Why do British royal children not go to state schools like the Scandanavian royals?

knspol: better qualified teachers? That's a pretty sweeping statement. All private schools have better qualified staff than all state schools? Do you have data to support this?

The headlines -

‘Charlotte refused invitation to a sleepover with my daughter’

‘William and Kate didn’t come to the parents evening’

‘George let in 2 goals when he was chosen to be goal keeper’

Much of what has been written is nonsense (in my view, obviously!).

Some posters are been flagrantly inflammatory.

In a nutshell: life is not fair. Full stop.

Parents want the best for their children. Full stop.

Some families live in huge mansions and some in squalor. This is not fair but life isn't fair.

Some families shop in Waitrose, even at Harrods food hall for every day shopping whilst others have to almost beg to be able to use food banks. This is not fair. Life is not fair.

If parents can afford to pay, independent schooling is usually (not always as there are some appalling indies) the best. Life is not fair.

Our children attended state schools until 11. We toured local senior schools and saw the level of attainment which the staff thought was acceptable. It wasn't. We rushed (a very last minute decision and we had to act immediately for our children to sit entrance exams to a highly regarded indie) to a change of direction as we had assumed the senior schools would be in every way as excellent as our state primary had been. Wrong.

We were not inherently wealthy but made this difficult decision for our children.

Would we have paid for an independent school had it been on the same level as the local states? No. We were paying for a cut above in terms of teaching and facilities, not just a pretty uniform and a hat.

No one should tell me how to spend my money.

Yes, state schooling should be better, how can anyone deny that but unless there is an input of money and better teachers (obviously I am not denigrating teachers per se - one of our children taught in the state system for eight years until they could no more cope with the rising bureaucracy and lack of funding which affected the class on a daily basis. My child ended up subsidising the school by £100 a month buying paper and paint, etc. This amount was from the 1990's, so would be much more now.).

To remove first rate schools because parents can afford them is ludicrous. Should we ban Harrods and Waitrose too?

Raise taxes and improve state schooling. Tighten up on some poor behaviour in these schools which undermines the education of all these children (example: there are often two policemen at bus stops outside our local state school. This is in a desirable area!). This will take decades to come to fruition.

I have no problem with state schools being improved or paying for them but please, do not tell me that my children and grandchildren should not have the best, purely because yours can't. Life isn't fair.

There, I've said it now.....

PS I have not answered the OP's question. I do not know why other royal families do not choose their state education system but would guess that they also want the very best for their children. I should imagine that being royal makes very little difference to one wanting the very best, if suited to an individual child.

I have no personal knowledge of independent schools at primary level so am not qualified to comment (although many posters here think they are) but to have the very best teaching, facilities and spark off other bright children, perhaps independent is the way to go....

volver

Mollygo
I wish, Volver! Not enough classrooms in those days, we already used the hall and our classes were already split age groups. I had R/Y1 and TAs didn’t really exist. Such fun!
Thankfully we have expanded a lot since then.
Buy a Portacabin wink

I'm full of bright ideas ?

It was a bright idea and the LEA did provide a double one as a stop gap until we could afford to extend the original building. I was one lucky user, having been promoted to Y1/Y2 and only 30 children by then. Wonderful experience!
The children learned that with no piping, their porta-classroom had no water.
Through the holes in the walls, they learned a lot about material used for insulation.
They learned to measure liquid by measuring the rain that had collected in the buckets from the oft mended holes in roof. Parents learned a lot about insisting their children go to school in coats, because otherwise, having to run to the main school for the toilet with no coat meant sitting in wet clothes.
Re behaviour and manners, I have no idea about Royal children, but certainly the number of parental objections to their children being reprimanded for bad behaviour and manners has increased.
Is that the same in private schools do you know.

Casdon

Back to your original question varian, apparently there are no private schools in Finland, very few in Norway, a few more in Sweden, and 25% of schools in Denmark are independent. It’s not one size fits all. In the UK 7% of children are educated independently, so it’s not as elite as you would think - it probably would be more so if the Royal children had governesses.

7% is NOT elite ???

That's interesting NanKate your DS's Eton experience!
My DB was sent to a boys' only boarding school at an early age and he hated it. Even now that he's a grandfather, he shudders to think of his years there. Some of his friends were abused by sadistic teachers
He was sent because our mother, a widow, thought it important for him to have male role models to teach him manly things! What a joke.

Annie1 now you mention it, I can just imagine the chaos if royal children went to state schools in this country. The tabloid journalists would be everywhere, offering vast sums to parents willing to pass on snippets via their offsprings relating to the young Royals performance in the classroom and play ground. Cameras would be everywhere, invading the privacy of every child, not only the Royal ones.

Whereas I agree, the scions of other royal families may attend state schools, but surely the difference is that like them or not, our Royal Family is the most well known one in the world, and the one whose doings create the most interest.. No others, for example, have their wedding ceremonies televised all round the world, or so many Heads of State in person attending significant occasions. They are different and for the time being at least we (and they) have to live with it.

If you have the means to send your children or grandchildren to a private school, why shouldn't you. It is a personal choice. However, I can't imagine a state school with hundreds of pupils would be suitable for the children of our future king for many reasons, security being one of them.

Mollygo - perhaps some parents think the smaller classes, more individual attention, better qualified teachers only teaching subjects they are qualified in, better facilities etc etc will be good for their children and if they can afford the fees (even if it means hardship to do so) it's their choice.

