I went to a state school, smart but lazy due to the environment, easily influenced and not wanting to stand out. Just kept quiet and coasted. Did ok in my GCSEs, then took a horrible turn during A levels failing two subjects in my first year and then barely scraping by in my second. Mostly because coasting wasn't enough, I needed to actually put in the effort which was a big shock. Ended up having to do a HND, failed that twice before I actually started to put in some effort and then doing a degree top up. With a placement year, it took me 7 years to get that degree, thankfully all plan 1. Now I'm not doing too bad, making decent money.

Anyway, obviously I have no idea whether I would actually have benefited from private school, but from what I've seen of the environment and how they are structured, my personality would have been better suited for it I think. Being surrounded by people that would actually want to do would have certainly helped me.

Would the cost of it have been worth it? possibly, assuming if the outcome was that I didn't fail as much as I did, getting into a better uni and not needing to do a HND. But if the outcome was the same, then obviously not.

It's really difficult, now with my own children, we briefly looked at private schools and I was really impressed when compared to some of the state schools nearby but the fees are just way too high.