Letting go of private school reception place amid fear of recession when we are not affected yet

[anyoneconsidering]

DS due to start reception at a private school. Deposit and the first term's fee paid.

I do wonder if we should let go of that place and start him in a state school instead, amid the fear of recession looming and the potential uncertainty of our financial situation in the future.

Our jobs are not affected currently. Hence DH thinks that this change of plan is unnecessary especially as we've made financial commitment to the school already.

But I worry what recession (and maybe world wide depression) might bring to us that we can't predict right now.

Am I the only one considering this? Anyone in similar situation - what are your thoughts?

@LondonGirl83

Apologies to OP for being off topic. I do Oxbridge admissions tutoring - most people with only 3As wouldn't get in. Almost everyone will have straight As or at least As in the relevant subjects (so for physics AAA in maths, further maths and physics) and beyond that they would need to perform very well in the entrance tests which are much more difficult than A-levels so much less easy to simply work hard to get through (a reasonably bright very hard working student probably would manage straight As at A-level). This is just in the subjects I teach so I don't know anything about arts subjects. The student would definitely need to be top 5% at least - probably higher (statistically this is clearly the case since there aren't places available for even the top 1% of A-level candidates). That's not to say they would have to be very clever across the board - but they would through a combination of ability, work and education have to have reached a high level in their chosen subject.

Did you apply to state too?

Partly depends on which sector later you both work in but you may not want to say.

WhyCan'tIthink

I don't disagree with you for STEM which are amongst the most competitive courses to get onto. Its humanities subjects among others where AAA and AAA* are more typical conditional offers. Law and PPE are also very competitive though.

Anyhow, digression over!

Well my original example was maths and to get to Cambridge you do have to be shit hot to do maths! My point was that the best state schools are good. The worst are best avoided but that is exactly the same for private schools.

@BubblesBuddy Fair enough I think I misread your comment slightly. I thought you were implying all states were fine. What I meant to say was yes some states are amazing and others are rubbish so just because one person did well from one state doesn't mean you can relax about what school you're offered. Yes I agree to do maths at Cambridge you do have to be good, no getting round it. STEP is damn hard!

All state schools are definitely not fine. But parents shouldn’t think they all need avoiding either. The op appeared to have a very good state as an option.

The nursery DD2 went to was attached to a little private school. The nursery was better than the state offering locally but overall the school was very limited and not as good as most state schools. Parents paid for a number of reasons. They had very few bright children there higher up the school because at 8, many moved on. Either back to state or to better quality prep schools. From 34 in nursery, there were 4 left by Y6. So not great!

Oh, and DD2 wasn’t one of them.

@LondonGirl83 - This statistic surprises me. I didn’t even think it was as high as this last time I looked. The school comparison sites we were looking at when mulling our daughter’s local grammar options, were a surprisingly low % for an AAB. Average A level grade was B/C for most.

Mumto2two

Yes, it is higher than I think most people realise! The data is at the government link below. There are loads of people with the grades to get in to top unis but issues around class and geography mean that a lot of students don't even apply.

www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/a-levels-apprenticeships-further-education/students-aged-16-to-18-achieving-3-a-grades-or-better-at-a-level/latest

Subjects studied make a huge difference to where young people apply. It really wouldn’t be suitable to apply to Oxbridge with say Law, Media Studies and Photography. Also there’s far more to applications than results or predicted results.

Grammar school results vary between merely selective and super selective. They are not the same. Look at progress data as well as results at any school. Well above average is excellent for any grammar school. My local girls grammar achieves this.

@LondonGirl83

To be fair the it would be naive to think that having the required grades mean you're likely to be offered a place at a top uni. The top unis don't generally use A-level grades as a major selection criteria. They select through interviews and the vast majority of students with the required grades won't be offered a place. I agree though that many are put off from applying when they do have as good a shot as anyone else of being selected.

I was also fairly surprised about the local grammars in my area - I thought they'd all be super academic. As it is there's a fairly large variation - the super selective grammar does do well the less selective ones not so much.

