So called left wingers who pay school fees

I'm sure that's true, but we no longer have Grammar Schools as an alternative, unless you count the selective schools.

There are still plenty of state grammar schools (164 nationally according to Wiki), Anagram. Next year will see the frantic private coaching and preparation of many of the children in my eldest DG's class. She will not be taking part.

Yes, I know there are some left, but not enough to go round!

Yes, I do think that those who 'failed' had a poorer education and were expected to do the practical subjects. I don't think anything would convince me that children should pass or fail after one exam at the age of 11.

JessM While it is true that many secondary modern schools were under-funded and of poor quality, that is not true of all. Mr absent attended a secondary modern which had an entire science and technology block. It also had playing fields where a wide variety of sports took place. He became a competitive junior gymnast through his training at school. He frequently relates how they made canoes in their woodwork class and then launched them successfully on the river and practised canoeing. He didn't learn a foreign language, but certainly has a grasp of grammar and punctuation in English. Many of the practical skills he acquired at school have served him well in later years.

I absolutely agree, Alison. I also know that there are lots of independent prep schools where my daughter lives, that coach the children very heavily for the 11+ places. There have also been children at the GD's school who come for the first couple of years and then go off to prep school after a couple of years. This means that parents who would have loved to have sent their children there miss out on a place. It seems wrong to me.
My daughter has friends whose children have been completely heartbroken when they have "failed" (and that is the way they see it) the 11+. One girl missed out by one mark and her best friend passed by one mark.

Where we lived in the UK, many parents got children babtised and then went to the CofE Church quite regularly and helped with charity events - to ensure a place at the CofE Church. Then the school made sure that the Curriculum prepared for the 11+ exams for the local (now private) Grammar school. that CofE primary school was therefore used as a free prep school - and the majority went on to the Grammar school or other private school at the secondary stage. The other local primary school suffered terribly from that 'creaming off'.

I sent my children to a private school & I don't apologise in the least. We were not floating in a sea of spare cash & had to effectively re-mortgage the house to do so. But the alternative was that my bright daughter would have continued to be bullied and spiral into a state of depression and completely lose what little self-confidence she had left. When we asked her to be moved to an alternative state school we were told that 'we were outside the catchment area'.

Within a term at private school the difference in my child was remarkable and my husband said it was the best money we had ever spent. This does not mean that I don't care about other young people & feel that successive governments have failed a generation of young people. It also makes me angry that as a working class grammar school girl, I had to pay for my children to receive the standard of education that I got for free 30 years ago.

I was recently rounded upon by a couple of 'chamapagne socialists' who had made such a big thing about not sending their kids to private school. They live in a large comfortable house in a leafy suburb and take their 3 kids on foreign holidays that we couldn't even begin to afford. Oh and they've just bought a second home in an area where the locals can't afford to buy a first one.

This discussion interests me and makes me sad. I am a mum of 2 (girl aged 3 boy aged 2). My parents in the 70s/80s were strongly left wing. I was the eldest of 4 children and we all went to state schools.
Both of my parents were sent by their parents (my grandparents) to expensive private schools. My mum frequently boasted during my childhood that she could read at the age of 3 and that she won many academic prizes at her prep school and private secondary school. If any of us 4 children showed any slowness at reading or academic progress she was quite sneering. At the same time both of my parents regularly influenced us that it was and is "morally wrong" to send your children to private schools. They are both extremely defensive about the schools we went to which were a mixture of middling to good state schools.
I reluctantly returned to work when both of my little ones were 6 months old and the combined nursery fee for both of them per month is £2,200 - although it killed me to pay this I thought - well if I can afford this i can afford private schools for them when they get to school age. I thought this especially as both the primary school and the secondary school in our catchment area in Oxfordshire are both under special measures (the primary having been so for 3 years now and showing no sign of coming out of special measures). I told my mum i might consider paying for private school for my 3 year old (who can not yet read) and she went ballistic. It is all theory now anyway, having done the sums not even £2,200 per calender month (my entire salary) will cover the majority of fee paying schools for 2 pupils which are within my driving distance and which I could take them to and get to work at a decent hour.
so i will have to send them to the special measures primary, or move house again. Meantime my mum is distinctly disappointed at me working 4 days per week instead of 5 (betrays feminist ideals) and even thinking about private schools.

Time to stop worrying (or even bothering about) what your mum thinks, redblue. Unless she's offering to pay, it's none of her business. Your life; your choices from what's available (which is not to say I'd make the same choices). Good luck.

Just what I was about to say Bags - you can spend a lifetime trying to do what your mum wants, when you are yourself a grown adult and her opinion on what you should or shouldn't be doing for your own children (or with your career) is a total irrelevance. Stick to your guns - you know your own children best and only you can know what your aspirations are for them. Don't let yourself be browbeaten by her or anyone else!!

Re school fees etc. I live in an area of cheshire with good local comprehensives. If I lived in a difficult inner city area I might think differently.

One thing that really makes me angry is hearing people say "we make sacrifices to send our childern to private schools."
We managed reasonably well without debt but we could never have afforded school fees!
The current average south of England rate is now about £14,000 a year. that would now be £28k for 2 children. We never had that amount of surplus money even by the equivalents in the 1980s.

No! those lucky enough to have that sort of money dont make "sacrifices" they just have enough money to have choices as to what to spend it on. They clearly have no concept of how the other half live.

I went to the usual local schools in West Yorkshire - including a grammar school after passing my 11+. Private schools were not even considered.

