Feasible reforms are available; these do not require excessive commitments from the Treasury, but do require a political commitment. Private school fees are always going to be expensive, that’s a given. Even so, given that these schools have been and still are places that – when the feelgood verbiage is stripped away – ensure that their already advantaged pupils retain and extend their socio‑economic advantages in later life, common sense places them squarely in the centre of the frame. All those scary newspaper headlines about the long-term costs of bringing up children pale into insignificance when set beside the £250,000+ required to educate a child privately from nursery to university. The Cameron-Osborne axis sees off Labour, but not Boris Johnson+Nigel Farage (Dulwich)+Arron Banks (Crookham Court). Why can one not simply accept that these are high-quality schools that provide our future leaders with a high-quality education? They focus on preparing their students for college (and life). School days, after all, are supposed to be the best of your life – and the most important consideration is finding a school where your child will be happiest. A nation grieves for Diana (West Heath); Charles (Gordonstoun) retrieves her body; her brother (Eton) tells it as it is. Its effects are deep, long-term and run from one generation to the next. They have ready access to prominent public voices speaking on their behalf, especially in the House of Lords; they enjoy the passive support of the Church of England, which is distinctly reluctant to draw attention to the moral gulf between the aims of ancient founders and the socioeconomic realities of the present; and of course, they have no qualms about utilising all possible firepower, human as well as media and institutional, to block anything they find threatening. Given the very unequal distribution of academic resources entailed by the British private school system, it is unarguable that a more egalitarian distribution of the same resources would enhance the total educational achievement. 2. But what about choosing between a private or state school? The poll reveals, moreover, that even those who have been privately educated, or have chosen to educate their own children privately, are more likely than not to have a perception of unfairness. We are, however, under no illusions about the task of reform. It would be an almost immeasurable benefit if this were no longer the case. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. Private schools belonging to the Independent Schools Council provide some £780 million worth of fee deduction, benefiting 166,000 out of the total 500,000 pupils. If you don’t, then public grade school is a good choice as well. What about the implications for our polity? While as for the many hundreds of individual links between “top people” and private schools, often in the form of sitting on governing bodies, it only needs a glance at Who’s Who to get the gist. If you make at least 5X the private grade school tuition per child, I think private grade school is worth it. I think, unless you can afford the very top private schools, and we couldn't, it isn't worth it and the money could be better used on life skills and experiences. ‘They think that everyone else at the school will be “posh” and that their children will only mix with wealthy families. We cannot accept that.” In 2016 Jeremy Corbyn declares his movement will “ensure every young person has the opportunities to maximise their talents”, while Theresa May follows on: “I want Britain to be a place where advantage is based on merit not privilege; where it’s your talent and hard work that matter, not where you were born, who your parents are or what your accent sounds like.” Rather like corporate social responsibility in the business world, social mobility has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie causes that it is almost rude not to utter warm words about. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. The government would subsidise those who could not afford the fees. A society in which the pursuit through education of greater equality of life chances, seeking to harness the talents of all our children, is a matter of real and rigorous intent? Private education is not fair, he famously declared in June 2014 during a sermon at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. When assessing if private school is worth the money, it's important to consider all the factors look at many students’ experiences at private school from a cost-benefit perspective and many come up with the conclusion that attending a private school does not in any way guarantee access to an Ivy League or equivalently competitive college. First, especially small class sizes are a major boon for pupils and teachers alike. The good news (if there is any) is that, according to the ISC 2018 report, the average overall fees only increased by 3.4% between 2017 and 2018. But as a result of these fees independent schools have the advantage of investing profits back into improving their often already impressive facilities. Yet the fundamental social reality remains profoundly and obstinately otherwise. For most parents, an independent education is aspirational and the decision about whether to pay school fees of between £10,000 and £43,000 per year comes down to one simple fact – how much money is available. The visible distinctions of dress and speech have been somewhat eroded, if far from obliterated; the obvious social manifestations of a manufacturing economy have been replaced by the more fluid forms of a service economy; the increasing emphasis of reformers and activists has been on issues of gender and ethnicity; and a series of politicians and others have sought to assure us that we are moving into “a classless society”. I go to a private Catholic university and find it very worth it to pay the tuition. Even rail commuters with season tickets have been guaranteed a … Yet for a mixture of reasons – political and economic, as well as social – we believe that the issue represents in contemporary Britain an unignorable problem that urgently needs to be addressed and, if possible, resolved. You also need to realise that there are