Private or move house for state school

[heytherehello]

My DH and I constantly come back to the same conversation with no solution - interested to hear your thoughts/ experiences on private vs state school (secondary)

Where we live the secondary school provision isn’t great and we see our options as private school or moving to a very expensive catchment area for a well reputed state secondary (with 3 DCs this would obvs be the cheaper option!)

Neither of us want to move as we’d be downsizing to a more expensive house - but DH is leaning more towards this on the basis that if either of us lost our job, we wouldn’t have to change their school, plus we’d have a lot more disposable income.

I’m leaning towards private education on the assumption that they’d get a better education, with most students being committed to their education, smaller classes and overall better results (I guess this may not always be the case though). Therefore DCs would have more opportunities and hopefully come away having achieved their full potential.

DH is concerned that as we’re not privately educated ourselves or ‘posh’ our kids might feel out of place as others may have a more affluent lifestyle - multiple ski holidays, foreign properties etc.

We have no experience of private education and don’t really know if it’s any ‘better’ in terms of education and the experience you get ...

Any thoughts or experiences?!

If your oldest if only 4, it's also worth noting that your local schools (both in your current locality and the one you are eyeing up) may change quite drastically!

I think your getting a bit ahead of yourself. You've still got a good few years. A lot can happen within state schools in 7 years. A good school can be graded lower and a school that was a bit shit can become outstanding.

When working out whats best for your children you need to know them. At 4 you don't know if they would be better in an academic indie, or a school with less pressure or a very sport orientated school etc.

Not all independent schools are full of super rich families, some, the cheaper ones, are less flashy. Only one ski holiday a year!

I would also be very mindful about what the job market and economic situation will be for our younger children in the future.

Would it be great for your children to have some investments to fall back on. Invest the money you would have spent on school in property,

In your shoes at 4 we put them in the best lrimary we could find (state). By the time DS was 8 DH's career was on an upward trajectory and the school wasn't ticking his boxes so we moved him. Fees started at about 7k pa. They ended at 20k 10 years later. When both DC were secondary age they hit £36k for two (London day school).

We didn't take the leap until we could pay forward four years of fees and we always had the option of downsizing and moving to zone 6 which would have freed the balance of their education at any stage.

I think if you have to ask you can't afford it and your DH is right.

Just be wary OP of generalisations as you'll invariably get when you ask questions like this - example the post above about communication with teachers in state schools. My experience is the polar opposite of that, so don't be swayed by the "state is always like X and private is always like Y".

In your place, with an outstanding secondary nearby, I would move house. In fact, I did. Very glad I did too, as I have since got divorced, been made redundant, and could never have afforded to pay private fees. Plus a house will make you money in the long term. For a state secondary that has results similar to the private, why wouldn't you use it?

Kids who have parental support, and a range of activities, experiences etc. will do well wherever they go.

Teachers reach out to parents and want to communicate - this is massively different from state where we weren’t allowed contact details for teachers and had to come to school if we wanted to contact them!!!

This is VERY FAR from my experience. I have had excellent communication with my DCs' teachers in state school, both primary and secondary. I can email teachers if I wish, and they reply, sometimes within minutes.

Agree about communication . I've had kids in both sectors and state secondary much better at responding to emails than private.

I think you have a few years yet to decide - schools do change. Keep your fingers on the pulse for now but no rush....

I've had children at 3 state secondaries and have been able to communicate directly with teachers at all three. Just anecdote, I know, but still.....

Every state school I've worked in has enabled parental contact with staff.

I'll be honest the better ones have a reasonable system for it (e.g. call reception, leave details and we'll call back in 48 hours / email 48 hour responses).

Now if you are expecting a system where you'll get a call back within an hour or so or same day replies to email then I'm afraid expectations need managing.

(I'll never forget the state school I worked at where parents would email us directly and then call the school to complain that they emailed us at 9am and they have STILL not had a reply by 1130. Parents would also send emails at 1030pm outlining that their child has not compelted their homework and so they will not be getting a sanction tomorrow! Entitlement central for some people)

All very much depends on the individual schools.
Where we live our catchment secondary is dire and we had the choice of moving to be near one of the nearby outstanding schools or going private. Dh went to one of the state schools and hated it so that ruled that one out. The other one would have required us to move into our local big town (busy suburban estate) but we both love the countryside plus it’s a much more expensive area. Also both of the state schools are enormous - 1500-2000 kids with classes of over 30 which we both didn’t like.

All in all we love where we live so decided instead on a local private school. Parents are a real mix. Some are very wealthy but many work hard and make sacrifices to send their kids private. We don’t do big holidays, have fancy cars etc and the kids are very happy and fit in fine. Of dd’s two best mates, one lives in an enormous house with tennis courts, swimming pool etc and the other in a 2 bed semi on the nearby housing estate. They all get on fine and have no money issues.
However there is another local private (much higher fees) where I have heard that it’s a different story...

Can I ask why contacting teachers directly is such a concern?

I have had need to contact secondary school twice in a year, I email admin and whatever it is gets dealt with.

