Cannot decide if we want our son to attend a private school or not

[Londonhoneycake]

I am 43 and attended a state school, although it was in a fairly middle-class, well-off area. My husband is 47 and went to a private school. We have two boys, aged 9 and 7, and we have started looking ahead at secondary schools for our eldest. We’ve attended open days and open mornings and met with heads of schools, but we’re still unsure whether to send him to a state school or go down the private route.

We aren’t wealthy. We could afford private school fees, but only just, and because of that my husband’s parents have offered to help with the costs. I’m not sure how I feel about that, whereas my husband is very much in favour of it.

I’d really like to hear from parents who weren’t completely sure either. We have good state schools nearby, some within walking distance, and I feel our children would benefit from attending a “normal” local school. My husband strongly wants them to go to a private school, but I’m conflicted because I disapprove of a system that reinforces inequality and gives children advantages purely based on their parents’ or guardians’ wealth.

I want our children to be educated alongside the majority. I also work closely with an education think tank, much of which focuses on strengthening state education, so it would feel quite hypocritical to send my children to private school given the values that underpin my work.

Kids come from a wider area for secondary. It's true for private, but also for many secondary schools. Not really the most important consideration when picking secondary schools though - as older kids are largely mobile without parents. They are able to take public transportation by that age, etc.

they can see where the GCSE exams where taken for instance.

Most Unis look at your postal code. And they also look how well your child performs compared to the other comparable schools in the general area you are in. So - for most of the kids living in the generally well to do areas - even if they go to regular state schools, there are not many contextual offer options. Unless you are in a really underprivileged area, or have particular circumstances.

So - put it in other words - going to state vs private, while living in proximity to Dulwich college is not going to benefit your initial uni admissions. Oxbridge, for e,g. interviews blind

All the private schools in my area still manage to get their students into the top unis. I wouldn’t for minute believe that going state will actually increase your chances.

The last line here is prudent advice. It's not nice sometimes when out of touch but we'll meaning grandparents put pressure on their children and grandchildren....

With the pace of change in schools, employment, and life in general, I'd say that my parents have no real idea of their grandchildren's lives and the challenges they face on a daily basis. Networking would befuddle them. Online jobs, work from home jobs, AI jobs, employment as any kind of professional musician or sportsman, all these aren't seen as 'real' jobs to my parents.. There would be A LOT of pressure on my children to be accountants, doctors, solicitors or teachers....jobs with a uniform or suit.

The more I think about it, the more out of date my parents are, especially since covid. For them to pay a percentage of school fees would in their eyes give them a 'say' in my children's lives. Dad already calls himself 'head of the family' (my family)....

Bad idea. Don't accept the money, any money from them for private education.

In towns. Not everyone lives in towns with public transport.

@Sashya - Oxbridge does not interview blind!

Do mean that they won’t know which other universities a candidate has applied to? That is true, but they absolutely know what schools candidates are at and what they got in their GCSEs, it’s part of the overall application!

I think you need to separate out the different strands contributing to the decision.
Ehical, practical (travel to school etc.), financial and educational fit for each child. Decide with carries most weight and then look at the pros and cons for you and your children.
All education is a bit of a conveyor belt designed to turn out pupils with good academic grades, some schools, both state and private are good at accepting children who are a bit not suited to one size fits all.
Money spent on education cannot then be saved for university, help with deposits etc.
I am well past this stage, we opted for state school (round the corner) over private which would have added a couple of hours to the day. Where my views have changed is over whether the same choice should apply to all children, for me it would be wrong to use different schools for financial reasons but not if you decided that different schools played to the different interests and strengths or needs of each child.

I would always choose private over a comp, but I’d choose a grammar over a private.

Sitting the 11+ for grammar entrance, ensures your DC are amongst other children with the same / similar academic ability and most likely from families that value education as they’ve paid for at least two years of tutoring for their child preparing them for the tests and secondary school.

As a back-up my DC2 also sat a private school entrance exam. I was told by the private school, that she’d be guaranteed a place as long as the entrance exam didn’t highlight a special need they couldn’t cater for. So, entrance was basically a mix of abilities like a State Comp but with smaller classes and parents that value education.

Comp - is a mixed bag of abilities and parents and really does depend on the area. We have zero good comps in our catchment so it had to be grammar or private for us.

If your DS is bright enough that he might get a scholarship to DC (not easy!) then I would be looking to send him to an academically selective school. That might mean private or it might mean grammars if you are in the right area of SW London for that to work, or willing to move (or there’s Graveney I suppose with its weird selective stream set up, though I don’t much like that). I think highly academic kids enjoy school more and probably do better if the school is selective - as they are alongside other bright kids.

I don’t think you can possibly send one son and not the other though.

Your general position that I disapprove of a system that reinforces inequality and gives children advantages purely based on their parents’ or guardians’ wealth -
Don’t you think living in catchment for good state schools is also an advantage that’s due to parental wealth? Yes private school does advantage wealthy kids, but the state system is also vastly unequal, and richer parents can buy their way into a better school - it’s just more hidden.

Makes far more sense for your kids to have a great education than inherit the money at 25! At which point they will probably have to pay inheritance tax on it.

