So have your private school fees been worth it?

[jeanne16]

Just that exactly? Both my DCs have been through private London schools all the way through from Reception to 6th Form and although they have both done very well ( eldest now at Cambridge, younger about to go to very good RG), I can't help wondering if it has been worth the money.

I am currently wondering if we could have done things differently. We have spent an enormous amount of money on school fees that could perhaps have gone on other things. Could we have tried harder to get them into decent state schools, particularly at primary level?

Your thoughts?

But there are inequalities everywhere Kew. I look at DS2 and think: why did he have to have ASD on top of all the other physical ailments life has chucked at him? He has not only struggled with ill health for years but also lacks social skills and friends, and is off on another planet when it comes to organisation, so DH and some teachers are constantly having a go at him. And why does he have such severe dyspraxia that he can't ever enjoy sports or the kind of social bonding games - messing round with a football in the playground, or going for a swim etc that so many boys do? The one thing he has going for him is a certain geeky intelligence that his private school makes the most of. He'd be eaten alive at the local comps.

You love your son so you want the world for him, understandably. In my heart I think if I could choose to let DS2 be a neurotypical, sporty, popular kid at the local comp instead of a physically awkward moody geek at the local independent, I would.

yes of course silvercorn and it's lovely that you are able to give him the schooling that he deserves. But most people don't have that choice - my lovely geeky intelligent niece had to be eaten alive at the local comp.

I went back and reread all the responses - a few people pointed out the cons of their private school and some people weren't sure if it made a big difference in the end but overall the message is "yes because it's better".

Of course thats life and generally I'm not so introspective about it - things are as they are. But a thread inviting people to say whether their children benefited from private school is bound to rub some people up the wrong way.

I guess today that someone is me.

My lovely geeky intelligent DS2 thrived at our local leafy comp. He was friends with lots of other lovely geeky and intelligent kids.

He wasn't once eaten alive at school.

He and his friends went to places like Warwick, Bath, Cambridge etc They are the type of hard working self motivated kids that can do well wherever they go within reason

You can't really know. Because the real test is what they would have come out with/where they would have been offered university places had they gone to a different school. You'll never know - your dc seem to have achieved very well so best forget about it IMO! Not like you could get the money back anyway!

I'm in my early 20's, and went to a good private school. Although I obviouslt didn't pay, I (and my parents I'm sure) certainly think its worth it. It's not just about the results, but the work ethos, extra curricular activities and the way you're pushed that makes all the difference.

I am naturally lazy and no doubt would have failed at state school. I also think I would have ended up in a bad crowd. In my school you were not teased for being smart or working hard, virtually nobody smoked or took drugs or played truent. That's certainly not the impression I get from friends who went to state schools.

For my brother however, all round good boy and hard worker, I truley believe he would have done just as well in state school.

Though I do think it gives a good impression on UCAS applications, CV etc. It shouldn't matter I know, but it does.

Kewcumber I perhaps surprisingly agree with you why should so few have so much? My DS2 being one of them. But I genuinely don't know what the answer to the problem is.
I do think that many MC parents paying days fees would cheerfully send their DC's to a good state school if they could. But ultimately it's not really those children who have so much it's the tiny minority at top schools who have incredibly wealthy parents who have so much more. Unless your DC's are actually at these schools most have no idea of what the difference between the opportunities offered in top schools and all the rest.

Mine are not at their exam stage yet. I will say that DD1's confidence has been helped hugely by the small class sizes - there are 9 in her additional maths class, and she gets the extra help she needs from the teacher, which boosts her confidence. She hates asking questions in class, and feels a lot more comfortable doing this in a small class. Yes, to French, because she is in an international school and in a bilingual class, which has really stretched her (her French is very good, but she's not bilingual) and has equipped her well for her IB. Yes, it has been good for her passion for the theatre - she goes a lot with the school, to the West End, the school has its own theatre, and as well as acting she has done a lot of backstage work.

DD2 probably would have thrived anywhere, but her school is very good on art, and she has had huge encouragement with this (and good direction on potential university courses and careers).

I have a huge amount of empathy with what you're saying Kewcumber.

