Pros and cons of private school?

@SunshineGirl I'm not sure that I agree with you. In principle it would be great to have equality of opportunity but I can only judge from my own experiences. From the age of 4 and a half to about 6 and half I attended the local CofE-controlled primary school - in those days one was obliged to go to the nearest school - which had 48 kids in each class. I needed far more attention than that as I was virtually illiterate. When my parents decided to take me away and send me to a small prep school a few miles away, the teacher told my parents that it wasn't a private school I required but a "Special School". I thrived in classes of 18 pupils, along with many others like me. I would have loved to have gone back, aged 23, to have found that teacher: at the age 10+ I passed my 11+ Exam; at 15+ I passed 7 GCEs and at 18/19 I added 3 A levels. At 20 I was accepted for a BSc Sociology, which I completed just before my 23rd birthday. I would have been on the scrap heap without the education I had.

@ArtieKat 48 in a class, that's so difficult to imagine now. My state primary had 15 pupils . . in the entire school! I was sent to a boarding school for the daughters of service personnel at the age of 7. It was a state school, but modelled on a private institution and would fill up surplus places with fee paying day girls. I know in hindsight that I was very privileged in the education I received . . although I would happily have given it up in return for not beung sent away.

@SunshineGirl At Grammar School we had about 35 to a class but by that time a lot of education was divided into streamed sets.