My husband and I are in the process of choosing a school for four children. (My son to a previous relationship is currently in a private school but it is his last year in primary) We haven't been able to decide to send the kids public or private. My husband wants to send them to a public school as he thinks they will have the same opportunities either way. I am leaning more towards private education. We are not well off and choosing a private education for our kids will mean a lot of sacrifices financially for the whole family. My husband would rather the kids go public and save some of the money we would spend on school fees for when they are older first car, university ect. I some what agree with him but I haven't been to any public school's yet that I like (compared to the private schools). I don't know what to do. So I guess my question is how do you decide on a school? And is it better to save the money to help them with other expenses when they are older? (We won't be able to do both. With private school fees being $3500 a year)
5 Replies
It's a tough one, we personally decided to go private for our children for numerous reasons, public schools weren't very good in our area, a lot of misbehaving children and didn't want my kids education to suffer in class, the private school I chose was a lot smaller than public schools so everyone knows everyone and is a lovely environment, private schools tend to have great morals and caring towards other students due to the catholic side which I want for my kids, and me personally I would rather pay for my kids education and go without luxuries as I feel there childhood is the making of there adult life
Id go public school for primary school, really the difference is insignificant! Ive worked in both private and public and unless you live in a particularly bad area you wouldn't know the difference besides ridiculously over priced uniforms! Unless your particularly set on a religous education. Then start thinking about high school. But honestly there are just as many choices in public regarding subjects and sometimes more than there are in private. There is nothing wrong with private but unless your child has some kind of special need Id save the money for when they are older or use it for extra curricular activities they want to do but can't do in school.
PS I remember catching the bus home from school with a certain private school, lets just say private school is no guarantee of good behaviour!
could you do public for primary and then private for highschool? you might be in a better place financially by the time highschool comes around and as mentioned above theres not alot of difference in primary between public and private (at least not where i live, actually most people prefer the public over the private) my only advice is to look for a public school with the least amount of kids! goodluck
i actually chose public as i wanted my children to be able to mix with a variety of students from all walks of life as opposed to a minority who tend to go to private schools. in adult life we must learn to deal with all sorts of people and not be sheltered and i thought it was great for my kids mingle and learn alongside the poor, the rich, the whites, the blacks, and everything inbetween as it teached tolerance and understanding. just my thoughts!
I struggled with this also, I went for a couple of interviews and 1 school didn't have swimming (so they were out, we are in North Qld) one private school, asked me why they should except my daughter!! I thought that was rich being that I was paying for it, they also spent a lot of time on religious education - I believe if there was a spare hour in my child's day I would rather them be learning English, maths or reading a book. We ended up going public - they had great sporting, diverse cultural activities, a great library etc.
This is very individual, my advice, pick the school that has the best qualities to you.