Anxiety about us being working class and applying for independents

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Dd is summer born year 5 and bright (5as for everything and in mixed yr5/6 class). She finds academic work comes easy and needs very little /no help from us. I was similar and horribly let down by state comp. Unfortunately while the state primaries here are great the comps are not, poor results, don't have sixth forms, etc. We're not in a grammar area. Independents are excellent but very selective.
I've decided to get a tutor to help prep dd for the independent school entrance tests. I'm starting to feel a bit anxious about the entrance assessments, DH and I will be included and I'm worried about DH saying something daft (sorry DH). Dd doesn't do hundreds of activities like some other children and probably won't sell herself enough (we don't have that innate confidence that middle classes have). It's not helping that mother is anti private schooling and keeps going on and on about it in front of dd.
Gah what to do. Has anyone else had this dilemma? I feels a bit Dick van Dyke...

I am a first-in-family-to-go-to-uni-northerner in a very affluent part of the south east. DS1 sounds like your daughter and he sat the entrance exams for several independents in January.

IME the selective schools are looking at academics. If you get past that, then they want to know if you can have a conversation, show enthusiasm for your likes and act like an ordinary 10 year old.

I did get a bit het up at the thought of the parent interview with the head master at the most sought after independent. Especially because DH was going to be away and I would have to go by myself. I didn't want to let DS down and I realised that that was just the tiniest remnant of the chip on my shoulder talking.

In the end, he got a place there and the interview wasn't half as scary as I'd worked it up to being. We turned it down for another school we thought would be a better fit for him.

It's nice to have choices. You'll be fine and so will your DH.

The parent meeting is to tell the school about the child. DH can be a bit socially awkward at times and I worry that he'll drop a clanger. I will prep him in advance

If you can pay and your daughter passes the test it won't matter what clangers your husband utters.

These schools are businesses. They know you will also be looking at their competitors. It is important to them that you buy their product instead of another schools.

No need to go in tugging your forelock!

Don't worry about it - even Wayne Rooney et al send their dc to independent schools.

code others have said it before me but just to emphasise that you and your DH should certainly feel that you can behave naturally at any visits. The schools are academically selective not selective by a long ancestral line of university education.

The importance of the visits is for your DD to feel excited by the schools and for you to see the added value that you will be paying for.
BTW it sounds as though your DD is doing a load of extracurriculars.

I'm taking a wild guess that you are not from the South Coast but this page from PGS has a little video you may find encouraging. Good luck!

I have experience of a prep school and two good senior schools in the private sector and I would say just go for it. There are children from all backgrounds and believe me there are many parents who are really struggling to pay fees but want to send their child to a fee paying school for a variety of reasons. Times have changed, it is not all about the old class system anymore and if your child is bright the school will want her. I am a current parent so feel in a good position to comment. Do not worry about your husband, they can all put their foot in it regardless of background as I am sure most of us would agree!! Good luck, you will be fine.

"There are children from all backgrounds"

There really aren't.

There isn't a single private school in the UK which would take most of the children my dc's sit next to at their state school, who are children who aren't very clever and who aren't from educationally supportive backgrounds. Private schools have no place for this type of child, in fact half the attraction of private schools is that they keep this type of child out.

As far as the OP goes - if your child is bright and personable they will make friends and be accepted. But that's because they're not 'ordinary'. The 'ordinary' kids - ie the ones who fill state schools, who aren't especially clever, are the one's not welcome at private schools. In other words - these schools are ABSOLUTELY not 'inclusive'. But as I said, that sort of exclusivity is something most parents like and are willing to pay for.

At my non selective private school there were some kids who were not bright at all but had parents who could afford to pay for their education. Ths doesn't necessarily mean that the parents were supportive either, in some cases they paid to get their less than perfect children taken off their hands and very much had the " that's what we pay you for" attitude to being involved with their child. It was a minority but they were there.
Most parents had their own business ( not necessarily a multi million £ one either) and made sacrifices to send their children to private school.
Not all are the same but that was my experience

my DD is at a mixed ability private school in London, they do exist, it isn't just academics. Mind you, a very high number of the parents are from abroad and simply don't have the same preconceptions that we might about other parents' accent, area where they grew up, family background etc

OP, I think your dd will be fine and you'll get a better sense of how supportive/friendly other kids and parents are when you go to open days, and when she sits the tests.

But in general, I have to agree with Blessed. Kids are not 'from all backgrounds', and even some of the very bright kids in my dd's class could never go to private schools because their parents couldn't struggle to pay the fees - no matter how hard they struggled - and because their parents would be too anxious to put their child in for scholarships (and not that many local schools do full ones anyway).

My dd is opting for a private school for secondary, but I am not going to kid myself that she will have the same mix of friends she has had in her state primary. Hopefully they will be equally lovely, but definitely not the same.

Having interviewed children for independent school places, I would say that background isn't going to be something which put a child at a disadvantage - nor, for example, would not doing millions of activities be. What I would be interested to see was whether your DD could talk with genuine interest about the things she does do and enjoy, whether she could talk enthusiastically about books she'd read and say why she'd enjoyed them (or not enjoyed them), something she knew or found interesting about the school etc. Highly prepped answers were always very much less preferable to me than natural answers from the child which told me something about their character and their genuine feelings. Of course, that's not to say that pupils should do no preparation! It's just that a very highly scripted approach to answers didn't tend to let enough of the child shine through. Disclaimer: all schools will be different and I'm just talking about my experience of interviewing, but I hope it helps

you won't be the only one.

