THEY sat for hours pouring over the glossy brochures, frantically doing their sums into the small hours and analysing bank statements until they were absolutely certain.
And then Professor Lindsay Paterson came along and spoiled the dream.
The Edinburgh University professor of education has probably left many middle-class parents who part with thousands of pounds every term to send their little darlings to an ind
ependent school wondering if all those sacrifices they are making are really worth it.
His research has revealed that middle-class pupils at Scottish state schools are achieving almost identical exam results to those whose private education costs their parents an arm and a leg - and that’s before they even get around to buying the school uniform.
Analysing Scottish Office statistics from 1997, which are no longer published, Paterson says there is little difference in exam results between the same kind of pupils in both sectors. He found that exam pass rates in state and independent schools are similar, with 95 per cent of pupils from middle-class families at private schools passing five or more Standard Grades at levels one to three, compared to 93 per cent from state schools.
And at Higher level, 74 per cent of the sample in independent schools earned three or more passes, compared with 71 per cent of the same type of pupils in state schools. Sixty per cent of the independent schools sample achieved five Higher passes or more, compared with 55 per cent in the state sector.
It doesn’t take an expensive private education to work out that with little to separate state from independent pupils, someone somewhere may start wondering if they are getting full value for money.
So are private schools really delivering the results parents pay thousands of pounds every term for? Or would their children leave school with exactly the same qualifications regardless of whether they wear a George Heriot’s blazer or a Boroughmuir one?
Prof Paterson - who quickly stresses that his own education at a state school in Tain does not make him in the least biased against the public school system - insists his findings do not reflect poorly on the independent schools.
"The statistics show these schools are doing very well," he says. "This is not an attack on the independent sector. It is a look at how to maximise the benefits for our children."
Instead, he says, the results show that state-educated children in middle-class families - defined by having a father in a non-manual occupation who stayed at school to fifth year or beyond - can close the gap between public and private education simply by having parents who are smart enough to understand that education doesn’t necessarily end at the school gates.
"What they get at home - the higher education level of their parents - can help children to learn," he explains. "They can help them develop good study levels and a positive attitude to learning and then devote extra resources to other things, like trips to the theatre, museums, computers and internet connections.
"With such a small difference between the sectors, parents might be better advised to send their children to the free public-sector school and pay for some extra tuition in subject areas where they are weak. It does seem children of well-educated middle-class parents will do almost as well in a good-quality public-sector school as they would by going to the private sector.
"But there are many reasons to send a child to an independent school, and parents will want to take them into account before making a decision."
But if by carefully nurturing your child’s after-school activities you can influence their exam results to virtually public-school standards, what is there to gain from a private education?
Many parents are driven by the largely irrational fear that state schools are hotbeds of apathy - both pupils’ and teachers’ - with class sizes bursting at the seams, non-existent extra-curricular activities and the possibility that your child might fall in with the crowd of kids who have decided it is cool to talk back to the teacher and refuse to learn.
But that, insists Edinburgh City Council’s education director Richard Jobson, is far from the real picture. "I think the report proves what we have all known for quite some time - that the state schools here are doing a great job in bringing out the best from children.
"The private sector may argue that there is more to life than exams. That’s true. But the state schools in Edinburgh are catching up and, indeed, have caught up with the private schools in that respect. We are also building new schools, the facilities are better and if you look at the range of out-of-school criteria in sports, arts, study clubs, youth activities . . . we compare to the private sector in any one of those.
"I think if you are in the private sector you will be thinking long and hard about this research."
In fact, the report hits at the public sector’s entire raison d’etre, he suggests. For without offering better exam results, independent schools are left offering parents little more than the chance to purchase a place in a private club. So does it all come down to snob values - are parents really paying simply for their child to attend a school which can virtually guarantee classmates of the same social standing?
"I think that when it comes down to there being no educational difference between state and public sector, then parents have to ask just what it is that they are buying," says Mr Jobson. "If they simply want to buy some status, they have to ask is it the best use of their money?"
There’s no doubt a private education for their child is top of many middle-class parents’ wish lists. Although a recent report claimed that 80 per cent of independent school-educated children are passed over at university entrance in favour of state school students, the reality is that a private education still leaves students 55 times more likely to be accepted into one of the UK’s five best universities.
And once they leave university, there’s a fair chance they will go far - 80 per cent of the judiciary and top-ranking Army officers, a high number of doctors and MPs (including former Fettesian Tony Blair) are privately educated.
Which means it is little wonder that independent schools claim inquiries for places have soared by up to a third this year. Merchiston Castle this year received 700 inquiries from parents - 100 more than last year - while Bryan Lewis, headteacher of Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville Junior School, has reported demand outweighing supply, despite the city council’s figures which suggest the number of teenagers going private dropped from 24.1 per cent to 23.6 per cent last year.
