Secondary choices - middle class angst

[Wincher]

Name changer here, been on MN donkey’s years...

We’ve just done my eldest’s secondary application. We’ve gone for the local company - it’s 5 mins walk away, has rave reviews from parents I know with kids there, seems really welcoming and inclusive. Ofsted Good. Not great results, about 43% 5 good grades, basically in line with national average.

I just keep worrying that we’re not doing the best for my child and I need some sense knocked into me by MN. Both DH and I were privately educated. We are now very comfortably off. We were lucky enough to buy in London zone 3 before prices went crazy and we have a small but comfortable terraced house in a slightly grotty area a mile from the tube. We could afford something bigger in a better area but we have a brilliant group of friends here and our whole life is here. We could also - probably not as well as moving - afford private school for both our kids. But DH is against it in principle and it does seem like a crazy amount of money to spend - at £18k per year or so that’s the best part of £100k for each child just to get to GCSEs. Plus there’s the not minor point that my eldest is bright but not outstanding and really we should have been tutoring him for the last two years if he was going to stand a chance of passing entrance exams.

But I do really think private would suit him - he’s not bothered about being with his friends, he’d love to learn Latin, he’s little and got a posh accent and I worry he’ll be ripped to shreds in a big London state comp.

I think as the deadline for applying to private schools approaches (1 dec I think) I’m just worrying whether Sending him to the local school is really us doing our best by him. People say bright kids will do well wherever they go but is that really true? We still have a couple of months before the exams would be, we could intensively tutor him until then?!

Please tell me I’m being ridiculous and he will do well at the local school! I need to stop the yearning for rugby fields and wood-panelled halls.

To elaborate a bit more: please don't think that I don't agree with you that the lack of social diversity at DS's school is a downside - of course I do. If I could give him the education he's getting in a more inclusive environment, of course I would. But ultimately, when we were choosing a school, the advantages of the independent outweighed the disadvantages (in our view). Neither am I denying that private education contributes towards the perpetuation of advantage. That would a pretty impossible argument to win. All I'm saying is that it's not as simple as private schools perpetuate disadvantage while state schools an are egalitarian utopia. After all, the wealthier families I know who've opted for state schools aren't trying to level the playing field - quite the opposite. They've taken that decision in order to enable themselves to give their children advantages in other ways (holidays, house deposits etc). If they didn't have decent state options then they would go private in a heartbeat. One of the key things that keeps the wealth divide going is that the well off will always have a safety net.

I completely agree with you @coolingbreezes. Middle class children, with involved, supportive parents who have plenty of money are advantaged wherever they go to school. And they generally end up mixing with similar sorts of children.

Even back in the 90s, in my very mixed comp, I only really associated with the top third of children, by ability. We were 'streamed' for all our lessons so we literally barely saw the 'bottom stream' children at all apart from in the 20 minute form period, when I sat with those I knew from the top stream. It was like two/three schools within the same building. And unfortunately, there seemed to be a strong correlation between top stream by ability and 'middle class'. I would hope things would be better/different now, but I'm not sure they are.

My dd went to an independent secondary school, but two of her best friends were on full bursaries (one was in care). Had they not gone there, they'd have been in inner-city comps. I don't think my dd would have had friends like them in a nice rural comp.

Keep your options open and let him try for private. Just keep all options open. Then you can kick the decision down the road when you know what his other option or options are. 11+ is tough in London.

While there are a couple of things I do agree with you on (yes the DC of better off parents will have a safety net - like the Pulp line ‘if you called your Dad he could stop it all’), overall with apologies I don’t. I’m not against people sending their children to Private’s, at the end of the day it’s all about finding the right school for your particular child, we all make what we hope is the right choice. But while the MC parents you know might have chosen Private in a heartbeat if they could have afforded it, that’s just not been my experience! We (and to be honest, despite having a healthy household income on paper, with our location comes a stonking mortgage & it would have been a stretch) could have sent DD Private and I’ve friends who’ve chosen State who could do likewise, some very comfortably. Perhaps as many of our friends like us are left wing, not going down that route has been a very active choice for us.

