0:00 – Trailer / Intro
0:51 – Investing in Your Child vs Investing in the Markets
6:05 – The Power of Social Interaction and Networking
8:57 – The Teachers and the Schooling
11:11 – Selection Criteria
12:35 – Our 7+ Student Case Study & Bancroft’s New Pricing
17:24 – Mixing Primary and Secondary & Our Forest School Experiences
19:10 – The Numbers: Private School vs. Investing
20:44 – The Spreadsheet on Screen
21:50 – Private vs State: Earnings and Life Outcomes
23:41 – Correlation and Causation
24:32 – Why Do People Pay for Private Schools?
27:26 – The 3 Main Options for Your Child
37:35 – The Greatest Minds Were All Tutored
40:10 – Parent Case Studies: What They’re Sacrificing
53:38 – Should Education Be Free?
55:48 – Why Tax Bills Should Show a Breakdown
59:50 – Where Tax Money Gets Wasted
1:02:29 – Would We Send Our Kids to Private School?
1:04:17 – Course Information and Outro

Trailer / Intro

The social interaction is probably the most important part of school. Networkis your net worth. The people in those networks will be powerfulsomeday and will be able to help you. You could put a flat deposit in Londonfor that price. In fact, you could probably buy a flat that price. The greatest minds were often taught by tutors. So, if you’re going down thepurely educational route, tutor all the way. that used to be the reserve of, youknow, the richest in society, the princes and princesses. The fact that it’s now fairly mainstream is prettymassive. So why do people still actually fail?The Education Lounge podcast. [Music]

Investing in Your Child vs Investing in the Markets

You’ve been investing for quite a long time, right? Yeah. How long have you been investing for? I’d saymaybe 12 years. 12 years. So, in that time, you probably had a lot of time forthings to start to compound and Yeah. Yeah. I’ve only started, I think, duringco so what, five years ago? I started veryslowly, like just putting in 10 pounds, see what would happen. And now I’ve started to put more and more in. Um, andI’m starting to see a little bit of the effects of compound growth after five yearsif you had £185,000 and a child.Yeah. What would what would be your options in terms of this private school thing?What would be your options? What would you uh decide to do? Although maybe youcan tell tell us what you would decide to do towards the end. you have time tothink about it, calculate based on everything we’re going to talk about. Yeah. ButI think I know your answer, but let’s see. Well, I think when you have a child,you want them to be independent. Mhm.Yeah. Uh, and I think about the the cost of failure for having a child where itdoesn’t work out as it were. What do you mean? So, so if you if you have a child that ends up like not doing as well.Yeah. Not doing not doing not successful, there’s there’s a higher cost of failure to thatin that regard. You’re putting your eggs in. Well, if you got multiple children, maybe it’s less of less of a issue. Butfrom an investor standpoint, I think parents have that on in their mind alittle bit like somewhat unconsciously that okay, this is my child. I’m goingto invest a lot in in my child because my child is, you know,everything to me. And I think with independent schools, there is this sortof mental calculus going on because parents understand that it’s an investment, butthey also probably don’t consider there might be other ways of investing in their child’s future that could pay offin a big way, too. But I don’t think anything necessarily preparesvery few things are so reliant well so geared towards achild’s growth than investing in their schooling. But if you in invest that money into saya property or the stock market which I think is a better investment to be honest um in terms of how it grows overin terms in terms of monetary value. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there’s very few things like an independent schoolbecause it it gives your child maybe the chance to be independent of, you know,if they do better in the long run, if they have that network of people around them in the long run. Remember, networkis your net worth. This is something I was going to come on to today actually. I think that’s the main reason to godown the Yeah, this is something I was definitely going to come on to. So I think we kind of get your answerfrom that. Yeah, I it depends. It depends on your interpretation of whether you can you can get a betterreturn from putting that money into some securities or assetsor whether investing in your child’s education is the best route to a return. And in some cases it will be because ifyour child is shows amazing potential in a certain regard and they’re that sort of individual that can get the most outof it then it probably will be a better investmentbecause investing in yourself and uh your skills and your abilities andyour network and that kind of thing that can pay big over a long time.So that’s my view. It depends essentially. Yeah, I would say I’m similar. It doesdepend. UmI think I mean to cut a long story short, if youhave the money and it’s not going to make that much of a dent to you, because that is the case for some people, then go for it.Yeah. Um, and generally speaking, those types of people probably understand financesand stock markets and property. Yeah. Because that’s generally how most people get to Yeah. Or they’ve got a very veryhigh paying job or they’re Yeah. Um, but that’s not always the case. There are people No, I’m saying generallyspeaking. Yeah. majority there’s a lot of people in the private school worldwhere I don’t know the parents own own a big business or something like that and thus they’re able toafford it and they understand the importance of connections and networks. Yeah. So this is what what

