Help! 7 day deadline to decide whether to switch out of private to state school (London, UK)

[HappyMountain781]

We have been fortunate to receive an offer into Honeywell in Wandsworth, London for both our children (yr 3 and entering reception). It is rated as "very good", recently downgraded from "excellent" but our understanding is this is happening broadly as the government applies new standards. Our older child currently attends an excellent private school but the fees are enormous (£23k p.a. per child) and I recently lost my job and my husband has a solid but normal paying job. Canadian-born, we are having a hard time understanding how important private school is for the UK. The 11+ exam is obviously v important in determining future schools and the stats are scary (6-7% of the population attends private school but comprise 20-30% of the top university schools population) and I hear that thereafter there is a network effect (eg. graduates of Eaton tend to hire people out of Eaton, etc).

Can anyone provide advice? The deadline is painfully short for what feels like such a momentous decision!

Can you afford to continue in private school? Most children don’t go to private schools. I can’t help with the 11 plus as we’re not in an 11 plus area (most of the country isn’t!).

Just so you’re aware there will be close date from which your child would need to be in state school. They won’t be able to keep the place for you until September.

I would switch to state. You can't really afford it on one salary. If you want to go back to private for secondary, you have time to save and money to spend on tutoring,

Hello

i am a teacher, mum of 3 and have a masters in education.

my three children are all at state school. I was state educated.

it must be stressful navigating a system when you are from another country.

send your children to the state school. Get fully involved in the school and get your head into your child’s learning. Take them to museums and make them read every day. Give them maths questions every day. Save yourself thousands.

my husband runs a company and not one of his investors did he know as an acquaintance from his private school.

yes private school people are over represented at university but 70% (I am using your stats) are from state school.

your child will learn how to relate to all people and will not be educated within a narrow band of well off people. This will prepare them well for life.

good luck with the decision.

I’m fairly local and Honeywell has an excellent reputation - I know it doesn’t count for much (and won’t be as good facilities as a private school) but we recently went to a birthday party there and the playground is the nicest I’ve ever seen!! I think you also need to have a look at local secondaries - look up the Wandsworth test as I believe this is more relevant to this area than the 11+ but is the means to get children into selective streams in some schools in the area. Sorry I’m not massively knowledgeable on this but just wanted to share those few thoughts - we are currently trying to make the same decision in a similar timeframe due to a separation and not being able to continue paying fees (especially with the 20% uplift) and it’s very stressful! My friend was trying to reassure me though that in this area there are excellent options for state secondary, so it’s not the kind of location where you might feel you “had to” pay for private secondary school to give your child a fighting chance, if that makes sense?

Private school is not that important for primary school.

If you want to consider private for secondary, get a tutor from year 4 onwards to prep for entrance exams in Y6. Many parents do that rather than pay for private throughout.

Remember that the 6-7% that use private are likely to:

• place value on education so try to support their children are home
• have parents with degrees themselves who understand the system
• be able to afford tutoring etc where needed, plus extracurricular activities
• have sufficient wealth to allow a decent standard of living i.e. decent food, heat their home, quiet space to study etc

These things all contribute to getting top places at uni. You can still do all these things with a child at state school. In fact, without paying fees, you may be in a better position to do so (more money for clubs etc, less need to take on extra hours at work etc).

If you have a good state place and fees are a struggle, then take the state place.

Don't forget, OP, that practically all pupils who go to private secondary will go to university, whereas lots of pupils going to state will take different routes. Additionally, I believe the % attending 6th form private school rises to 20% or so.

So I wouldn't base it on raw percentages at top unis.

Why is the deadline 7 days?

Is this to give notice to leave the private school or to accept the state school place?
Are you going to move your children mid term?

Given OP has a child starting in reception and one in year 3, I assume she has a 'normal entrance' place for reception for September and either an 'in year' transfer place for year 3 or that she stayed on the waiting list and a place has just come up in year 3.

Either way, OP will have to take it up mid-term, the LA won't hold the place open for more than a few weeks.

