Should we pay 3x our current house price for a top 20 independent school, or stay put and have our children attend a top 275 school?

[Keto481]

Our two children have been accepted at two independent senior schools and our options are as follows:

Option 1 - Continue to live in our current home and send our children to the local independent, which features towards the latter end of the top 275 independent schools nationally. The performance at A levels is obviously better than our local state schools, but hardly any pupils go on to Oxbridge. (Not that we are aiming for Oxbridge, but I am just trying to give an idea of it's performance). This option will allow us to live comfortably financially as we have substantial savings.

Option 2 - Roughly an hours drive away is a school which year on year features in the top 20 independent schools nationally with the highest performance in the region, and I believe around 15% go on to Oxbridge. To live in this area, house prices are triple the cost of our current home. Due to our savings we can afford this, but we would be left with very little savings and have to live a significantly less comfortable life.

The areas in between where we currently live and the top 20 school are not areas where we want to live. If our children were to catch the train from where we live to the top 20 school it would be over 1 hour and a half each way and we do not want them to have to endure that journey.

So I ask is it better to have the financial security and have our children go to the local independent and I assume not perform as well. Or to move home and not have the financial security, but have our children attend the top 20 school In the hopes they will perform significantly better?

I would be uncomfortable with Option 2 financially because it is nice to have a buffer. But I would definitely consider a state school over a mediocre indie - you could do extra curricular and specialist tutors if required.

Where we live, the top independents with the crazy high results & destinations massage their figures by offering scholarships to the top performers from other independents & states nearby. Which means that the other schools also LOSE some of their top performers, slightly bringing down their results. Some other indies that have slightly less than stellar results have them because they lose their more ambitious 6th formers to the local outstanding state 6th form college with the epic results.

So make sure you understand WHY the two schools you are thinking about have their results before moving.

Which school would suit your children better?

That should be your starting point (and middle, and end, tbh).

Then work from there.

I currently have 3 dc at schools in 3 different counties. School runs are a nightmare, but each child is where they need to be (and each one doing very well, in their own way) and more importantly, happy and settled.

Given an overall standard of decent education, the only deciding factor should be where your child would be best placed.

My middle child ended up at what I thought would be my last choice school - from virtually the first moment I stepped into the place, it was the right choice for her (absolutely the wrong choice for me as in the wrong direction etc, but I worked the logistics out).

Don’t also underestimate the work put in outside school by kids, parents and tutors to help achieve top results. They get a shitload of homework and 20 weeks holiday a year when much of the revision (and often actual work) gets done. The people I see succeeding (aside from the academically elite ones that the top school will already have selected) are the ones whose parents are most engaged and involved, regardless of how good the school is. So unless you have an elite child then the outcomes are likely to be fairly a similar and depend on much wider factors, specifically how much time and effort you and your kids are likely to put in outside school.

I would stay where you are if you comfortable financially and you are happy with the school. It is always good to have some money put aside for emergencies.

If you move house, sounds as though your children will be surrounded by even richer kids than where they live now. Which I'd say is not an advantage. I'd stay put, and you'll have shedloads of money to pay for individual tutors and holiday courses to help them do better academically or in extra-curricular activities like music, if you think that is a good idea. Getting a child to Oxbridge is not rocket science, and in my view parents can do a lot to facilitate that, outside of what happens at school, if that's right for your children.Several of my family have recently had offers / got into Oxbridge, and none of them went to top private schools.

Name the schools, or accept you aren't going to get useful advice!

I agree with @LangClegsOpinionIsNoted - very bright will be fine locally and lower ability would get horribly stressed with the 'top' school's pressure. Personally even if you had kids in the middle who might benefit from hothousing I'd save the cash and hassle and get a tutor to supplement the local school, and pay for more holidays and activities and trips instead.

What would be the most appropriate ones for each of your children.

Which schools do your children feel the most comfortable in.

That is the starting point and if it is the bog standard comprehensive at the end of the road or the one where you have to sell your house and move they will probably do better there than anywhere else.

I was sent to a private school which had a high O level pass rate rather than the local Secondary Modern with my friends.

I was miserable for the 5 years I was there. I failed everything and would have done much better had my mother saved her money and sent me to where I wanted to go in the first place

I agree with the who said the effect on your child will be marginal at best. Given that there are a significant number of kids who got top grades in all their A levels at my daughter's local state comp, (and they send several to Oxbridge every year), I wonder just how much difference there can be between a top twenty and a top 275 school as regards a single pupil's grades.

I think it's a huge amount of pressure on the kids for you to move for their education at a highly competitive and results driven school. I'd stay put for all your sakes.

Top 20 school = higher fees, £35 per music lesson and parents who have brand new Porsches, a second house, multiple holidays and who kit their kids out in Supreme.

Top 275 school = a broader mix of parental wealth.

Where will you fit in? And yes, it does matter.

The performance at A levels is obviously better than our local state schools

Not obvious at all. Look at the current thread about Charter school, my local comp (not as leafy as Charter) sent loads to Oxbridge this year, more than 30% of my Dc true comp pupils got AAA and upwards...

Schools reflect the ability of the intake. You are talking about selective schools that offer scholarships!