The Power of Social Interaction and Networking

I was going to talk about is the whole network thing. UmI went to I was curious. I went to this um property seminar thing. Mhm. A fewmonths ago. And the guy that was talking was saying how he puts his kids into private school. Um was obviously he’sgot tens of millions or whatever in property. But he says he doesn’t do it for the education.He does it for the level of people he has access to. Yeah. Obviously, he’s a propertyguy, so he’s going to want investors and whatever else. Yeah. Um, so when they go to like a kid’sbirthday, he’s talking to people that are talking about stocks and finances and property and all that stuff.Whereas it probably it won’t always be the case that that that sort of thing wouldhappen in other schools. No. Yeah. I I I honestly think that’s that’s theirunique advantage there. There is obviously you’ve got umthere’s a subset of the population who put their children through private school because of the smaller classsizes. It’s not that much smaller, is it? It’s quite It can be a little bitlike like as in every little helps, especially those really small ones. Uh,but I don’t think it’s necessarily the rightreason to send your child to a private school. I think the main reason is always connections. Who you know or whothey’ll get to know, who they will surround themselves with. Um, and it’s amindset thing, isn’t it? A lot of the time. Yeah. And and the fact is is that you’ll pay a more for a more expensivenetwork for a better network. So if you were a multi-millionaire,you would send your child to Eaton or Harrow or somewhere like that. It’s justhow it would be because it just makes sense. If you send them to Ethan or Harrow or somewhere like that, imaginewho they’re mixing with. Like you might not maybe like the person that comes outof the other side or whatever. Maybe you will, but they will be in,you know, the the people in those networks will be powerfulsomeday and will be able to help you. And that’s why people pay 60,000 a year,send their children to those sort of s let’s say super independents for lack ofa better word. Yeah. What about the schooling though?

The Teachers and the Schooling

Because we’ve had uh Ian folks on from Forest and we probably spoke about VATlast time. Mhm. Link somewhere. Um he he was saying that the teachers from hisperspective weren’t always that good. Yeah. Um I I I think that’s probably Idon’t think it’s about the schooling. I think it’s more about the people because No, but like in a private school theycan they can hire who they want. Yeah. Whereas in a public school they would beable to hire they they’d have to hire qualified teachers and go throughprocedures and systems and things. Yeah. I think they they’ve got their ownlike perspectives on so so every school will have their ownso private schools will have their own um agenda for hiring and I think they’re looking for they’ll be looking for acertain style of certain kind of person. Yeah. I think even the hiring is like alot of it is who you know probably that situation. No. Yeah. There’s a lot ofpeople who like our English teacher our English teacher uh went to the schooland then got hired by the school. Yeah. No, there’s there’s there’s a lot of that in private school and got married at the school like you know there’s awhich not you know wouldn’t be the case really for um the other schools.Yeah. So there is a but I think across the board there’sprobably not that great of a difference between a teacher and a state school orand even educationally there are some state schools that are so good andespecially colleges that are so like six form colleges that are really reallyhigh level and very hard to get into. And then we’ve talked about grammar schools. Obviously, grammar schools giveyou that. Obviously, you’ll be with people who are your child will be with people who are very academically strongbecause that’s how they they’ve got some form of selection. Um, the higher the

Selection Criteria

selection criteria in a school, the morerenown it will have. Soit’s the scarcity creates value situation essentially. So it’s like eaten. So you need a lot of money andyou actually your child needs to pass the the test. So there’s both uh moneyselection and a and I mean they can also choose to giveyou a place because they also as we’ve said many times when you go in and putyour child in a independent school they are also interviewing the parent in to some extent. Yeah. And they are gaugingwhether you’re the right sort of person. So there’s just selection everywhere.the best the better the school, the harder it is to get into, the more thechild will benefit down the line. If it’s just a case of paying some money, so non- selective independent schools,um I’d say that they’re not usually worth investing in because they don’tthey have limited criteria for um selection and thus you get lowervalue. There’s less value in paying for it. But if you think about like a school like Bankrosoft,

Our 7+ Student Case Study & Bancroft’s New Pricing

um it’s able to he hasn’t suffered that much from the VA that VAT. So this iswhat I was going to talk about with um with Bankro. So I have we’ve got a yearone student uh going for seven plusand they’re in St. Orbins um and they were looking to doBankraftoft in year three. And with this VAT thing, they’re doublethinking. What the start of year two or or are they doing in year entry? They trying toget in into year three or they’re doing seven plus. Oh, so start of year two.No, they go in year. Oh, you you mean taking the exam there and then going in? Okay. Yeah. The exams in uh Yeah.January of year two. Yeah. But they go in in year three. So they were they’re looking to do seven plus to go intobankroft from year three onwards up until GCSEs or maybe six form. I don’tknow. They’re um double thinking it now. Yeah, I know we’ve done an episode on the VAT thing. Yeah.Um they’re thinking maybe they stay as an Orbins until and then and then go forBen at 11 plus. Yeah. And I think I said I think 11 plus would be morecompetitive. Mhm. Um but obviously it’s a also a money thing. It’s 20%uh VAT. So what are your thoughts on that? And then does that does that change yourum your initial well choice at the beginning aboutinvesting versus private school fees? Well, I went to a state school before going to anindependent school or private school. Yeah. Andalthough there were I think there were quite a lot of negatives from in stateschool because it wasn’t challenging for me and that was probably the mainreason why I went for selection I suppose. ButI also think it it means that you you do mix with awider variety of people, right? But beforeschool, so I’d actually say it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have your child maybe not in the sameenvironment the entire time. Yeah. I mean, he’s already a snor. He’s already Yeah. But at least it’s like a differentis a different environment to bankrupt. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s still a independent school. Yeah. Um but in terms of the 20%because the jump for bankroft fees is quite substantial. Yeah. Would thatchange your opinion on anything we’ve spoken about so far? Would it mean you would probably more likely to go downand stick it into a stocks and shares ISO for the child and give it to them when they turn 18 or continue sendingyour child to St. Orbins and then put like put the difference intoYeah. Well, but if they had the difference, I I think I would But if you had the difference, you’d be going tobankroft. Yeah, I think I would. I think I think the overall benefit well the thethe argument for sending your child to through 7 plus is that it’s easier toget in and although I I would generally agree with that. Um,it could also be harder for some some some certain students because then they could not have might not have developedenough. Exactly. Seven plus is a bit of a a weird thing cuz it’s it is verychallenging. Um, it is very very challenging because you’ve got to push students who probablyaren’t ready for like formal assessment and that sort of thing into formalassessments way before they’re really ready for it. Yeah. Especially if they’re like summer babies. Yeah. That’squite that at that age, those few months make a massive massive difference. Soyou’ve got to kind of look at your child, gauge whether well will gettingat 7 plus mean that they have some sortof they’ve got a bigger an absolutely massive advantage and it wouldn’tprevent them from being able to get in at 11 plus.So I I think that’s the main argument, get them in then. But I actually think having a different primary school

