Did you send your children to a private primary despite having good state options nearby? Did you send your children to a state primary even though you could have afforded a private primary? Why and why?

[WellWeathered]

What swayed it for you in the end?

Are you happy with the choice you made? Which aspects have lived-up to expectations and which haven't?

I'm currently very torn and would appreciate the experience and opinions (that's lucky then this been Mumsnet) of others.

We chose private mostly for wrap around care and flexibility to be out of year group.

Been pretty happy with the choice overall (both dcs now at senior age).

At infants the main difference seemed to be smaller class sizes & lovely long holidays. At junior there was huge amounts of sport and music as well. I think the teaching quality has been mixed - some teachers been really excellent, others not that great; but I suspect that's true anywhere & I don't have enough any recent experience of state schools so can't really say if teaching quality overall is better, worse or the same.

The school seems to have worked well so far for my two children who both seem very content and thriving in their very different skins - what more can I ask? Of course there's no way of knowing how things might have been if they'd been been schooled elsewhere, but I think its unlikely that they'd have achieved quite as highly academically or musically or had as much access to a range of sports, but who knows?

I know you can pay for an awful lot of music/sport/extra tutoring with the money saved, but finding the time in the week/holidays to do it all will reduce your free time & so could have a big impact on quality of life. If it all just happens at school it's much easier and more enjoyable for the kids imo.

We have chosen a small private school for our DS. Really it's tiny, 80 kids.

The local state school has reception classes of 30. At DS school it is 10-12 (with a teacher and teacher's assistant).

We can afford it comfortably.

We could have afforded independent primary, but around here they are hothouses with not much space, and uncomfortable looking uniforms. (Yes I am shallow!). The state primary has been fantastic, lots of extra-curricular activities, wonderful grounds, happy children. the only drawback is the gvt interfernce and large class sizes. For secondary we have to go independent as the local state schools are dire, and I am sick of the gvt endless tnkering with schools and using them as expimental sites for social and educational theory. parents are similar at the state prmary, and the independent secondary we have chosen, but interestingly the independent is MUCH more ethnically diverse - so antohre positive for that.

Chose a state primary but first made the mistake of looking around one of the local (quite famous) prep schools. Now when we are contending with some of the downsides of state education - our precious poppet is picking up the most appalling grammar and diction, dahling - I think of St Custard's with its tiny classes, swimming pool, language teaching etc etc and want to weep.

Last year I enrolled my son at a nursery attached to a private prep school so he'd be guaranteed a place in the school as places were in high demand. However this was a very bad move...two weeks in his teacher had taken a dislike to him because he had limited speech due to speech delay and by easter they'd advised us they wouldn't accept him becuase in their mind his speech issues meant he was autistic and they don't accept children like that because they can't keep the pace with the class. They were extremely abrupt and put us through almost a year of hell saying he'd only ever communicate using PECS and he should be put in a special needs school. Also having being (wrongly)labelled by this private school, no other private school would accept him either.
He's now in a small state primary school in a village about 15 minutes drive from where we live, and he's doing really well. His speech has improved immensely and his vocabulary has doubled in 8 weeks. We're looking to move closer to the village so that he can mix more outside of school with the other children there.

ERE WE GO ERE WE GO ERE WE GO ...

I sent mine to private schools so that my precious children could not catch the working-class virus. I've been told this so many times on MN that it simply must be true.

I think private schools are like state schools - good and bad. My ds's school has a reputation for dealing very well with SN children whereas the alternative private school (more of an academic hot house) does not. Interestingly the results from ds's school are better than the other school but the environment is less pressured. I chose on the basis of where he would be happiest.

We have chosen our local village school for dd. We could afford to send her privately, but have no need or desire to.

Our local primary and secondary both have excellent results and will give her the opportunity to socialise with children who live locally.

Dd is likely to be an only child, and will therefore be our PFB. I want her to have the opportunity to socialise widely with a larger group of children who come from a broader range of backgrounds. The private schools round here have very small class sizes and I see this as a definite disadvantage. Dd will need all the support she can get to help her learn to co-operate, negotiate and share. She certainly doesn't need to be a large fish in a small pond!

I'm also a state school teacher, so I don't want her to have holidays that are longer than mine! We can cope with the childcare during term time, but having to find childcare in the holidays would complicate things.

Our local primary and secondary schools both...

My kids started off in a state primary; we had looked at the local private schools but we thought that it was unnecessary, as the state school seemed great, which it was.It was heavily oversubscribed, very middle class, and the kids did well there.
Then we moved, and the kids went to a different state school (take note: it had an "outstanding" Ofsted report), which did not appear to have any structure, and teachers changed very frequently. It was awful, and my kids started to switch off and become quite unhappy. I went and sat in on lessons and could see that the teacher was struggling with the more disruptive kids, and the quiet kids were just overlooked. My daughter, who previously lived school, was sat picking her nose for most of the day. No one listened to her read for a term. She was 6 at the time.
We took the kids out and sent them to a private school who have been fantastic, and they soon caught up with the other kids.
What I'm trying to say is that state schools are great if you're in the catchment area for a good one, but if you're not, it can be a VERY big difference in standards. We never planned to go private, but really felt we owed it to the kids to give them a better start.