We ruled out private school for ds because there was no way we could even begin to afford it, and being reliant on bursaries felt unstable and scary. Other reasons too but once we had established that, we'd made the decision. Dh had had to come out of private school into state for financial reasons at age 14 and it was horrific for him - I know someone else that was the case for as well, and it was disastrous for them too. A colleague of mine who earns very little has a child on a full bursary at private school, but is now having to pay the VAT as a special charge - £5000 a year. He is working 3 jobs 7 days a week.

Ds's state school wasn't perfect, and we didn't expect it to be. However, it was a good school that he went to with all his friends who lived within walking distance. We added things that were important to us (and him!) like sport and music. He and his friends are a spectacular lot who will do well in life.

My dh died when ds was 14 and like any school I hope, they took incredibly good care of him. Again, not having the financial strain was crucial.

I'm just saying, accept the reality that you almost certainly can't afford it, and then put your best foot forward to support their education. They'll do fine.

In your position I would switch.

No school will be ‘outstanding’ now - they don’t give those judgments anymore.

You can’t afford it, and I promise you will have more time and bandwidth to provide at home support if you’re not scrabbling to pay fees.

If it helps in our family there are two cousins, one did private school, uni etc. The other one did tree surgery / landscape maintenance. The landscape maintenance one has a thriving busy business has the contracts for Council and other organisations, and employs six people. He lives in a much much much nicer house than the privately educated one, and seems very happy.

Private education and uni isn't the be all and end all, and it's not worth getting into debt for.

You might get more locally informed comments if you post this on NappyValley net.

Locals will say that Honeywell is no longer what it was. But for what it is worth, it is still a very good school. Most of the students come from the immediate area so you are looking at a wealthy, middle class, two parent family, engaged in education demographic. Children are generally well behaved.

Many of the parents will be like you - able to afford private education at a pinch but asking themselves where is the added value and is it worth the £££££ the private preps charge. Most will conclude it is not. Some will be looking for their children to go on to private schools at secondary level. Others will be looking at the excellent state secondary choices in the area ((Graveney, Bolingbroke, Chestnut Grove etc).

You can duplicate much of what the private preps offer at home: additional tutoring if required, membership of local sports clubs (NB this is where nearly all the good players at the private schools also go) and music lessons. It is a lot more effort, but very doable. Employ a French/Spanish/German student to do after school care and you will have the languages as well.

Some years ago now, but we had absolutely no problem finding places at local private secondaries after our kids (none of them Einsteins) attended a rather less sought after primary in this area. At the time we would have killed for places at Honeywell!

I felt that some of the preps in that area used fear as a marketing tool. If your kids don’t come here they will end up in a class of disruptive children and go on to a terrible sink secondary. That is of course all nonsense.

Have you done the school run and how close are you?
What is the school’s demographics?

Switch. If you decide you want to go private for secondary (and can afford to) you can tutor for the 11+ later on.

DD was at a state primary and went private for secondary. She had a tutor for just over a year before the endurance exams and got offers for both schools we applied for.

I really wouldn’t worry too much about old boys clubs in employment. Just choose the school that you think delivers the best education and that it’s suited to your child at secondary.

I live in that area and my kids did state primary and on to DC. Almost all my friends’ kids remained in the state sector and now they are all ending up up similar good unis. The vast majority of kids I know going to Oxbridge went to local state schools. No. Complaints about DC but in your shoes I’d opt for state. And if you think £23k is expensive, secondary private fees round there are north of £30k.

Echo what @Donotgogentle said that primary private isn’t really worth it.
Send to the state school and maybe look to get a job so that you can switch into private if you can afford it comfortably for secondary. As what others also said you don’t need to go to a private school for a good university. I went to a Russell Group University and went to a good state school in the midlands.

Also not the advise anyone wants to hear but the schools which are rated outstanding become complacent and then don’t keep up to maintain the standards. If they are rated good they still strive to keep up their teaching standards.