Mixing Primary and Secondary & Our Forest School Experiences

transition to secondary school is actually a good thing. See, I didn’thave that. Yeah. You just did Yeah. Orins and then forest from year three toYeah. Sigm. Yeah. But I think sometimes you had a betterrelation because the way they did it at Forest used to be the triangle. No, wait a minute. Diamonddiamond structure. So what you mean? It was mixed at mixed at primary and thenthe No, the classes were separate. Yeah. But you mixed at break time. Yeah.But was that true at primary school? Yeah. Yeah. It was an all boys class.Okay. So, but you had a lot more mixing, I think, probably than Yeah. Yeah. UmI think I think it was it was good how how how we did a state school, but wehad a class of like 40 kids, so probably not as much attention. No,ours was like low 20s. Yeah. So it itwas really really different and I did feel um the level of sort of pastoral carefrom at Forest was really good and that sort of attention was was really good.But it worked for me for them. For me at that time in life it was exactly what Ineeded. So it it worked out in that sense. Um,

The Numbers: Private School vs. Investing

so I have a basic spreadsheet here, annualcontribution and then two different levels, 5% or 7% rate. And if you’re investing in,you know, S&P 500 or something like that, you can probably up that tonine. Yeah. 10 on a good day. Um, and the number of years. So say you’re inthe school for how many years? We we thinking from year three. We can do two different calculations. So I know theannual contribution is 18,000 for here, but I think bankroft is more.So um do you know the bankroft fees off the top of your head? It’s probably prettyexpensive by now. Like it’s probably more than the median. So that’s themedian, isn’t it? 18,000. Is that per That’s per term, isn’t it? Per term. Excluding that including 8grand a term so it’s more like 24 and a half. Yeah.Is that that’s excluding that? That one’s including that including 8.1 times. So let’s say let’s say bankro. Sowe’ve got 8.1 5% 7%. And how many years? Let’s say wedo one that’s from year three up to year 13. Yeah. So I say 11 years.This says 14. Okay. So let’s go for primary and secondary school. 11 years.

The Spreadsheet on Screen

If you were to compound that at a 5% rate for the time of the period of uhyears that they would have been in school for primary and secondary, you’re left with 345,000of 5% and 383 and a halfof at 7%. Now, you could do one that is you’ll be able to buy a shoe box inLondon. Not in 11 years time you won’t. Yeah,you might be able to do one for if you if it was to not compound itwould be £267,300300 without compounding.So with compounding it’s an extra like 70k. Yeah. At 5% doubling it at five. Yeah.Yeah. And then I mean not going to do it now. 9 9% 10%obviously it’s going to be like more probably verging on half a million. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think aboutthat? Well on average people who go to independent schools

Private vs State: Earnings and Life Outcomes

Mhm. Yes, I think there was a study done by the Sutton Trust and it worked outthat I think the child between so the student between the ages of30 26 26 and 42earn60 196,000more than state school student. So,and they tended to be quicker in terms of career progression. Who who do people would go toindependent schools, right? And I’ve got to say thatanecdotally, I think that’s true. So, it definitely gives you an advantage.I think it depends on who you are because there’ll be a lot of people that would have gone to state schools andbeen gifted or or like just hungry for it. Umthink of a like there’s a causation think of um Gary Stevenson. Yeah,there’s a from literally from down the road from like like two two roads away. Yeah, but you have to work really hardbut he was really talented at Yeah. You need a hell of a lot of talent.But I’m saying and he he went to a school around here somewhere. But if if you require a bit less talent, that’sand you can get some sort of advantage, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.Yeah. Yeah. It’s the whole um the uh unfair advantage thing, isn’t it? That’s Yeah. Um you you do do what you can withthe cards that you’re dealt essentially with um with with this as well. There’s the

Correlation and Causation

problem of correlation and causation. Yeah, just it’s it’s all over the place.Obviously, people look at bankroof students and they’ll be, “Oh, look how great that student is doing or eaten orwhatever.” It’s like, “Oh, look, he’s prime minister.” And people people just go, “Oh, okay. Then that means thatcaused that that that’s led to this.” Yeah. People aren’t very good at the whole gray areathing. They’re very much like this caused this, zeros and ones, black andwhite. Whereas anything in the in life is usually a bunch of differentvariables. Some that play a big factor, some that don’t. I’m not saying that that’s not the case cuz it probablyprobably is in that situation, but um yeah. Yeah. Um so why do people still

Why Do People Pay for Private Schools?

