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

Many of the "working classes" don't go to university to get ahead. They don't expect to ever repay their loans. They go to enjoy three years off from the constraints of RL.

"the reverse standpoint is equally true 'my dc is too sensitive/northern/proletarian to survive in a socially exclusive and/or academically pressured environment - and anyway we can't afford it, so...'

You know I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that- except possibly about boarding.....................

It gets silly when people put arguments in their "oponents" mouth.

but anyway, Word (and other private eulogisers ), shall we come back to this thread in 20 or 30 years and see how all our kids got on?

I reckon most of our kids will be fine, maybe even highflyers, in a the world of the future, which we have no idea what it will look like, or what skills will be most useful.

To me it feels that all our educational decisions are based on the past and the present. I think the future will still have an elite, but the old boys network may be dying a death.

Subjects like D&T and ICT should maybe (already now) be considered more important than English, English lit, and those wonderful Renaissance painters mentioned upthread . Can your kid design and develop an app? Can your child foresee what the next developments in technology will be? A lot of our children will have jobs that don't even exist yet.

The world is changing very fast, the whole way we look at education needs a shake-up! I think both private and state schools need to re-evaluate the curriculum.

Nimpy - agree about the straw men put up by some posters, who make sweeping and baseless assumptions about other people's motivations and have opinions about schools based on nothing but their own prejudice.
Someone once said on a thread it would make more sense if posters only expressed an opinion about a school their DC were at, or they work in, not just that their brother-in law's uncle was at in 1956, or that Alan Bennett doesn't like. That would actually be meaningful, rather than received opinions or chippy envy.

Word, you might consider me to be one of your "deniers", but why do you think it is that some people who could genuinely afford private education choose not to go down that route?

Is it that we love our children less, and don't want to spend our money on them? That we are ignorant of the benefits of a superior education and are therefore making poor choices for our kids?

Or could it simply be that we don't particularly rate what private schools have to offer, and that we don't think it is worth the investment?

Why do you assume that we adopt some sort of willful blindness in order to justify our decisions to ourselves? Is it so hard for you to accept that not everyone would choose the schools that you have chosen? That not everyone measures a good education by quite the same yardstick?

It's like when men say that they are victims of domestic violence too and why aren't women setting up refuges for them?

Oops, wrong thread.........

God, I was trying to work out the link to private schools!

am stuck at home with post-neutered puppy and have nothing better to do but keep refreshing various threads...

I find it interesting, TheWordFactory, that you only describe the wilful blindness of those who do not opt for a private education. But then I guess you wouldn't see your own blindness, would you?

Snapespotion - would it be ok if I asked you a question? (A genuine qtn). If people in your financial position had to pay for their children's education on top of their taxes and it cost the same amount of money. Would you choose to send your Dc to the state school or would you choose one of the local independent schools that are available to you?

I am not trying to trap you, just understand whether you believe a state education is better irrespective of money.

What about people who are philosophically and politically opposed to private education? Or don't you believe people like that exist?

are you asking me hak?

I don't believe it's just those who can afford it but choose not to who are wilfully blind.

I think the majority of people are.

If the dominant group can get the remaining population to accept the status quo then their position is secure.

If the dominant personality types in power can't get the remaining population to accept the status quo through democratic politics, they are quite happy to squash them down some other way.

var, it's not a simple answer, it would depend where I lived.

I don't rate the private schools that are local to us, but the state schools are excellent, so living here, I would obviously choose state.

Where I lived previously, I didn't rate the state schools or the private schools greatly, so we moved to a different part of the country before dd started school. I realise that we were lucky to have that option (and to have been able to buy our way into the catchment of some excellent state schools.)

If I lived in an area with really good private schools and significantly less good state schools, I might well have gone private. Politically, it might not have felt great, but ultimately, I would have chosen the school that was best for dd. My principles are not that strong.

The only type of school that I would never have considered for my dc would be boarding - state or private. While I know that anecdote is not equal to data, there is a far higher prevalence of mental health problems among those of my acquaintance who have boarded, and I would not have been willing to take that risk under any circumstances.

