Independent secondary school - grotty and not up to date. AIBU?

[IndiQ]

Forgive me - from a totally state background and willing to make some sacrifices to send DC to whichever school we think suits best.

Went to an open day at an £18k/year day school recently.

The results are great and the head's speech had us very impressed.

But on touring the school we were all disappointed.

Everywhere smelled fusty and seemed old and grubby.

This was a school in a busy city and is old. But so are the local state schools.

Were we wrong to be disappointed that this is part of why we're judging it to be a big no? I'd be expecting some of the fees to keep the place clean and nicely decorated and labs and other practical subjects up to date?

We really love another independent school with similar fees which is very much as I'd hope.

But then I worry maybe I've been taken in by it's looks - although kids happy and results also great.

I know MN has a lot of private school parents. What are your expectations of the school buildings and classrooms?

You’re paying for the facilities, and for your DC to be in a cohort with the ‘right’ sort of peers. Plenty of state schools have superb teachers who would knock spots off their counterparts in the independent sector but lack smaller classes and access to resources. If one of these factors is missing I fail to see the value in paying the fees.

Just send them to a state school.

If you pay that much money, you should be happy with the whole package. If you have 1 school that has good teaching and good facilities vs a school that has good teaching but unkempt facilities at the same price, I wouldn't want my dc to go to the latter as it would teach them bad financial management and ingrained low expectations. I personally think a lot of what us wrong with the UK (NHS, education etc) is due with people having low expectations and accepting things to be unkempt, shoddy etc as long are people are 'nice' and things are 'inclusive', and people are suspicious of 'shiny'. It's a very self defeating Luddite mentality.

As others have said, it is worth looking at the financial health of the school overall. If the school buildings were actually not clean, that would also really bother me.

In terms of labs, I would say that replacing labs is a really big commitment, not just financially, but in terms of time as well- it's often not a job that can be completed in a 6 or 8 week summer break, because it's things like redoing the gas, sorting out the plumbing, installing electrics etc, and this all takes time. So often it's something schools will only do when labs are actually becoming non-functional, rather than because they look a little bit dated.

You can have excellent equipment and facilities in a lab that doesn't look especially modern.

If the equipment itself looks dated, that is a different concern, and can lead to a less than optimal experience.

I have viewed lots of schools - state and indie - and it’s really common to have sheets of paper with the tours so that no space gets too crowded.

I wouldn’t be put off by a school that was slightly scruffy, dds primary was a bit scruffy and I was looking at some photos of a school play recently and the school hall’s paint was peeling and it looked awful, but a year later they decorated and put in a new floor. It was preferable to the school I went to with a new prep block that had pristine white walls and no art anywhere other than styalised black and white photos. That school felt big and soulless. As long as the school has good numbers of children and has healthy reserves (and a nice ethos / results / culture) then the condition wasn’t that important to me.