actually pay? Is that a correlation causation thing? as in people people think that it’soffering well there’s the whole network thing which I think is very realthat is real yeah and and I’ve I’ve seen it as well like I know it’s realand it’s even more the case in you know those schools like Eaton to some extentthough bankrofts and um and and forest forest less so but alittle bit there there There is a network effect at play no matter whatschool you go to anyway. That will always be the even in state school like if you got a successful state schoolfriend or whatever then that can translate to success if you’ve in ifyou’re in their network potentially because you can you have that hook in. But I think it is that correlationcausation thing. people look at, you know, this student who’s achieving greatthings at this school or whatever, and the independent schools will will shout about it. It’s like Yeah. you sell sellthe results. But I think it’s more just like it’s more than that. There was there’s the social bubble that you havewhen you’re in in a school like that. Mhm. Um you have smaller class sizeslike you said, more opportunities to do extracurricular things. Yeah. Drama,music, sports. Loads of Olympians and rugby players um can owe their Yeah.success to um independent schools because theywouldn’t have had the chance to do that unless they were Yeah. We’ve had a few famous ones from our school, haven’t we?Yeah. Um Nasain. Nasain.Papa Papa from our from our from our class who’s now playing Snape in uh inthe new Harry Potter. Uh Ian Bill from Eastenders. Oh yeah,he’s from our school. Um who else? There’s a few people. Yeah,they’re the main ones. I think there was a terrorist guy as well. Yeah, we don’t talk about that.Yeah. No, that’s that’s very much the independent school. They’re very good at marketing. They they are businesses.They they are businesses. So that’s that the fact that they’ve been able to get away with not paying VAT for all thistime. Yeah. And people like us still have toI mean it is too high. 20% is ridiculous. But I mean I think that’s across theboard as in Yeah. Yeah. We should not be paying 20%. UmYeah. And it’s not even just like we have just that tax. There’s Yeah. so many of them. Okay. So, we got a quick

The 3 Main Options for Your Child

exercise to um take a look at three different paths. We’ve looked at a path of uh investing it in the stock market.Mhm. We have three different paths here. If I can get this off and the first pathis full private. The second path isprivate for just six form. And the third one isgoing to a state school and using that extra budget or whatever budget that you have left over on services like ourslike tuition and extra extra things. So full private roughly 14year spend um andprobably I think it’s probably on the lower end but 260k without VAT 310k including VATthat would get you a class size of about 9 to1 specialist staff the facilities thenetwork we spoke about uh and it’s good for families who valuelike all through continuity and like going kind of like what I did going through the Mhm. having that continuity.Yeah. If you’ve got a kid who’s very anxious like in different like doesn’t likechange too much. Yeah, I was okay with that. It was more um personal stuffwhich I’m not going to go into, but it was more having a good space to go where it’slike you get the pastoral care and you get to do music and things I wantedto do. So now there are obviously pros and cons to everything in life. Um we’venot spoke about the opportunity cost too much. So the opportunity cost therewould be Like you said, you could put a flat deposit in London for that price. Infact, you could probably buy a flat for that price. Uh maybe in 14 years time it would probably be more like a deposit,but it’s probably a shoe box in 14 years time. Yeah. But that willarguably set you up or set your child up more potentially. And yeah, there’sthere’s the whole financial versus sort of theirtheir well-being and experience and intellect. Yeah. Yeah. So, what if wedidn’t do that? What if we went just to the six form?I think that’s the best that’s the best way to do it. Yeah. Well, a lot of caseswell if finances are an issue generally. So it’s not like you’re throwing moneyin the wind. Sending your child to a six form gives them the networkat the most crucial time when they need it. I think the network is probablymore crucial in primary but for the parents cuz you go to like sports days and yougo to birthday parties and Well, yeah. If you Yeah. If you’ve run a business and you havea massive need to network with that that if that’s your clientele, that is ourclientele. We should we should start having children. Um so that would cost you 37kpreva 44 with so you get even smaller classes at alevel uni prep coaching two years to tap the network which is what you said andit’s good academic self starters who need a boost for uni applications. Yeah,there’s also there’s also some schools that are very very good at getting youinto say Oxford and Cambridge. Um, and againyou a similar a similar thing is happening at Oxford and Cambridge in terms of the networkeffects and if you’re going for certain industries as well there is a route inthrough those universities. I mean, it’s by no means guaranteed, but it’sif you can increase the probability of of success in something. Yeah. See, whatI didn’t like about it was I wasn’t planning to go to either of those. Didn’t want to either. Uhbut it seemed like they just gave you less focus if you weren’t trying to hit their numbers.Yeah. I don’t think I got any focus on what I wanted to do. Yeah, I missed the bus to go to Oxford.So that’s that’s just one of those things as in like I had I’d been I’dthought about going and applying and then I didn’t in the end basicallybecause first of all I was like I wasn’t really 100% sure. I think a lot of people who really want to go to Oxfordand Cambridge they really really really want to go. They’ve got a big desire to go. Yeah. Um and I couldn’t say I hadmuch of one. Whether or not I could get in, I don’t know. Like Yeah. But well,for that route, uh six form route, there’s limited time to settle. There’sselective entry, so it’s even more difficult to get in. And it’s still not cheap. No. No. Is it?Yeah, it’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper. It’s cheaper, but again, there’sopportunity cost there as well. And then finally, the state school and the extras,tutoring and music or whatever else you want to do outside of the state school.4.7K a year for extra stuff, which is a 65k total asopposed to 310. Mhm. Uh that will get youapparently weekly 2-hour bespoke tuition, 1.6K per year, after schoolsport and music activities and that sort of thing. Yeah. So I’m going to run through the rest of it so we cancontinue. The pros is it’s obviously more customizable. You don’t have to doexactly what the school are telling you. If you if you prefer you want to do more of this and less of that, you can you can tailor it to Yeah. the key the kidsneeds uh interests and that sort of thing. They still get to network withtheir peers in those different activities. I think about, you know, the kids that go to gymnasticsor the boys that go and do football on a Saturday or whatever. There’s still that parent networkand it frees up 14K a year to invest. Mhm. Which if we went back to the ROI sheet, can still compound that to getgood results over 14 years, like 10%. Uh and the cons, last thing,it requires the per the parent to uh work out all the logistics and that sort of stuff. Whereas if you’re paying theuh school fees, they organize that for you, right? Your music is this time,your sports is at that time. Yeah, it depends on the tuition center though. I feel like that’s less of a No, not notjust the tuition center. Like tuition and think about all the parents we They’re like children. Well, but I think parents always need to think aboutlogistics and that’s their but this is more so they’re going to have to do tuition drop offs, football drop offs,gymnastics, go over to karate, go over to So whereas a lot of that is covered inside independent schools and againthere’s no builtin network. You have to sort of go and create that yourselfand the tuition quality varies depending on where you go. Yeah, I think there’s two massive things though there. I thinkthe cost overall of going to a private school is much much higher than the rawfigures and yeah also in as I said earlier that’s just the fees that’s notinstruments uniform books bags trips that sort of stuff if you if you thinkabout it this way as well you need to consider obviously the quality ofindependent school that you’re going to and then you’ll pay more money same with tuition as well like But it’sless of a of a thing. But I think with the private school, it’s so important ifyou’re selecting a private school to go be ambitious with it. Otherwise, you might as well not, you know.Um, you might as well do the tuition and the and the state school. That’s thethat’s a mix best best of both. Yeah. And and to be honest, if you’re looking purely for the academics,tuition is a million times better than school for your ability to personalizethe class like the teacher ratios, the content, all of it. Andyou you know and um I think also that building that relationship as well ifyou’ve got enough time with the the student you can have a stronger relationship and and a longerrelationship potentially with a tutor and a student.Um we how how many times have we we’ve known students and they’re like, “Oh, wedon’t have this physics teacher or we don’t have chemistry teacher here every year.” Yeah. All the time. Or oh no,she’s not like the one teacher’s been in, they’ve got supply and they got another supply teacher and stuff likethat. There’s a lot of chaos in the system. I know that there’s less inprivate school, but not always like Yeah, we had cover a few times, you know. Um so if you’re looking for thatconsistency of education actually tuition is and I’ve made this point like

