Do you think private schools give your children a advantage in life ?

[mistybear]

I am thinking of going back to work full time so I can send my dd to a private secondary school. My husband and I keep going around in circles of whether or not there is any advantage to a private education. We are not rich hence having to work full time to afford it and this is one of the questions, will having parents that are not that well off be a massive problem being at private school, we are not in London and the area we live in is not massively affluent. One of the reasons I keep thinking about it is that the people I have as friends and some of my family that have been privately educated are doing well and more importantly doing a job they wanted to do. My dd is hardworking and has already achieved her leaving school targets even though she is in year five, the state secondary schools around us are not the best but a couple are not too bad educational wise but all of them do not have clubs and sports that the private school has. She loves her violin, science and space also her ponies and she loves her warhammer !! she is also a only child x

Subject to the qualification that you need to be intrinsically bright enough to get good grades then yes. Why not?

And if you aren't "intrinsically bright enough"?

The trouble with this sort of debate is that it's riddled with biases. All parents want to believe they have made right choices for their own children, and for those who pay, it is even more important to believe (a) that those choices are right and (b) that success is down to personal endeavour which anyone could match if they made the effort. It's like a first year psychology class.

Well in that case it is down to biology not privilege isn't it?

As I said- please tell me you don't take this attitude when you do outreach work!

What on earth is wrong with saying you need to be clever to pass exams?

It's biology. Me and my better half come from the crappiest backgrounds you can imagine. They definitely would have outreached to us. Dead parents other parents sectioned or alcoholic , secondary schools now closed down. We both were very smart and worked our way through college and into well paid jobs and so our kids are going to private secondary because that isn't fun, believe me. And the advantage to crappy backgrounds is we have no expensive tastes and so money to spare relatively speaking. Given that intelligence is approximately 70% genetic if our kids do well it will be biology to a degree . As I bet it is with lots of kids at private school.

I do want 'private (sic)' to be explained.

I'd be more likely to write 'indie' (sick)'.

No because school is what you make of it. My auntie is furious with my cousin because she spent £25k a year on his education and he came out with 2 Ds and a U at A level and is currently working in a bar part time. School is definitely what you put into it.

Dinocroc interesting re the biological genetic theory, if that is the case then surely your parents should have been intelligent and hard working? I'm only surmising from your post that they didn't particularly possess either of these qualities I hasten to add. Where did you and your DH inherit them from if that is the case?

I have to add that my DH is pretty intelligent and I'm averagely intelligent but my children really struggle hence why they are at private school.

Hak, I think the poster that mentioned the 150k being an average salary explained what they meant by that yesterday evening.

It's a chromosome square dance . But 70% gives them pretty good odds. My mum is quite bright if incredibly self sabotaging. My husbands dad was very bright but died in his 40's ( more genetics right ) . Hard working is something else I think. Obviously smart doesn't always breed smart but gives better odds.

Ah yes in that case it makes much more sense

In any context saying the average salary is £150k pa is a stupid comment to make. Maybe that is the average salary or the household income of parent's paying private school fees in London? or perhaps more tellingly the average salary of the posters "Social Circle". This is 5 times the real average (inflated by the few on "huge salaries") salary/household income of £26/£34K...

I think what I meant was private schools are not filled with inherited wealth but often people 'made good' . And on the flipside my child minder came from a wealthy family and private schools and can't afford the same for her kids. Swings and roundabouts.

I may be risking my neck here, but there really does seem to be an element of "if you're clever and work hard you can earn enough money to send your children to private school like I do, if you're not or don't then tough shit" a real sense of Devil take the hindmost...........

Or 'social mobility' right ?

A different context altogether but governments don't think that 150k salary is high because their MADS attract funding right up to £190k household income.
fees are paid on a sliding scale to absolutely 0 income being fully funded.

So whilst most of us can see this is a huge income in terms of paying fees and all other costs it isn't so high.

Hiya Indrid

Between the departure of Macmillan in 1969 and Blair's arrival in 1997, every UK Prime Minister was state educated

Alec Douglas-Home [the man with four different names, who left office in 1964] was the last public school [guess which one] PM prior to Blair. Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major were all state school products, with

Callaghan and Major being the most proletarian. No university for either.

Not exactly covered themselves in glory, either of them.

I can't really see a non-private school/or non-Oxbridge PM taking office for a while yet. I wouldn't be surprised if there were another two OE PMs before I cash in my chips.

You could say that to get into positions of power and influence, it helps to be quite ruthless, Machiavellian, and status obsessed. Maybe these are genetic traits more commonly found in private schools. Is that more or less offensive than saying it might be to do with the genetic inheritability of intelligence?

"Very depressing mentality and just as much to blame for a lack of social mobility in this country than any old school tie advantage."

What, and a lack of ambition is the reason why women and tonic minorities are also under represented in government and in the boardroom?

Maybe these are genetic traits more commonly found in private schools.

If they are genetic traits then the school you went to wouldn't matter. Not sure if ruthlessness has a gene, or even a set of them.

If it was down to type of education received, it would be nurture, rather than nature.

Compare the number of Old Etonian UK Prime Ministers [19] to Wykehamist Prime Ministers [1], or Harrow [7]

What is the magic Etonian elixir of power, I wonder?

Birds of a feather flock together? ??

Except few, if any, chose themselves to be there.

Their parents made the decision.

In any UK political party or movement you are likely to find OEs, from the Communist Party of Great Britain via the Liberals to the Greens.

Quite a few OEs in Attlee 1945-51 Labour government [some of them aristocrats], and Attlee went to Haileybury, of course.

their parents chose the school, though, and are genetically related to their children.... Seems like a good school to choose if you want your child to aim for PM, politics in general, High Court Judgeship, etc...

Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse. Orwell was at Eton. Dick Crossman was head boy of Winchester. etc etc