To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

Why is this woman your friend? She sound horrific.

Laughing out loud that you thought you were all going to learn Spanish and Chinese in order to teach your children, I mean it's a nice idea but completely unrealistic! Even stranger that you and your DH feel you have failed when the obvious thing was to send them to classes from a younger age.

Moving school...well it kind of counters the fact you believe it's your job to educate your kids as you moved to get them into a school where you thought they would benefit from a better education from their teachers and surroundings.

I agree that parents need to have an input in order for children to be truly successful at school, but I think that input really only needs to be ensuring you read to them/with them, helping out/showing an interest in homework and supporting school learning. I have a child who is very resistant to doing “schoolwork” at home. Now at the age of 8 she has finally realised it’s easier to get on with homework and get it out the way than sit and moan about it and will happily read before bed, but doing times tables and spellings on anything other than an app completely stresses her out and so those things only get done once a day for 5 mins. I know that’s still more than many children get.

Yanbu to say parents are the primary educators of their children, that’s obvious, the law, and mentioned in most school policy documents. And it is true that a worrying amount of parents don’t read enough to their children despite libraries being available.

Yabu to come on Mumsnet to basically accuse other people of crap parenting. There are many crap parents in the world but calling them out on Mumsnet won’t help, and there’s a boasty vibe to your post that makes people unlikely to be inspired by the choices you made.

[quote OverTheRubicon]**@Skyla2005* A baby swims for free in every council pool an adult is around three pounds the baby can wear a swim nappy for about 2 quid a pack. If you can't afford to do basic parenting then I question why you would bring a child into the world in the first place*

Adults around here are over £5. Even a concession is over £3. Then you add onto that a bus fare in both directions and it's over £6 for the visit alone.
Plus there's the swim nappies - £5 around here so nearly £0.50 each - and then the upfront cost for the neoprene nappy cover required by my pool, which is £11 or £8 if you can find it on sale (and needs replacing every 6 months for a larger size) and £20 for a cheap adult swimsuit on Amazon.

It gets cheaper per swim as you keep going. But for that first swim, it's a cost of around £40. Then there's the question of what to do as the child gets older, and swimming lessons are more expensive again, and require time commitments that can be hard in some circumstances. And as someone who had to take public transport to and from pools, children are far more reluctant to go back when they'll be when it's winter and they'll be waiting for a bus in the cold after swimming, instead of hopping into a warm car.

For many people from less well off, immigrant backgrounds (like mine) or Black families, the parents themselves have little to no experience in pools also, so the places are intimidating as well as expensive.

I can do it. But I'm aware that many great parents, whose children live comfortable lives but without lots for extras - could not. There are so many reasons why, and I'd love for the blithe 'children is a life skill' crew of Mumsnet to look around at the pool sometimes, and wonder why it's almost all white and middle to upper income and at least consider that the missing demographics are not necessarily all just crap parents.[/quote]
Yes I agree

Swimming is a great life skill, but for people on low incomes, it's expensive

On Jobseekers Allowance of approx £80 pw, many people are struggling to put food on the table, far less buy swimsuits and pay bus fares to get to the pool

@Skyla2005 A baby swims for free in every council pool an adult is around three pounds the baby can wear a swim nappy for about 2 quid a pack. If you can't afford to do basic parenting then I question why you would bring a child into the world in the first place

Adults around here are over £5. Even a concession is over £3. Then you add onto that a bus fare in both directions and it's over £6 for the visit alone.
Plus there's the swim nappies - £5 around here so nearly £0.50 each - and then the upfront cost for the neoprene nappy cover required by my pool, which is £11 or £8 if you can find it on sale (and needs replacing every 6 months for a larger size) and £20 for a cheap adult swimsuit on Amazon.

It gets cheaper per swim as you keep going. But for that first swim, it's a cost of around £40. Then there's the question of what to do as the child gets older, and swimming lessons are more expensive again, and require time commitments that can be hard in some circumstances. And as someone who had to take public transport to and from pools, children are far more reluctant to go back when they'll be when it's winter and they'll be waiting for a bus in the cold after swimming, instead of hopping into a warm car.

For many people from less well off, immigrant backgrounds (like mine) or Black families, the parents themselves have little to no experience in pools also, so the places are intimidating as well as expensive.

I can do it. But I'm aware that many great parents, whose children live comfortable lives but without lots for extras - could not. There are so many reasons why, and I'd love for the blithe 'children is a life skill' crew of Mumsnet to look around at the pool sometimes, and wonder why it's almost all white and middle to upper income and at least consider that the missing demographics are not necessarily all just crap parents.

Well, I hope you earn enough to foot your child's therapy bill when they're older.

YANBU OP
You are in early years so do not realise that your child’s educational needs will soon surpass your ability to teach them. But, the main point of your post is that parents should make their children’s education a priority. To this I agree. And I have moved home or changed schools to ensure my children get a good education.

The most important thing you can do as a parent is to instil a love of reading and learning and then support your children to pursue their interests.

Yes, morally, ethically, legally, parents have a responsibility to their children's education.

They do not have the only responsibility though and with normal interaction with wider society, they'll learn many things we don't intend. Even as a home educating parent, I view myself as a shrinking part of how they understand the world. I haven't been "primary" in years and even then, that was shared with their father.

That your focus on education is almost entirely on academics is as limited a perspective as thinking it's all the schools' responsibility. It's easy to get that way when trying to develop the basics in language - English can be tricky and some things we only learn are an issue when they can communicate clearer with age - but even then, it's only part of education.

The idea that schools teach them how to interact with others - some do, but many can discuss how any social skills picked up there is more luck than anything else. A good school academically isn't automatically a good school socially - as from the scandals that have come out from some top schools, some even teach anti-social behaviours. Even schools that try can miss their social marks for a particular child.