The Greatest Minds Were All Tutored

quite a few times but um to sort of students and actually howlucky they are that they’re having tuition because that used to be the reserve of you know the richest insociety the princes and princesses that wasn’t something that people had. Thefact that it’s now fairly mainstream is pretty massive.Yeah. But as a child, you as a kid, you don’t really uh see that. I get it. Likeif I was told, “Go Saturday morning, go to another class,” I’d be like, “Are youjoking?” But obviously now you you see you see itdifferently. Yeah. And the greatest minds were often taught by tutors.Like you think think about uh who’s someone really really famous? Um the guywho invented the first computer Charles Babage. Yeah, Charles Babage wasprivately tutoed. I think Isaac Newton was privately tutoed. All of these people were like if you think about likephilosophers in they all had mentors. They learned they learned from anindividual. Yeah. So that Margelius learned fromAristotle. I can’t remember. Something like Yeah, probably. Um, so people howcan No, that can’t be true. You got a Greek and a Roman. That’s definitely not true. Yeah.Uh, Plato. So I can’t remember those. But but I mean obviously Marcus Aurelius wasan emperor, so he would have and he was he did have a mentor. Yeah. And he would have been a stoic philosopher probably.Yeah. But he got a lot of his ideas and thoughts from Yeah. I can’t remember who it is, but yeah. Um, and I think that’sso if you’re going down the purely educational route, tutor all the way. Um, yeah, I thinklike a lot of people do, there’s the music school down the road. You’ve gotyou’ve got us, you’ve got the music school, you’ve got uh the football across theroad, you got the karate place down there. Like find what your child likes. Pick or tryall of them. Narrow it down and then pick what pick what they enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. What they enjoy. Not what you wantthem to do, but what they enjoy. But education is always very important.So, pick us first. I’m just going to read out some quotes

