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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Independant and State grammar Seconday education

84 replies

MauAnt · 09/12/2011 08:50

Hi all

My son DD who has a conditional place at Eton in 2013 is going to a feeder prep boarding school in Oxford to complete year 7 and 8. We are by no means rich as we rely on scholarships and bursaries which thankfully he has for about 80% of the fees.

I have five children all who went or are in state primary schools and dd above is the 2nd, my daughter the older one who is 13 is in a state grammar school in Reading and her younger sister is in year 6 aged 10 is sitting exams for the same state grammar school as her sister and for some independent schools in Oxford. As she is academic we are hoping for a bursary/scholarship from the independent sector if she goes to one.

The question I ask myself is whether my other children aged 8 and 4 and the 13 year old in grammar school will feel resentment for not being privately educated as I intend to focus on only the state grammar schools in the future unless there are exceptional circumstances. I had to move my son to an independent school in Year 5 despite scraping 1/3 of the fees as he is very academic, a sportsman and needed that extra challenge. It transformed him from the boy who was bored at school and did not want to go to a very enthusiastic boy and one who eventually passed the initial Eton exam. My year 6 daughter is almost similar, aspires to be a writer has some of her work published in the Young writers books and I worry that in the state sector she will be suppressed. She is getting ready for the ISEB common entrance examinations in January and I am shocked at how little science is taught in state primary schools compared to independent schools which places her at a disadvantage.

I love all my children equally and do not want any of them to feel less favoured, I remind my daughter in Kendrick Reading about that. Just that these two children are different in their own way. Having said that if none of our bursary applications are successful and my daughter passes to Kendrick Reading (I am not taking it for granted) I will gladly jump at it. Also common sense tells me that I need to meet the 20% school fees for my son and not be looking for any additional fee commitments for my daughter. Help this confused lady who is trying to do the right thing but might be getting it all wrong

OP posts:
MrsJAlfredPrufrock · 09/12/2011 14:54

MauAnt -So you are already paying perhaps £4K per annum, plus uniform and travel for your little boy? Before he even gets to Eton?

Original poster
MauAnt · 09/12/2011 14:54

When they means test you, they take into account how much is paid out for siblings as 'shown in your bank statement' and how much you earn. 11+ tutoring, kumon, GCSE and other things that parents embark on are sometimes necessary and not quite classed as private tutoring which currently in the UK costs £39 an hour. Some parents of course do not see this as so as they would rather spend their money on expensive holidays and not on their children.

OP posts:
Original poster
MauAnt · 09/12/2011 14:57

Thanks Colleger one of the few positive remarks I have seen on this thread.

OP posts:
Yellowstone · 09/12/2011 14:58

Frankly some people don't have the spare cash to do either lush holidays or tutoring, its not a case of either/ or.

I haven't needed tutoring for any of mine though, no need so no point.

MrsJAlfredPrufrock · 09/12/2011 14:59

What are the conditions that make up the conditional offer? Have you thought a bit about what might happen to him if he fails at the final hurdle, when he's already adopted a foppish hairstyle and known as the boy destined for Eton? Is it not an awful lot of pressure?

Original poster
MauAnt · 09/12/2011 15:03

He needs to pass the common entrance and I think is equal to the task. Conservative family no floppish hairstyles or airs in our lives and the kids thankfully agree with it. We leave that for the vain

OP posts:
MrsJAlfredPrufrock · 09/12/2011 15:04

Perhaps you could convert your back room to a fencing salle for your state school brood, to mitigate against festering resentment and class envy?

Yellowstone · 09/12/2011 15:06

Your kids are really young still though, they might assert themselves later on :)

MrsJAlfredPrufrock · 09/12/2011 15:07

Conditional upon doing what with CE though? Reaching "the required standard"?

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4793334/Time-for-some-common-sense.html

Yellowstone · 09/12/2011 15:08

A faux Eton Fives court in the back yard would be better, MrsP?

Original poster
MauAnt · 09/12/2011 15:09

He will work and we will pray hard. By God's grace it will happen. Signing off. School run

OP posts:
swanker · 09/12/2011 21:20

Please tell me you are not wasting your money on Kumon??

cory · 09/12/2011 23:19

OP, how do you know that your younger children will not turn out to be even more talented and able to access independent education than your eldest. And should that happen, how on earth do you explain to them that their brother got the chance simply because he was...what?...older than them?...a boy?

PollyParanoia · 10/12/2011 11:13

MauAunt do you know that he will get an 80% scholarship to Eton (which I suppose would still leave you needing to find approx £6k)?
The thing that worries me about what you've said is that you seem to think the very fact that he's got in means you have no choice but to accept it, since it's something you see as a great achievement. In which case you shouldn't have put him in for it unless you were 100% certain (and in some ways you do seem dead set on it). The other thing that worries me is that there is no equivalent girls' school so there is no way that your daughter could 'match' this achievement.
PS I went to a local state then a v poor girls' school. My brothers to Eton. And yes I do resent it as it seems as though my education was less valued because of my gender.
PPS I did way better than my brothers academically although I don't think i'm any brighter...

