Private schools, times a changing?

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It’s hard to get expelled in a state school. I was suspended a few times for things I’d imagine would have got me expelled in a private school, and others were also. I don’t think anyone was ever expelled despite there being some pretty terrible behaviour on show.

My wife’s brother was expelled multiple times from private schools for things that wouldn’t have even got you suspended in my school.

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chip* said:

Email confirm it's 8% annual fee increase in Sep for my girls school.
Adding VAT on top will definitely make me reassess my option....

How are they rationalising 8%? I’d have expected such a rise perhaps last year and the one before but seems punchy given inflation has dropped considerably…

I hadn’t looked at prices of the schools we looked at since I did my initial research into them about 2 years ago, looks like a solid 10-14% increase across the board.

Interestingly though the day fees of £24.5k per annum still trail nursery fees by some margin!

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True enough but they’re mostly paying the staff supermarket wages at a nursery. Always baffles me how much it costs.

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Assuming the grammar system isn’t going anywhere it would just become the new gold standard and kids would be tutored above those who couldn’t afford to have the same.

Or the house prices around the best state schools would keep all but the wealthy away - which already happens to an extent in some places (South Farnham School a good example).

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Well, there’s a great many things that don’t affect the vast majority of people but are important politically. Pension LTA being another example..

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ooid said:

Well, there is only one delusional in this thread who has no children but has all the best opinions and ideas () about education.

Don’t forget that he went to a selective school too so undoubtedly benefited.

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Anyway.

I’ve noticed when looking at past results quite a variance in the last couple of years in GSCE and A Levels from the private schools we looked at - is this the Covid issue coming to bear fruit? I’m away that mocks were given as reality for GSCE, what happened with A Levels?

The school we are sending our son to has a huge discrepancy between its ranking for GSCE and A Level.

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M1AGM said:

Discrepancy in what way? A levels were on predicted grades iirc.

As in the school had exceptionally highly ranked GSCE results, their ranking relative to other schools was miles away for A Levels.

Obviously I’m aware that the percentage of top grades at A Level falls vs GSCE hence using the ranking as a normaliser for performance.

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This has all become exceptionally dull.

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7% rise in fees from our prospective school. Also mention of the Labour policy, didn’t sound like they’d be passing the 20% on as they’d look at other areas to reduce the hit. Time will tell.

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I’ve seen the lengths the schools (and their external agency) go to when deciding on bursary, I’m sure it could be gamed but they were HUGELY in the weeds with my sister in law, who has a son at a fairly expensive school now, she is not well off.

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One interesting thing I have thought about and wonder if anyone else has, and is a big reason we are pushing ahead with private is the personality type of myself and my wife showing in our young kid. We were both fairly bright in early years but easily led astray - we both have an almost identical track record of this (though she did get a degree from somewhere OK), class clown behaviour, mixing with the wrong kids, getting up to no good etc. My wife was diagnosed with ADHD and given whatever drugs they give, that was 25 years ago, so was probably fairly disruptive for her.
I’ve never had any diagnosis of anything but suspect there’s similar themes there. People are much more vocal about how these things present in adults and I can identify with a lot of it.


I’m already noticing in my nearly 4 year old that he will try and coerce the other children at parties etc into doing things they shouldn’t be (nothing too bad, but you know, being little terrors and generally getting carried away - the other children are mostly not like this) - he’s showing signs already of having inherited a fair bit of what we had/have. For me it resulted in barely getting any GSCE’s and being asked to leave 6th form, my wife was asked to leave one private school and went to a grammar (went back to the private for a levels mind you) - arguably for whatever reasons we didn’t have the most attentive parents which was a factor, but I’m absolutely sure a more ‘positive’ environment would have got a lot more out of me, and is part of the reason I think my son will do better in that sort place. The state system has no room for managing that sort of personality or energy in a positive way I would guess and is what I felt. Certainly not academically, sporting wise was my only outlet, and even that was nothing vs what the kids up the road in the private got.

So, has anyone else seen their personalities in their children and didn’t influence your decision?

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otolith said:

My experience of sixth form was at a sixth form college, where the ethos and environment was nothing like school. Seeing a teacher tell someone in the first week that if they didn't want to be there they were welcome to fk off was refreshing. No uniform, treated like adults. My partner's son is now in the sixth form at a state grammar, and his experience looks to be school++. Strict uniform policy, detentions handed out, etc.