Here in Australia catholic schools are open to all, and some have very affordable fees. I am left wing, and have no religious beliefs now, though I was a catholic back then.

Anyway, my children's safety and well being was more important to me than any political principles, so i sent them to local co-ed catholic junior and senior schools. The state equivalents were rough as guts, and a friend's daughter ended up with a permanent injury at the local state school. We lived in a very working class area. However, I have always fought for better funding for state schools, and nowadays they have improved.

My son now teaches at the same high school he attended, but he did his prakticum at the local state schools. One day after he'd been teaching a while, he came up to us and hugged us, saying "Thanks for going to the trouble and expense of sending me and my brother to St Francis Xavier and Peter Clavier schools, and not sending us to state schools. it made all the difference to my happiness at school"

Family before politics.

Nelliemoser I've always felt irritated when people make that statement as well.

They sound so virtuous, as though they think the rest of us with children at state schools are just too selfish/hedonistic to make sacrifices.

Happy families live in happy societies- sometimes we also have to look at the wider picture.

I am not of any political persuasion but I do believe in equality and fairness. We could have afforded to send our children to private schools but, living in an affluent middle class area, we reasoned that if a child couldn't go to a comprehensive school there, where could they. So, off they went when most of their primary school friends went to direct grant grammar schools. Lo and behold, son went to Cambridge and daughter became an architect. Would they have done any better or been any happier at a selective school? Who knows. Our children only have one chance of experiencing school and as parents we do our best. We saved a lot of money by sticking with the state school, so went on good holidays and were able to be more generous when they were at university and subsequently.
But staunch socialists who send their children to private schools are just hypocrites of the highest order.

it's easy to be full of principles when the local state schools are safe. When they are unsafe, children's needs come first. Mind you, our catholic school weekly fees were the equivalent of 2 hours pay for a cleaner (the lowest pay around), and free for the unemployed, so they were hardly elitist.

I consider myself a staunch socialist, and have spent my professional life in the state sector. However, both my children were educated at independent schools, as their father is a dyed in the wool conservative. I didn't marry him for his political views! Despite our divorce in the years to come, he was a good father who was determined that his children should have the best start in life, according to his lights and I respected this view. I think there has been something of an assumption in this thread that parents always share the same political views, when I'm sure that often they don't and have to find a compromise that works for them.

I wonder if some contributors also think that socialists shouldn't avail themselves of private health and dental care?

Good point, vegas. During the Thatcher years my up until then NHS dentist when private. I stayed with him because he was a good dentist and there weren't any NHS dentists around anyway. Then he retired and sold his business to two young men who went back to being NHS dentists. I stayed with the same practice until I moved to Scotland. Living in Scotland, naturally I have an NHS dentist once again, because Scotland is civilised about things like that.

So, much as I believe in state 'sponsored' health services, I was availing myself of the best of what was available at the time when I needed it. Nothing hypocritical about that.

The truth of it all is that in an ideal world there should be no difference between state and independent schools, and in the same way that there should be no difference between NHS and private hospitals - but there is. And, because there is, and because parents want to do the best for their children, if they can, they buy the best rather than impose their chosen lives on their children. That doesn't stop them from working for the best for others.

How can any of you say that parents who send their children to independent schools have not made sacrifices? Of course they have! If, as you say, it cost £28k a year to pay school fees that is a sacrifice in anyone's life! The fact that they find a way to, usually, borrow the money does not mean it is not a sacrifice. Of course a lot of people cannot find the money to do so but then everyone makes choices about what they can and can't afford, e.g shall we have chops or mince for dinner.

Nobody bashes people for spending their money on cars or holiday, why bash those who spend their money on their children?

I think the point was that some people, however hard they try, never have the opportunity to "make the sacrifice" of whether to spend a lot of money on schooling. In other words, some people, by the nature of human society, have more choices than others. Once someone has acquired money, of course they can spend it how they like, so long as it doesn't damage anyone else. Some people cannot acquire money whether by working hard or by borrowing. And no, that is not necessarily their fault. If they are not intelligent enough, say, to do more than a menial, low paid job, or are restricted from earning a lot by other means, they are stuck and their choices are limited.

i don't think I'd ever call spending money a "sacrifice". It's a choice, if you have it, that's all.

An acquaintance of mine - an active member of the Labour Party - justified sending his son to a fee-paying school by saying that although he didn't want to, his wife did, and that theirs was an equal opportunity household - therefore he gave in to his wife's persuasion. More likely for the sake of domestic peace, I would say.

We sent our children to independent schools after we had a run in with the local Director of Education when we tried to exercise our right to choose a school. We asked to send our children to a school just outside our catchment area as it was not operating on Open Plan lines. His reply was that 'all schools will be open plan in a couple of years - it's the way forward!'

I don't think being educated privately made them unable to get on with other people. They played football, cricket, swam, danced and acted with the rest their peers in our town. They were taught, by us, that they were in a privileged position, that there were people not so fortunate and that we should strive for a better, fairer world.

Academic education might be given at school but it only a part of education for life most of which happens in the family and the outside world.

My grandson starts at an independent school this September after attending the local primary school for two years. My DD has given the school every chance to improve. Something as simple as being heard read at least once a week couldn't be guaranteed even with a TA in the class. This was simply not acceptable.

Neither my DD or SiL earn huge wages and it will mean every pound will have to be accounted for. I do take your point Bags, but this is not something they would have chosen had the quality of primary education in their area been adequate.