Whilst like British society no of course State schools are not egalitarian utopia’s, as it’s been my own experience with my DDs (DD1 is 26 and DD2 is 12), quite simply they are friends with the people they like, who make them laugh & have similar interests - in DD1s case who liked alternative music and art & in DD2’s case are a bit nerdy, geeky & into acting and singing. I’m pretty sure the ability of another child to pay for a pizza has never come into it (then this teenage pizza scene which you describe has never been part of their social lives!).

Yes, the children of MC might follow their parents paths to Universities and professional jobs - neither are exclusively dominated by people from MC backgrounds though and again, friendships are surely at this stage about who you like?!

I’m not sure I’ve argued this as well as I could but I just don’t agree with your synopsis that MC exist in bubbles at State and will continue that into adulthood & the hereafter. Having just finished watching Brave New World, it reminds me a bit that!

I do find reading all these posts so valuable and it reminds me how lucky all of our children are - sadly many children that I have worked with are not so lucky - but they are just as bright, just as talented and just as lovely (once you get below layers of anger and defensiveness) @coolingbreezes this is what I see of our comp through my children. Yes there are children from the same socio economic background of them and they do ‘play’ with them, but actually it isn’t always a great mix as where we live a lot of the wealthier families are hunting shooting fishing and that isn’t my childrens’ thing, but they still have fun with them. In their comp classroom they sit in assigned seats which are rotated, they are also setted and have different sports with different tutor groups. They have friends who are FSM and others who have a fleet of polo ponies but what seems to matter is whether they are good at Tik Tok dances! They cannot help but learn about other lives by spending time with a huge variety of children. In terms of ethic diversity we like in Gammonshire central, so it is not as diverse as a city would be, however they all have friends from different ethnic groups and one of my children is delighted at the moment because a friend has taught her to swear in Romanian. In terms of neurodiversity my children have friends in their tutors with Aspergers, and one of my children supports a child with fairly extreme autism- the type that private schools cannot accept. She and her friend sit with him at lunch because he struggles to make friends. The school deals with all these children with dignity and understanding. My niece has Aspergers and she was managed out of her private school because parents complained. They do a ton of stuff out of school with lots of different children, our hockey club for example has a lot of private school children, and my gang rub along just dandy with them and have fun at tournaments etc.
I don’t feel smug because my children are at a state school, I feel genuinely delighted at the fact that they are being educated in a place that reflects the society they will be living in. I was sheltered from that and it didn’t do me any favours at all in later life. But I get what you are saying and I respect what you choose to do for your child, but what I really feel is that there are ‘betters’ in both sectors of education and you end up picking what you most want for your children and for us it was something slightly different to you, and we have the option to change our minds at any moment as we are mortgage free and have savings but so far we genuinely think what our children are getting is better for their futures (they might not have the top jobs but that isn’t our aim!) I wish I had the answers for what should be done to reform education so there is more parity, but I don’t so I am just going to focus my work on doing my best for those I can help in a small way. My children were at school during lockdown as my husband is a keyworker and they mixed with all the other keyworker children and had a ball - if you imagine my husband’s job to be what you might consider the top of the tree worker key and that they were mixing with the children of delivery drivers and bin men without forming judgments then I hope you can see that I am proud of my kids. They might not make everlasting friendships with children from a vastly different home to theirs but they certainly understand them better than I ever did, and I am belatedly learning through them. @SJaneS48 I wish you lived here in the Gammonshire I think we might become friends!!!