lots of expensive trips at state schools as well as private school. It marked some kind of apotheosis when in July 2014 the appointment of Nicky Morgan (Surbiton High) as education secretary meant that every minister in her department at that time was privately educated. Only about 6% of the UK’s school population attend such schools, and the families accessing private education are highly concentrated among the affluent. But smart people will do well anywhere. As the millennium approaches, New Labour under Tony Blair (Fettes) sweeps to power. London’s main clubs (dominated by privately educated men) would be one example; the Church of England (closely connected with many private schools, from Westminster downwards) would be another. Private schools, since they don’t have to rely only on public funding, are able to hire the best teachers to ensure that your children have the best education possible. Consider these three fundamental facts: one in every 16 pupils goes to a private school; one in every seven teachers works at a private school; one pound in every six of all school expenditure in England is for the benefit of private-school pupils. At this particular moment in our island story, the future seems peculiarly a blank sheet. Prince George (Thomas’s Battersea) and Princess Charlotte (Willcocks) start school. A more open society in which upward social mobility starts to become a real possibility for many children, not just a few lucky ones? The way the privately educated have sustained semi-monopolistic positions of prominence and influence in the modern era has created a serious democratic deficit. To order a copy for £17.60 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. The reform of private schools will not alone be sufficient to achieve a good education system for all, let alone the good society; but it surely is a necessary condition. One of our fathers was a solicitor in Brighton, the other was an army officer rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel; we were both privately educated; we both went to Oxford University; our children have all been educated at state grammar schools; in neither case did we move to the areas (Kent and south-west London) because of the existence of those schools; and in recent years we have become increasingly preoccupied with the private-school issue, partly as citizens concerned with Britain’s social and democratic wellbeing, partly as an aspect of our professional work (one as an economist, the other as a historian). A brief but expensive history, 1997–2018, offers some guide. Some are relatively small in scope, including a proposal from the Independent Schools Council that would involve no more than 2% of the private-school population. You’ll only know if the money was worth it at retirement age. The underlying reality of our private-school problem is stark. She's in year 9. Of course, things to a degree have changed since Thompson’s time. In 2018 the average day fees at prep schools were, at £13,026, around half the income of a family on the middle rung of the income ladder. “The dogged persistence of the British ‘old boy”’ is how a 2017 study describes the traditional dominance of private-school alumni in British society. The Wire’s Jimmy McNulty (Eton) sorts out Baltimore. The chronicles of Hogwarts school begin. Britain is still a place where more often than not it matters crucially not only to whom one has been born, but where and in what circumstances one has grown up. The Bank of England under Eddie George (Dulwich) gets independence. Private schools may be under more pressure to get the grades and this pressure may be transferred on to pupils. Pros and Cons of Private School. For those seeking to educate their children privately, it’s becoming increasingly expensive: school fees have trebled in real terms since 1980, with their cost as a proportion of household budgets rising remarkably. It is hard to imagine a notable improvement in our social mobility while private schooling continues to play such an important role. Ed Balls (Nottingham High) takes to the dance floor. Above all, private schools succeed when it comes to preparing their pupils for public exams – the gateways to universities. Jeremy Clarkson (Repton) can’t stop revving up; Jeremy Paxman (Malvern) still has an attitude problem; Alexandra Shulman (St Paul’s Girls) dictates fashion; Paul Dacre (University College School) makes middle England ever more Mail-centric; Alan Rusbridger (Cranleigh) makes non-middle England ever more Guardian-centric; judge Brian Leveson (Liverpool College) fails to nail the press barons; Justin Welby (Eton) becomes top mitre man; Frank Lampard (Brentwood) becomes a Chelsea legend; Joe Root (Worksop) takes guard; Henry Blofeld (Eton) spots a passing bus. “Here, the salary you earn is more linked to what your father got paid than in any other major country. Yet in a name-calling culture, ever ready with the charge of hypocrisy, this reality is all too often ignored. Is it possible in Britain over the next 10 or 20 years to build a sufficiently widespread consensus for reform?Or, at the very least, to begin to have a serious, sustained, non-name-calling, non-guilt-ridden national conversation on the subject of private education? Martha Lane Fox (Oxford High) blows a dotcom bubble. Given the thorniness – and often invidiousness – of the issue, it is a tempting proposition. So far, she's been to Residential trips to Paris, one at a PGL, to the Black Country for several days and skiing for a week in the French alps. Allowing, as Britain still does, an unfettered expenditure on high-quality education for only a small minority of the population condemns our society in seeming perpetuity to a damaging degree of social segregation and inequality. W ell, not all parents who send their children to private schools think only of grades. Cumbria’s Austin Friars, for example, highlights a well-rounded education, proclaiming that its alumni will be “creative problem-solvers… effective communicators… and confident, modest and articulate members of society who embody the Augustinian values of unity, truth and love...”