Private

[Fifikiki]

Our DD is currently at a nursery that is also a private primary school which goes onto year 8.

We have had a look around at our 2 catchment schools 1 is a big no and the other we had high hopes but when the head started the talk saying qualifications don’t matter, they let the kids sit down every morning in groups and talk about what they don’t like about the school it felt strange. I don’t have a problem with this but also very the way of god etc, while on the tour the outdoor play area was not attended by a teacher the play area also had full access to the whole school playing field and behind the portacabins.

We have a DS and we both believe you can’t send one and not the other if it was private so that adds allot of cost on sending 2,
bursary’s seem to be given out allot and at higher percentages than on the official school guidance for what is said to be max, seems since vat was added private schools they are struggling.

Class size is expected for next year 8-10, but could be as low
as 5-7. I think my wife wants this more than me our DD is a good learner but she is shy and will avoid confrontation. I am convinced she will
not learn anything more academically only what we put in at home, maybe more music and art from being private but that’s it. From year 3 they don’t finish until 5 even in nursery she is putting in longer days than primary school which is a bonus for work and pickup.

Money wise we would definitely need the bursary but we know of 7 that got it for the year just started out of a class of 9, the other 3 being full payers. For us it would mean working more and definitely not having expendable income.

From people who have been there and done it is it worth it? We are planning to go state at yr 7, my wife thinks the smaller classroom she won’t be forgotten as she’s not loud etc, also seems to think primary is the building blocks of learning. For me secondary school is where all the real issues are but we could never afford private secondary anyway.

I think these decisions can be so tricky.
I disagree with your logic on two points.

1. small class sizes (and you seem to be describing tiny class sizes) only being a good thing. My daughter went through her early grades in a class that was oddly unbalanced of girls versus boys. There were only 6 girls in her class. As a group I think the girls ended up struggling a bit through lack of options when they hit grades two and three and some of the early falling out was happening. There really just weren’t enough girls around to be able to quietly move across to a different group.
2. I think if you are even halfway interested in your children’s education you can make a big difference yourself in the early years and don’t need to be spending lots of money on it. I mean reading at home, doing some math sheets and taking them out places that are interesting and stimulate conversation. It is in the higher grades that you suddenly realise you do not know how to structure a really good essay or do polynomials and suddenly you might wish you had saved some money for a private tutor.

I'd be worried about the survival of a private school that tiny giving out that many buseries.

This! My eldest has just begun pre-prep and the school are very clear that bursaries are not a thing until they hit senior school. In your shoes I’d be having a dig through the financials and establishing if the school is actually sustainable at that level or the next private school likely to close.

As above if the class sizes are as low as 7 is suspect the school is not sustainable long term. We have had two such prep school close in the local area due to this reason. Some with only 3/4 weeks notice which was very upsetting for the children. Re affordability I always fact in a yearly increase of 4-7% - sometimes it's more sometimes less as in recent years but help to plan it out over the next few years especially if you intend to send two children as it can get really pricey.

There's a reason state til 8 is a saying.

Don't pay for something that will likely not benefit your child. Save the cash to pay for private secondary where there will (ordinarily) be a social benefit from connections.

thanks all for the replies, the school has already run into trouble run into debt and had to sell out, it was bought out by a corporate group a few years ago now that group with private schools all over the country is showing a reported a loss on the accounts increasing over the last few years to 3.4mil last year.

Its a good point about the class being too small.

A private primary offering so many bursaries with such a low intake is either super wealthy, overinflating its fees or desperate for bums on seats and hovering on the brink of viability.

If you need a bursary I wouldn’t bother, particularly as the school is in financial distress and will likely close by the sounds of it. Then you’ll be stuck with the best state primaries not being an option. The cost of school gets exponentially bigger as they get older with additional fees well beyond the advertised rate too.

We started ours at private but moved them to a state school after we were unhappy with how our school dealt with bullying. We were really lucky that we were able to get them into our preferred school on appeal but the only other option was a failing state school. They are bright and thrive at their state school, we do the enrichment and stretch work with them that they don’t get at state.

I used to work in private school admissions, and would be very concerned that school is not going to survive. It’s very unusual to offer bursaries for that age group at all, let alone such generous ones and to such a high proportion of the class. It’s likely they are absolutely desperate for pupils, thinking 20 percent of fees is better than nothing.

Perhaps they have reason to believe they’ll get an influx of pupils soon so are just holding on till then - eg I know of one school that went into debt to stay open for two years running at a loss because a large housing development was being built nearby and given the price of the houses and local state options they were confident a lot of those families would choose their school.

Or perhaps they are just desperately holding on and trying to wait for a miracle (or a reform government that changes the education sector taxes….).

But you should really question them on the finances and their viability, it’s terrible when these small schools close very suddenly and then you can be left with a state option that you would never have chosen.

I also agree with other posters that class sizes like that are too small really - it’s probably better for academics (more 1 on 1 attention) but can be hard socially.