I’m glad it’s not everywhere! It really surprised me but they operated as a group of around 10 parents in our year and clearly didn’t admit other DC. Actually other year groups had similar issues. We had a few parents who worked for the BBC. Known as the BBC group. There was the Church group. Friends came from within the Church bubble. It was utterly rife in my fairly well off Home Counties town. I would like to think times had changed but as I discovered (and others) that even if you lived 50 yards from a child, if they didn’t like your status in society, education, or you were too liberal, your DC would never play with theirs. Unbelievable to outsiders I know but it was rife here. Mostly segregated on likely grammar and non grammar destinations too. I had worked in and around schools all my career so finding this attitude here was beyond my knowledge! It was a driving force in us seeking a new start for DD at 12 though.

11. Not 12.

We were in similar position to you op. We were both privately educated but I had worked in state education. We happily sent DC to state primary (lovely school) but had a big dilemma about secondary, especially because all our local state secondaries were OFSTED requires improvement. One of the school's was under new management and we decided to give it a chance.

I'll be honest. I had wobbles, especially in the first two years when there were still big issues for the school to resolve. We hired a couple of tutors to fill gaps. But in the end it all worked out well. DC did exceptionally well in her gcses. She's now started at 6th form college and interestingly has found the transition much easier than her lovely friend who attended the local private school who is finding it difficult socially. I suspect she would have done a little bit better in her gsces if she had attended private (ie all 9s as opposed almost all 9s). The advantages have been that she has mixed with a much more representative sample of life than if she'd gone private. And also she has learned to cope with not everything being smoothed out before her and I think this is helpful for building resilience. I also think that universities will look at her gcses in context. They know it's easier to get amazing grades at selective private schools than bog standard comps.

Understandably so and this clique of parents sound horrendous, who the hell did they think they were? Quite honestly @PresentingPercy, if I’d lived in this area with you, I’m quite sure I’d have grabbed you for a coffee to go and laugh this all off. But bullet dodged as at least as your DD didn’t mix with their DC you weren’t forced to mix with them!

@flourandeggs, while your Gammonshire might not be mine, we’re so blue here we (well, not DH or I obviously!) we regularly re elect a sex pest. And yes, I think we’d have stuff in common!

Actually I’m relieved to hear that cliques seems not universal. I found great parents via other routes!

I don't see the situation described by coolingbreezes at my DC's comp - but I do wonder if this is more London/affluent south east specific, or maybe even school specific?

It's a genuinely local comp - most of the students come from within a 2-3 mile radius and the intake reflects the mixed demographic of the area. There is no setting (except in maths) so the children sit in classes with a range of other students. Both DC are well aware that they are among the better off students that attend the school, but are equally aware of some of the challenges that some of their friends face. In holidays (well, when we don't have Covid) it used to be pretty common for the DC just to hang around in the various local parks/outside areas with whoever was there.

DS can also swear in many languages :)
I know this is anecdata but I do feel they have a broader outlook on life than their similar age privately educated cousins - who mix with an extremely small homogenous group of others.

Can I assure posters that private schools do not smooth everything out for DC! They often don’t and resilience is needed. We found some DC are favoured (parents putting money into the school) but the great majority are not coddled or in receipt of special treatment. Ups and downs happen in all schools. I am also happy to confirm that being able to get on with everyone isn’t just a gift bestowed on state educated people. As I’ve said, the worst can be cliques in state schools. In addition, as DC turn into adults, they will get on with everyone. Education in either sector doesn’t pre determine attitude to others.

@Wincher. Just to bring it back to your original post OP, the middle class angst of your title is also an ongoing battle for those who chose private. Some lovely friends of ours did and it was always going to be a massive financial struggle, and when he suffered from depression last year and couldn’t work they had to sell their house and downsize because they felt it was wrong to disrupt the childrens’ friendships and pull them out. My brother and sister in law are constantly questioning their decision to do private as one daughter was managed out and another had mental health struggles. Parents at Grammars suffer the same angst and self questioning over the press ore issues, my one friend sent her daughter who developed anorexia and she has now removed her. Don’t be put off your gut instinct due to a dose of angst as it just comes with the middle class territory... ‘we question therefore we are’ might be an apt quote!