On a very idealistic level, I think it's an unfair and unjust society that we live in that, for example, offers sport coaching to children whose parents can pay. Look at our Olympic medals - and how many were won by private school attending people. ( apart from sports you don't need money for, like running )

I have a DS who is talented at sport, and every time I pass a private school with its acres of fields, it's tennis courts, it's swimming pools, it makes me really depressed and angry.

I could change my life so I could scrape together the fees. But I'm not angry about me and my situation, I'm angry about the social injustice where it's OK to have a society that gets all the benefits for the next generation through paying.

happygardening - the only answer to the problem is for people to stop trying to take so much for themselves, rather than to claim they don't know what to do about it.

Still, nobody wants to start it, do they? It's easier to run our resources into the ground and kill ourselves off than to blink first.

This debate also makes me very sad and it will only get worse with the posh boys back in charge. Coming from a dump comp and redbrick uni myself, and married to a public school/Oxbridge sort I battled to get ours sent to a selective state, turning down some decent privates. Now that all three are hale and hearty in RG unis, I think it was the right decision but it could have turned out very differently. There was that feeling all the way through, could I have done better for them ... now, I'm just glad to have saved the money. All absolutely unfair.

Yet no one mentions how unfair the state system is, which I believe is far worse. If you 'pretend' to find religion, or move to a leafy area, you can win the schools lottery, while the rest of us mugs either pay vast amounts of money for private schools or settle for less than great comps. How unfair is that!

Yup. The patchy provision of education to the vast majority of DC is a far more challenging issue.

And isn't it amazing that all our lovely MPs of all parties get their kids into sought after state schools!

OP is asking a backwards looking question.

We started in private to get a good grounding and went State for secondary. Looking back we can say it turned out to be the right decision for us in our circumstances because we fell in the era of Tony Education Education Education Blair. We could see fees getting very much more expensive for not that much better education so the cost/benefit calculation fell in favour of State. It seemed to work: we provided the confident gloss* through extra-curricular activities and the DC went on to do academic subjects at 'proper' universities.

*As a matter of interest, one of the girls in DD's year at private junior school stayed on for senior and then transferred to our state school for sixth form. She didn't last one term because she couldn't hack it in the real world. Not all private kids that that inner glow of confidence.

However, since then the country has had five years of tightening the purse strings and looks to be having five years more of the same. For people making the decision now, it might be a different answer. But that's assuming that you have the oodles of spare cash to afford it.

That it true purits

State schools are in for a rough ride in the next few years; cuts, new exams systems, the government and the teaching unions using children as a political football.

I'm a particular mug because I decided I couldn't even pretend to find god to get DS into one of the local schools considered to be the best around here. Poor boy - I couldn't even compromise to get him into the "best" school.

Mind you as it turned out his primary has accessed support for him (after a good deal of badgering by me) which I don;t think would have been forthcoming at either a private school or the local CoE school - so many there is a god after all...

happygardening

my gripe really isn't that so few have so much. Really I am very relaxed about others who have more Stuff. My sister has three houses, two swimming pools a tennis court and more cars than they have people in their family. I can't afford to go on holiday. So I'm no stranger to the "Haves and Have not's".

I made my choices, some of which decimated me financially but which I don't regret as they were the right thing for DS. I am contented with my lot. Mostly.

But education and healthcare are different. There I suddenly get very socialist! There is no way around it, though I would prefer to see private schools to lose their charitable status unless they genuinely act in a charitable manner - I can only think of 1 local'ish school that does that, a few bursaries of 50% of the fees making them affordable to the upper middle class professional doesn't really cut it in my opinion.

I just find it hard to read how people are so pleased with their choice of private because it's better than the alternative. the alternative that my son will probably go to.

What is the answer? Remove charitable status from schools unless they give a certain percentage of free places (roughly equal to the tax they save ie the taxpayer funds the free spaces) and stop reading threads which irritate me.

word while I agree with what you say. But also how some of these states schools are run is absolutely shambolic. Incompetent head teachers who can't manage or lead the staff, rubbish planning and decision making. They have ineffective control over unruly behaviour and bullying. This all has a negative impact on our children's education its a vicious cycle until a new head comes along to fix things. With Private schools the thing they do good at it is management and organisation. It's no wonder why some of the best teacher would prefer to teach in the private sector.

