Secondary decision: conversation re private vs state?

[Poodlesarecool]

Hi,

I’m after some views please! I am mum to 2 boys, both at state primary, both doing well (one being top of class).

I have a decision to make about secondary school. I should say here my hubs and I are both state educated through and through. Both successful, he more than me. We live very comfortably and are very aware of this privilege.

I had always intended to send the boys to good state secondary nearby but I had a telephone chat with an extremely close friend yesterday which has totally shaken me. I have always felt school choices are incredibly personal and there should be no judgment.

So friend basically made uninvited commentary that we should sell our house and downsize to fund the kids through private school. She said that if the children go to state school they’ll be mixing with a “working class demographic” compared to more “elite” demographic at private school (for the record I’m not far off what she’d consider to be a working class background so that stung somewhat. Struck me as very entitled, privileged and divisive). She said that speech and manners, confidence and opportunities are greater at private school. She has friends in Cheshire with a large house and can’t understand why they send their kids to state school, she thinks they should sell their house and downsize and their priorities are wrong. The implication being that our priorities are wrong too.

I was very stung and upset - I felt judged like I was being told I don’t prioritise my children. We had always thought we’d send them to very good state secondary and sort private tutors and supplement their education where needed, and ensure they enjoy a wide range of activities outside of school. This conversation has really shaken me.

Will we really be doing our children a disservice by not sending to private? I do accept the opportunities and environment will be better, but overall academic achievement and lifetime prospects will I be damaging my children’s future?! This is how this conversation left me feeling.

It’s sad too - what’s been said can’t be unsaid. I don’t think she realises the damage she has caused to our friendship.

Just interested to hear if I’m missing something here. Thanks all x

Crazy advice really

She's batshit.

We're sending our child to private and I really hope I don't meet nutters like that.

We are not British and are in London, so maybe a different point of view
Went for state primary and academic private secondary reasons are :
-better educational provision and wider curriculum due to greater flexibility in the content and the form of what is taught

• more funding (think state schools get about £4/5k per child)
• better facilities,
• smaller group sizes
• narrower range of ability meaning the teachers don’t have a very wider range of needs to worry about.
• More targeted setting.
• less disciplinary issues
• our school has a generous bursary and scholarship fund so there is still a great diversity of background, lots of hard working families so whoever feels privileged is feeling it because they have access to the school per say and have worked for it (noone born with a silver spoon!) and lots of families are making sacrifices to pay the fees.

In comparison our local comp has to deal with such a wide range of backgrounds, needs, disciplinary issues, running food banks that it is neither friendly (they are super strict), nor have the breath of the curriculum or the time to stretch all kids.it is meant to be good, if not outstanding in a privileged area, the teachers are great but all so stretched. Ultimately I think it really depends what/which school you have access to as well as your means and future project Lots of good advice here about your ‘friend’ She is probably preaching to reassure herself they are right in their choice ! But probably suffering about it Being non British we know lots of people who are extremely successful in the uk ans elsewhere and haven’t been privately educated ! By all means the UK type of private schools discussed here doesn’t really exist on the continent and in many countries!

Rather early I know, but it's much better to be top of the class at a state secondary and get top grades than middling in a private school and still attain top grades.

Many top tier universities look at the context in which grades are awarded and your DC could be disadvantaged attending private school if they can still get top grades at a state secondary.

OP I was in a similar situation a decade ago. I knew Dds state primary class well. I helped out in the class, in a leafy middle class village. There was an expectation from other parents Dd would go private as she was near top of the class. She didn’t. The class split with just under half going private, the rest state. Academically, Dd got the highest grades at A Level out of her old class. I would say which school they went to had little effect on their original class ‘order’ from primary Sats to A Level. There were a few exceptions which were due to family circumstances (deaths of parents, divorces).
She now also has a nice savings account for a house deposit when she’s older. And has grown up in a nice house, going to the local comp living around her classmates.
However, this is our situation. If I had really appalling state schools we would have had to think again.

My kids went to/are at a private school. I went state (in America, where very few go private in the area I grew up in no matter how wealthy).
There is quite a mix of demographics that attend, from one child families where the mum is a cleaner amd dad a builder making sacrifices to pay for schooling, to families that holiday every half term in some fancy villa or chalet. Most are in between, what you might term solid middle class. The state schools near here are poor, certainly at secondary level.
I don't recognise the stereotype your friend is describing. Sure, there are schools that might have a population of privileged children who are expected to become top of their respective fields, but the majority of privately educated people just go about their lives without wearing a badge of superiority. Likewise, there are plenty of state educated people who had a good education and are extremely successful, who also don't go around with a resentful chip on their shoulder.

Where I live, I would say the majority of parents don’t want dc being educated with working class dc. Which is largely shorthand for badly behaved and not so bright dc. They certainly would nit consider it good to mix with them and clearly avoid it. It’s also fairly openly discussed. They move heaven and earth to get dc into the grammars that have a tiny handful of fsm dc. They openly hate the local secondary modern and would all go private if they could afford it. These people are not my friends but people in small villages with 100% Middle class folk really do think like this. It’s odd the op had not worked out her friend was one of this type. And yes. The private schools and the grammars are full of them! Havens from the working class.

@Zandathepanda contextual offers for university are only for children in schools which don’t have a history of children going on to further education or if they live in certain postcodes. In fact as far as I am aware, private school children who might live in the selected post codes are eligible for the contextual offers too

My own children school doesn’t qualify for contextual. Neither does our home postcode and neither do they have qualify for the other criteria which include things like being first in the family to go to university. So my son and his friends from his state school are sitting on the bog standard offers which for him a AAA or AAB for his backup, exactly the same as his private school friends

@CommanderBurnham

She's batshit.

