Are Private Schools worth it?

silverchair

I agree with some of those who posted earlier, it does depend on what state school your child goes to and whether you have a choice. I wonder whether the Heads will allow you to look around the school while lessons are taking place rather than during special open days/evenings. Our state school is a very different place while normal lessons are taking place or trying to. To those who said that if the child wants to learn then they will do well in whichever school they go to. Thats true to a point but it makes it much harder for the child to learn if the lesson is in chaos because of bad behaviour and the teacher can only concentrate on the kids who are disruptive and therefore he or she is not teaching the subject.
There may come a point where the kid just gives up on trying to learn.

"David88 Don't you think that going to a state school lets your child mix with a wide variety of people like those that they would meet through life, rather than just meeting people from rich backgrounds? Surely these life skills are as important as academic ones? Maybe your local comprehensive is 'rough', but by the end of it your child should be able to handle themselves in the real world."
I personally feel that the kids who want to learn in this school should not have to put up with the amount of fighting or bullying that goes on. I dont think it strengthens them and in the real world how many fights or incidences of bullying have you come up against compared to when you were in school?

I went to a state grammer school. It was far better than my local comps which were eventually shut down and reopened as an Acadamy. I was happy at my grammer school and felt I had an OK education.
However if this state school was the only state school we could send our future kids to I think I would seriously consider a private school.

purplepurple

silverchair wrote:

I wonder whether the Heads will allow you to look around the school while lessons are taking place rather than during special open days/evenings.

I would imagine all heads would welcome visits at any time.... we have people looking around all the time! Just phone up and make an appointment. :snow_grin

ReportInvestor

The important thing is to choose the right private school for your child. You know them best and need to match them to the right school.

From a purely Money Saving Perspective it is always worth considering Christs' Hospital neat Horsham, West Sussex if you are happy for your child to board at age 11.

The Head says it is the "best kept secret" in private education and he is probably right. It is a public school that is still available to the public .

Not long ago 40% of pupils paid £0 for £13K's worth of fees. Now I think it is more like 20%. Fees are assessed on a sliding scale according to parental income and the purpose of the school is to meet family & social need - although to fit in your child would be expected to be capable of getting decent GCSEs. When Ken Livingstone was i/c the GLC he oversaw a policy that was preparted to sack any London primary school head that publicised Christ's, even though it was set up in 1552 by Edward VI to help the orphans of London.

In fulfilling its original aims in a modern society, Christ's has a disproportionate number of children in single parent households.

You may have inadvertently seen Christ's Hospital recently as it featured in the TV programme "Rock School", along with Gene Simmons of KISS.

Since Labour's abolition of assisted places, many private schools are trying hard to raise funds to subsidise fees for families in need - so it is also worth enquiring what the arrangements are at any local private school you are considering.

[Deleted User]

I was a teacher in a comprehensive school. Pick a good comp in a good catchment area and you won`t go wrong.

Rikki

There are scholarships and burseries out there for private schools. Choosing a private school is the same as choosing a comprehensive school. The one advantage is you can look further afield because the children can be Weekly Boreders or Full Boarders as well as Day pupils.
You know your own children and what is best for them. Not all chilren would enjoy a private education and others excell.
We all have the freedom of choice and those of us that choose a private education for our children should be free to do so.

jockettuk

kittie wrote:

I was a teacher in a comprehensive school. Pick a good comp in a good catchment area and you won`t go wrong.

easier said than done when moving areas.... moved into a area with the promise of a new school that wont happen now for another 3 or 4 yrs.. cant always afford to move to better catchment areas..

i would love to be able to give my daughter the best education i could but i didnt have daughter to send her off for weeks on end to live in at school. i want to be able to send her to the best available school within my new county. I will fight tooth and nail to get her the best education possible but i wont put myself into debt for it as would be the case of 6 or so more years at private education.

Crispy_Ambulance

I went to private school and don't remember lots of enhanced facilities etc. I do however, remember the !!!!!iness and humiliation from teachers if you couldn't do it or didn't understand. I also studied Latin - it didn't help me "think outside the box"! It was interesting enough and the teacher was quite a laugh but it has hardly formed the basics of my understanding of everything else!

As I said in a previous post - just because it is private doesn't mean it is better. The Portland Maternity hospital is private and has a worryingly high maternal death rate.

As others have said, it is not just the fees you have to find, it is everything else - the absurdly expensive uniform that is distinctive and horrible so that you are guaranteed to get your head kicked in on the bus on the way home etc. Then there are the trips, and the expensive presents that friends get - many people I was at school with got cars for their 17th birthday (!)

Also, bullying can be rife at any school. The private boys school that was on the same site as mine had real problems, but boys were rarely expelled as that might have made the papers . . .

jockettuk

purplepurple wrote:

I would imagine all heads would welcome visits at any time.... we have people looking around all the time! Just phone up and make an appointment. :snow_grin

this was the case when i phoned up a few of the schools we wanted to visit when looking at moving .. they were happy to take you round at a time that suited all.

ReportInvestor

In London 20% of children attend private schools, against a national average of 7%. I don't pretend to know why this is. More money? Higher academic aspirations? Poorer local schools? Parents worried about physical attack? Higher proportions of ethnic minorities in state schools than the national average?

Tessa Jowell, Minister for Sport & Culture, who has been promoting the Olympics among London children was recently asked how she was planning to involve private schools in the preparation for 2012. [I would hazard a guess that London private schools may account for up to 50% of the best London school athletes .]

Her reply was along the lines of er.....um .

Tessa does believe in sporting achievement as a means of enhancing life. Her own son went to the David Leadbeater golfing academy in Florida for one year at a cost of £24K+.

All very New Labour .

David88_2

I personally feel that the kids who want to learn in this school should not have to put up with the amount of fighting or bullying that goes on. I dont think it strengthens them and in the real world how many fights or incidences of bullying have you come up against compared to when you were in school?

Just a few points:

• From my experience physical fights need both sides to be wanting to fight. If one side simply walks away a fight doesn't happen.
• Bullying does take place in the workplace.
• All bullying at schools is serious, and im not supporting it in anyway.
• If a school is informed about bullying then appropiate action is almost always taken against the bullies.
• If a victim doesn't react to bullying in the first instance then it is less likely to continue as the bully won't feel they are gaining anything.

Just another unconnected thought is that the money spent on private education could instead be spent on museum trips, books, educational holidays etc for your child if they were state educated, thus improving their education.