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?!

“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.”

What complete bollocks.

racecarderiver, seriously??? You do realise that taxation contributes to education?

Just to clear up from earlier - I've emailed my son's school twice in 3 years & always got a fast reply. Maybe because I'm not "that parent"! 🤣🤣🤣

I gave this matter quite a lot of thought in your position OP some years ago. I won't bore you with our decision but here are some factors that you may not have considered.

• Once you've paid the money to trade up the property ladder, you get to keep that property.

• Think about what happens after school. You'll have university fees to fund and then after that you're going to have to help financially to get the kids sorted out as young adults.

• The cost of our school fees worked out at around £180k per child not boarding (day schools from 3-18). And the expense will only go up as school fees increase ahead of the cost of inflation.

• Academics, music, sport and a hard working peer group are the reasons often cited for choosing private. Plan out your reasons for choosing private and then see if you can do the same in the state sector with a bit more running around,

Good luck

We have chosen private education over moving house. We adore our house and the area but the secondary provision is weak and very few state children get into the private secondary schools so we have gone private from the start.

The private school DS has joined is very unpretentious and the majority of families live in very average homes and sacrifices foreign holidays to pay for school fees, so we don’t feel out of place. This won’t be the case for all schools, but don’t assume all private schools will be full of super wealthy families.

Racecardriver are you actually serious? It’s not families who send their kids to state school who are responsible for the dire straits that a lot of state schools are in, it’s the cuts to funding implimented by this horrendous government.
We send our daughter to independent school because there is no school that we are in catchment for that I would dream of sending her to. I lay the blame for this entirely at the feet of the government. She is on a decent scholarship and we still have to be careful of the finances to send her there but we realise we are very fortunate that we are able to do this. My preference would have been to send her to a decent state school that had provision for the sport she does and use the money to save for her uni because that’s financially crippling too

Is there only one state school you could move close to?

My kids are in a very good Outstanding secondary where house prices are (in London terms) cheaper than neighbouring areas.

You really can't compare state vs private. The decision is WAY more complex than that.
What does the independent school offer your kids that the state school doesn't?
Why would it meet their needs better?
Will they get in?

There are a LOT of private schools I wouldn't send my dcs to even if they were free.

The schools here don't seem as costly as some of those mentioned - more in the region of £14k and have sibling discounts. Still a huge amount of money which is why we're thinking about it now as we'll start saving in a year or two when all DCs are out of nursery.

Primary schools here are v good so only considering for secondary- couldn't afford both anyway

There's another thread about why private kids are often more confident- not always the case obviously but an interesting read nonetheless!