Good point

@minipie
”Don’t you think living in catchment for good state schools is also an advantage that’s due to parental wealth? Yes private school does advantage wealthy kids, but the state system is also vastly unequal, and richer parents can buy their way into a better school - it’s just more hidden”

absolutely this. I live in a midsized town and the difference between a 3 bedroom house near the excellent schools and not so desirable ones can be up to 1M. The PTA in the nicer area raises £30k a year for the primary, in the average are it’s £10k.

the catchment area for the amazing secondary school is 0.5m and house prices around the school are astronomical. As someone who didn’t grow up in the UK, I’m shocked by how unequal the state system is even within one town.

True but not always.
My DC's Private school is the closest school to us.
I would say though that it meant we were the "teen house", which I loved but appreciate not everyone would

I loved being the “teen house” as well- round the corner from school. I often came home from school to find a mountain of trainers in the porch and the teen “band” rehearsing. Lovely times.
I was thinking of one of my step sons ( 45 years ago!) who went to private school about 15 miles away and had no local friends - he often wanted to go and meet up with some of them -sometimes 30 miles away! So until he was old enough to make his own way it was parent taxi service!

I don't mean just in town. My friends' kids who live outside of town - walk to nearest train stations (or take a bus if available) and then take a train to schools. Those schools can be private OR state. Some kids started off in one type and moved to another.
When they go out - it's a mix. When smaller - parents drove more often. When older teens - they prefer to make their own way, if possible.

You're still assuming people are in walking distance of bus routes and train stations. That simply isn't the case for many rural people.

It's not relevant for this topic - but it's a bit more complicated than you say.

For highly competitive courses Oxford assigns numerical scores to applicants -
number of 8&9 GSCEs + contextual coefficients + Subject specific exams (MAT, PAT, etc) + interview scores + etc.

During the actual interviews with colleges - the interviewers do not know which school kids went to, or what their other scores are. This is what I meant by - interviews are blind. And the interview scores are by far the most important bit of the assessment - can be up to 2/3 of the total score.

So - yes - if you have a high contextual score, it may help lower some of the admissions criteria. It will come through at some point in the admission process, for sure. But for most living in the south of England - simply going to a state school would not make a big enough of a difference.

You are comparing 7% of the population with 93%. Go back and ask AI to compare private school pupils outcomes against the top 5 or 10% of state school pupils (as defined by GCSE/A level grades). It probably won' the able to do that but I bet if it could the answer wouldn't be same!

I'm having a similar dilemma as OP - wondering if I should start to tutor my Yr4 DC 'just in case' - and try for some of the super selective in my area. I was coming on here to post for advice when I saw this thread! We can easily afford it, and if she could just sit an interview I'd sign her up tomorrow. The only thing really putting me off is the 11+ prep. Friends tutored for 2 years to get their DD into their local selective. Even though it was a second tier London school their DD (like our DC) was in state primary and the prep requirement was huge. I'm not sure I want to work DC that hard, DC already does so much extra curricular, and I would only pay if they got into one of our areas top selective (which is West London... so highly competitive and competing with many children at prep school).
Anyway, I digress, as I really just wanted to say that for us a state sixth form is a no brainer. DH is an A level teacher at a big name high performing state schools and the sixth form is excellent.
The senior school is highly sought after and does very well at GCSE, compared to other state schools, but it is blown out of the water in both grades achieved and subject choice at the super selective privates.
It all changes at A level as more than half the students are told their grades or behaviour (this is a super strict school) aren't good enough to stay. They then make conditional offers to clever kids from other schools, many from privates (with a very wide catchment).

So I'd just take with a pinch of salt people who rave about a state education based on their experience of the sixth form.
If my DC does go to a state school they will probably go to another well known state that excels at getting clever DCs great GCSE results, but then falls off at A level (as many leave for other sixth forms).
Your school may be excellent in both, but that is not always the case.

The answer says 'even when controlling for university, subject, and job'

Interesting that the average salary difference is about the same as the cost of the education. Averages hide a lot of variety, of course! And it's not all about financials.

The answer doesn't suggest a reason, but my guess is that it's due to private education usually prioritising a holistic education, which may support students in developing lifelong strengths. But which particular school you think will best help your particular child grow is a personal judgement.

That is the outcome not the sample.

"Controlling for" means that they've accounted for those factors: neutralized their effect to not influence the relationship between the independent and dependent variables, ensuring that observed changes are truly due to the independent variable - which in this case is education sector.

For example, they could do that by comparing the salary outcome of private versus state educated people who went to the same university to do the same course and then got a job with the same description. (More accurately, they will be looking at the numbers in a more aggregate way, but allowing for how those factors change the outcome)

That means it doesn't matter that 50% of state school students don't go to on to further education, or that twice as many private school as state school entrants go to Ozbridge. They're comparing students (fewer from state, more from private) who are equivalent.

To be slightly provocative, I could point out that if Universities did discriminate against private schools - eg preferentially giving university places to less able state students (who continue to be less able after university) - then this is exactly the outcome you would expect.

But we can't tell whether that's causing part of the effect, or whether it's simply that personal/non-academic skills are so well taught in private schools.

Conversely, if private school gave an unfair advantage (in relation to the person's long-term ability) when getting a university place/job - as so many claim as a justification for deliberately destroying private schools - you would see the opposite effect.

The outcomes imply that a better education does actually make a person more able to successfully achieve things over their lifetime. Who knew.

I don’t think your morals should influence your child’s schooling . You need to make a judgement based on what’s available locally at the state school he’d attend compared to what’s available from the private school you’d choose .