@BubblesBuddy I definitely agree that you shouldn't assume small class sizes in a private school mean the school is better over all. I somewhat had that assumption when I started looking for my DC and was shocked at how poor the quality of education was in some private schools - outdated teaching methods, poorly qualified staff who I doubt would be able to work in the state sector. Even some of the highly performing schools didn't impress me (some seemed to achieve great results by selecting students who were always going to do well and forcing out any who were under peforming or had any minor difficulty).

WhyCantIThinkOfAGoodOne: I think you are absolutely right. There can be a blind assumption that private and small classes must be best but there is a lot of evidence that says quality of teaching is what matters most. I think the very best state schools review teaching and how they teach regularly. I think Heads of prep schools don’t necessarily monitor quality of teaching or even go into classrooms. Little observation takes place. It’s rarely a remit for governors either so poor quality teaching certainly does not get rooted out or dealt with often enough. Usually the poor quality of the intake is blamed. The more academic schools won’t want the outliers there spoiling their results so yes, they will be systematically weeded out to. The school cannot meet their needs etc.

So careful evaluation of everything is needed.

Op what have you decided?

Thank you everyone for very helpful advice

Just an update.

On the offer day, we got the very good state school around the corner. At the same time we heard from 2 other families due to start reception at the prep we've signed up for that they will go state instead as they've also been offered their first choice state schools. (I don't know if this is their finance based decision or if private was an alternative for them from the beginning). And I'm sure there will be more than the 2 families I personally know.

My friend (who visited the prep on open day long time ago but didn't register) also told me that she received an email from them this week asking if she is still interested in a reception place this year. (I didn't know registrars work during school holiday?) I know they did fill all the places last year. So this make me believe that some others also dropped out.

We are now likely to start at the state school. Not really because of the fear of not being able to pay for it anymore (we've done math again and we think we could afford a prep for our only child even if we have only one income) Mainly because I think this particular prep may have some distractions from the core education in the next year or so with many families already withdrawing their DCs. And I just feel that the good state school may have more stable environment during the time. We think we will reassess once the corona virus and economic downturn have settled and might join our DS at a prep later on. Just need to inform the prep school in the way to avoid burning the bridge once we are 100% on this decision..

We both work in HR in tech industry and although things have been ok so far, it could go either way depending on what sort of downturn we get hit by.

I think that’s a very good decision op. A friend pulled out of going private (lost deposit etc) just before year R and doesn’t regret it for a moment

Sounds like a good decision, very good that you did apply before this all happened. You can always switch the other way (if you’re surrounded by private).

I think that's probably the right decision too OP given everything you've said.

KS1 for private rarely seems worth it if you have a good state option available.

Great news that you got offered a good state place OP. My kids go to preps but that was due to the particular choices we had on offer from what you've said you've made the right choice and like you say you can always reassess later if you need to. I do think for the first few years you just want a nice stable, happy school for your child. If they have parents who will read to and with them every night and a nice, happy school they'll be fine.

Just to say that when we pulled DC2 out of reception private, we explained re our finances and they agreed to move our deposit to Y3 entry. Worth a try so you don’t lose it completely in case you do want the place later down the line. I also do not think you will burn bridges given the current climate (which I would give as the reason).

Registrars at preps are likely to work in the Easter holidays because it’s offer date! They are trying to work out who is coming to them and who is not. Plenty of DC have multiple offers and choices have to be made. If they are short of DC after decisions have been made by parents, they will be actively chasing up possibly undecided parents. I think, this year, it could be a thankless task!

Glad you have made a decision. Plenty of time to see how KS1 goes and evaluate.

Do hope it works out for you OP. We opted for the state option initially with our youngest..having decided it was the better option and highly sought after. However, we ended up returning to private for year 3. There was much on many levels that didn’t work for us, but of course every experience is different. Good luck!

@LondonGirl83 thank you for the link. Interesting indeed!

@anyoneconsidering What did you decide in the end? We're just deciding whether to put the deposit down for the private or not.