To find middle class parents insufferable?

Where did she say about London? And they certainly all don't. . Look at eastlea or listed schools for example

I don’t get it -they just want what’s best for their children it sounds like ?

@NeurodiversitydoctorDid the poster say London? London schools thrive because they have clever immigrant dc who want to do well and their parents are here for better opportunities. Elsewhere is not so rosy and exam results and university stats show this to be the case. Dc often lack ambition if they don’t see success. In London success is never far away.

You can move to a grammar county or stump up the fees ( or take scholorship exams) instead. I am quite open that we did both with our very bright 10 year old rather than allow him to go to a school where less than 50% achieved A-C ( as it was then) in Maths and English. He would have stuck oit like a sore thumb and never reached his potential.

Studies show that where you raise your kids has the biggest effect on their life outcomes. Some parents care about their kids.

But you can't just buy a house in a naice area and avoid it can you?

You are out of date London schools out percorm almost everywhere else in England. It is deprived (white) coastal communities that have tbe worst results.

Well arguably that is what selective school eitber private or grammar are. Yes I know there will be a good smattering of clever autists but they are rarely openly disruptive.

I did everything I could so that my kids could go to the best possible school. Not just for their educational chances but to be friends with kids from similar backgrounds.

I went to a very rough comp too and got excellent grades. I had high expectations of the state school system too. Sigh!

You’ll find out if the secondary school is ok in due course. Ours is widely regarded as one of the best in a 50 mile radius. Didn’t stop kids beating up my child repeatedly. Again and again. Day after day. When the self harming got serious we threw in the towel and went private.

Private school is just incredible in comparison. So friendly and wholesome. It’s not just kids grinding out exam results in an atmosphere of constant fear. My only issue is that I can’t afford it for my other kids.

Don't get all moralistic about the ‘rounded’ education your kids are going to get in a dodgy state school, because you’ll look like a bit of a chump if it turns out to be terrible and you have to remove them.

Really does depend on the area, most state schools are fine and I went to a state school that was fine. However, some inner city state schools are really, really bad. You don’t seem to have any idea about the reality of this..have you done any actual research on the schools your friends are talking about? Maybe they have done research and their fears are based in reality. By the time my brother (who’s 8 years younger) came along, we’d moved into the city (big city in Scotland) his inner city state school was shocking - kids getting their faces slashed with knives, riot police up their weekly with shields and batons due to full class riots that were completely out of control, multiple different hard drugs being sold in school. Unsurprisingly he came out with no qualifications and some very dodgy friends, and now as an adult as multiple drugs convictions. Even if these schools aren’t this bad, there’s no smoke without fire, I doubt all your friends are so snobby and out of touch, that they think every state school is an awful dangerous place (if they have then apologies and yes they’re being ridiculous), but they’ve liked looked into it and want the best for their kids, nothing wrong with that. No way I’d be sending my kids to a rubbish high school, I want them to have the best experience possible.

Yes you are insufferable. Upwardly mobile, middle class yuppies are also addicts and murderers. Needles in the park and stabbings on the high street happen… everywhere. You obviously think differently, which is testament as to why being brought up in the ’real world’ surrounded by ‘real people’ going through ‘real issues’ is of paramount importance when it comes to raising enlightened, street-savvy, well-rounded children. eyeroll.

I have read comments from Irish teachers on MN about how they think it is ridiculous that children are taught algebra at school (!!) and that the Irish curriculum should be more progressive. There seems to be a "progressive" group on MN saying this and that primary schools in the UK should only teach "core maths" (this is a convoluted version of maths which seeks to replace traditional maths teaching if anyone is not aware) and reduce the language part of the curriculum too. Terrible shame that people are still flogging that horse.

I think the UK (each country individually, I think England is the worst) should be brought up to Irish standards. How could this be done do you think? What are the main differences you are aware of? What is the curriculum for Irish Primary and Secondary in very outline terms? Are your exams at 16 and 18 harder? I know I could google but it sounds as though you would be a good source!

People exchange holiday ideas and recommendations just like you exchange recommendations of decorators. (Are you one of those people who constantly drone on about house renovations?)

The primary school that our DC would have attended if we hadn't moved is in an area with a lot of deprivation and has problems with a) poor attendance and b) a significant minority of children turning up for reception who can't speak English. Staff at the school admitted that both these issues drained resources from away from making sure every child reaches their full potential and into making sure that the children who haven't got a great start have at least got the basics.
By contrast: in DC's current state primary class more than a third of the children are from families where both parents are 1st generation immigrants but all the kids speak English well and have good attendance, because their parents are aspirational and value education; teachers can get on with teaching the curriculum and most children, including those with significant SEN, appear to be thriving. Friends who are teachers in the state system say we absolutely made the right choice to avoid the school in our previous location.