My dcs are in a private primary and we've had quite a few families transfer to our school because their private schools have closed down. It's disruptive and upsetting for the dcs who have to move, so I'd be wary of your local private as it has some red flags for viability.

Apart from that, I'd agree with your wife that primary school provides the foundation for learning and is more influential on later years than many people realise. We have class sizes of about 12 (all girls) and that's been good for our dcs, it's sustainable but provides so much more attention and interaction than you'd get in a state primary. People will say you can supplement at home with workbooks and ferrying to lots of extracurriculars but there's a cost to this in terms of time taken and missing out on the chance to do more fun and social things (for both the adult and child) because it's on top of hours they have to spend in school anyway. Plus it's good to cement existing school friendships to do the extracurriculars in school. Some things are more embedded into the school culture and daily routines and can't just be tagged on with a weekly class.

However I would be cautious about the local private school and consider the other options you have. If that is the only private school that it's possible to attend, an excellent state primary with additional classes may be better.

Wouldn’t even be considering the private. It’s clearly failing if they’re attracting so few kids, even with offering bursaries even for pre prep and honestly they’re unlikely to be open in a few years because there’s no way that’s sustainable. It’s also going to be crap for friendships, literally no choice of who to play with. Up the school, presuming it stays open that long, then no chance of pulling together sports teams, or an orchestra, or even all the key parts in a nativity play. Your child will miss out on a lot going there. Not to mention closures can be sudden and leave you scrambling to make other arrangements at v short notice. If they’re only bad things about the second state option are the layout of the playground and encouraging the kids to talk about what’s bothering them then I think it sounds a million miles better. Or if explore other options? This struggling school can’t be the only private in the area, are there other state options she could get into etc.

Children sit down every morning and talk about what they don’t like about the school? This sounds so unlike any experience I’ve had as a teacher or parent. please can you explain more.

You are right on the official school policy bursary’s are only available from year 3 but that’s definitely not the case anymore, it’s not being publicly let known it seems but bursary’s are being given from reception onwards also confirmed that with the school themselves.

These are my concerns too, we did question regarding making a team and it seems they draw a group from the year above to make a sports team etc. Our nearest state primary has a good reputation maybe the day we visited was just a bad day no teacher or ta outside to watch the reception kids other schools had a closed in area this didn’t . I didn’t think of the issue if the private closed as the state schools we went to look at all pretty much said they have a waiting list so that could be really bad news if that happened.

Not sure there’s much more to add, it’s Church of england school. I guess maybe it is a positive, was just a very different talk from the other schools we viewed.

We have had a look around at our 2 catchment schools 1 is a big no and the other we had high hopes but when the head started the talk saying qualifications don’t matter, they let the kids sit down every morning in groups and talk about what they don’t like about the school it felt strange. I don’t have a problem with this but also very the way of god etc, while on the tour the outdoor play area was not attended by a teacher the play area also had full access to the whole school playing field and behind the portacabins.

This sounds very odd to me. Are you sure you are not getting mixed up with no streaming/setting and school council? Also, no primary school has children outside unsupervised. And the other school just being described as a big no?

These are my views: Larger primaries give your child a wider choice of friends. All primary schools want their children to flourish, thrive and achieve. Bright children, who are supported at home, do well in any primary school setting. You want the primary school to prepare your child for secondary. Putting them in a tiny private school will be no preparation for a large, state secondary. If you are thinking grammar for secondary, you are better off having a tutor than relying on a private school to prepare them.

I guess it just doesn’t make sense why any school would do this. How long for? In classes? We start the day with morning and maths and phonics.

Making up sports teams from the years below/above probably means they aren’t playing proper hockey or rugby since they’d have to be applying for exemption certificates for all of those playing out of year group. And yes, what if you got told on the last day of the summer term it wasn’t reopening in September leaving you scrambling for an alternative and then you found all other privates also closed for summer and the state you like didn’t have space. It’s a very real risk with numbers that low.

Our coed school combines year groups for matches as the norm. We play against one all girls school who fields all y6 against our y5/6, but for all other schools it is the same mix of years. Typically 2-3 matches on the go in parallel, so in theory they could run by year group but are choosing to mix age. Occasionally there is a selective match where only one team is fielded, but it is still a mix of years. No exemption certificates needed - you just have slightly younger students playing up. Maybe not what you mean by ‘proper’ hockey, but it is the most competitive league available in our area at the late primary age. As they move to secondary it becomes more selective. Our private primary school forces everyone to play every sport and everyone represents in games regardless of ability- it’s part of the ethos. My dd hated it in y2 when games introduced, but now loves it in y6 after multiple years of forced participation, so hard to argue against it.

In our area of London, demand for prep schools have dropped dramatically and whenever schools have closed down, other local preps have run special open days almost immediately to try to attract new enrolments. They would open up in the summer break in a situation like that.

There are plenty of state primary vacancies too, though not in the most desirable schools. But yes, it's better to avoid the disruption in the first place and enrol at a school with the most viable numbers.