We could afford to send dd to private school, but chose instead to send dd to state primary.

Why?

Our nearest private primary (in top 10 in country) did not appeal to me at all on the open day. Is all girls (I have a ds too), had only one entry in September (dd would have been only just 4). Full days and more structured lessons. Also seemed a bit sterile. I did not want dd to go to a school further away, even if private, because I didn't want to be tied to driving all the time and felt that she would benefit from being educated within the local community.

Another reason is that I was educated in the state system, my mother was a state secondary teacher. The whole ethos at home was pro-state schools. DH went to private school (v. good), adn his parents were/are v. pro private schools. However, DH felt as I did that we wanted to at least see how dd got on in the state system. PILS were prepared to pay (though we could afford it anyway) for dd to go to the local private school.

All seems to be going well. DDs school is not amazing. Has satisfactory ofsted rating, and a relatively (for our borough) high proportion of children receiving free school meals. But she is happy and her teachers have been lovely. She has made good friends, mixes with boys and generally looks forward to going to school.

Why send a child to a private school if you have a good nearby state primary? It may not be great when it isn't working, but what is so scary about the State sector when it IS working? Over 90% of the population were educated in the State sector and I really don't think that over 90% of people in this country are poorly educated thugs, so why go out of your way to avoid it before you've even tried it?

If it doesn't work out and you can afford to send your child to private school, it's not as if that option is taken away from you the minute you take the radical step of beginning your child's education in the local state primary. So long as a child has a secure, supportive, happy family background and is reasonably intelligent, he or she is probably going to do well in life whatever school he attends.

"Outstanding" state primary practically next dooor to us, but we still went for private (and struggle to pay for it!)

Why?

No SATS

Small classes (11 in DS's class)

Family atmosphere where all children are valued for being good at something (not just for passing tests)

Superb facilities for DT/Art/Music (DS's favourites), plus sport (not that we're very sporty...)

They teach child according to his/her ability. Super-bright DS has had loads of extra work to do; they would undoubtedly give him more if I asked them to (which I won't).

They do not slavishly follow a reading scheme. DS was allowed to read what he liked from the middle of Y1.

DS is a very unusual character, and I don't think he'd thrive in a big class even in a good state school. I think DD would be fine there, but I don't want them at different schools.

Friends who've had children at both schools all say that the state school is very good indeed, but the private school is much, much better. It's just a matter of how much better than 'very good' you want a school to be!

I think small classes are really overrated. There is no evidence they produce better results, and I think there is a real opportunity for bullying and cliques. If there are only, say, four girls in the class, how easy for three to gang up on one.
My ds is in a class of 27 and they are great kids (had nearly all of them in my house three years running for ds's birthday), and my ds who is somewhat unusual - Aspergers - has managed to form one very close friendship and several other friendships, which may not have been possible in a much smaller class.
He has been allowed to read what he wanted from the start of school too.
The school certainly does not only value children for passing tests! I think that is much more an issue in the private sector, where children are regularly chucked out of selectives for risking their GSCE results!
I doubt any of the local St Custards would have accepted him anyway. Their loss!

Sweeping generalisations mabanana. What size class suits a child will differ for each child. My ds undoubtedly benefits from being in a small class which has both a teacher and teaching assistant. They have the time to give him the extra help he needs re health problems that he wouldn't have in a class twice the size.

As for cliques and bullying they can exist whatever the class size. The difference is one of time - the better the pupil teacher/ta ratio the more time they can devote to ensuring this type of behaviour doesn't become a problem. I speak from first hand experience of these problems in big and small classes.

State schools are not all about SATS and the passing thereof... And I agree with mabanana that small class sizes are not always that great - they just mean a smaller number of children from which to find a kindred spirit. Learning to get along with your peers, whatever their background, is an extremely important life skill. Only mixing with peers of a similar background has the danger of making you a rather blinkered person. Some private schools are excellent and produce well rounded, interesting young people. Plenty are awful. The same goes for the State sector. I was entirely state educated and managed to get As in all my GCSEs and A-levels (before everyone started getting As in everything...), Grade 8 Distinction in clarinet and piano, Grade 7 distinction in the cornet, played in county orchestras and a brass band and went to Oxford University. I sometimes think I might be slightly better at Trivial Pursuit if I'd gone to a private school, but otherwise don't think I particularly missed out.

er, mollie, I didn't make any generalisations, let alone sweeping ones, as you will see if you read my post. I suspect you are not sure what a generalisation is

There are at least three people in ds's class at all times btw - a teacher and two very well trained TAs. That's a ratio of 1:9, which seems more than adequate for Yr2 to me.

THere are lovely, lovely people who go to independent schools, but very many of them (not all) are so insulated from life's realities that I do think it can't do them any good. I recently read in some local freebie mag about how the girls of the local independent secondary were giving their time to help the poor, deprived kids of a local state primary do drama lessons. I read the girls' quotes, and by God, they sounded patronising and totally out of touch. They almost certainly meant very well, but they sounded like little Lady Bountifuls, talking about 'we soon realised how lucky we are' and 'the children were so grateful' after mixing with the hoi polloi. I was fervently grateful that this bunch of unqualified teenagers were not being invited into my son's school to patronise him!

