anything. He basically never attended, and not once did the teachers notice his absence and try to contact my parents. Eventually he just dropped out, because he was never there anyway. Anyway, this is just the experience of my brother and I. I am a very scholarly person by nature (my brother calls me a "nerd") but I was a very free-spirited teenager, with rebellious tendencies, and I know that I would never have got the attention and focus I needed from my teachers in a public school (or at least the ones I know of). You could argue that public schools encourage the "Self-led" approach, but the fact is that young people often need a helping hand in life, they need teachers who know their names, and who actually care whether they show up for school. There may be private schools where this doesn't happen, and there may be public schools where this does happen. And there are many more issues. But I think the comment that someone else made, that it should be School VS School rather than Private VS Public. I'm not saying at all that private is better than public, but I'm just sharing my personal experience. I think it's up to the parents to look at the best school, work out which is best for their own individual child, and not be made to feel guilty or "wrong" for choosing one over another. And just for the record, my school didn't have a pool or