Apologies if someone else has already pointed this out but there is often a lot of movement after Year 11 so looking at GSCE results are a better clue if results are what you are basing your decision on. Even state 6th forms weed out poor performers and accept higher achieving students from outside. The required grades vary from school to school as well. The lower A level % school might accept students with Cs at GCSEs but the other one will only accept As. Minefield. Glad I live in an area where all schools are good.

Shouldn't equal education be available to everyone

This anti-private ‘save your money for tutors’ argument, is a seemingly frequent suggestion on here, and quite a ridiculous one at that. Why any child should be encouraged ‘tutoring’, beyond their regular school day, is really beyond me. No matter what school they are at. If they need extra tutoring, it’s because they’ve either needed it to get into the school they are at, or are simply not capable of learning how to learn. And most kids are capable of the latter...
If life throws you an opportunity OP, grab it with both hands. And if it’s for your children..grab it even harder. Good luck!

If they need extra tutoring, it’s because they’ve either needed it to get into the school they are at, or are simply not capable of learning how to learn. And most kids are capable of the latter...
Mumto2two -
Not sure I really understand this? If they are a state school pupil then they won’t have been tutored to get into anywhere?
What does ‘not capable of learning how to learn’ mean?
DS had a tutor for a while last year - not for any entrance exams, but because he was struggling with maths and kept saying he was ‘rubbish’ at it. He didn’t like to ask in lessons if he didn’t understand something, because he thought the other kids would laugh at him (which was true). The tutor did a great job in filling in gaps in knowledge and restoring his self-confidence. He was capable, he just needed some 1-1 teaching which state schools generally don’t have enough staff for. (He is getting on fine in maths now without needing a tutor, btw). What is ridiculous about that?

Also - the advantage of going to a local school is a much shorter journey. It takes DS 20 minutes to walk home. Other children have to travel 1-1.5 hours each way to their selective / grammar schools. So I figure he has at least an extra 1 hour of spare time a day to study. Or get a tutor if necessary.

Tutoring can open up subjects not available at school, and extend subjects that the child is doing at school. So can holidays. I'm one of those weird people who thinks that education is about more than exams.

If they are a state school pupil then they won’t have been tutored to get into anywhere?

@Squidsister if they live in a grammar school area, many children will have been tutored. Every single one of my nephew's friends (except him) was tutored for the 11+.

@Squidsister - Yes, as with Saraclara, I mean in terms of grammar. Our local grammar system, is supporting a huge and thriving tutor industry round here. Kids are tutored from as young as year 2, mostly from year 3 or year 4...and even with prep schools which recommend whether your child is suitable or not are concerned, parents of kids who are just plain average or borderline, ignore the data they are presented with, and get them tutored anyway. And then once they have scraped through that, the tutoring continues. Because without the spoon feeding and the handholding, they are sinking fast. And you only have to look at the distribution around the minimum standardised mark to pass, to see that a good majority, are really just scraping through. It’s madness surely.
Back in the 80s at my inner city comp, tutoring was inexistent. The departure of our A level maths teacher 2 months into my course, meant a lot of time spent navigating the course books on my own. And I still managed it with a good grade, in spite of them never actually finding a replacement.
As with my eldest who had a similar experience with one of her subjects...she had the initiative to research what her syllabus required, and did the donkey work herself from there. Learning is about how we source and accumulate knowledge. It’s a vitally important skill to have. Being told exactly what to learn, and exactly how to learn it, is very much a rote experience. And will not serve them well when they get to university. Even a bright niece who notched up good A level grades on the back of very expensive private tutoring, and went to a good uni...floundered once she got there. And I was shocked to hear how much they were paying to help her with her essays! It is so wrong, and yet so many people, seem to think it’s justified.. in the name of competition. Sorry for the long winded explanation...but that’s basically what I meant..about ‘learning how to learn’.

Option 1, without a doubt. The responsibility and pressure put on to your DC by uprooting and changing lifestyle, even if not intentional, will be enormous. If they are bright, hard-working and well-supported they will do perfectly well at the more local school.

I've had a quick look at sixth form destinations for the schools round here and it seems as though many of the highest achievers i.e. triple A* choose universities other than Oxbridge so I would definitely avoid using Oxbridge places as a measure of how good a school is.

Stick to your current home and the more local school whilst still being able to live comfortably and without fear of having to withdraw your DC from school if your circumstances suddenly changed. Enjoy being able to afford holidays, extra-curricular interests and overseas trips without having to worry about sacrificing something else so your DC can go on them. When they're 16, you can look at schools again and maybe fund two years of boarding if their ideal sixth forms aren't local enough to commute to.

The performance at A levels is obviously better than our local state schools

I can't get past this sentence.

No, not "obviously" at all. Loads of state schools outperform loads of private schools. There is no rule that says that because you pay for a school it is necessarily better!

Mumtotwo - thanks for the explanation. I live in an area without grammar schools!

Results can sometimes equal more pressure and with the long travel I think you would be crazy to subject your children to that. Chose the local independent.

Option 1. In my experience they change a lot and I treat 6th form as a separate thing to be evaluated nearer the time when it’s clearer what their academic ability actually is and where they look like they are heading at that age,

I would be cautious about a top 20 school. There are five schools on that list that I would never send my children to. The rest I don’t really know anything about. None of the schools we are considering are on the list (I’m assuming you are using a-levels league tables here).