I am certainly not denying that state schools in some parts of the country are pretty poor, and private may well be a better option in those areas. What I take issue with is the assumption that private is inevitably better than state just because you pay for it.

I'm also not denying that some private schools (but very few IMO) offer a wider range of opportunities for children. However, I haven't yet seen or heard of anything of value that a clued-up parent couldn't replicate outside school at a fraction of the cost. Not single-handedly, of course, but using the funds that we save on school fees and our existing networks - surprisingly I have one, despite going to a comprehensive school!

Are you suggesting that we should start a revolution, word?

It is a fact that the majority of people are not, actually, inclined to join the dominant group - they will tolerate being led by them, but don't actually want to join them or even like them. We're no different from a troop of monkeys, really... you can't have too many jockeying for power at the same time and a group of dominant personalities only will all kill each other. Unfortunately, for those who are not in power but want to be, they have the task of trying to persuade the non-dominant group who do not want to be leaders and who don't really like them very much, to support and fight for them and with them, in order to help them join or topple a group they don't really like very much whoever they are.

I do think there is confusion about the 'queues' I've seen more than one pro-private poster claim form to argue that no private school is better than any state school.

If someone tells me they love their child's private school because s/he gets to work in an orderly way/ isn't bullied for being a geek/ gets to do drama and competitive sport/ has done a GCSE early (although remember this is a Bad Thing is state schools do it, though good in private ) then yes, I will say - ahem, none of that is the province of the private.

If they tell me that 50% of the sixth form went to Oxbridge, or they've got an observatory, I'm not going to start a pissing contest about that!

There are some really excellent private schools, some good ones and quite few that offer nothing apart from the cache of a private school.
Generally though I think private schools have better facilities and parents can demand accountability if their children do not reach their potential.

Sorry, just to add to my previous post. We are currently looking at secondary school options for my dd, and will need to make a decision at some point in the next few months.

We did go and have a look at the local private options, as I wanted to ensure that we got a proper overview of the choices that were available. The buildings and grounds at one of the private schools were beautiful, undoubtedly, but I did not think that the quality of education was any better, and I preferred the atmosphere at one of the state schools.

We will go to visit all of the schools again before making a final decision. If we decide that we prefer one of the private options, then that is where dd will go, but that isn't looking at all likely at the moment.

FWIW, dd liked the hogwarts buildings but had a strong overall preference for one of the state schools. :)

I'm not convinced about the demanding accountability bit. I've read threads on mumsnet where the result of that is being removed from the school in question. Parents with children at private schools can also live in fear of upsetting the school, especially if they are scared of the unknown alternatives to the school their child is already at. You'd need to have colossal amounts of disposable cash and a colossal ego to think you could always get your way if you were pushy enough...

Generally though I think private schools have better facilities and parents can demand accountability if their children do not reach their potential.

I agree about the facilities being better - usually they are. I guess I just don't consider that to be particularly important.

With regard to accountability, that's an interesting one - I have never felt this to be an issue, because dd's school has done a fantastic job to date of stretching and challenging her to date, and I feel that she will reach her full potential within the state system. Not least because she is a self-starter who needs very little pushing or encouragement.

Nit - getting into oxbridge isn't just about results though, and some people might not regard oxbridge success as the only (or even a relevant) marker. I object to people proclaiming no state school can even compete on results and that clearly isn't true. The top 4 or 5 posh schools get the best results but the top state schools aren't in some kind of isthmian league pit of despair way below them. They are all premier league.

I was thinking more generally with that comment. you are lucky to send your child to a good state school, as am I. However I hope no one would dispute that there are some truly bad state schools out there that have very low expectations of the children and / or are unwilling to be unaccountable for poor results year after year... whether that is measured in exams or anything else.

I'm not saying everyone wants to be part of the dominant group.
But I do think more would like to give it a go if allowed.

I do a lot of outreach work for Oxbridge and it's paying dividends. Of course not everyone wants to go or has the ability. But if they do have the later, it's surprising how many will give it a try if encouraged or at least not discouraged.

Re reading 1984 at the moment, it struck me that Big Brother's aim for you not to simply say that 2 plus 2 is 5 but to actually believe it is what all dominant groups want.