To find middle class parents insufferable?

Where we are there is an extremely high proportion of ethnic minorities in the best schools. Immigrants value good quality education more than ethnic Brits from what I can see, and that’s hardly a bad thing.

I'm just stating what happened at my school. I didn't make the curriculum you know

And fyi I'm working class

You clearly didn’t read my post properly. I didn’t say all m/c people have an RP, southern accent. That would be ridiculous, of course there are m/c people all over the country! I said their regional accents won’t be strong and will be posher than normal. I bet you don’t have the same accent as working class people from your city. The minute you open your mouth people from your area will know you’re from the posh bit. You said you don’t agree with the rest of my list yet you say you are very middle class and like horse riding and were privately educated..both of which were on my list…🤔 so you just contradicted yourself and proved my point

At my dcs' private schools speech and drama lessons were paid for separately and not part of the main curriculum. I did pay for all 4dc to have these lessons and I would say the aim is not to get rid of regional accents but to encourage clear diction and confidence in speaking publicly.

@Thechaseison71 you are the one that's bringing up elocution lessons and RP being an indicator of class. I do not agree with you. Your views sound as if they derive from the 1900s

Being able to speak 'properly' has nothing to do with accents. Clear pronunciation doesn't just happen in the home counties.

We did state and private education over 13 years. Guess what? We might have paid twice, but DC only got a decent education and a reasonable outcome because we were able to pay for it. Despite all the tax paid.

I'm glad I'm past all that needing to live near a good school crap. My son was attending one of the best government schools in the country, but he missed his old friends and I let him move back. He got on fine socially, but he hardly attended by age 15 as he was having sleeping problems (he's like me) and he ended up leaving with just a couple of GCSE's. Thankfully he is now at college with good attendance and is nearly completed his NC and will be doing a HNC after the summer. So it's all worked out. Personally I think I might have done better at a posher school as I did get bullied in high school and dropped out for a while

Did I say there was anything wrong with it?

I'm aware of a few especially as DC is starting reception in September. It's been interesting to hear the views of some other parents regarding primary schools. Some are very strictly 'outstanding only' and are very eager for their kids to get into a very white and very middle primary school.

There are some state schools, especially in London that are essentially private state schools as people buy in the area, specifically for the school. Then parents contribute a lot more meaning the school can buy better resources and equipment. A lot of the parents also pay for tutoring which also improves results.

I don't even know what flat vowels are

And it's because the PP had said she went to private school. All the private schools I was aware of had elocution lessons

So your " guesstimate" of what you THOUGHT. I was saying is well off kilter

What’s wrong with some parents being forced to attend parenting classes? If they’re clueless parents who are likely to have their kids taken off them if they don’t get their act together, surely it’s better for the parents, kids and the country’s finances that they are forced to be better parents?

I wasn't commenting on where you may or may not be from. You responded to a statement from a pp saying they used flat vowels with 'Did you not have elocution lessons at school?' You may or may not have meant to imply that 'proper' speech doesn't feature flat vowels, but it's certainly how it came across to me.

Lol. We are home counties anyway.

I have no idea All I know was that we had the lessons to speak properly ( is clear pronunciation and not heavy accents)

That viewpoint requires you to believe that social services exist for the purpose of punishment. It would also require someone to think that turning up to classes would protect them from a referral to social services, when the reality is that the only thing that will protect them from social services is a change in family dynamic and individual family members’ coping strategies at a time the family is known to be under particular stress and struggling to cope. If a parent has a choice between changing their behaviour without any help, or changing their behaviour with support and advice on strategies, only an idiot would think the latter is blackmail. Either way, those families end up under the care and supervision of social services if the behaviours and issues identified do not change.

We did lots of different accents in drama. Why would we change our normal northern accents just because we performed Pygmalion?

Elocution does not necessarily mean acquiring a Home Counties accent. I'm northern and wouldn't dream of changing my accent.

Did you not have elocution lessons at school? We did as part of " Speech and Drama" classes

Seems they didn't have a choice if they were threatened with SS. for not attending

@Theboredpanda completely disagree with your view on accents (and the rest of your list) as a criteria to which class you are. There are wealthy, educated & professional people all over the country

I grew up in the North, I have a northern accent. My parents had well paying professional careers, as did my grandparents. I went to private school (as my local state schools were pretty dire). Had amazing holidays. I am a good horse rider & skier.
With the upbringing I had, I am very middle class yet you would say I am not as I say 'class' not 'clars' - your views on this are ridiculous

OP, I have read your comments (and the replies you replied to) only but I have to say I understand completely where you are coming from.

Someone I used to be friends with lives two streets over from me. There are two primary schools within our catchment area. She loved one of them, the one my children went to, it's a great school with a good reputation and has an Outstanding OFSTED. Very low staff turnover, they've all been there many years. Headteacher a well known and well respected figured in the community and it's C of E.
Even after her and her husband looked around it and loved it, she refused to put it down as an option because, and I quote "it's surrounded by council houses, so he will have loads of council estate kids in his class". So she sent him to the other one. Purely because it's surrounded by people who own their houses.

Some parents are simply insufferable snobs.

And the kicker? He got bullied at that school and she ended up transferring him to ours, where he was very happy and did well!!

@Thechaseison71 Yes there were other parenting classes that anyone could sign up to. I am assuming the ones that were 'invitation only' had less people in them, more teachers and more time to go over the various topics.

I don't see this as blackmail. I see it as giving people the opportunity and support to change their potentially damaging behaviour

Half of these parents only class themselves as 'middle-class', because they married someone who did an apprenticeship, at a local college, and now rip people off with their plastering and electrician jobs, not declaring their entire income to HMRC, because they take big cash-in-hand jobs.

To add to that, these people do not have an education, have never worked (or they've done a few supermarket jobs), and would be stuffed if their partner left them, needing to sign on for UC and register for a council house (there is absolutely nothing wrong with this and I am not judging) - My point is that nobody is invincible to catastrophe, hardship, homelessness, death. However, it's better to learn independence than be a 'middle class' parent with 0 independence who would end up in the gutters because they're all wedding bells and talk.

People like this need to look back at their family line, because somebody would have needed to swear blood and tears, to give them the life they have as an adult. Honestly, don't give these people your energy - They are utter wet wipes and a complete and utter bore!

Absolutely not middle class here. Very lower class, single parent, working but on uc. There are 3 (state) primary schools quite close to where I live. One is very academic, great ofsted reports, very well known for being a fantastic school. One has a reputation for being not so academic, rather nurturing, but small and a little more into one of the nearby villages. One has children at the local park who are carrying knives and swearing. The latter one was not even something I put as an option when I was applying for school places and that was the only thing I really knew about the school. A lot of the time when applying for schools, we have 1 visit and the rest of our opinions are based on word of mouth. It's not wrong to want the best for your child.

Snobs aren't always middle class