The school will be looking for bright kids with potential, not overconfident ones.

You can be shy or modest and get into private school.

Just be yourself and leave your mum's chip on her shoulder at your mum's !

I did say in my post that the schools were inevitably economically selective and most certainly academically selective, but 30% of pupils are educated privately in this area, and it is not entirely related to affluence, partly a legacy of some very poor school management and school place planning. Not uncommon for parents who would be very happy with a good state school place to find themselves in black holes of provision (literally with the prospect of languishing on waiting lists sometimes until after term starts, or an offer in a school that is inaccessible), and straining the family finances / remortgaging / SAHMs going back to work to pay fees. There are quite a few private schools serving an increasing demand, and new ones opening, and some of the established ones are quite wealthy in terms of bursary provision. In addition families from cultures where education is the absolute priority are overrepresented in the most selective private schools, and in less selective faith schools, in some cases the private school will be a lot more ethnically mixed than the state school next door, though the mix of abilities and family backgrounds will be very different. Demand is much more driven by the wish for the certainty of a good education for bright children. It is not the stereotype that OP was concerned about.

It is quite different to the city I come from where there are enough state school places, and even some element of choice, albeit some postcode selection, for those who want them, so that the private schools really are for those who are paying for a proposition that is much more to do with the social selectivity, and private schools are closing / becoming Free Schools.

Poisonwoodlife, with respect the proportion of private education in your area is very far from typical - as far as I can see the DofE Jan 14 census shows no more than half a dozen areas in the whole of England where it's as high as you quote, and I suspect you know this. And I doubt very much that it's just a product of a shortage of state places - as is repeatedly stated on this kind of thread private education is less affordable - and I don't get the impression from the threads on bursaries that they're all that generous either.

I'm always a bit when people state lack of local provision was why they had to go private.

Well this eltee is the reason a bunch of parents went through the hard work and hassle of starting a Free School when it was clear a borough wide problem was about to hit our suburb was founded in 2011 by a small group of parents who care about our local area and its people. Faced with shrinking catchments and increased demand for our local secondaries, we could see our community breaking up as families moved away or chose non-local schools. We believed our area needed another excellent secondary school. We knew many other people agreed with us, so we decided to do something about it. Our borough was the only one in the country last year not to have offered places to all in time applicants by September. If the number choosing private school in our borough was the average of the 10 most affluent boroughs , and it is isn't in that ten, then it would need two new 5 form entry senior schools to take the pupils who would remain in the state system. One of our local secondary's has been turned around with good leadership, last year it's applications went up 46%, this year it's catchment on initial allocations is less than 2km. This is an increasingly common picture in Greater London where a pupil bulge is hitting a system already at capacity. I am guessing that you do not know what it is like to be offered no school place for your child, I can assure you we would have loved the chance of a place in any of our four most local state schools for my older DD and we moved to get one for my younger one

I made it clear I know the situation is different elsewhere in the country but London is a big population centre and not the only one to be feeling these pressures. The point I was making was that the stereotypes certainly do not apply nationwide.

Poisonwoodlife, I don't think you mentioned that you lived in London - in fact my guess is that you live in the borough of Camden. I do sympathise, I really do - I live in inner London and had a choice of two primary schools, neither of which were rated better than satisfactory. The year after DD started school there were 20 children in this ward without a school place, her school is half way through expansion to 4 form entry.

Please don't take this as a criticism of your choices - it's just that as you acknowledge it really isn't the case that fee-paying schools aren't socially selective. Of course they are, it's why people with either the financial and/or personal resources to access them do so.
Like you, I come from a city where there was less difficulty in these choices, so none of it sits that easy with me. However, I do find it interesting watching some people trying to work out how to arrange their face when I tell them where my DDs go to school.

The lack of secondary state places is a whole hot topic in our London Borough at the moment too...and the uneven geographical distribution, along with feeder system being abolished whilst admission criteria (distance) remains unchanged, is in danger of creating 'ghetto' areas where there are no local school places available for any children. And I know we're not alone.

But this is doubtless a whole different thread...

Of course they are, it's why people with either the financial and/or personal resources to access them do so.

It must be really nice to be able to be so confident in making sweeping judgments about whole groups of people, in all kinds of different circumstances. I imagine it makes life very simple....

In my experience, it's the in-betweeners who are under-represented in the private school system. If you've got megabucks and/or don't have to worry about the fees, you'll be okay. If you haven't got 2 brass farthings to rub together, there are still some extremely generous scholarships/bursaries, particularly in the boarding sector. If you don't fit into either category, you either make huge sacrifices (but would still need to be earning a very decent wage), or you can't even contemplate a private education. Op, if you can afford it and think it's the best fit for your DD, go for it. You obviously won't get the same social mix as you would in most state schools, but still a pretty broad range of people. And I also speak as the first in my family to go to university, from a very working class background, and with 2 DC in private school. Good luck!

As a parent with a DD in an Independent primary, you will probably surprise yourself to find that there will be others like you at the school. We struggle to pay the fees but as she is bright this is the only real option for us. I found myself amazed that we ended up where we were, but it sounds like your journey is like ours - always focused on the school that will suit DD best. I had a close family member not speak to me for two years after we made our decision due to her staunch political views, now she has a bright child in a school, she has suddenly found that she can talk to me and discuss education and even admits that it isn't a crime to want the best for your child. Go for it!