Dozer · 10/12/2011 15:19

Agrre with muminscotland. You've raised his expectations, so now would be hard to go back. But will you give all the DC the chance to go for scholarships at top boarding schools - to suit their particular talents - if they wished to do so? Probably not, because the money will have been spent on one sibling who is more "spcecial", too special even to attend a top state grammar, which is deemed Ok for them. That is clearly unfair.

The reference to 5 DC is relevant because of your desire to access private education, presumably if you have fewer DC you would have more to put towards all of their education.

Coconutty · 10/12/2011 15:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Colleger · 10/12/2011 19:55

Actually it's not unusual for Eton. Once you have been offered a Pre-test place (which her son has done) a bursary application is approved between 2/3 years in advance subject to finances changing.

happygardening · 11/12/2011 12:05

I have one Ds at Win Coll one at a comp (the best in the county) I could not afford to send them both to independent boarding schools and the local day schools are not better than the our local comp. Neither would be happy at the others school. I too have agonised over the "unfairness" of it. Will the one at the comp turn round in the future and say you spent all that money on my brothers education instead of spreading it equally, or will the other say I was sent away to school and whilst my brother was always at home?! I have no idea. I suspect the one at Win Coll will go to a top uni. the one at the comp may not.
We love them both we cant treat them equally because they are not the same we do what we think is right for them as individuals. The one at the comp is blissfully happy, involved in local activities and has lots of local friends the fact that he is unlikely to get as good exam results basically comes down to the fact that he is not as clever as the other one or as motivated. But this does not make him any less of a person that than my other DS people are not just exams and universities he has so many other fantastic qualities.
MauAnt you must do what you think is right for your individual children; well done you DS for getting in to Eton, ignore the unpleasant spiteful postings MrsJAlfredPrufrock in particular has a chip on her shoulder the size of a tower block when it comes to schools like Eton.
Children more than anything else need love and stability. Some above have talked about their resentment because their siblings were educated privately etc but I think if your looking for a reason to blame on how you feel you can find one one what ever your parents do.

gazzalw · 11/12/2011 13:33

What would concern me about this issue is not that the younger children will resent the different educational experience that they have received, but that there could potentially be a vast social/value gap twixt your children as they grow up and into adult life. If you send one child to Eton (and I speak as someone who has no direct experience of any of the top public schools), surely they will come out of it with very different attitudes, experiences, expectations and values to your children who have been educated in the state system? This could be very divisive in terms of their relationships with each other as adults....

Original poster
MauAnt · 11/12/2011 13:49

Thanks happy gardening for your encouraging response. I treat all my children equally and some of the postings regarding girls resenting being born girls and therefore not having equivalent education as Eton is boys is quite interesting. Children are individuals the only other boy I have is still in nursery and if he is as academic as hid twelve year old brother when the time comes we will look into our options as his brother will be out of university by then. My 3,girls do not want to be boys or resent the fact that there is no Eton for girls. My dad went to London school of economics and every top school you can think of. He was caring and helped his siblings who never resented him. Ironically he always felt his parents where more fond of one of his siblings who went to a local run down school. When we where growing up they kept telling us to try and be as clever as our dad was.

OP posts:
sue52 · 11/12/2011 16:20

I don't think any one has said that your daughters resent being born female. You say there are no girls schools that are equal to Eton, did you look at Roedean, Benendean, Downe House and the like or just take your daughter to see the local girls independent school. I think the choice you offered her was not the in the same league as the one facing your son.

MoreBeta · 11/12/2011 17:10

gasalw - very good point. I do think being sent to boarding school divided me from my sisters. I am extremely happy that I did go but my teenage years were so different from my sisters - we really became strangers. My sister says it was like having a lodger come to live with them in holidays.

Original poster
MauAnt · 11/12/2011 17:21

It's the opposite in our case my son is glad to be away in a boarding school as he is outnumbered and surrounded by three girls. He normally felt isolated from their games and talk and his baby brother is by far too young. So we always had to take him to friends with boys his age.

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happygardening · 11/12/2011 17:27

It's a valid point we had a friend who had one at indpendent day one at boarding they felt the one at boarding missed out on day to day family life so they eventually move her. But I still believe that we have to do what feels right at the time.
With regard to the remarks made gazzalw my DS's spent six years in the same boarding prep and emerged as two completely different people then they were two completely different personalities when they went. As parents were are not trying create identical clones we are surely just trying to find a way to enable children to grow into happy well balanced adults.

PollyParanoia · 11/12/2011 21:08

I never said I resented being born a girl, I said I resented the way that my parents very obviously (and have admitted as much) thought that it was more important to educate boys than girls.
I'm bloody glad I didn't go to the school where they didn't do particularly well academically (despite their gifts) and have felt stigmatised by the whole of their lives. It's the principle I object to.