What isn’t in dispute is that parents need deep pockets to join the private school set - a private school education costs from £1700 a term to more than £2000, while boarding school fees can range from £3700 to £6000 a term. Fettes College charges senior day pupils £4063 a term. Loretto, which boasts a new golf academy facility, charges senior pupils £3292 plus £190 per term for meals.
Michael Mavor, Loretto’s headteacher, says that buys parents more than just exam results. "For example, I’m teaching a class of 13-year-olds where the class size is just 16, so much more is being done with each pupil. That’s very much part of what parents are looking for.
"We take enormous care in appointing staff and we put money from fees back into the school to improve facilities."
John Light, headmaster at Edinburgh Academy, agrees with Paterson’s theory that parents can work wonders in helping their child’s education. "I have always said that parent-pupil-school is the golden triangle. But unless the school puts forward both school and pupil interests, then he or she won’t get better results."
Forking out thousands for an education is money well spent, insists Carole Clark, an administrator who removed her 12-year-old son Murray from his state primary in favour of Heriot’s. "I didn’t feel he was being pushed enough where he was. He was being left to his own devices and I felt by the time he went to a large secondary school he would have been completely swallowed up.
"Now I feel he is getting the benefit of being in a smaller class, and there is good discipline. He is being pushed on quicker, and although he’s not quite flying ahead, I do think he is getting the benefit."
Dr Karen Traill, who has three daughters in state schools - two at Liberton High and one at Liberton Primary - is the perfect example of Prof Paterson’s research. She admits the thought of privately educating her children did cross her mind. But now, having watched her girls progress, supported by caring teachers and with access to whatever facilities or equipment they need, she believes she made the right decision.
"I am very happy with the quality of education they are getting," she says. "And I think as long as they are prepared to work they will get every support from the school to achieve the best they can.
"Naturally, every parent wants what’s best for their child, but my feelings are that they will probably achieve just as good an education in the state sector. I don’t think they are missing out at all. There are sports clubs, debating societies, bands. There are a lot of opportunities.
"There’s a perception that somehow you get something better if you pay for it, but I don’t necessarily agree with that."
Meanwhile, the independent sector, led by Judith Sischy, director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, is fighting back. She has questioned the reliability of Prof Paterson’s findings, his formula and his conclusion.
"These are two different education systems," she adds. "We will leave it to parents to make the qualitative and quantitative decisions as to what is best by visiting the state sector, local schools and our schools, by looking around and asking questions about class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios, what’s offered at weekends, trips and outdoor activities, music and sports.
"I can’t imagine the parents of 31,000 children think they are wasting their money."
How private education turned one life around WHILE the arguments rage over whether middle-class pupils are better off at state comprehensives or private schools, a unique experiment has undoubtedly proved that taking a child from a deprived background and giving them the best education money can buy can turn their life around.
Fifteen-year-old Ryan Bell was a disruptive school pupil who hung around with petty criminals on the streets of inner-city London until, in a unique television experiment, he was placed at a leading public school where he has proved to be a model pupil.
The programme, Second Chance, which examines whether a child’s environment can influence his development, has seen Ryan become a star player in the rugby team, top of his class in two subjects and hoping to gain ten GCSEs in the 12 months he’s been at Downside, the UK’s oldest Catholic boarding school in Somerset.
At the expense of the programme-makers, Ryan will spend three years at the £15,000-a-year school, which was established in 1606 near Bath. He was followed by cameras for his first year, and the results will be screened on Channel 4 later this year.
When he was at ADT College in Putney - a 1000-pupil city technology college - he was asked to leave or face expulsion. But at Downside he came top in Latin and biology, and the teachers rate him among the top third of the 340 pupils academically.
"I’m really pleased to be here," he says. "It’s a brilliant opportunity." Despite his former comprehensive school’s assertion that it has a "reputation for educational innovation and excellence that stimulates students of all abilities", Ryan says: "I didn’t care about the teachers or the work." Instead, he would stay in bed most of the day, or hang around with other youths, writing graffiti and getting into trouble with the police.
His mother, a restaurant and bar supervisor, has three younger sons to cope with and his father, a painter and decorator, no longer lives with them.
Pepper Productions - owned by Labour politician Trevor Phillips - considered several youngsters from similar backgrounds before picking Ryan. Educational psychologists assessed him as suitable and his mother agreed to let him go.
His fees are covered until GCSEs, after which the situation will be reassessed. Already, however, it is clear the project has been a resounding success.
"I want to get a good education and a good job," he says. "I’m feeling happy that I chose to come here because I know that otherwise I would just be sitting around, doing nothing.
"A few months ago I would have been spray-painting graffiti, but now I just feel you have to give up those kinds of things to get what you want."
