Private vs State School

PandaGirl6

Would you rather...

Sell the house in the so-so catchment and move to an excellent one to send a child to a good public school (Edinburgh).

Or move even further away from the city centre and use majority of  the household's disposable income for private school fees.

Ath_Wat

Do you mean private vs state school?

PandaGirl6

Indeed.

I was educated overseas, so not too familiar with the system. However, a dear friend of mine is a primary school manager and has advised against state schools in general.

I am little bit torn, as we could either invest in extracurricular activities and tuition whilst daughter attends state school or we would have very little disposable income if she she went to a private primary.

The other option might state primary, private secondary? Does anyone have experience of going down that route, please? Are there any significant barriers?

Flugelhorn

we did private primary primary / state grammar (not an option in Scotland) 

Ath_Wat

PandaGirl6 said:

Indeed.

I was educated overseas, so not too familiar with the system. However, a dear friend of mine is a primary school manager and has advised against state schools in general.

I am little bit torn, as we could either invest in extracurricular activities and tuition whilst daughter attends state school or we would have very little disposable income if she she went to a private primary.

The other option might state primary, private secondary? Does anyone have experience of going down that route, please? Are there any significant barriers?

I would change the title if you can because public school and state schools are very different things.

Also, ignore your dear friend.  Thousands of children do perfectly well at state schools.  Are private schools potentially better - yes, to an extent, you do get what you pay for.  Is an able child going to succeed in most well run state schools (which is an awful lot of them)?  Yes.  

93 per cent of UK children go to state schools.  Intake of former state pupils at Russell Group universities ranges from 98% in Queen's Belfast, down to 60% at Durham (an appallingly elitist institution) with Oxford and Cambridge hovering around 70%.  Does this show going to private school gives an edge (be that down to standard of education or inbuilt bias in the system)?  Yes.  Does it show that the state system must be avoided?  Far, far from it.

PandaGirl6

Still, the question remains, as choosing a good state school would mean moving to a very affluent (and thus expensive) area. It would mean a similar financial commitment to moving away from the city and paying private school fees instead. 

I am not against state schools per se, just aware that the current catchment we are in is far from perfect.

zagfles

Neither. Don't make the mistake of judging a school by its raw exam results, private schools are generally selective ie they select the most able, and state schools in expensive areas will obviously have richer families in their catchment area, so more successful/hard working/intelligent parents whose children inherit/learn from these traits and so are more likely to do well in school. So it's not the school that is better, it's the pupils.

We went through all this with our many years ago. We were in the catchment area of a school where 60% of the intake was the local council estate. But the school seemed to be popular from speaking to parents/kids at the school, the results weren't as good as some other schools but that was likely to be due to the intake not the school. They had lots of SEN pupils, which sounds like a bad thing but wasn't, as there were dedicated TA's for them which was effectively like having extra teachers in class, as they tended to help out with the whole class. Our kids did very well at the school, and both ended up getting firsts at top universities.

The other thing to bear in mind is that universities, and even some employers these days, discriminate against students who went to private schools or schools in richer areas under so called "widening access" policies.

silvercar

PandaGirl6 said:

Still, the question remains, as choosing a good state school would mean moving to a very affluent (and thus expensive) area. It would mean a similar financial commitment to moving away from the city and paying private school fees instead. 

I am not against state schools per se, just aware that the current catchment we are in is far from perfect.

If it was this simple, then the logic would be to move as when you eventually sell the house in the affluent area you should get your money back, whereas money spent on education has been spent.

zagfles

Ath_Wat said:

PandaGirl6 said:

Indeed.

I was educated overseas, so not too familiar with the system. However, a dear friend of mine is a primary school manager and has advised against state schools in general.

I am little bit torn, as we could either invest in extracurricular activities and tuition whilst daughter attends state school or we would have very little disposable income if she she went to a private primary.

The other option might state primary, private secondary? Does anyone have experience of going down that route, please? Are there any significant barriers?

I would change the title if you can because public school and state schools are very different things.

Also, ignore your dear friend.  Thousands of children do perfectly well at state schools.  Are private schools potentially better - yes, to an extent, you do get what you pay for.  Is an able child going to succeed in most well run state schools (which is an awful lot of them)?  Yes.  

93 per cent of UK children go to state schools.  Intake of former state pupils at Russell Group universities ranges from 98% in Queen's Belfast, down to 60% at Durham (an appallingly elitist institution) with Oxford and Cambridge hovering around 70%.  Does this show going to private school gives an edge (be that down to standard of education or inbuilt bias in the system)?  Yes.  Does it show that the state system must be avoided?  Far, far from it.

No. It reflects private schools start with more able pupils.

Ath_Wat

zagfles said:

Ath_Wat said:

PandaGirl6 said:

Indeed.

I was educated overseas, so not too familiar with the system. However, a dear friend of mine is a primary school manager and has advised against state schools in general.

I am little bit torn, as we could either invest in extracurricular activities and tuition whilst daughter attends state school or we would have very little disposable income if she she went to a private primary.

The other option might state primary, private secondary? Does anyone have experience of going down that route, please? Are there any significant barriers?

I would change the title if you can because public school and state schools are very different things.

Also, ignore your dear friend.  Thousands of children do perfectly well at state schools.  Are private schools potentially better - yes, to an extent, you do get what you pay for.  Is an able child going to succeed in most well run state schools (which is an awful lot of them)?  Yes.  

93 per cent of UK children go to state schools.  Intake of former state pupils at Russell Group universities ranges from 98% in Queen's Belfast, down to 60% at Durham (an appallingly elitist institution) with Oxford and Cambridge hovering around 70%.  Does this show going to private school gives an edge (be that down to standard of education or inbuilt bias in the system)?  Yes.  Does it show that the state system must be avoided?  Far, far from it.

No. It reflects private schools start with more able pupils.

Not sure where that information comes from - some few are in private schools on merit, most simply bought their place.  The children of wealthy parents have not been shown to be more intelligent than others, as far as I know,.

That's more an argument you could level at grammar schools.

Staffing levels alone are going to give private schools something of an edge, especially for the less able pupils.  The very able will succeed regardless.  What private schools do well is get more out of the borderline, because they have more time and resource to do it.

Ath_Wat

PandaGirl6 said:

Still, the question remains, as choosing a good state school would mean moving to a very affluent (and thus expensive) area. It would mean a similar financial commitment to moving away from the city and paying private school fees instead. 

I am not against state schools per se, just aware that the current catchment we are in is far from perfect.

No, it wouldn't.  There are plenty of perfectly good state schools that don't serve "very affluent(and thus expensive)" areas.  I can't speak for your part of the country, of course, but this is generally true.  I would be surprised if you can't find a decent school for your child to go to without having to spend millions on a house, although no doubt it could be true in some places.