To find middle class parents insufferable?

I worked in an “outstanding” state school in a deprived area. Its academic results were unparalleled in the borough. The Nursery parents wept if their children didn’t get a reception place and it was always over subscribed. The majority of the families were not middle class, but some were moving in as the school had a good reputation. I must say the families were lovely. It was a nice community, but very deprived.

Even there we were safeguarding against Year 5 and 6 children being recruited to drug gangs.

We are probably middle class. Nice rural lifestyle. Child goes to a good rated school that I was keen for him to go to in a village setting. They missed (and I missed but I’m not a professional in that sense) that he is completely blind in one eye. Maybe another bigger school would have spotted it. Who knows.

I think my point is people always try to do what is best for their children but it still goes wrong. I’m not saying don’t try but life loves a good curve ball.

That's not what the post said. It made a general point that part of being a good parent is doing the best you can for your children

So if your specific children are in a good school, there's no issue for you, is there?

I went to school in Ireland, qualified as a teacher there and taught there. When I came to the UK and started teaching it was very hard for me to get my head around Ofsted. I can't actually imagine an organisation that could do more harm to education than Ofsted. It is pure poison.

I’m a creative type. I find it insufferable when people make sweeping generalisations and can’t resist dropping in that they went to a “prestigious” university.

Well I’ve just read some of OPs other posts. She’s asked for opinions, the become very defensive when people don’t agree with her? 🤷‍♀️

OP have you read the threads on here from teachers and parents at schools? How some of the children behave. How some of the parents behave?

Do you think a child has a better chance in a more affluent area, given what is said? Because I do. As a parent your job is to choose the best you can for your child. If you don’t you’re a crap parent.

@Bunnyfluffo Ofsted is all new people have to go on. Msny schools are now academies and there’s no record of their previous inadequate ratings! They change the name of the school. It’s only parents who have been around for 20-30 years who know the history. The big danger is a school becoming a yoyo school and not remaining good. A well run school can certainly maintain good but many in challenging areas really struggle with that.

Sounds like they have higher aspirations for your children than you do 😣

Great that it's a good school. And if it were a terrible school? Would you send them anyway or would you look elsewhere?

Locally we have generally good schools and one with a terrible reputation and the results to match. Why wouldn't local parents want to avoid it?

Yeah agree with this, I’ve lived in my town my whole life so have better knowledge on local schools than someone who’s just moved here and looked at ofsted. The school that got a “good” ofsted and has all the expensive equipment fucking sucks, catchment area is scruff city and parents dealing drugs in the playground. The bullying that goes on there is crazy.

My kids school apparently requires improvement and once got inadequate. However it’s an amazing school and actually gets the best sats results in town which you can look up online. Ofsted is complete bullshit. These schools are actually less than a mile apart but the culture is completely different

Absolutely, I’m sure there are those who generalise (this thread proves it actually!) and more fool them but I know enough teachers in enough areas of the country to know that there are widespread problems with behaviour management and lack of parental support. These problems are less present where the school has the option to not take the pupil in the first place or the ability to shift the problem when it presents (private/grammar).
The OPs issue actually seems to be they thought everyone was like them and they were going to gentrify the area together and now she’s missed the boat to do the same for her little darling

Thr violence was bad in the state school I sent my child to, but the disruption in classes is what really increases inequality. When we moved my child to mainstream private she said the biggest difference was that the teachers taught for the full lesson. I think I read a stat somewhere that something like 25% of lessons in Scottish state schools are spent by teachers dealing with disruption. If you’re missing out in 1/4 of your education what hope have you?

The first step in improving education in the worse state schools is the complete clamp down on violence and disruption because it is this that’s ruining the poorer kid’s life chances.

@GwstA lot of schools are good as defined by Ofsted but can really struggle to maintain that. Some will have been yoyo schools for decades and parents will have gone to the schools when they were poor. They might be better than that now, but the parents don’t have faith in them and are concerned about behaviour. No child learns well if behaviour is poor. I’d not assume all parents are wrong and I would remember they can justify what
they think to some extent and might have greater in depth knowledge than you do.

Presumably you aren't in Edinburgh then....

But that isn’t the case. It doesn’t happen. We all know this. So no.

I don't know how you got the idea I'm a 'champaign socialist.' I live on a council estate and my children go to the local school, which is considered 'rough' by middle class nincompoops and which is in fact a great school.

Incidentally my views have nothing to with Marxism or any other political theory. It is just logical cause and effect that if you segregate people it causes social problems. It's not actually that complicated.

I was just about to say the problem schools of the 1990s aren't like when we were at school, they are Much MUCH worse.

That said, private school or a posh middle class school isn't always the best option either. In our area (Cheshire) drug use is much worse at the leafy sporty private than the state schools. Drugs cost money and private school kids have more access....