There is anxiety every which way. Friends who have gone private are beside themselves about how tough it is to get into a top uni from a private schools. Friends who have gone state are beside themselves about the unfair leg-up privately educated kids have. IMO both sides are right - there are many layers of inequity and unfairness.

BUT, you can’t afford private easily, and IME really the choice doesn’t matter. If I think about how things have turned out for my son’s reception class (good but far from exceptional state school; dicey results) they are pretty much as you would have expected. The ones who went to private secondary have underperformed vs state peers, interestingly.

Thank you truly to everyone who has taken the time to respond. Some excellent advice and points that I have been looking into based on your suggestions. If any other thoughts please feel free to add, but you have all given me so much valuable insight to think about!

Honeywell retains a good local reputation. Other state primaries have improved so it's no longer seen as a beacon of excellence as the alternatives are good too.

Most of the parents at the private schools will use tutors for the 11+ exams in addition to paying for school.

Lots of kids from the state sector will go on to private schools locally and also to Bolingbroke, Chestnut Grove and other good state schools.
Honeywell is a feeder school for Bolingbroke but that doesn't guarantee you a place.

Remember three really important factors about people who spend money on their children's education are likely to be:

• people who feel it will make a big difference to their child.
• interested in their children's education and give their children good support throughout their school years.
• push their children quite hard to make the most of the experiences they are bothering to pay for.

In other words your statistic of 6-7% being privately educated but comprising 20-30% of the university population, while probably true, won't simply be that private school are so brilliant that they manage to transform 18-23% of kids that don't really have the initial aptitude for university into university students. A lot will be other things:

• parents will likely be more inclined to send a kid private if they feel it could be the difference between them going to uni and not, than if they feel they will do pretty brilliantly wherever they are. (So statistically, kids in private will likely be the ones who can get to uni if they are pushed and less likely to be ones that couldn't get to uni whatever education they have.)
• people who don't support their kids much at home, are unlikely to bother to spend on private school, so private schools will probably have a high proportion of interested parents who push their children to do their best.
• people who send their child private are likely to be highly driven to push their child to make the most of every opportunity offered because of the amount it's costing them.

In other words your 6-7% are the ones who's parents have made the biggest difference to their educational achievements, but differences that could just as well have been made in state education by those same interested and involved parents.

In London 209% of children are at private school for sixth form (so very different from the average 8% in private school around the country at all ages). If you cannot continue to afford it then plenty of people do fine in London state schools. We decided to pay school fees as did my parents for us and in fact all the cousins (my siblings' children) similarly (day private schools).

London is a complex mixture for schools eg Henrietta Barnett ( state school) in sixth form got 81% A star or A at A level (the best test in my view for a secondary school). That is not as good as some private schools but much better than many state and private schools. Eg one private school where one of my children went got 85% A and A star last year. However you can see those two schools are pretty much on a par in terms of exam results. However other state grammars might get 54% A star and A.

I chose private schools however for loads of reasons not just that I wanted a single sex (hard to get even in private sector these days), academically very selective school but also reasons like classical music - we are a choirs, cathedrals choral music sort of family (which will be irrelevant to many others)

I live locally. Honeywell is a good school with similar demographics to you. Save the money - take the place. UK is rapidly heading towards recession. Unless you are filthy rich- no point to pay for private primary school.

I've been a bit taken aback by some of the stories our DC have told us about children from London private day schools. Very cosseted children with spectacular GCSE and A-level results who have come unstuck at university in a less rarefied environment. If your local state school is good, I'd give it a try and use some of the cash you have saved on private fees for enrichment on the open market. London is full of great activities for children.

Do you have a spare £46k per year. If you don't, this is all academic. The vast majority of children attend state schools. Even rich ones.

The biggest influence on their academic success is YOU. Your children ar lucky to have interested and motivated parents, with the money to get extra support if they need it. So they ate likely to be successful.

Honestly, Private school fees sound like they will be more stressful than beneficial for you.