This. Do you actually have a child OP? Because the only people I know determined to be ‘groovy, funky’ parents who will ‘deliberately send their child to failing comp cos REAL LIFE and DIVERSITY’ etc, don’t actually have children.

And the ones who previously thought that then actually went on to have children, did a complete 180 and in many cases sent their children to private school, moved to rural areas etc

My aunt is a very vocal socialist - lifelong Labour-turned-Green voter, very outspoken about inequality and how demonised the working classes are, how only racists and petty bourgeois people live in middle class towns. She had a baby and guess what? She sheepishly moved to a very middle class area and sent her daughter to a prep school followed by a grammar.

I make zero apologies about wanting the best for my children. We live in a safe and beautiful area, I will scrimp and save to send them private if they don’t pass their 11+ and I couldn’t care less who judges me for that.

My parents were from working class backgrounds but were the first in their families to go onto higher education and qualify as teachers. We were comfortably off. Not loaded, lower middle class probably. My parents had an ideological objection to private education and so that was off the table.

The school I went to was enormous. 12 class intake into secondary. Very mixed, there were all areas in the catchment from leafy suburb to very deprived estate. There were a large number of children from homes where education was not valued, and who were only at school because they had to be. Those of us who wanted to learn were bullied for that, and also bullied for living in a "bought house" as opposed to a council house, having a school tie, and various other failings.

So when it came to my own kids, we purposely chose to live in an area with some of the best state schools in Scotland. Parents round here value education and aspire to the best for their kids. Yes there are disruptive children in the school but they are 1 or 2 out of 30, not 23 or 24 out of 30. Everyone wants the best for their kids. I was not about to enrol my kids into a not as good school as some sort of social experiment or to give them experience of "real life".

Agree, are you allowed to say the stuff about schools if you are working class op and have some lived experience? It's an absolute lottery when you go to secondary school who you will mix with and how that will shape your future for good or for bad. Mine goes to a grammar school and I find it's my friends and their kids at non grammar who make the comments about drugs and knives at their schools and laugh about how my child won't know about those things.

Oh don't be ridiculous, the class system has been designed and maintained like this by the elites, it really is stupid to blame common people for its existence.
The education system serves the purpose of segregation by its very design. It was deliberately made very fragmented, with lots of barriers between the sectors, to prevent commoners to enter the elite - and by commoners they mean MC, of course.

Most people are scared of being the odd one out - you are, after all, more at risk of being bullied if you don’t fit in with the general norm around you. The truly socially confident and adept, and those who refuse to, or are unable to, hide who they really are, are the exception, not the norm. Everyone else tends to stereotype others and stick with what makes them feel safest (what they think is most like them), and fears having their safety blanket taken off them by the unknown or by something that reminds them of a negative experience of their own, even if the reality is that it is not actually the same after all .

The British system is shit because of these attitudes - MC parents segregating (and I use that word deliberately) their children from those they consider 'lesser.' That practice inevitably creates an uneven system which creates more problems and the whole thing rolls on and on.

Maybe it's a more modern thing then When DD2 was in primary there was one kid there for a couple of terms but bothe the school and his parents were doing their best to move him to a more suitable special school. M

Didn't hear parents complaining non stop. Mind you that was one child out of16 not 20% of them

Wanting the best for your children isn't a problem.

Having a system which creates divisions of 'deprived' and 'good' schools is a problem.

It is actually possible, and preferable, to have a system where every single school hits a baseline level of 'good.' Inevitably some will be better than others but having a setup where some are genuinely terrible is a disaster for society as a whole. MC parents can just fuck off and pretend the whole thing isn't happening (bully for them!) but others are stuck in that system. It really isn't surprising when that results in social problems down the line.

I went to state schools, which were fine because the Irish education system isn't a heap of shit like the British one - everyone gets a good education no matter where they live.

'nuff said but somehow you now want Brits to sacrifice their kids to places you call heaps of shit?.. 🤔 OK then... The irony is definitely lost for good 😁

Yes, OP has displayed her subscription to a very stupid idea that drugs are "visible" and if you can only see homeless addicts in her area then it means her MC demographic is not affected, and she would then feel free to judge people aroubd her for trying to avoid that for their DC... so what? People tend to entertain lots of stupid ideas 🤷‍♀️