We're sending our child to private and I really hope I don't meet nutters like that.

My dc are at Private school and I have never met anyone like that . I believe in picking the most suitable school available for your children. Our State Secondary is awful unfortunately which is why we don’t send the dc there, if we had a good State option we would be happy to use it.

Natalia I think you tagged me by mistake.

There is some huge stereotyping going on in this thread (which tends to happen on Private v State threads). For a start, the in take of State’s - depending on the area, they are likely to have a pretty large cohort of children who have Middle class backgrounds. Where we live (an admittedly wealthy area in the South East), I’d say that children from middle class families definetely outweigh those from working class at my DD2’s State school.

Whether State educated DC are at disadvantage is a different conversation to whether working class DC are at a disadvantage ... because they are not inherently one and the same. And again, it will really depend on which State and which Private - these blanket statements are just silly. A working class DC who has gone to a great State, had lots of encouragement from their parents (the previous comment about working class parents not encouraging their children is ridiculous), gone to a good University and got a good class of degree these days is not necessarily bottom of the pile at all.

I’ve done quite a lot of graduate recruiting. Do the majority of employers (outside of elitist financial services companies in the City) really care that much about which school someone went too or what class they come from? Er, no. Personality, charisma, work placements, evidenced interest, class of degree, decent University - these are what are important and these are certainly NOT exclusive to the middle and upper classes. And these days the old school bastions which used to pretty exclusively recruit a public school cohort now take from outside of that - my State educated niece was part of the Foreign Office’s graduate intake 2 years ago.

In the last year what we have seen in recruiting is Diversity and Inclusion come to the forefront. I work with a huge & very well known Financial Services Institution wanting to really move away from its white, privately educated, straight and male in take. This starts off with a questionnaire - ‘are you the first person in your family to go to university’ and ‘were you primarily state or privately educated’ are two of the first questions.

Thank you all, and thank you in particular for the stories about successful state education. We have a brilliant state secondary and that’s always been the one I’d planned on sending my boys too. I’ve clearly had a wobble from friend’s comments but these views have helped me to consolidate my views.

Tbh it was a complete shock to hear such views from my friend. We’ve been very close for about a decade. How could I not have known? Maybe it’s a recent thing, but I didn’t know until last week.

I am saddened to read some of the comments on here. I thought we were past all this classist nonsense but clearly not. How naive am I?!

Thank you for taking the time to respond x

@SJaneS49 thank you. This is really useful reading from the graduate recruitment end. Thank you for posting. I’m sticking with my gut instinct and sending them to the brilliant state. Thank you

I think people who feel unsure of their own decision often try to validate it by seeking to “convert” their friends to their view. If your friend was 100% happy with the decision she has made she wouldn’t have made those comments and tried to convert you to her view. If you keep seeing her the kind way to deal with her is just to say something like- “well I can see that works for you and my decision works for us” and try not to engage because she will probably spend the next five years of friendship continually trying to “convert” you...

Poodles excellent news. As I said before, we had a similar situation. Dd is from working class/middle class parents and got 2 A stars and an A at A Level (and an A in EPQ). No extra tutition. From a good state school similar to what you are describing.
It is a bit unnerving when friends do that though. To be honest it took a couple of years to settle (and listening to how fantastic the private school was) before all the parents could just go back to normal in the pub again. The kids were fine at first but got a bit more distant as time went on.
Again, just my experience, but the rudest prats at Dds school tend to be the middle class/upper middle class with lots of expendable cash to flash.

Bloody hell ...she's not a friend
If the state secondary is good ...use it ..your boys will excel if they are meant to excel
Private is all well and good if you can comfortably afford it ...down sizing etc etc seems a bit OTT to me ...but as you said personal choice
I work in a private school ...2-13 yrs old ...plus I went to private secondary myself ....do not underestimate the costs involved .

Take no notice, if your boys are bright and motivated they will do perfectly well in a good state school. FWIW I'm a teacher who has worked in a a couple of good comps and a couple of private schools over the last 2 years. I'd hands down send my own kids to a good state comprehensive.

I wouldn’t do it. If you have a good state school, send them there.

Kids from private schools now have to get higher grades to be given the same we university offers, a lot of businesses in the city are under pressure to publish statistics on the background of the candidates and employees. Same for civil service.

In essence, it’s not a Maoist revolution, but the advantages of a private school education are being priced in so to speak. Like a golf handicap. You are spending quite a lot of money to tread water or even disadvantage your child in some ways.

You do not need higher grades to go to Uni from a private school. That is a myth I'm afraid. A few under performing state schools get contextual offers, as do some disadvantaged students. But the vast majority of state school students need to get exactly the same grades as their private counterparts.

Dh and I both were state school (rural comps) educated and ended up with top city jobs (dh via Cambridge). Our dc both at an excellent state school. Really don’t see what a private education would bring to the party unless the state option dire.

@mumsneedwine

You do not need higher grades to go to Uni from a private school. That is a myth I'm afraid. A few under performing state schools get contextual offers, as do some disadvantaged students. But the vast majority of state school students need to get exactly the same grades as their private counterparts.

But both Exeter and Bristol give contextual to almost every state sixth form....

Bristol didn’t for our state schools I’m afraid. Not a hope

@SJaneS49 [diversity work] starts off with a questionnaire - ‘are you the first person in your family to go to university’ and ‘were you primarily state or privately educated’ are two of the first questions.

and then you get people starting threads on Mumsnet complaining that the application form asked them about their background and how can an employer possibly justify discriminating against them just because their parents had menial jobs...

(true story, couple of months ago. Took quite some patient - not from me - explanation before the poster grasped what was going on)

@merryhouse, I can believe it! People hate DI questionnaires & are suspicious of them for all kinds of reasons.