@coolingbreezes

No doubt the advantages of independent schools are bandied about too much. But so is the 'mix with everyone' value of state schools. Looking at many of the terribly MC families that I know with children in state, they live just as much within a social class bubble as we do, in fact in some cases decidedly more. Yes, there may be a larger proportion of children on low incomes at their children's schools than there are at DS's, but those are very rarely the kids that their kids end up being good friends with. Their social lives are very much tennis lessons and meals out and frequent holidays - totally out of the reach of the poorer kids. Please let's not pretend that simply going to a state school automatically makes you a classless 'person of the people'. Sorry if that sounds defensive, but the amount of self-congratulation I've heard from 'friends' who have decided against private education (often in favour of a grammar or faith school) while continuing to live an entirely Range Rover, ski trip and million+ house lifestyle is frankly laughable.

Sometimes you really wish MN had the ‘like’ button. It is for posts like this. Fantastic summation of the ongoing hypocrisy.

I empathise with you OP, it's a big dilemma

In the well-meaning "bright well-supported kids can survive anywhere" camp, "bright" can mean many things and sometimes "genius" in London, in a numbers game. And "well-supported" can mean little for some kids and personalities: one of my DC is bullied but the other dominates at school (state primary)

Personally, i think a decent comp works well mainly for naturally bright or confident kids or communities where all local children pretty much attend the local school - usually not London. Also while academics is not the be all and end all, 43% 5 good grades is too much of a chance to take when you can afford other options (move or private). I'd look into those other options now, even if you decide to go to the local comp.

@wincher it's a really tricky one. We're in a similar position i.e. state so far, eldest in comprehensive (albeit a very desirable one) but second DC v likely to go to a private school for secondary just because I think it will suit her better academically. We are in London and could comfortably choose to send both DC to private schools but decided against it for DD because the state option seemed like the right balance for her. Saying that, like your child, she would be VERY comfortable at a private school - posh voice and all - and would fit right into those wood-panelled halls and I do sometimes have qualms about not having given her all that.

I suppose our decision not to send her to one was partly to do with ensuring she wasn't too comfortable all the time i.e. it was because she would have fitted in so neatly at, say, Channing, SHHS or Highgate that we wanted something else for her. And while her friends at her current school are generally fairly middle class, they aren't all, some do live in social housing, there is much more ethnic/social/economic diversity than there would have been at one of the schools above - she has to rub along with many different kinds of people. Also there is a lot less support and fewer opportunities - pros and cons to that, less spoon-feeding and therefore greater independence/resilience but her friends at private schools definitely have more opportunities and more encouragement from school to do interesting, challenging things than she does.

I don't feel at all smug about having chosen state schools, and I agree with @coolingbreezes that a state school education does not make you a person of the people. But I do think it makes you live in less of a bubble (even if you do have a range rover and go on ski holidays). Yes, you will occasionally at a private school have a friend who lives in social housing and would be entitled to FSM etc but it is rare and a lot (not all) of the children I know who go to private schools do live rather rarefied lives.

I guess for those of us who are lucky enough to have a choice, I see it as a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum you stay totally true to your commitment to a more equal education system and send your child to your closest state school regardless of its reputation/results etc at the other, you send your child to the most exclusive private schools you can find from 4 upwards and buy them every opportunity you can. Most of us are somewhere in the middle and I don't see that those who attend church in order to get into a faith school or move into a catchment or tutor for grammar schools are morally superior to those who choose to pay. But I do think it's daft to pretend that a private school isn't different socially, when I hear people with kids at private school talk about how it's equally diverse etc, I just think they haven't got a clue.

I get frustrated with people who are vehemently anti private schools but would rent a property to get into the catchment of a good school and also with those who, having chosen private, need to validate their decision and therefore imply that those could afford to but don't have somehow got their priorities wrong .