"State schools are not all about SATS and the passing thereof"

Some are presumably not SATS-mad. But our local 'outstanding' one has built its reputation on its perfect SATS scores - which are achieved at the cost of the large number of 7-y-o pupils there who are on medication for stress/anxiety/depression at test-time (and this comes from friends have children there. They love the school, but feel that the SATS fixation is a major downer).

My DC's prep school does NFER tests from 6-plus in reasoning, mental arithmetic and English to find out where children are strong and not so strong, so that each child can be taught according to his/her needs. The children don't know that they are going to be tested, and can't revise for the tests. The teachers can't (or certainly don't) teach to the tests; the results are given only to the individual child's parents and are not published. This seems far more sensible to me!

We sent dd1 to the local state primary.It is in the next village and she goes by free school bus.We put her name down before we moved into the catchment area,as I'd been to the same primary and I knew it was a great school.I knew that it didn't tolerate bullying and put a lot of emphasis on the children being kind and helping each other,which was very important to me.

She attended pre school on the same site,so by the time she started reception,was familiar with the school and teachers,where the toilets were ect.

We are more than pleased with it.In reception,there were only 10 children in the class-we couldn't have paid for a ratio like that,they did French and music,and had lessons outdoors every day if possible.Now she is in Year 1 and she is just as happy.There was a small bullying incident a few weeks back,which the school took very seriously and dealt with very well,nipping it in the bud.

I wouldn't consider sending her anywhere else for now.Sadly the secondary schools in our area,whilst not bad,are not where I'd want her to go,so may have to look at that when the time comes.

It is all dependent on what you have to offer though isn't it. Interestingly my DC had a friend to play the other day and when the mum came to pick up we were talking and she said that she took her eldest children out of a very well known and respected private school to send them to DC's state school and that is was the best thing that she has ever done for all sorts of reasons none of them financial as they are very well off, Interestingly her reasons included much more individual attention and a need to improve confidence . She has kept her elder children in the state system for secondary and because it is such a good school she said that she feels that they are getting absolutely everything they would have got if she had kept them private. There are 2 other families in DC's class who have done the same thing, again very well off families. It perhaps highlights that it is impossible to say state = inferior to private as a blanket statement, it totally depends on what the individual schools can offer

We have sent dd1 to local state primary, not the most popular one either, though we looked at two private schools and could afford them.

Reasons being several: prefer state for dd, so she gets to meet people from varying backgrounds/cultures, but would have sent her to private if we'd thought she'd be happier there - having visited four schools, two of each sort, we knew this was the one for her. Head was lovely, school is small, kids are enthusiastic about their school, learning, and keen to tell visitors what they're doing.

One of the private schools we saw (which we thought would be our favourite) was unbelievable in its attitudes to special needs - we wouldn't touch it with a barge pole (though dd isn't SN, as far as we know). The other was nice, but a bit weird and stuffy. The other state primary was bigger, and the head is very ambitious/competitive....we didn't like the feel of the place in comparison to dd's, though they have much better/newer resources.

So far, we couldn't be happier with the choice we made - mostly on gut feelings, and talking to parents who have kids there already. We chose with the idea that primary is for helping kids learn to enjoy learning, to socialize well, and to form a good foundation for future education.

Sent ds to an excellent state primary school It was much better than the private schools we looked at. We didnt like the hot housing we saw in a lot of private schools and pushiness (not all). He is now in an excellent secondary school and in the top couple percent of his year group so defintely the right decision there. He has also had lots of opportunities the last couple of years he wouldnt have had we gone privately.
We briefly considered grammar/private but didnt like the idea of hours of revision for tests for him and competiting etc. Happy we didnt do this. If we didnt have the option of an excellent state secondary comp we'd have done it though.

Dd - we looked a one local private school and prefered our nearby state school which also has an excellent reputation blah blah and that's where she is now. However I've not been that impressed with it since she started for various reasons and we could afford for her to go privately. Uhmming and ahhing about it tbh as the private school near to Ds' secondary school is no better than the one she is currently at and it is really convenient where she is.

I'll give it till the end of the year and then reconsider.

Sent eldest private to top London prep school, but after a while was very unhappy with right wing fascist dictator of a head filling children's heads with snobby rubbish, plus dd having to hang out with wealthy but clearly madly dysnfunctional families at the weekend. Bizarre experience overall. Pulled her out and sent her to local primary.

State primary was nearer, more laid back, and seems to get very similar results in the medium to long term without all the stress, hours of homework every night and so on. I simply don't know how they do it, because the classes are twice as big and the teachers are variable. Nice atmosphere though, and younger two have gone there and are doing absolutely fine.

Dead pleased to have saved all the money and avoided lots of travelling in the rush hour. Kids have nice friends and only thing I really would like would be a bit more foreign languages and music, but we sort that out ourselves anyway.