Move from prep to state - Too bad to even think?

[qask]

We have our DS going to a local prep in Harrow where he is definitely doing well academically or probably far ahead when compared to his state primaries peers. We simply chose it as we were less familiar of the whole UK education system and didn't want to risk it after seeing some lagging behind young kids from state primary.

However, due to our DD nursery and school choice coming up soon it has got us thinking on below. I know state vs private has been discussed to death but here we are thinking of an opposite choice as parents. Are we totally silly and missing something?

1. Prep is academically great but we are finding it extremely competitive for a 5 year old and little or no value add in confidence building and areas such as Music, drama or sports options are limited. DS thrives with those extra clubs over the weekend (in non-Covid times). Do you think moving him to outstanding state in KS2 by moving to a catchment area along with his sibling will be a good idea or it will be too drastic for such a young mind?

1. Over competitive and pushy parents. Surely this is not unheard of in prep schools. Will the chances of local friends and those weekend extra club opportunities and less academic pressure help or could backfire for an academically good student?

1. We are torn between this state (grammar if lucky) vs private secondary for DC as we keep hearing so much about disruption and bad behaviour in secondary mostly. Is it seriously so bad and can work against a Y7 kid in the future?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated to young parents with less overall perspective of UK education system. If needed we can afford to live in a catchment or pay private in secondary, of course, not without a bit of financial income stress.

State! All the way. You will be pleasantly surprised. A well performing state primary school with happy kids is one of the most wonderful things this country has to offer. I am heartbroken they are closed at the moment.

Thanks @Usermn78. Do you think the move from prep to state will also work?

Depends on the individual schools surely. Some state schools are brilliant and some are awful. Some prep schools are very pushy and others not so much.

Yes, I would get in touch with the school /local Facebook mums group and try to get some playdates ahead of starting. Our state school is 80% naice middle class kids so it won't be a culture shock, just the standard moving school issue. If you find one with an infants /junior you might find the transition easier as there's bound to be more movement.

You just need to be careful with your older one. Moving to the catchment area for in-year admissions won't guarantee you a place if the school is oversubscribed. But the closer you move to the school the higher you will be on the waiting list.
But you may get lucky that more places open up as he gets into KS2.

At age 5 and with schools having been closed a lot I would say now is the perfect time to move schools.

If it would be a stretch to pay for both private prep and secondary then definitely save your money for private secondary. I wouldn’t rely on getting a grammar place, they are so oversubscribed.

Re the practical aspects of moving school: Do your research on the local state schools as there can be a very big difference in feel and standards. The better state primaries may well be full; especially with more families having lost income and moved to state, so you might need to wait until a space opens up. More likely in September than mid year but mid year places do pop up. Keep calling your preferred state primary to check, as spaces sometimes seem to go to whoever called at the right time...

Bear in mind you’ll need to give a term’s notice (usually) to your prep to avoid paying the next term’s fees. So it can be a juggle between giving prep enough notice, but being sure state has a place. Some parents accept that they “lose” a term’s fees.

Competitive and pushy parents can happen anywhere... You just need to ignore them and find your people.

An outstanding primary will generally be fine. But also look at secondaries if you plan to move. State secondary tends to be more hit and miss.

We chose an outstanding state over the local all through independent school as we felt our children will benefit from being part of our village community, with the understanding that we will have to do a lot of work re: extracurricular- music lessons, swimming, team sports etc.

We also got a tutor where required and make sure that they are on the top few of their class. It does require a fair bit of work but it means they have friends that are local, I can drop off and speak to teachers as necessary and attend the many events that primary brings.

However, we are looking to move to the independent sector for secondary, although the local school is very good.

Thanks for quick response and so wonderful to hear that state is the way to go and we are not totally foolish to consider it.

We will start researching more to find a good primary and move near it to enhance our chances.

One thing that stands out that it seems private secondary is a preferred choice, is there a particular reason? Wouldn't then private in primary and preparing for 11plus to try for grammar better option?

The other challenge is to find both primary and secondary in catchment isn't it?

We moved ds from prep to state at the end of yr 4. The emphasis on only celebrating the best at the prep had massively affected his confidence, and in sport he was resigned to the fact that no matter how hard he tried, he'd never get into the A team (who got extra coaching, more matches etc) because no one ever got moved down.
At state he absolutely flew, grew in confidence, and in state secondary he is predicted mostly 9's. We are considering whether private 6th form might be the right place, but I don't have a moments regret about leaving the prep

It’s not that private secondary is always preferred. Some state secondaries including many grammars are amazing. But they are usually very very hard to get into and just because a child is doing well academically at 5 does not mean you can be sure of passing 11+ in 5 years - however much tutoring etc. Anyone can have an off day.

So my view is that if you can afford fees for prep or secondary then save for secondary in case you can’t get into a great state secondary. If he does get in then hooray the saved fees can be used for something else!

Thanks a ton for sharing @CMOTDibbler. This resonates with our situation! It's a massive relief to hear that we are not the only one thinking opposite to the common belief that private is better (apart from that flashing the privilege part some like to do).

Can I ask how did you manage the transition, was it tough or a simple adult conversation with DS worked?

No of course you're not totally foolish to consider state. My dc have thrived at state school and been happy and dd1 got nothing below an 8 in her GCSEs. This was at a non selective secondary rated Good. If a particular state school wasn't working for you, you could reconsider but there are plenty of decent ones where kids are happy and do well.

Thanks @minipie, makes so much sense. Thank you again and will really help us get out of this private bubble thinking ! At least, we know what to do right for our younger child from the start.