Parent Case Studies: What They’re Sacrificing

uh from parents and why they sent their child to private schoolsbecause I I think you know it’s actual user data okayuh qualitative data so I spent two years so this is from Denisefrom Hitchin I spent two years investigating what option would give my son the best possible start in life andI’m convinced private education is the only way to My son gets bored very easily and thenhe gets lazy and if he was in a class of 30, he simply wouldn’t get the support he needs.That could be true. Um, it depends on the on the child. If he’s if he’s too far behind or if he’s too far ahead thenyes, he could get bored. I got bored. Yeah, he could get lost in the in thepeople in the in the 30 person class. Yeah. But it’s nothing. Would would yoube able to get the same level with the third option with tuition andand uh yeah, potentially. But that I mean that’s fair enough if they if they’re able to do that. I think a lotof it is just down to what the family is able to do and what the child needs. I think I’ve heard my mom say this um thatshe would be worried that I get into the wrong crowd in um state school cuz I sort of like Iwas almost getting into the wrong crowd. Yeah. Well, I mean it happened to me in private school so it doesn’t doesn’tmake a difference really but as in it’s less bad I suppose. But no, you’d be surprised. I don’t know. I I don’t thinkit was. Yeah. Anyway, we were in different circles. Let’s just So I workmy fingers to the bone to send my daughter to private school. My academic successmask the emotional damage my state school did to me. That’s that’s justprojection though, isn’t it? Yeah, I think so. But if she had a badexperience, didn’t want her her daughter to go through that bad experience and wanted better for her, then Yeah. Andthen that’s what she wants to spend her money on. Yeah. Well, it’s up to sopeople are driven by uh their own neurosis. No, they what’sthe quote? They’re driven away from they’re either driven or they’re dragged. So they’re they’re either likedoing it out of fear or out of just pure ambition. So in that case, it’s it’s outof fear. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. just I think it’s a not the bestI I don’t think it’s necessarily the best mentality cuz there’s there are really good state schools that don’thave that like they’re not going to scar you for life like no it’s not yeah it’s not it’s not madeout as if it’s like it’s not a logical like statement at all. No, it’s anemotional statement. Um mom’s net contributor. So this is sothe alternative if we wanted to be in the catchment of a good school was to move double our mortgage and have asmaller house. So she like this parent obviously wanted to have asend their child to a grammar school but then obviously the cost of so I mean there are practic they’re outside ofcatchment. Yeah. So so you have to move house would you say double the mortgage andhalf the size of the house or something? Yeah. So yeah, no, I I I get that as inI think the catchment thing is one of the hardest Yeah. hardest things. UmJonathan, a chartered surveyor. My daughter goes to a private school and I’m okay with VAT being added to thefees. So there’s about that. Is it fair? No. Is it morally right? Yes. So you gotpeople who are actually willing to pay. He’s got a very good job chartered survey. Is it fair? No, I think it isfair. Yeah, I’d I’d say they’re a business. Yeah, I think if anything it’sjust too high. That’s all. Like the the rate is so high. The thing is the amount of money they’re going to make, thegovernment are going to make from doing that. It’s not like they’re going to be like, “Oh, okay. Well, let’s let’s change theVAT threshold to 150k rather than 85.”Yeah. They’re not going to do that. They raised it from 80 to 85. There are someprivate schools that will close and probably have closed. But I’m saying like the extra money they’re going tomake like they’re not going to reduce the VAT rate. Uh they’re not going tohelp small businesses. No. Like us to survive. It is fair, but it’s notjust annoying. It’s a value judgment at the end of the day. It’s kind of it people get a motive because it’sabout children and schooling. Yeah. I’m saying purely from a they’re abusiness, we’re a business. Everyone on the this road is a business. Why should wepay and and and they don’t? Not they don’t make profits. The profits are ridiculous.It depends on the school. But yeah, I think the bigger schools that are very selective,you can’t say they don’t make profit, they’ll make a lot. Um, the trouble isthese schools because of that, they’ll probably make even more profitbecause then they can claim back their VA expenses and thus they’ll have more money.Um, yeah. Yeah. And all their all their staff will be pay, so they’ll be able toclaim that back as well. Printers. Yeah. Yeah. If anything, they’re going to they’re actually making theestablishment like the people at Eaton and stuff like that richer with this move. It’s kind ofinteresting. They’re making them richer richer. They’re making the government richer and the general populationpoorer. Yeah. potentially that transfer ofwealth. People in the middle are either going to go like that or like that. Yeah. You’re going to end up with twoclasses, top and bottom. That’s it. This is why VATs are very stupid tax.It’s it’s ingenious, but it’s it’s kind of a bit dumb. Anyway, uh Nelly,interesting name, right? An NHS worker. I live with my mom and dad so I can afford the fees. I put aside my desiresof owning my own home, independence, a new car, and holiday so my child can has a good start. So you got a good exampleof someone taking a massive sacrifice. And although I’d say like don’tsacrifice what you want for private school, I thinkwhat it will it will show demonstrate something to the child. The value if the the child needs to know the sacrificethat that parent has put on the line and that could make a massive difference.Mother Kent anonymous, we drive old cars, don’t go on holiday, and don’thave savings. If VAT is added, we’ll be forced to remove our children. So, this is an example of someone affected by thefat rise. So, obviously, that will be the middle class, the squeeze middle. That was us.We drove tiny oldlittle Peugeot, like really small hatchbacks, the 106. Uh, we didn’t go on holiday,didn’t ever do any work to the house. Yeah. There were days where I couldn’t go into school because the fees weremissing. There were days where I just had to like be told you can’t go in. Yeah. So, that I get it. Mhm. And thenyou’ve got Joe, a clinical psychologist. My two children both have autism andADHD. We’ve not touched on that yet, have we? in I think we we briefly did in classesof 32 that are losing confidence. There’s 12 in a class now. They’ve improved attention, have more breaks. Ican I can totally empathize with that. We have a lot of people that come to us that are like that. They say, “Well,they’re not getting the attention in class. They need they’ve got this need and that need.” Yeah. That’s why we’recoming to you uh in a class of like four, five, six kids. Yeah. Or orthey’re just like, “Can you do one to one?” Obviously, you’ve got you have schools that specialize in in this, butI get the idea and the concept behind sending yourchild to an independent school to get that that sort of attention. And I youknow you can only sympathize with that position because I don’t think itprobably isn’t some state schools are probably very very good with this but I think overall as a society we probablystruggle to cope with and put in the mechanisms that they these childrenreally require. Remember, it’s always I always think tuition is really great ifyour child is either really ahead of the pack or really behind because becausethey they’re not take they’re not No, they cater for the for the middle. Yeah. The average the median. Mhm. Exactly.You want average results. James an IT manager.Uh this is another uh tax one. So to us this is tax onsend. So the the VAT thing tax on what on sen. So cen see only the privatesector could offer the support my highly dyslexic son needs. You mean seen?Yeah. Okay. He said cn. Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry. I’m not very I’m not very good withwhile talking about dyslexia. Yeah. Yeah, I’m not very good with um yeah, I understand that uh to o do and those arethe types of schools as well because people send their their child to those small private schools because they wantthe small class sizes specifically. They they they’re not so much about okay theit’s hard to get in and the network and stuff. They just want small class sizes.And I think that’s a group that really has been hit by itum by the VAT thing. And I’m just wondering whether that’s something whereI think the government can probably help them or should probablyhelp them because they’re the ones who who will will suffer.Um to do a small business owner scrimping and saving makes it just about possible. Waiting lists are the onlyoption in local state schools. We face homeschooling from September. So this person been pushed out completely andfeels that homeschooling. It’s interesting. It doesn’t really saylike why why going why would you go down that route? And I don’t think it’s sobad to send your child to a local state school. Um I think that interaction withThat’s what I was going to say. I think yes, you’re you’re taught exactly the uhgovernment prescribed curriculum. Mhm. Which is a whole other thing that I’m maybe we’ll do on another anotherepisode. But the social interactionis probably the most important part of school generally. Yeah. Yeah. School life, all of it. It’s not just this is 2plus two. You need to be able to have that socialsocial interaction, especially as a kid. We did a whole episode about learning on uh play.Yeah. What are you going to do at home? You have to learn how to also you needwhen it’s hard, when it’s difficult at school, um and you you know, maybe socially it’sit’s it’s challenging. That’s actually a good challenge.it not not always but in many cases it’s something that your child needs to gothrough um is part of their development character buildinguh Jonathan how many Jonathans are there from Lebury I’d rather sell our house than take ourgirls out I’m very leftwing but this shallow regressive policy will absolutely affect my vote so this isabout that again Labour Um, [Music]yeah. Well, it says it says it’s very leftwing. I think private schools the completeopposite of leftwing. Very in very very not leftwing. Mixtureof a mixture of opinions, but a general consensus that essentially sums up what we’ve beenspeaking about today. Yeah. What about this? I I think it all all of this plays