I haven't felt the need to contact a teacher directly.

aged
It's not an issue for most people. Generally common sense wins and if a child has complex needs or SEND then there is often a nominated point of contact.

Some parents (not saying the PP is one btw) seem to think that whatever their particular question/query is, it's more important than anything else staff are doing. They can get really short and whiny if staff don't reply within the day so by the time you have caught the 3 members of staff needed in order to answer Mrs Blogs' query, Mrs Blogs has already rang school again wanting to speak to someone senior because the person they originally left a message for 'can't be bothered to deal with it properly'.

if the eldest is 4 you have time to plan your lives to relocate somewhere with outstanding secondaries and decent housing.
honestly unless you are both earning serious cash and will carry on doing this for the next 20 years dont start on private school for 3.

maisy, we trust the school to get in touch if they need to.

We didn’t get appointments with everyone for parents eve. The message came home ‘Mum, Miss X said tell your Mum you are doing really well but she can email me if she wants to’.

So I didn’t bother, I am sure Miss X is as busy as I am and if she needed to she would contact me.

The facilities, sports, extra stuff is where we get the value. My kids love sport and they have PE/ games of some sort just about every day!

That's nice, I suppose, but the OP has three kids! I really can't imagine paying putting three children through private school for xx number of years, in order to enjoy somewhat nicer extra curriculars and a better equipped sports gym...

OP, if the great state secondary gets similar academic results, invest in a property close by. You will have money to spare for extra curriculars and tutoring, and still have money left over to put into investments or savings so that your kids will have money for university fees and a housing deposit in the future.

We found two 'barriers' to our plan of moving house for a great secondary school vs paying for private education:

1. there is absolutely no guarantee your children will get a place at the state school, even when you live very close (as has happened to several friends of ours - one of them, 60 seconds walk to the school!). Check out the admissions criteria and who gets priority on places.

2. the cost of moving house plus the 'premium' on the house price in a location close enough to mitigate the worry about 1), FAR exceeded the cost of fees for our two children (even with inflation). So, private education was more affordable than moving house.

No surprise, we chose private (and international school rather than local now we're abroad).

I would so so so recommend state, as long as you can afford a nice enough house in the catchment.

Imo, state schools can be great, the only thing I am not impressed with was the sport and DS had his heart set on fencing... so we moved into the catchment of good state schools and I promised to take him to fencing lessons myself, paying £80 a term for lessons with the same coach who coaches the 35k a year public school down the road

Another thing to think about is that life can throw you some curved balls, I have two friends whose husbands had phases of redundancy, and had to beg the school to be allowed to delay payment. Stress stress stress. Another friend has cancer and is not allowed to go back to work, with 3 kids in private school this was additional stress (though her parents can afford fees)

The safer bet imo is a good state school, and take them to after school sports themselves

In your place I would keep my options open, keep an eye on property options/prices and keep an eye on the local schools and their results.

I would suggest trying to save £2-3k per month which is still significantly less than you would need to find for three sets of school fees.

If you do decide to go down the private route it gives you a significant financial 'cushion' and also the knowledge that you can find that amount of money each month and know the impact on your lifestyle. If you go for a state option and decide to move you will have savings to put into a new house, or a massive 'pot' for holidays, extra-curricular activities, tutors etc.

Your children are also very young and you don't really know how they might do academically. If you are considering a selective private option you can't guarantee that they will all meet the required standard. It's worth finding out about as many schools as possible given that the same school may not be the right one for all of your children (and that's another debate!).

There is also no guarantee children will get places at the independents worth paying for but I am London centric.

Schools can change a lot over a few years. Our local primary school was in special measures just before our daughter was born. But by the time she started school it had turned around and people were actually choosing to send their children there.

When it gets nearer the time I'd go and look around the nearest secondary schools to you and see what they are like - most will hold open days either in the summer or autumn terms or both. Find out what people who have children there think of them (you will find that lots of people have opinions about schools that they've never set foot inside and have no experience of but have 'heard' things about it). A change in head teacher can make a massive difference - positive or negative to a school. Also bear in mind that schools judged as 'outstanding' by Ofsted may not have been inspected for several years so may be resting on their laurels. It can take time for a change in head and a new approach to filter through to the results for the school. A great school on paper may not be the best fit for your child.

Also consider the longer term - do you think that your children might want to go to university? How much financial help will you be able to give to that as well as having younger children at an independent school?

If you think you want to look at independent schools I think there are savings and investment plans out there that it would be worth considering to help you fund it.

And what if Labour get in and put VAT on school fees as mooted? Add 20% to your bill ...

And what if Labour get in and put VAT on school fees as mooted?"

It would be fantastic....Oh, sorry, that's not what you were asking, is it.

Private education every time if you have done the maths properly and can afford it.

Yes AgedTawneyPort, I understand OP has 3 which is why I say what was right for us. We would easily spend an extra 200k moving house to a catchment with a so called outstanding School.

It's morally wrong not to pay for your childs education if you can afford it. It is families like yours who treat state education as a free for all that are responsible for the dire state of state education. Don't be part of the problem. Do the right thing and take finacial responsibility for your reproductive choices instead of milking the welfare system that was meant to protect the poor.