My DC are all in state primaries and are academically at least in line (and in several areas ahead) of their privately educated friends. They don’t get as many opportunities in school though (for eg no swimming pool, fewer sports teams) so we do that outside school.

Thanks @GalOopNorth, tbh you will be surprised to hear this. We have been shocked to find that most of the prep schools have very limited extra-curricular opportunities and mostly on paper. We are having to run around over the weekends to do the same and always find parents from other prep schools or even non-prep bigger schools having to do the weekend run just to get their child have that focused lesson in Music, sports and drama. If you don't do these, your child confidence goes low because they just keep getting pressured into achieving academically which they do but not sure how much it is real value addition for a 5 year old young mind. In summary, you are not missing out anything !

We just talked about it with ds, and tbh he was happy to leave an environment he wasn't happy in with a few exceptions. The school he moved to wasn't outstanding btw, in fact it got a 'requires improvement' the year he left, but the atmosphere and ethos was outstanding

Good point OP. -OFSTED reports that are old can be misleading. The outstanding primary opposite is hasn't been done for about 9 years and I'm not sure it would get an outstanding now.

Visit the schools if it's possible and join the Facebook pages/follow on Twitter.

My husband and I are both privately educated and are blown away by what our local state schools have offered our DC. Our primary is not very dynamic but has given them the most amazing childhood (which is always my first concern way above academics) and our non selective comp is very dynamic, gets great results and offers the most amazing range of extra curricular activities. Only thing it won’t do is make them posh and we were not after that anyway!

Thanks @CommanderBurnham and @Usermn78, that is spot on because I think that exactly confused us initially for our DS when an outstanding school didn't seem good enough to us. We didn't know where to look for. Thanks for the right direction.

@flourandeggs, it's very encouraging to hear and changing our perspective that fee paying doesn't necessarily mean better.

Any advice on what exactly to look for when researching for state primaries? The other biggest challenge is going to be finding a sweet spot where both primary and secondary are good but for now will just focus on primary without going too mad.

Btw just an initial research me and DH have just learnt that we didn't accept a place in one of the best primary in Harrow that was offered to our son just because our knowledge was very poor about UK state school system at that time and we were blinded by glossy brochures of preps ! And if we go by school website, the pupils are far far ahead compared to most preps we know.

We moved our children from a private prep school to small state primary school and had absolutely no regrets. We had the same experience, there was alot of nepotism going on at the children's previous school and pushy parents. Too much emphasis on extra curricular activities, while academic work was severely lacking .

@CommanderBurnham

Good point OP. -OFSTED reports that are old can be misleading. The outstanding primary opposite is hasn't been done for about 9 years and I'm not sure it would get an outstanding now.

Visit the schools if it's possible and join the Facebook pages/follow on Twitter.

That.

We fell into this trap. Allegedly “Outstanding” state primary, was even in the Good Schools Guide. Turns out it hadn’t been inspected in years. The work on the walls was years’ old, staff turnover was very high, most of the extra curricular clubs the head boasted about to the GSG didn’t exist, there was no sport, very little drama. The school food was absolutely disgusting, communication with parents was diabolical, the reading scheme sucked and the head was almost completely invisible. In fact, now I think about it, I don’t think we ever met them the whole time we were there. I don’t even remember seeing the head at parents’ evenings or at pick ups.

The trouble was, prospective parents weren’t allowed to visit the school except for an hour-long “open morning” once a year, which was tightly controlled and attending by literally hundreds of people all in a state of mass hysteria about the prospect of attending this much-hyped school.

Anyway, we lasted about two years before giving up and moving to a prep.

Totally depends where you live. Funding for state schools isn't equal around the country and there are great state schools but there are also struggling ones. Private schools aren't all the same either, some select and some don't, some charge lots of money and others are small independent schools.

We live in an underfunded rural area with basically no choice of school except one local primary and one local secondary, (which is mediocre, I worked there for a while!). No grammars. Moved DC's from state to independent a few years ago and we are very happy with our decision.

I’m bit confused now. Are you suggesting we stick to current prep as primaries are going to be hit and miss irrespective of their ofsted rating status? It’s going to be very hard to work out a good school just by visiting isn’t it?

Until very recently, many schools rated outstanding weren't reinspected unless there was a reason (eg multiple parental complaints). So you could have an outstanding judgement from 2011 or 12. Many teachers will have moved on since then and the school could have totally changed.

My personal feeling as well is that Ofsted is not the be all and end all - a lot of work that goes into being "outstanding" is jumping through hoops that won't necessarily benefit the children.

If you don't like the prep, then it's worth looking at other schools, with the caveat that it can be hard to get an in year place at KS1. Try to talk to people who have their children at the schools as well as visiting - this is more likely to give you a true picture.

A prep will specifically prepare children for the 11+, and a state school won't, but tutoring will still be cheaper than the prep!

I don't think it is that hard to decide by 'just visiting' actually. It's best if you can go and observe a lesson - are the children engaged, is what the teacher's saying good? I've found some schools better for this than others. You get a strong feeling.

You could post & ask for experiences on a local FB page, but you might just see 'extremes'.

I think people are right about it depending on the school. Our DS is at a prep and it's not too pushy with loads of extra-curricular stuff. His music and drama opportunities have really picked up. We moved him in Y6 as we were looking to enrol him there for secondary and they had a few spaces open up. Our DD is at a fantastic state primary. You could ask about any special programmes they use for teaching to get an idea of how good their holistic learning is & how much they keep up with new developments. Ask about school productions. I still think you get a lot from meeting the head and SMT as well - they really affect the 'health' of a school.