Would you move children from local primary to private junior school?

[Northofthebordermum]

Should I send my children to a private junior school?

We have two DCs, one still at nursery, the other in early junior school.

MIL has recently told us she would like to pay for them to go to private school.

DC1 currently at the local school which is very close to our house. They seem happy enough there, although there have been some recent issues with the school which we haven’t been too happy with.

Would you stick with the local primary or go private?

For some reason I have no issue with private high school but somehow feel slight discomfort with private primary.

interested in hearing others thoughts?

This is not true - it depends on the school.

Preparatory schools start at reception or at year 3/4 and then go on to the end of year 8.

Primary or junior schools will start at reception or at year 3 and go to the end of year 6. I worked for years at a private junior school (literally its name is X Junior School, and it feeds into X Senior School, it was always referred to as a junior school.)

Yes they do. Mine is at a private school in the Junior School. It only does KS2 so that may be why.

Thanks so much everyone for your thoughts. I think the MIL question is mitigated by the fact that if for some reason that funding disappeared, we could just about cover it with our salaries. It would be tight but we could do it.

Their current class is at the max size - 30 kids. and there is talk of composite classes in the coming years if more students join the school.

i think the smaller class size alone probably means we should do it, on balance.

I talked this into AI and I got it to type it up this is all
mt opinion and real experience- I think you really have to go and see the school and judge it for your individual children rather than assuming private automatically means better.
We moved both of ours from the state sector to a private prep around Year 3, so they did their infant years in state school. Hand on heart, I didn’t see any advantage to private nursery – if anything, I thought our state nursery was better. Reception was also really good. Looking back, though, I do think Years 1 and 2 would probably have been better at the prep school.
What I’ve learnt since is that it hugely depends on both the type of prep school and the child.
For my eldest, who is very academic, sporty, musical and neurotypical, prep school was an amazing environment. It nurtured every aspect of her and she absolutely thrived.
My younger daughter is autistic, although also very academic, musical and sporty. She has gained a lot from prep school, particularly academically and through music and sport, but I’m genuinely not sure, on balance, that we made the right decision for her.
Academically she has done exceptionally well, but it has come at quite a cost in terms of anxiety and wellbeing. The school has been reluctant to make some of the accommodations she needs, and I’ve had to push very hard for things that I think would have been much more standard in the state sector, where we would also have had better access to some external support.
The other issue is that a highly academic prep school can’t necessarily take the pressure out of its curriculum. My younger daughter has been pushed to an extremely high academic level, but looking back I’m not convinced she needed that. She might have achieved slightly less academically in a different environment but had a happier, less pressured primary-school experience, and there is a lot to be said for that.
So I definitely wouldn’t choose private simply because someone else is offering to pay. Go and look at the actual schools. Ask about the curriculum, expectations, pastoral care, SEN provision, sport, music, class sizes etc., and think about how each of your children would fit into that particular environment. What is fantastic for one child can genuinely be the wrong environment for another.
I’d also make sure your MIL has considered the long-term financial commitment, rather than just the fees as they are today. Fees can rise considerably over the years and there is now VAT to factor in too.
So my experience of private prep has actually been both brilliant and difficult at the same time. I’d choose the school that fits the child, rather than choosing private over state in principle.