Should Education Be Free?

into the larger debate of is education something that should befree or is it um as a sort of public good in asense in economics we got this term like public goodum it’s a bit like it’s something that as a society we allbenefit from thus making it as accessible as possible is important andwill better society overall. So should it be completely free or should itactually be should we be charging more for education because people underestimate its value in thelong term? Well, there’s the term people don’t value free,right? Yeah. So, if you were tobook a consultation with someone, uh, I don’t know, a design agency orwhatever it is, if you were to book that for freecompared to if you were to pay £10 to reserve your spot, what even the attendance is? Yeah. You’re more likelyto show up to the one that you’ve paid for. You put money on it. Yeah. Yeah.People don’t value free. So, yes, there’s free schools. Yes, there’s NHS,which actually even though it’s free, is probably very very valued. Yeah. Uhbut I don’t think it should stop people fromlike wanting to, you know, charge for private schools or go to private schools. people go people uh have accessto the NHS and they still go private. Mhm. Yeah. Why it shouldn’t stop itshouldn’t stop people from doing those things or this is probably very controversial

Why Tax Bills Should Show a Breakdown

but you could charge a nominal amount for your uh state schools.Well, it’s already built in into the tax system. It’s just that people but people don’t see it. That’s the difference.People don’t see it. If you were to reduce the the tax, I don’t know, like say just for easy figures, 100 pound amonth. Reduce your everyone’s tax bills by 100 pound a month and everyone pays 100 pound. It’s labeled like Mhm. schoolfunding or whatever it is. It would be valued more.Even if it’s the same amount going to school, the perception is different. That’s the difference. Ibrahim broughtup this very point when we was we were just talking about like people not seeing the value of the NHS cuz he’sobviously a doctor. Yeah. And you can see him up there somewhere. Um he he waslike it wouldn’t necessarily even take charging people. It’s actually justmaking people aware of what things cost. Like if you go to a doctor’s office, itshould say like right there in front of people, this consultation costs thismuch. So people actually know. They’ve started to do that on uh the NHS text messagething where you book a doctor’s appointment like make sure you turn up because this cost the NHS £160 orwhatever it is. And it says the figure. Yeah. But imagine going anywhere else. Imagine going to,I don’t know, a restaurant. Mhm. And you’re like, “Okay,it’s £249.” And there’s no breakdown of any of the services. Or you go get your carrepaired. Mhm. And there’s not a breakdown of this. This part was installed, the labor was this much. Nope. Nope. It’s just two and a halfgrand. Like, what other place gets away with that? If you’re like, okay, rubbishcollections, this much schooling, this much goes to schooling, this much goes to NHS and everything else. It’s allhidden. Yeah. I think transparency and spending generally is really importantfor especially public bodies because it’s their money. Well, it’s our money.like it’s it’s something that taxpayers have paid for and they should have a right to know like what it’s being spentand broken and it should be itemized and broken down. This is where the trust goes becausethe money gets spent elsewhere to be fair inlike for your council tax bill and stuff like that things are sort of broken down but not like really itemized. No itemit’s not an itemized bill. Yeah. But you you learn like, okay, it’s going up because of this and it needs to pay forthis. That’s how do you know? It says it’s not itemized. No, but it does Imean it says on my bill like it says why it’s gone up and says why it’s gone up.It doesn’t say yeah. I don’t know. This is where all the trust breaks down for me. But but I think it should actuallycome with a pie chart and some sort of data. You should you should say your your money’s been used on this this thisthis and then you should be able to go okay well okay I understand where it’s going.Yeah. I remember watching uh I think it was a grand tour episode where they do like the conversation street bit in themiddle and they showed a picture of this roundabout in like the Midland somewhere wherever it was and it was literallyjust a mound or it might have even been painted on and it had like crazy fourpaths of like walking and and a little roundabout. It’s like the size of this table. Mhm. And I don’t remember theamount but they’re like guess how much that cost like um 500 pound. I don’t know 3 point something million orwhatever whatever number it was and it obviously didn’t like it wouldhave cost a few thousand pounds and the rest of the money would have gone somewhere else. Well, it’s all but you can’t see any of that. Well, a lot of