Bit of a rant and perhaps not helpful at all. Just to say you're not alone in your middle class angsting. Whichever way you go, you'll probably keep wondering if the alternative would have been better. I know I do! But also, I'm sure your son will thrive because he has so much support from you and you have clearly given a lot of thought to his future education.

I think rubbing along with all kinds of people at school is overplayed. You are not teaching your child not to do that at a private school. They have a certain amount of life outside school and your friends and family probably will not all privately educate DC. You absolutely can have a variety of friends. If they do a bit of volunteering or work they definitely meet all sorts of people.

You could say that labelling DC as fsm DC and knowing who they are isn’t desirable either!

Going to school for 7 years with a much wider selection of people is very different to doing a bit of volunteering etc. I was privately educated myself and yes, I had opportunities outside school to mix with non-privately-educated people, but day-to-day interaction with a diverse socio-economic group on a day-to-day basis still gives you a very different level of insight.

I don't think anyone is 'labelling' people 'FSM DC' and I don't think kids at my daughters schools would necessarily know who is and isn't on FSM but it's a socio-economic measure (and it one of the stats that are publically available about schools) and that's what we are discussing here.

@PresentingPercy I'm not suggesting that your DC won't learn how to interact with lots of different kinds of people. As I've said I am not anti private schools and might well choose one for DD2. But I just don't think it's realistic to suggest that there aren't benefits to a properly diverse mix.

@PresentingPercy my kids know which of their friends are on FSM because their friends tell them they are, my kids have no judgement about it. It’s just a fact of life to them. They love being invited to people’s houses to hang out whatever their financial situation, they don’t judge people on their jobs or what they earn like I was bought up to do by my elite boarding school (pupils there called the local school pupils chavs) and my social climbing father who I still know will only be interested in hearing about my friends if they went to the ‘right’ schools. He is completely uninterested in people for who they are and what they achieved, just in who their families are, I find that such a shame, I love meeting people from all walks of life.

I haven't rtft OP but would your 100k each be better used to gift them a deposit for a house one day? - something which also gives you a massive leg up in life. If I had the money I would be thinking what would be best use of the money and I'm not sure secondary education is it... not in a place where the free state option is decent. We are lucky in this country to even have the choice between one good education or another, that alone immediately puts UK children at an advantage as those with deeper family resources can spend it elsewhere. Imagine the travel/tutors/extra curricular activities it could go on.
Just a thought

What you were brought up to do isn’t the same as others do now. It’s simply not. And I do think saying it’s great your DC know fsm DC, and benefit from that, is a form of social one-up-manship. A box you want ticked for your beliefs. I do believe most parents are open to DC knowing all sorts of other DC - without labels! My DDs did go to state primary by the way! But we didn’t know who had fsm. Thank God!

Go private. You'll be horrified by what goes on in normal schools and what they get away with. At least you won't have them indoctrinated with the latest buzzwords of the masses.

If you can afford it. Private private private all the way, I can't bare the whole liberal left education system

You seem very defensive about this. As I thought I'd made clear, I don't think it is morally superior to send your children to state schools when you can afford a private school. But I do think that communities work better when different sorts of people have as much access to each other as possible and therefore I think going to school in as diverse an environment as possible has its benefits. I can't see how valuing that is social one-up-manship it's just a matter of what you think is important.

I don't think it trumps all other considerations when deciding on schools but I do think it is an important consideration. If you don't, that is fine but there's no reason to assume that the motives of people who do are shallow/selfish.

And, as I said, I don't know if at my Dd's school people have any idea how is on free school meals, it is nothing to do with 'labelling'! It is a widely accepted measure that is know to affect outcomes for individual students etc

@Louiselhrau

Go private. You'll be horrified by what goes on in normal schools and what they get away with. At least you won't have them indoctrinated with the latest buzzwords of the masses.

If you can afford it. Private private private all the way, I can't bare the whole liberal left education system

"You'll be horrified by what goes in on normal schools.... the masses'

It's this kind of comment that puts me right off private education. Imagine having to hang out with other parents who talk about 'the masses'