I don't think you can generalise. Each school needs to be assessed on its own merits and failings.

I find it astonishing and sad. One family is dedicated to giving their children a private school lifestyle whilst attending our good local state primary. This is 'to make up for the shortcomings of a state education'. It translates to private piano lessons, Spanish lessons etc every week night - ironically not with any private school kids but alone within the family unit. They don't support the school their kids go to by attending events like the fete or sponsored run etc. And the kids rarely attend birthday parties. The result being an insular family with no connection to the community they live in. Hope the kids think Oxbridge was worth it 😏

If it was the case that his decent upbringing would rub off on the other kids, would you do it then?

I know my answer. And I don't believe that facing sh..t in formative years improves child's life overall.

I don’t disagree that it would be lovely if every state school lived up to certain standards. It would be wonderful if we could all just send our child to the local state school and be confident that they’ll get a decent education.

But that’s just not the case.

Just look at the countless threads here on MN about some of the pretty awful stuff that’s going on in schools now - exacerbated by the fact that many schools don’t have enough teachers to take the classes.

I was a school governor at a very rough primary school for 5+ years. It was a lovely school in many ways and as a primary, we didn’t have some of the problems that secondary schools have.

But we had an enormous pastoral dept and a very large chunk of time was spent on pupils whose families simply weren’t interested in school. The children I’m thinking of got zero support at home with reading or education. No help with learning their numbers or the times tables. No help with little projects the children might be doing at school.

The teachers spent a lot of time trying to get these children up to speed with the rest of the class. They were constantly lagging behind. Some weren’t particularly inclined to behave because their parents gave zero shits. We had to evacuate one classroom because a child lost their temper and started turning over tables. Another child was brandishing scissors and making threats (that was a big incident).

Certain parents just didn’t really care very much if their child was disruptive, aggressive, or rude.

I can think of two children in one year alone that left to go to a different school because they were academically able and their parents felt all the attention was being given to those at the bottom.

With classes of 30+ children and one TA (if you’re lucky), you can set stretched targets for children doing well. But where is your time and attention going to be spent? I can tell you now: it’s on the child who can’t keep up with the lesson or the one rolling around on the desks.

This was a primary school. I don’t blame parents for not wanting to subject their very young child to a disruptive environment where there’s potentially the threat of violence and where multiple families allow their children to behave however they choose. I don’t blame parents for wanting their child to go to a school that brings out their best.

Point of note: my two DC went to this rough school. We actually moved to it from another school. This very rough school was phenomenal with SEN and both my DC have very significant SEN (both ended up in special schools). So I know this school extremely well as a parent, and as the acting chair of governors.

At secondary level the stakes are even higher. Any child can make bad decisions - good kids get involved with county lines, taking drugs themselves, or joining gangs. It doesn’t matter if your kid is “good” - being in an environment where poor decisions are normalised means there’s a greater chance of them being sucked in.

I also used to do voluntary work in a homeless shelter. There was one woman whose story always stuck with me. She was in a terrible way. I talked to her and learned that she was my age. She’d had a child. Good job. Relationship with a bloke - long story short, he introduced her to drugs. She lost everything and ended up on the streets. Child in care. She looked like an 70 year old woman when I met her but she was in her 30s.

I always think it’s a case of there but for the grace of god go I. It only takes one bad decision for things to start to go very wrong. And heaven knows, teens make enough bad decisions as it is!! I want my kids to have the best possible chance in life - and I don’t want them exposed to violence, drugs, and other criminal activities if I can avoid it. I’m a lefty politically but it’s just naive to suggest that these problems aren’t more common at state schools in rougher areas.

Our education system is utterly broken. Sending your child to a rough school won’t change anything other than potentially their future - in a negative way. There needs to be wholesale changes from the top - slapping a tax on private schools is a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. But fixing our education system means spending public money - and there just isn’t any.

Certain posters seem to think the onus of failing schools should lie solely at MC parents feet. What about the feckless parents who don't give a shit about their childrens education?

I come from one of these families. My mother is vile. She doesn't care about education, she doesn't care about her children. She bullied me as a child for reading because apparently I thought i was better than her and needed taking down a few pegs.

Inequality isn't going to go away. You could never get a perfect balance of MC vs WC, SEN vs non SEN, deprived vs non deprived anyway. And even if you could people would still find a way for their children to get a leg up. Just by caring, reading to your kids, giving them a nice calm home, clean clothes and decent food you are providing them with an advantage.

I don't know what the solution is but in my opinion the change need to happen in the communities who don't value education. I had friends at school whos parents were immigrants, they were just as poor as us but they valued education.

Are people on this thread calling an accent a 'speech impediment'???