I work in the city where we employ people from all backgrounds. It's an extremely tough company to get in and once you are in, it's tough to stay.
We do quarterly 'reviews', we do performance targets. We take the cream of graduates and we unfortuantely do culling. It's the world of work and we are here to make money.

We are an 'out of the box' / blue sky thinking company and we are worth billions of ££ yet as a company,we are under 20 years old and the average employee is aged just 29.

The rewards at work are amazing, and yes, graduate salaries are starting on £30K+. Senior salaries (ok, share equities) are in the millions.

I look at the senior male and female managers in my company, I look at their schooling. My immediate director is from Eton, the (rare) female VPs in a male dominant management post (for their seniority) has a 2:1 in Physics from Cambridge (private schooled). I went comp all the way and I feel I struggle in the workplace which I am currently proud to be in. Not because I'm not bright enough but because I struggle with my confidence. Maybe I have got this totally wrong but the private school apprentices breezing in or at least, redbrick/Harvard/Oxbridge candidates being interviewed are extremely confident and show tremendous eloquence and aptitude over multiple round of selection and interviewing testing. It's also their 'can do' over their 'can't do' attitude.

Our HR dept does not disclose the demographics of hirees but I can tell you, in my immediate group team of 20 people, at least half went to private school. They all take the 'stage' amazingly and everyone's public speaking is ACE.

Being schooled at a crap inner city comp, I feel I lost out on learning politics, current affairs, extra curricular, debating skills, sports, excellent good general knowledge. I never even had a music lesson at my city comp. It's was rubbish.

Most of all, at my city comp I feel that I was never taught 'how to learn' and 'problem solve'. Thinking out of the box and being creative. Being curious and working on a project that extended outside the school subject matter was never fostered. My school lacked the expectations to excel. I don't know if comprehensive school in 2015 has this expectation to excel for all their students but certainly in my workplace, we look for excellence. I don't mean 'do your best' and getting an average is OK. I mean grades matter in our hiring (not fluffy subjects but hard sciences or serious degrees*) just to get your CV on the table.

I appreciate such a career is not the end all and be all but I and my family came to this country as an immigrant with nothing and so it was bourne to us from our parents we had to work hard and excel (within the state provided resources that were given to us). There is no welfare state where we come from. You earn to survive.

I have two dcs and I am looking at private schooling. I am questioning whether it is worth it. It's a tough tough question as the costs are so high. I'm not aiming for super selective grammar. I want my children to be able to have the grit and stick it out if they make it in a professional career. And not feel the inadequacies as I do/done.

Correction: I am aiming for super selective grammar.

CookieDoughKid - why do you struggle with your confidence? Everything you describe yourself as having missed out on you could have been exposed to outside of the school environment, so you can't just blame your school, surely? Also, do you think you come across to others as less confident and less eloquent than your peers at work? Or do you just think they believe their act more than you believe yours, or that you are acting confident and they just aren't acting at all?

What is confidence, anyway? Is it the firm belief that you are clever and always right and that others should therefore listen to you and follow you? Or the lack of a conscience with regard to the potential effect on others if things go wrong? Or both the lack of conscience with respect to others and the knowledge that you have made sure that if things go belly up, you are the one with the get out of jail free card, so it doesn't matter to you?

Or the lack of a conscience with regard to the potential effect on others if things go wrong?

This resonates, and is the opposite of the weird post about EI upthread.

So much credit (or blame) being placed at the school's door. I for one, am going to take much more credit (or blame) for my DD's confidence, problem solving, thinking out the box and being creative etc etc. That includes her emotional intelligence, weird or normal...all of it. Including her 'can do' attitude.

Maybe a little bit of input from DH too

I think the demonising of public school confidence as something immoral or unsavoury, something decent folk wouldn't want Jumps keeps the majority in their place.

Ooh we wouldn't want to be like them with all their money, confidence, status and success. No siree!