Did you go to private or grammar and are sending your child to state school?

[TheWoodenSpoonOfMischief]

How do you feel about it?
Dh and I went to private and grammar respectively but ds1 will go to the local comprehensive. I hope he'll be fine there but I feel a bit sad that we can't offer him the same type of education we had.
I obviously don't want to offend anyone with my remarks and I know lots of children do well in state.
Just want to hear from anyone who's done the same.

Tiffin has designated area as part of its admissions criteria which brings its 'catchment' to within about 10k now. It doesn't include Portsmouth now!

Thansk! That's really good to know - was bonkers before - now I shall desist disseminating misinformation

Private independent.

I would love to do the same for DC but there is no way on EARTH we would ever be able to afford it.

So, state school it will be.

Not the point of the OP but:

I don't see how it is unacceptable to send a child to a private school but acceptable to send out of borough - in both situations parents are choosing to opt out of the local state provision. FWIW I think both are acceptable.

We have a duty to educate our children but we don't have to delegate that education to the state if we don't wish to.

Both myself and DH went to private schools but our DC are currently in state. To be honest I think the private vs state argument is a bit misleading ie the sole question is whether the school itself is any good and whether your DC will be happy there. If your local state school is good don't waste your money on private. There is plenty of research showing that the individual school doesn't make much difference to the academic performance of middle class children as against IQ, family background etc and state schools are generally much better than they were in our day.Indeed having had kids in the state sector for a while I would be worried about sending them to most private schools (apart from the top 20 or so schools with an Oxbridge rate of 20% plus), particularly if it meant a long journey. IMO most of the other private schools provide pretty mediocre educations for the money and your DC is just as likely to get into drugs/bullied/ abused etc (the latter two even more likely if they are boarding-especially in boys only schools).

I went to private school and DH went to a top grammar.

Our DCs went to a local state primary which was very good. But thankfully they are now at an excellent state grammar. Sending them to one of the local comprehensives was something we never even considered.

The comprehensives are okay but they can't touch the grammar in terms of academic results or facilities.

DH and I went to a top boarding school in our country( was free), so we do feel we need to provide DSs a good education. As there are no grammar school in our county, so we send DS1 to a selective independant school. The school is lovely, DS1 loves it very much. However, I do feel it doesn't provide so much more than a good comp. Students are lovely. But teaching is not special at all. DS1 is quite able, his primary school teacher( state) tried very hard to challenge him , but his secondary school teacher didn't do much . The main advantage in this school is his friends. As it is selective, most of his classmates treat study seriously, so the atmosphere in school is quite good.

As we are not rich, so now I think we should have sent him to a good comp, and pay a bit more attention to out school activities, the end results won't be much different.

DH and I privately educated. We've done prep followed by one of the best comps in the country, no regrets whatsoever, the education is outstanding. Had we not gone that route they would have stayed private. We didn't consider any other state schools. I feel no guilt at all as I'm completely confident that they will come out if school with decent GCSE's and A Levels and as 80% of leavers go on to Russell Group uni's plus about 15 a year to Oxbridge I've no reason to think my kids won't be one of those and therefore I can't see what we would have gained by staying private.

I went state (in the States) and DH went private (boarding in UK).
Our kids go to state Catholic though our eldest is in a Free School (secondary).
I am totally fine with our decision. I have to be! We can't afford private and even if we could, I am all for supporting good local state schools. Our son's education at the Free School is stellar! I didn't always feel this way and was weary (becuase it's rather new and it has had teething problems) but wow, has it really hit its stride this year. It's a great school. We feel so lucky with the schools our kids are in, really, really fortunate.

I'm at this crossroad and I need to make a decision soon.

My ds is very very clever. He is top 5% in his state primary year group and would likely pass the superselective grammar school (Reading Boys in Reading) but unfortunately, we don't live in Berkshire. We live outside the catchment area for R.boys and we are not sure whether it's worth the move.

Our local and nearest comp secondary school is OK. It's GCSE results this year was 59% A-C including Eng&Maths and about 10% of its cohort were straight A students. However,no doubt about it, it has a fairly sizeable intake with some pretty rough kids who have no interest in school at all. We wouldn't be able to get into any other secondary school easily as we are not in catchment in Oxfordshire.

We are considering two private schools (MCS who sends about a third (!) of it's sixth form to Oxbridge) and the other, Abingdon Boys who has pretty outstanding A*/A passes at GCSE and A-Level.

I'm really really torn. I feel my ds will do well whatever but at the same time, want life to be made easier for him at school and let him be in a class with similar peers who are all aiming for Russell Group Uni's or Oxbridge.

If my ds was just middle of the road, then I wouldn't bother with private school but don't know he would achieve his full potential at our bog standard state given he has a real thirst for learning (and ambition). I just don't know what to do!! Yes, we can afford it - but at a sacrifice.

I will start a new thread - so not to hijack this one! Sorry!!

DH attended a very good public school. We send DS to the local comp, we could afford to send him to a private school but have chosen not to.

DS will hopefully do well regardless of school because we have the ability to tutor him at home. He is on course for A* and A at GCSE.

I do know we live in a postcode that is a target area for University recruitment by certain universities. My friend is a University admissions tutor, I was surprised to say the least.