This is still why I think you get disrupters there. I did GCSE’s and all my mates were going to a place like what you describe. So I went too, despite no interest really. Found the freedom overwhelming so took it for granted and barely went to a single lesson, those that I did I was still a bit distracting to others. But they did put a stop to it after the first year which obviously is much harder to do in a state school.

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You’ve paid the price already in inflated house prices

It’s oft overlooked but to be in catchment of such places the last few posters mention you can easily have paid a set or two of fees.

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It depends where you live I expect. Average house price of an area I was (before we picked a different school) considering is probably about £1.6-1.8M and for primary school, there’s certainly a lump attached to the ones that are very close to the two outstanding state primaries.

Probably not two kids worth of private education in London but by living not that far away you’d save a few hundred grand without question.

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Talksteer said:

I'm comparing the difference between two state primaries not prep schools, again London is likely a bit of distortion with much smaller catchment areas. If you look at most of the schools near me they actually have pretty similar value add which means that abilities and development of the child is more important than the teaching. If you're even thinking about sending your kid to private school its unlikely that your local school is a sink school with high levels of depravation.

Likewise if you are in the position to send kids to private secondaries some private tuition is likely to be a better investment to get them past any entrance exams.

Yes, the difference in London is stark, and you are right that problems we see here don't tend to exist in the same way out in the sticks, my state school for both primary and secondary were well equipped and class sizes manageable - this is likely why such a huge proportion of the UK private school places are in London - and of course people have more money.

The local state primary to give an idea was teaching two year groups in the same room (35 or so) and had a playground about the size of a tennis court. The school we have chosen has an average class size of 18 right through to GSCE (assume A Level are slightly bigger, maybe not though), and has access to their own woods for forest school, swimming pool, acres of playing fields, a dedicated library, art department etc etc.

It was impossible to compare them. Removing money/social ideals from the equation, you'd be out of your mind to choose the state in my south London example.

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That seems an incredibly tight turnaround, I was under the impression you’d get far more notice than that! Shame.

Where in Hampshire was this? Knowing the county fairly well, I think there’s lots of other options that hopefully will be able to work for you.

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Ah. I’m from near Alton - I assume this is the old convent you’re talking about? That’s a surprise indeed, shame.

Barfield always used to be nice but it’s a fair way away, I went to a lot of summer camps there. Lord Wandsworth the closest I expect, wonderful facilities there but it isn’t cheap, Frensham Heights, Edgeborough not too far away.

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CLK-GTR said:

This is the Alton School? As in altonschool.co.uk? That's a shame and surprising as I thought it was a big institution. I'm doing the rounds with the open days at the moment, i suppose I'd better cancel that one.

I loved Frensham Heights but looking online it seems the academics are worse than rubbish?

Yes. There’s only one private there. Surprised it was actually there at all, there’s not much wealth in the town really, it’s all from surrounding villages (such as Hollybourne - Titchmarsh could be your neighbour), but having lived in and around those villages and my brother and parents still do, there’s an awful lot of older people in the larger properties. And all the young are concentrated u to relatively cheap pockets of Four Marks and Alton itself and don’t have the kind of money to pay for school.

Interesting your second point, Lord Wandsworth is a lovely school but also fairly pants academically from memory.

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CLK-GTR said:

I suppose that's true. My in laws have lived in the area most of their lives and sent 3 kids through private school and they didn't even know Alton had a school.

I was chatting to one of the governors at another open day and they think schools can get around the VAT issue by increasing class sizes and they don't think it will be the full 20%.

During my youth it was a convent only, maybe took young boys but mostly girls. My neighbours daughter went, outcome of convent was as you’d expect Son went to Lord Wandsworth in same year as Jonny Wilkinson

Lot of my mates went to the state schools in Farnham, they and I thought Eggars were actually meant to be very decent. South Farnham school is one of the best schools in the U.K. I believe. I’d have no issues sending my kids to that one. But we ruled out Farnham as a destination ultimately as schools weren’t as good as those in Guildford area (may consider if we leave town) but spoilt for choice with amazing day schools in London.