What are the main reasons for choosing a private school?

[beelegal]

My sister-in-law and I were chatting over tea this afternoon about private schools for my nephew, who’s coming up to secondary age.
She’s been to a few open days earlier this year and was particularly taken with one school nearby. However, during the headteacher’s speech, he said: “The teaching is the same in all schools — what we offer is more outside the classroom.”He then went on to highlight the school’s pastoral care, facilities, and wide range of sports and activities.

Perhaps we’re being a little naïve, but we’d always assumed the teaching itself would be better in a private school. For example, my daughter once had Maths taught by a PE teacher at her state school. We thought that in the independent sector you’d have subject specialists — a highly qualified Maths teacher for Maths, for instance.

We also imagined class sizes would be much smaller, with more opportunities for a child who isn’t particularly sporty but enjoys academic study. Yet the average class size was around 25, which isn’t especially small.

Pastoral care is so vague that schools all seem to determine themselves if theirs is good. All the private schools claim excellence.

So it does raise the question: if the teaching really is no different, why not choose a state school and simply join a local hockey or swimming club at the weekend — which would be far more affordable?

Given fees of around £25,000 a year, what are the real advantages of private education, and what justifies that cost?

I have never known any parent think that. My parents didn’t, PILs didn’t, I don’t, friends with kids at private or who considered private don’t.

That comes from the incorrect assumption that all private schools are Eton and all private school parents are Boris Johnson. Many Labour MPs are of this persuasion.

I’m assuming one factor is that your child will make influential contacts that will serve them all their lives and even for their own children. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs, politicians etc.

Tbh you will find this at some London state secondaries too

And lots of private aren't Eton

You assume wrong, read the other comments

🙄 A myth peddled by people who think Eton is all private schools.

The behaviour point is a very good one, being selective, having smaller classes and having the ability to expel poorly behaved all contribute to better behaviour and learning environment for everyone else.
This seems to be the most worthwhile aspect so far.

One private school offering - every student learns at least one new instrument in year 7. Again finding a tutor would be cheaper than going to private school, but combining this with better behaviour, smaller classes, more accountability, teachers that teach their subject (not one teacher teaching many different subjects), academic selection, and it starts to make very good sense I suppose.

My kids go to state selective grammars oop north. Not even private. They rub shoulders with children of Olympians, CEOs, politics, KCs, media big wigs, footballers etc.

Nephew goes to paid private school - same but more so.

Parents who think they aren’t getting some great networking from private schools are genuinely taking it so much for granted that they don’t even see it.

Living in a bubble.

We opted for Private for DS because our State Alternative was not suitable for DD and we were lucky enough to have the choice to not send her there
Then we sent DS as we didn't think it was fair not to

None of us have had any "great networking" from Private school.
As the DC walked to school I barely set foot there and while we know some other parents to say hello to we don't socialise with any .
DD is now at Uni and has no contact with anyone she was at school with, DS might but who knows?
I was at Private School as well and got no business or any other advantages from anyone I met there.

I’d already sent mine to private because they were the nearest schools. But then I started working in local state high schools and I was so glad mine were in private. As someone else said, education is valued by all the parents. There was no shame in trying to get top marks. Behaviour was better.

Your experience doesn’t make it untrue that children who go to private school are more likely to grow up with children of wealthy and influential people. And grow up into a wealthy and influential person.

For example, my daughter got her work experience through the parent of a friend who runs an architecture firm. Contacts are a thing. At private and selective schools you have access to more of them.

Wondering why people are even disputing this?

My son went to a private school more by accident than design as he was with a childminder who was retiring so I had to find somewhere else. We looked at several places and decided on a private nursery. This nursery was attached to a school and we just kept him there until 11. The school had a lot of grounds but no other facilities like pools or gyms. It was family run. It was strictish but he really thrived there. The top 2 years were amalgamated into 1 class, and there were 17 kids altogether in that class but only 9 in his year. When it came to secondary schools everyone of them got into their first choice . Some were good state schools some were private. My son got an assisted place ( now no longer available) which meant we were able to send him to a good private secondary school. We couldn’t have afforded it without the assisted place.

Our reasons are:

1. Class sizes of 14-16 in Reception-Year 2. Then no more than 20 beyond that with no multiyear groups. This means that teachers KNOW their pupils. Combined with their being few disruptive pupils it means teachers can cover all essential learning in half the time a state school can and move straight onto stretch topics.
2. The kids learn another language from Reception with the aim to be fluent by Year 6. They then take language GCSEs in Year 7-9 and after year 9 engage in stretch topics. Students who want to take A Levels in the language
3. Bullying is taken very seriously. The parents of bullies are offered either in-house therapy / counselling they need to pay for, or expulsion.
4. Music and Sports and the Arts are as important as academics.

We chose private as dd was previously homeschooled, did well in her GCSEs and we wanted to give her the best chance for a levels. Local state schools are awful and local college quite rough and not very good at her best subject.

There are lots of extra curricular activities she wouldn’t get at a state school.

In terms of teaching think it really depends on the specific school but in our experience the teaching is absolutely not the same. At dds school it’s exceptional and the exam results attest to that.

At the private pre-prep school she was at before homeschool, teaching was hit and miss depending on the teacher and subject but over all pretty average.