Kids don't automatically learn good social skills by being in a group than they learn good music skills by being around instruments or CDs of time table songs.

haha! This

I think that as a parent, yes, you are responsible for your child's education. Having your child attend school is your responsibility, and then supporting their learning at home is what you can do outside of school. That said, Ofsted doesn't always get it right, and a "good" school can often be outstanding, where an "outstanding" school like the one I worked at can be militant and frankly, horrendous for children.

Continuing education at home is important but certainly doesn't need to be formal. Reading can be done with recipes or board game instructions as opposed to books. Climbing trees is just as good PE-wise as a football team for a 6-year-old. Maths can be done by shopping for groceries instead of doing equations. Gardening is science.

While I read -obscene numbers of-- books at home with DS, I can see how other families work differently and teach their children without bedtime stories each night - especially single-parent households or families where parents might have dyslexia or struggled with literacy themselves.

Sure next thread will be on the G&T board no doubt

My mum worked full time and was a single mum. After catching the bus to school at 8:30am and not getting home from the childminder until 6:30pm, I think I would have cried if my mum had played time table songs in the car.

I never learnt my times tables. However, as an adult, I do have: a degree; a successful career; a loving partner; a child; a beloved dog; and a happy life.

I completely disagree with your (smug) OP. Education is the responsibility of the state in our society and I am happy that trained teachers are taking care of that. My role as a parent is to ensure they have useful and fun life experiences and help them become well rounded people. Maths, writing and reading skills I am happy outsource this to the school system who will do a far better job than I would. I am happy to read with them every night and help with their homework, but I do not have the skills to teach well (even though I have taught at university level I do not have any knowledge of early years teaching which is a highly specialised subject).

I do agree it is important to get them into a good school (if you can, not everyone has that luxury), and we stayed two years longer than we wanted to in our old flat to ensure we got a place in our preferred school.

"All the attacks on OP have a hint of envy about them."

No they are pointing out her privilege. I don't have any envy of someone with that attitude because it will rub off on her children.

You’re doing great, everything you can. Don’t panic.

And I am forced to acknowledge you must be a troll to be posting such nonsense and feel regret that I have engaged with your ridiculous post.

There's so much wrong with your post OP I don't even know where to start. And I speak as a passionate advocate of education beginning at home

OP, your posts comes across as very smug. You obviously have privilege to be able to move whenever the schooling provision changes in your area. That's simply not realistic for the majority.

And you have time, energy and £ to help your child/ren with times tables songs etc. Again, any parents don't have access to those resources, don't travel in a car to listen to a CD, don't have confidence in their own abilities/knowledge/education to feel equipped to pass it on to their DC.

I agree that ideally a parent should expect school to deliver all of a child's education. But I think a school has a huge part to play. I'm very grateful to the teachers my DD has had who've given her a wide outlook on life as well as taught her in ways I wouldn't have known how to, in a way that has made learning relatively easy for her.

Having said all that, I bought into the baby swim lessons, classical music DVDs that I played endlessly when DD was newborn etc, thinking I was going to raise a child genius. But I soon realised my limitations and that school would offer her expert tuition that I couldn't give, as well as priceless group learning and social and independence skills.

If you only have time/resources to do one thing then it should be listen to your kids read IMO. A lot of people couldn't afford tutoring in Chinese and Spanish (and without any kind of immersion is probably wouldn't be very useful - 5 years of GCSE French tells me that) or afford to move to be in catchment of good schools.

I also think you are doing school and teachers a huge disservice, I taught my ds his phonics and practiced reading, tables, telling the time etc but at no point did I think that I was completely responsible for everything he learnt! I was just supporting the things he was taught at school - and at GCSE/A-level I wouldn't have a clue about some of what he learns.

@FawnFrenchieMum read my latest two posts.

You don't need school.

You need cake.

Walking to the shop to buy eggs = PE. Measuring baking ingredients = numbers. Mixing = science. Forming soft peaks with the batter = geography. Reading the packets = literacy. Listening for the fruit cake 'singing' when it's ready to come out of the oven = music. King Alfred burning 5he cakes = history. Cutting the cake in half =fractions. Washing up the plate = life skills. Watching Bake Off = drama.

YABU!
I think you can only be the 'primary educator' until they get to about age 6. After that they will be learning significantly more in school than you have time to teach them at home. If they go to a school which is providing inadequate education you are going to struggle to compensate for that at home as they get older. Are you still going to be the primary educator when they are doing GCSE?
Your role as parent is to support their education- not provide it all.

Caring about you own children's education, great. Judging others by your standard, not so great. School isn't bonus. If you don't need school to teach your children, then you really should home school. I'm sure you can do better than teachers.
What a horrible post.

Your post is really smug.

Not everyone has money to move house for catchments, not everyone understands or can teach fractions, and not everyone understands, knows or has time to do many of these things at home.

There’s a middle ground- school is NOT primarily for socialising- it’s for learning. Parents absolutely should model good behaviour, teach values, do ABC, 123, colours, shapes, flowers etc if they can, but if they can’t or won’t then the child still deserves an excellent education, which is why every school should strive for excellence.

Now stop stealth boasting.

Definitely a check your own socioeconomic privilege issue here, OP. The privilege is being able to choose where you live and its selection of wonderful school. The privilege of not being crunched for time so you can spend your time educating your kids from 3.30 til supper time. The privilege of having a car to sing your times tables in. The privilege of compliant kids without any SEN. Well done, I am sure your children are winning the race.

This also isn't a strategy that will translate well to secondary school where you have 13 subjects to juggle. You'd be better off supporting them to be self sufficient in their learning. And why are you leaving the social side to the school? That's where you should be guiding.