Where Tax Money Gets Wasted

it’s in planning and that’s all in the planning system. It’s not it’s not millions consultancyor millions for a roundabout painted on roundabout. People people I don’t knowpeople underestimate how much of it these like big infrastructure projectsand stuff like that like how much of it is just paperwork. It’s not even doingthe thing. It’s mainly paperwork. Millions. Yeah. Like we spend so muchand it’s also consulting. That’s part of the problem I think. Yeah. It is I think it’s like soft it’s like softwareupdates like you have your I don’t know iOS Mhm. eight or whatever and then itevery year they build on top of it without improving the stuff before. So all this red tape gets laid on top ofred tape on top of red tape until you’re left with so many levels of bureaucracy that it just wastes a load of money andtime. Bureaucratic people getting people get employed for doing things that don’t need to be done. bureaucratic red tape and consultancy is one of the realdrains on public finances like and people don’t see it and also just sometimes acknowledging this ispointless like why are we spending money here because it’s hard to cut it people go by by the book not by common sense sopeople aren’t willing people don’t like uh change and people don’t like to cut thingswhere it’s needed so what you’ll find is that everything is basicallyunderfunded. So if you go to like it’s not like they’re like swanning aroundlike if you go to a local council or something like that it’s not like they’re swanning around like privateyachts and things like it’s not it’s not like that. It’s actually they’re working with very very little but it’s beingscattered around all over the place instead of being concentrated in one place which brings the most return.Return. Yeah. Which is how you should be operating. It’s how a business should operate.Yeah. Um I’ve always said if they if they were like actually a business andtreated the same way that like us and everyone else in this high street is treated that just they’d be out ofbusiness. Anyway, I mean that was a that was a little a long a long tangent, but Ithink still relevant. I think it’s still relevant. you are investing in the thing that you think will return the greatestlike parents when they invest in their children’s education that they believeI know it’s more than just education in the case of independent schools it’sthe network and everything else we spoken about yeah so what do you think are you sending your children to

Would We Send Our Kids to Private School?

independent if I could afford itI Um, would you go out for like eating andthings? Absolutely not. Well, even if you had like multi, you know, it depends on the child. If my child was likecrazy intelligent and and want wanted to do that, I wouldn’t say no, you can’t doit unless I couldn’t afford to do it. But I thinkthe middle is always better. just I I would I would rather they wentto forest bankroft or whatever at that level they get access to network andeverything we spoke about. They don’t have the pressures of ET and and Oxfordand Cambridge and that that unless unless they wanted to unless they were that way inclined.I’d let I’d see what they enjoy and let them do that. I wouldn’t force them down a specific route of this or that.Yeah. I mean, no matter what happens, I always think you need to go with your child’sbest interest and you got to go with your child’s personality. Yeah. It’s like I wouldn’t recommend a lot of ifyour child really really struggles with numeracy, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend thatyou send them to Bankros. Um, yeah. So, it just depends. Itdepends on the child. It depends on the school and on your situation. But Iwouldn’t go without uh I wouldn’t like double my mortgageand not have a car and not do holidays. Mhm. Cuz those are important. Those areimportant. Yeah. If you’re still watching at this point, you’re probably interested in sending

Course Information and Outro

your child to an independent school or have already made that decision. In which case, we have just the course foryou. If you go to the description, you’ll see that there’s a link for an independent school course which istaking place in the Lon and Seven King Center from September. September. Yep.And it runs through to January when they take their exams. Although, if you’re City of London, you might want to applyto it through in person because they usually take it in December. Yeah. Andyou get a an hour of interview practice. Yeah. two hours of class every week for mathand English and you got some reasoning in there. Um and and a free one to one as well. Free one to one. So link in thedescription to find out more. So thanks again for watching this month. If you are watching us on YouTube, letus know your thoughts on this topic down in the comments section below. And don’t forget to like and subscribe. And if youare listening to us on Apple or on Spotify, don’t forget to give us a follow and a rating. And we’ll see youback here again next month.The Education Lounge podcast.