All the reasons mentioned but also the teaching may be arguably similar but the students are often not, at least in the area we lived in.
The primary schools were just about ok but the secondary were pretty poor. A friend said her DD’s personality changed - when asked about it the girl said ‘I can’t let them see I’m soft I need to be a bitch to get by there’.
This was highlighted during Covid. Our school said they were happy to take key worker children from any nearby state school. They ran a full day of lessons for older kids, and for very young ones half lessons half activities. During the second lock down they rescinded the offer for secondary students as they had behaved so badly during the first one.
When we were getting our netball courts resurfaced the local secondary offered theirs to practice on. So off the girls went. Only to be surrounded by the state school girls chanting ‘go away you rich cunts’ and so on. That was the first and last time.
We also had excellent provision during lockdown. My children were at their desks at 8.40 for a full day of lessons with one hour off for lunch. The state schools had a few worksheets but soon gave up. Obviously we hope there never is another lock down but the contrast was stark.
I’m not saying state schools are bad - if they had been good that’s where my kids would have gone. Most of my friends’ kids went to decent state schools in other areas. But they weren’t and I could afford better.

Private schools definitely don't reliably have better teachers than state schools. In some ways teachers can get away with being less good when they have bright, well-behaved kids in small classes with great resources and facilities. Good, high-paying private schools might often attract good teachers though.

I've taught at a couple of private schools and lots of state ones. One of the comprehensives had a link with a top private school and used to send teachers to visit to see how the other half taught. It was a joke tbh. They didn't do anything we weren't doing with bells on. Many parents send their dc to private schools mainly for the company they'll keep tbh.

As for extracurriculars, there is no way I could supplement everything mine do in private school on a ‘state plus’ basis, even if I quit my job and dedicated my afternoons/evenings to making it happen. Mine are in a private primary and between core lessons and after school clubs do: -2x swim lessons per week, 4 team sports per year and 3-5 PE or games lessons per week, 4-5 music lessons per week(1:1, class, clubs/ensemble groups), 1 specialist art lessons per week plus lots of club options, 1 mfl lesson per week, 1-3 tech/design lessons, plus loads of random club options that let them try out random things for a term (riding, chess, fencing, archery, dance, drama, etc.)

when we were in state they had a small fraction on offer and never delivered by specialist teachers. With 2 children I really struggled to get them to more than 2-3 extras a week despite being unlimited wrt availability and budget.

In most state schools you do.

My dc went to state schools and I would say that's not far wrong from my experience.

Most of their teachers were good. A few not so good, but I'd say you get that in the private sector too.
They did a fair bit of extra curricular stuff - mock court, MUN, quite a few school trips etc.

But the extra curricular sports was just not as good as private would have been. Not enough pe staff to run the clubs .

We chose private primary because of the prep for 11+ (for selective independents not grammars), specialist teaching, small class sizes (10-15 per class, but 2 forms per year so a decent friendship pool), sport, good quality food, lots of trips and events, and a parent group that values education. There is very little disruption or need to enforce strict uniform policy, as parents just accept the rules. For parents, the experience is much more convenient and pleasant, eg no long settling periods for new starters, meetings before school starts so no need to miss work, good advance communication of events and special dates, nice refreshments at all parent events, parent's evening well organised with online or in person options, free childcare at after school care during parent's evening, easy ad-hoc booking for after school care (always availability for a same day booking), free morning drop-off with supervision so no need for breakfast club, school coach which can be booked per morning/afternoon.

I've seen some state primaries which seem to have very good provision (although not quite as good as ours) but they tend to be in areas of London that we wouldn't choose to live in (desirable areas but not very diverse or vibrant), or in areas that had good primaries but not good secondaries, or would mean a difficult commute. Financially, the cost didn't mean we had to make any sacrifices so it was easier to opt for for private and choose to live where we wanted, than play the catchment game and move somewhere we didn't really like just to get into a top school, and have the hassle of organising and transporting to multiple extracurriculars (although we do a limited amount of ferrying just because there are some prestigious facilities/training opportunities which surpass any school clubs).

I can only go by the experience at our two Indis
Subject specialist teachers ( degree at least in the subject ) from prep upwards. That’s age 8.
Sports coaches were often Olympic or similar athletes

German was taught from reception age with some days each week fully taught in German

Max class sizes were 12
For Alevels smaller. One son had two kids in his Russian class, another had 9 for Classics.

Both our schools were all through schools so the teachers and housemasters/ mistresses knew each pupil really well and pastoral care was excellent

Music and sports were wide ranging ( the usual team sports plus rowing, sailing, golf, horseriding et ) with great facilities. Art, photography, drama etc all had theatres and studios kitted out.

There was masses of choice re extra curricular things to do.The Head even did dog training remotely during Covid🤣.

For us, the only state school place offered was in a failing school which even Ofsted said wasn't safe - bullying was rife, younger pupils were at risk, staff had no idea who was on site etc.

Then ds won a scholarship to a small local independent, which brought it just within price range, so I grabbed the chance. VAT has made it difficult but ds is in the upper sixth so I've only got two more terms to pay.

The teaching has been superb, ds has 10 good gcses, and on track for 3 good stem a'levels. At primary, he used to keep his head down and coast if he could get away with it but they've refused to let him blend in to the crowd. He has much more confidence in himself now.

Agree about the connection thing

Just the fact that it'll say 'XYZ Super Duper private school' on your resume will help!

I’d love it if there was actually a school called that 🤣

I have two friends who chose private schools because their children have autism and struggled with the size of classes and the noise in their local state schools.