If it is good enough for Diane Abbott's children why is it any different for the Royals?

Our wider family is a mix of state and privately educated children. So far they are all getting similar University degrees wherever they have been. I would guess that security is a huge part of the royal children's education.

I did so enjoy the week or so without the usual suspects posting their political views.

How rude.

Yes it's difficult when people post differing views to your own.

Most sensible people realise that these children would attract a lot of attention at any school, but state schools could not possibly deal with their required protection.

Once more the usual Grans start these discussions that will go nowhere and are started just to wind people up. I did so enjoy the week or so without the usual suspects posting their political views. I am sorry for them because the majority of British people do support the Monarchy. At least if the Scots get their independence they can give up the Monarchy if that is what they want.

If you conducted a poll in England I am sure the majority support the Monarchy and I also think most sensible people are not upset that the Roysl children will be educated privately. Quite a few people among UK grans had their children educated privately for a variety of reasons.

You will not stop people from trying to improve their children's life chances.

There is no way Conservatives or, I think Labour, would fund in the way the only country that doesn't have independent schools has done. The Finnish schools make it unnecessary to go elsewhere. In this country, with our tacit agreement to underfunding, we would swiftly have a huge tutoring marketplace as they do in Germany and the USA. After-school classes would probably thrive, as they do in China.

These markets hardly exist in Finland because they have made the need redundant; the schools provide. This country would not pay the taxes governments would have us believe are necessary to have such schools.

Posters can be as rude as they like and as morally superior. However, unless you can persuade people to pay for an education that negates the need for anyone to pay for private services, those external markets will be used by parents to help their children, and no one will be able to stop them.

Slightly off piste. I the 1980s there was a nationwide competition for school children to write an essay and the children who wrote the top 20 essays got a free 2 weeks at Eton as boarders. Two boys, my son being one of them, from my son’s grammar school got places.

We took him on his first day and we were all very excited. We were allowed to get our sons settled into their room. Well to say I was horrified was an understatement. Each tiny bedroom was beyond basic, the wardrobe was a cabinet with a piece of dirty hessian type clothe hanging down. The bed was like in a prison cell with a thin cover. There was a tiny table to work on. I was so sad to be leaving him there.

We collected him 2 weeks later. He had had the time of his life. As well as study they had been for picnics and excursions around Eton and Windsor.

He has gone on to be a children’s author.

Pity Boris and Rishi didn't go to ' chavvy schools ', it might make them understand what 'eat' or 'heat' means.
So that is where the great divide comes from, black, white, straight, homosexual, chavvy, private, loads of money, just getting by, non-paid carer, paid carer( zero hours contract) etc.

volver

^just that the nearest schools were full.^

That's what I mean, and I don't mean it argumentatively.

Society seems to accept that its OK for small children to be bussed 6 miles away when there is a closer school that is "full". Schools shouldn't be "full" If your child needs to be educated, they should be close enough to pop home for lunch! I know that this is how it is, but why do we put up with it? Why aren't we putting pressure on governments to fix education even at this level?

I suspect its because many people are shrugging their shoulders and just saying, "oh well, education is f***ed, we'll just pay privately."

That’s very difficult to do, Volver when the government is set on closing the lovely village school, near home, that your child attends. Not just ours, either, but a whole raft of small schools.

The local parents, including us, fought tooth and nail to keep our school open, round about the time of the millennium, and my DD’s benefited from the advantages of that education.

Sadly, two decades on, the school has now closed for good and is about to be sold off while local children are bussed off to schools outwith their home area.

PS We had a portacabin. It was grey-looking and stunk of mould. It was eventually replaced, after another campaign by parents. They’re really expensive, £10,000 a week it cost our LA!

I would think whatever education they choose will be paid for by the taxpayer, who I am sure will be more than happy to do so. Cost of living, fuel bills, who cares, as long as these entitled snobs can educate their children anyway they choose.

DaisyAnne

volver

Behaviour and manners are very important for the royal children; not a high priority for state schools.

I actually just choked on my coffee.

Do you think your views are completely unprejudiced and unbiased, volver? All of us have biased views. This is just one persons although I agree, it is rather sweeping.

DaisyAnne I don't know what I've done to rattle your chain, but everything I post becomes subject to your interpretation and a little bit of character assassination. Even things that I post that are meant to be light hearted. A person could get paranoid.

why is there not a facility box to tick when we like a response - like the newspapers do ??

My kids went to a chavvy state school .,… my daughter is a child psychologist now ….. but would send her two kids to private education if she could afford it!

Not only the royal family have private health care, own planes,
attend private schools.

only one member of the royal family wears a crown and no one is expected to bow, it’s a choice for anyone who does

Perhaps Daftbag1 meant a kind of social etiquette? I'm thinking maybe more in terns of dress, appearance, dining manners, handshakes etc. Yes, it's all a load of bonkers traditions, but the royal children need to know how to behave with a sense of occasion. (I don't think we will see a repetition of Louis stuffing sweets and sticking his tongue out in public once he is at school!)

volver

^Behaviour and manners are very important for the royal children; not a high priority for state schools.^

I actually just choked on my coffee.

Do you think your views are completely unprejudiced and unbiased, volver? All of us have biased views. This is just one persons although I agree, it is rather sweeping.