Educational choices should be based on child’s personality, not cost
Some children will thrive in any kind of school environment, says Susan Hamlyn, director of The Good Schools Guide. “They’re robust and will get the best out of everything because they’re socially confident and will just sail through and do fine wherever they are.”
Other children, inevitably, do need something different. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes, that means (if you can) you’ve got to pay for it.
Alexis Curson, a mother-of- four, has 16-year-old boy-and- girl twins who attend different schools: one at a local state, and the other at a co-educational independent school situated in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
“We sent our son to a private school because he wouldn’t have survived in the system,” she says.
“It’s nothing to do with him being male. The system was failing him and there just isn’t the same level of support for children with dyslexia or learning difficulties in the state schools in this area.”
Although twins, both children have very different personalities and learning styles: “How can one school suit all?” asks Ms Curson.
Of course, sending your children to the same school has to be the ideal. Not only does it arguably make family life so much easier if you’re not driving in two different directions, it also gives siblings a sense of shared upbringing – a shared experience.
But as Ms Hamlyn points out, sometimes sending them to the same school isn’t the ideal: “Your children will be much happier if they’re at the right school for them,” she says.
Parents send their children to different schools for a number of reasons. It could be that the children have radically different learning styles and one needs much more individual support and a quieter environment.
Another common reason for separating children is because one sibling is incredibly dominant and the other is always in their shadow. Some argue that it’s better for competitive siblings to be educated in separate places so they’re not always compared or likened to one another.
“I was actually advised to send my two boys to different schools,” says a mother-of-three, who lives in Buckinghamshire.
“We decided to keep our eldest child in the private sector for stability. He’d been to three different primary schools in the space of four years, and we wanted his confidence to grow. We felt that the facilities provided by a private school could offer guidance and a higher level of support.
“But our younger son was much more independent, organised and confident. When he passed his 11-plus entrance exam, we had no qualms about sending him to the local grammar school. Although it may lack the same high standard in facilities, it historically has a much better academic reputation.”
The main reason that a lot of parents don’t end up sending their children into different sectors is because they feel guilty for spending money on one child and not on the other. But most children, so long as they’re happy and they’re learning and thriving, don’t think about it in terms of money.
“If you don’t tell them ‘we’re paying for this child, but we’re not paying for you’ they wouldn’t even know or notice, or care,” says Ms Hamlyn.
Obviously, if you’ve got one child at a school that is leaking and downat-heel, lacking resources and where the teachers keep leaving, while the other child is at some posh private school with hundreds of acres of playing fields – the difference will be fairly marked.
Karen Richards, a mother-ofthree, sent her daughter to an independent day school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, while her two sons attended a local state school.
“We never intended to send our children to private school,” she says.
“Our eldest child attended the local comprehensive, but when our second child, the most confident of all of them, followed her brother, she just wasn’t herself. She was very unhappy and her work was suffering, so we made the decision to move her over to a private school.”
The important thing to remember is that you need to take into consideration the needs of each individual child and what’s best for them.
“Parents in general are so anxious about private schooling,” says Ms Hamlyn. “But you have to remember that children are only anxious or bothered about it if the parents are. I always tell parents that unless you are incredibly unlucky, what comes from home is always far more important and far more influential than what happens in the classroom.”
So the lesson is, value your own input, think about each individual child, and if you do send them into different sectors then be honest about the reasons behind your decision.