30,000 a year's worth of difference.

RubyWinterstorm · 15/12/2016 21:04

My kids were in this situation. Lots of their friends went private.

I told the DC that they could choose extracurricular stuff outside school! DS2 dreamed of fencing, which he does after school... at the private school for a fraction of the price.

It also helped that DH and I genuinely thought the state options here are better (but maybe we are just lucky with our comps!)

Also, big comps often offer more GCSE option subjects, in our case it meant DS could do the exact options he wanted (smaller private school does not have enough kids to warrant a computing gcse for example)

bojorojo · 16/12/2016 02:02

IT is perfectly possible that a significant minority of children will go to a private senior school in some areas. In an affluent area this can easily be the case. You can big up a state school in lots of ways.

Parents love to boast and justify spending the fees. They explain to their children why they are spending the money. The children simply repeat it. It would be even worse if they said the real reason - "to get away from you lot!"

mouldycheesefan · 16/12/2016 12:55

Surely you can just say you don't want to spend £30k per annum on something that you can get for free?
You can do a lot with the £30k you save that would be enjoy your children.

Autumnsky · 16/12/2016 14:24

I can't see that as a big issue, as most of the children will go to state. It's not like most of the children will go private and only your DC go state. Just treat it as a small issue, admit you wont' want to spend these amount of money on school since the state school your DC goes is quite good as well.

Ellisandra · 16/12/2016 15:09

I'm surprised at the snippy responses doing down private schools

Some private schools are vastly better than state. Live with it.

I would simply tell my child that their private school sounded lovely, but we couldn't afford it - and then emphasise something good about their state school.

wandaabout · 16/12/2016 19:00

And some state schools are better than private. Live with it.

I have no idea why anyone wastes their money on private schools, unless they live in an area with truly appalling state schools and cannot move under any circumstances to an area with better state schools.

ReallyTired · 16/12/2016 20:42

"I have no idea why anyone wastes their money on private schools, unless they live in an area with truly appalling state schools and cannot move under any circumstances to an area with better state schools."

It's call choice. Different people have different ideas on what consitutes a good education. Some people want a unique environment for their children. Maybe they want their children to have an Islamic education or perhaps they want a school with a Steiner philosophy. There are private schools that deliver a German curriculum or the international baccarat.

State schools tend to be comprehensive. Selective primaries do not exist in the state sector. A gifted child can be held back by the national curriculum.

roundaboutthetown · 16/12/2016 21:05

At the cost of most private schools, most parents would find they had more choices to offer their children if they spent their money elsewhere. Or to put it another way, school is not the entire source of a child's education and life experiences and you are limiting your choices if you spend all your money on the one educational establishment. It is only ever a best fit and value for money judgement, not paying for eternal bliss. Not all parents paying for the private school of their choice will end up thinking it was worth the expense, albeit they will try desperately hard to justify it to themselves, unless the expense was a drop in the ocean to them. You win some, you lose some, as they say.

If you do not have a problem with the local comprehensive, there is no reason why a minority of others' choices should make you change your mind. The minority is not always right!

BertrandRussell · 17/12/2016 09:18

"I have no idea why anyone wastes their money on private schools"

Really? I can!

KarmaNoMore · 17/12/2016 13:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

december10th · 17/12/2016 16:33

People who have spent half the price of a house educating their children are obviously not going to admit (especially to themselves! ) they have thrown all that money away.

BizzyFizzy · 17/12/2016 16:35

Tell them that of your feasible choices, you have made the best decision for them.

WhatTimeIsItCuckoo · 17/12/2016 16:55

Haven't read the full thread but I got this last year with our eldest. He went from being so excited about his secondary school to being in constant tears as his friends who were going private had said the exact same things to him, he even started saying that he wasn't 'smart' enough to go to the private school! We could actually have afforded to send him there but we had always been totally happy with the local outstanding state school so simply chose not to largely for reasons that others have stated, mixing with a wider diversity etc, etc. In the end I had a word with his teacher at parents evening and she said she would reiterate to the class that wherever they were going they would get a good education providing they put the work in. They all liked and respected her so this did seem to alleviate some of the naysaying and competitiveness and he seems quite happy now, touch wood. Just hoping I don't have it again with our daughter this year. It's tough, you have my empathy OP.

ohlittlepea · 17/12/2016 17:02

I don't think you need to do either system down. My parents are socialists and so believe in state education they just used to say to us that they believed every child deserved the best education for free. They also wanted us to know people who had more than us and people who had less than us which state school is good for. If they get upset about it is let them know private schools set more homework :D. Joking aside though they are probably old enough to understand that different families have different resources and different values... And that that is ok :)

livinglooney8 · 17/12/2016 21:03

I knew someone who went to a good local comp & got exact grades as my brother at top London independent. Thing is he had a shit time being bullied / taken the pee out of/ hiding his cleverness and potential. But my brother had a great time at school. Loved his school days and still bf with school friends. I chose happy school days over grades every day.

BertrandRussell · 17/12/2016 22:12

"Thing is he had a shit time being bullied / taken the pee out of/ hiding his cleverness and potential"

Yeah- because that always happens in state schools. And nobody ever gets called a swot in private schools. Oh, wait...............

BroomstickOfLove · 18/12/2016 08:41

Where I live there are four schools that I would be extremely happy for my children to attend. Two of those are fully comprehensive, one selects by religion and one is independent. They all have good and bad points, and of those schools some would be better for a particular individual child than others, but they are all excellent schools.

There are also three schools I would avoid if I possibly could. Two of those are comprehensives and one is independent.

The others are all good schools which I would happily use if they were the most sensible option but I wouldn't go out of my way to send my children to them. They are a mixture of comprehensive, religiously selective and independent schools.

So for me, it would take either the sort of income where £30k a year was a drop in the ocean or very particular and specific issues (the need for wrap-around childcare and flexi-boarding, a child who was having problems at the catchment school) to make me choose the excellent independent school over the excellent state ones.

Moominmammacat · 18/12/2016 14:21

In my part of north London, private is where you go if you don't get into Owen's, Henrietta Barnet or QE Boys. Every year, dozens get into Habs and the like who don't make the selective states.

BertrandRussell · 18/12/2016 15:42

"private is where you go if you don't get into Owen's, Henrietta Barnet or QE Boys."

Moominmammacat · 18/12/2016 16:09

And one of my DDs got better A levels at the local comp than her Eton boyfriend ... would insert big grin if I knew how ...

iamadaftcoo · 18/12/2016 16:20

I'm surprised at the snippy responses doing down private schools

Yes, they're a very ethical and socially responsible part of society which in no way inhibit social mobility.

MyschoolMyrules · 18/12/2016 16:51

Don't forget imada they have charity status too...

We've had that at school too, although I have tried to avoid it simply by saying that our local scondary school is our first choice - which it is. Many children in Ds' class have gone through the entrance exams of private schools and 11+ and did well, but I was told by DS that the children concerned were very stressed about it and kept on talking about it in class. And bragged about how many hours of private tuition they needed. That scared DS right off!

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