. Private Grade School Is Worth It If You Can Afford It. Pros of private school: Smaller classes; In my opinion, smaller class sizes is probably the biggest advantage of a private school over public schools. They just don't have the room to accept everyone. OP asked if private schooling could prevent her daughter having a bad time, and this can't be guaranteed, but any decent private school will deal with incidents of bad behaviour very swiftly. Top schools, top universities: the pattern of privilege is systemic, and not just confined to the dreaming spires. Private school fees are always going to be expensive, that’s a given. Further inefficiency arises from education’s “positional” aspect. but you are paying … At the 99th rung – families with incomes upwards of £300,000 – six out of every 10 children are at private school. Some 5.2 per cent of these children come from outside the UK. Northern Rock collapses under the chairmanship of Matt Ridley (Eton). 1. HandicapsContextual admissions to universities Where universities, especially the high-status ones, make substantial allowances for candidates’ school background; alternatively, as another method of positive discrimination, some form of a quota system. At every rung of the income ladder there are a small number of private-school attenders; but it is only at the very top, above the 95th rung of the ladder – where families have an income of at least £120,000 – that there are appreciable numbers of private-school children. The schools’ links with powerful vested interests are close and continuous. In the US there is a very small sector of non-sectarian private schools with high fees, but most private schools are, again, religious, with much lower fees than here. For the building of such a society, or anything even remotely close, the issue of private education is pivotal, both symbolically and substantively. If private schooling in Britain remains fundamentally unreconstructed, it will remain predominantly intended and destined for the advantage of the already privileged children who attend. Relevance. A day school costs on average £13,000 a year, while a boarding school will be more than £30,000. Going to a top university, it hardly needs adding, signals a material difference, especially in Britain where universities are quite severely ranked in a hierarchy. Compare that with those born in 1970: by the same stage (the early 2000s), the gap between the two categories – again, similar in all other respects – had risen to 21% in favour of the privately educated. But education is not just another material asset: it is fundamental to creating who we are. Private schools remain one of the few service providers planning to charge full price for a pared-down service this summer. And so what, accordingly, does Britain look like in the 21st century? Overwhelmingly, pupils at private schools are rubbing shoulders with those from similarly well-off backgrounds. Yet the mismatch between such sentiments and policymakers’ practical intentions is palpable. Even the behaviour of the children is no worse at the state and is probably tolerated even less than at the private school tbh. Any study must take account of where the children are coming from. And those who receive it know it, or should.”. Alternatively, something that would “hurt” a bit more, government could directly tax school fees (as in Labour’s manifesto pledge to impose VAT or in Andrew Adonis’s proposed 25% “educational opportunity tax”). Life staggers on in austerity Britain mark two. Whether one has been privately educated, or has sent or is sending one’s children to private schools, or even if one teaches at a private school, there should be no barriers to taking part in that conversation. The words of Alan Bennett reverberate still. They deploy very substantial resources; respect the need for a disciplined environment for learning; and give copious attention to generating a positive and therefore motivating experience. The existence in Britain of a flourishing private-school sector not only limits the life chances of those who attend state schools but also damages society at large, and it should be possible to have a sustained and fully inclusive national conversation about the subject. For secondary school, and even more so sixth forms, the fees are appreciably higher. Boris Johnson (Eton) enters City Hall in London. Almost 170,000 children (one in three) are currently receiving help with their fees, according to Julie Robinson, general secretary of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), with both the amount available and the number of children benefitting rising. Third, the high – and therefore exclusive – price tag sustains a peer group of children mainly drawn from supportive and affluent families. State vs Private School What are the differences between state and private schools? – Plan early – this is easier said than done, but if you have an inkling you’d like to send your child to private school, starting from birth gives you the best possible chance. More than 140,000 pupils at private schools don’t pay all – or any – of their fees. A cottage in the country. Among worries about location, size and exam results, there’s a school’s culture and the extra-curricular activities on offer to consider too. It would be manifestly absurd to pin the blame entirely on the existence over the past few centuries of a flourishing private-school sector. The private schools’ reach is very much broader than their minority share of school pupils implies. Why Private Schooling Isn't Worth The Money ... An increase in annual fees last year of some 4.6 per cent saw parents paying £13,179 per child in fees. The private education world and the financial advice Sending your child to a private school is a bit like paying for financial advice. I think going to private school can help if you aren't that clever as teachers can get you to maximise the marks you can achieve. ‘If you have a good local state school, why pay? If a private school does not offer this, it is not worth the money. ‘Not all private schools are Eton College, just like not all state schools are Grange Hill,’ says Beth. Thomas ’ s Jimmy McNulty ( Eton ) enters City Hall in London while many agree that education. 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