my son is going to the local bog standard comp

Smug?

What if someone were to open a 'club' for parents of DC at 'top grammars' or 'public schools'?

Happens all the time. Anyhow, this thread isn't a private club is it,?<

Grimma -- that was my point! The OP explicitly called this a 'club'. Could you kindly point me to a single thread where grammar or indie parents have explicitly declared themselves a 'club'?

Seeker -- my very own DS was going to a bog-standard local comp when I took him out for his own safety. So kindly don't patronise me.

Basildonbond is right. The tone of this thread is decidedly smug. Why can't we all respect each other's decisions regarding the most suitable school for our DC? All children are different, and one size does not fit all :).

DC went to the local local comp - 11 A grade GCSEs, 5 A grade A levels, played the Albert Hall with the school orchestra, now studying medicine.
What's not to like?

Both of mine are at the local comp- we're rural and the nearest non-comprehensive is miles away. We're very happy with it. It's genuinely a comprehensive, with hairdressing and construction skills on offer for the non-academically inclined, so it'll never shine in league tables, but pretty much everyone goes from school into a job, an apprenticeship or University. There's a good work ethic across the board.

well then startail if you want to give thanks and celebrate, don't run the schools down by calling them bog standard ... if schools have great facilities, good results, sends kids off to Oxbridge etc etc they're not bog standard are they...

All state schools should cater for the brightest while simultaneously supporting the less academic, offer fantastic pastoral care, be a vibrant part of their local community etc etc and yes, there are many schools that are all those things. The tragedy is that some schools are not.

FWIW ds2 goes to the school 5 mins down the road - it's a comprehensive, but it's far from bog standard. We're lucky that we live where we do and have that option but I'm not fooling myself that there's anything particularly praise-worthy about my decision to send him there. It's easy for me to say 'why would anyone not use their local school' but I don't have genuine fears for ds2's safety every day and I know that he will be stretched and encouraged to achieve - I wouldn't judge anyone who doesn't have that luxury and yes, there was a judgmental tone to some of the posts on this thread - lots of you don't recognise that, being too busy agreeing with each other!

People hqve very strange ideas about state schools!

mine is nothing particularly out of the ordinary
look at the Hampshire results on the BBC league tables
all the secondaries in Hampshire are comps
very few have 6th forms
we feed into Peter Symonds, Barton Peverill etc

its a positive feedback loop
good schools attract bright parents ....

A lot of the schools people are talking about on here sound far from bog standard. If they are achieving the standards people say they are and sending kids to Oxbridge it beggers belief that people would ever contemplate sending their children to private school.

'When they are well funded'

There's the rub. It has occurred to me that all the non-BSCs - the ones that are deemed to have some other advantage (GSs, faith, whatever) should automatically receive a somewhat lower capitation.

Yup

My comp had a fabulous music dept - individual free tuition in piano and oboe for me every week - a farm for earth sciences, a boarding wing used mainly by forces families and soc services, a massive playing field, A swimming pool ( which they couldn't afford to fill) drama studios, science labs (with gas taps to be lit, hurrah!) and a truly mixed intake.

When they are well funded, comprehensives can rival the private sector and cope with challenging g pupils too.

Thanks for saying that startail. That's what I thought the point of the thread was too.

basildonbond I think the point of this thread is two fold,first of all to remind ourselves and others that the majority of MN don't send our DCs to private or Grammar schools and that for most people that isn't an option.

Secondly to say thank you to all the teachers, HT, governors, support staff, parents and pupils who do their best to ensure our local comprehensives remain a viable option for the majority of children.

Given ever changing government targets, poor funding and the sadly unsupportive attitude of some parents and total disinterest in learning of some of the pupils, I think this thank you isn't said nearly often enough.

I've gone right off this thread.

Private schools and grammars are Already an exclusive club!

I've been told off for posting on private school threads before!

What if someone were to open a 'club' for parents of DC at 'top grammars' or 'public schools'?

Happens all the time. Anyhow, this thread isn't a private club is it? AFAIK I've not been booted out though my DD opted not to go to our BSC. We had the rare luxury of choosing between 'real' C and GS because the latter is out of area. (The only significant distorter of intake in our area is the faith schools but they ain't that great and so a lot of people CBA to jump through their hoops.) For most children, a good BSC is better than a long busride to a school with only academic options.

My DN went to her BSC and has a stunning set of GCSEs racked up - sights set on Cambridge.

I think what I want to say is that Tony Blair was a prick who totally missed the point when he denigrated BSCs.... he should have aimed at making every 'Bog Standard Comp' (and the 'Sec Mods' in GS areas) bloody excellent in their own right instead of rearranging deckchairs with academies and pushing 'faith' schools and then Gove propagating 'Free' schools.

umeboshi, you are aware, aren't you, that something like 90% of children go to "the school down the road"- in other words, the local comprehensive? It's only on mumsnet that this perfectly normal activity could be classified as " reverse snobbery" A bit like accusing somebody of reverse snobbery because they go to Tesco rather than Waitrose!

cos we are the vast majority of the population

A thread that's a 'club' for parents with DC at bog-standard comps... What if someone were to open a 'club' for parents of DC at 'top grammars' or 'public schools'? That would quite rightly be denounced as snobbism. So how is this thread not snobbism in reverse?

I think 'true comp' was specified because people use comprehensive wrongly to mean a school where you go if you don't pass the 11+ - which is, by definition, not comprehensive.

ragged
the dribs and drabs approach to GCSEs is going - by the time DD has finished studying hers, it will almost all be exams at the end (like we had!)
Pastoral care CAN be done really well - its worth asking what the systems are.

X posts, Notmymum, DS was bullied by his peer group & lacks self-confidence to mix with the same kids or similar again. Probably with good reason (same lot might be just as horrible to him). The one thing this tiny private school does extremely well, that is much tougher to achieve at local state high schools, is pastoral care.

So I am working on DS's confidence. But around here they choose GCSE options in middle of y8, and get the final results back in bits and pieces over yrs9-11, so I am very uncertain how I could integrate DS back; seems like he has to go back at start of y8 or never. (as ever)

ragged we immigrants can wilfully misunderstand each other then

Presumably there's some sort of false comp on offer, somewhere? Beyond me, anyway (playing my foreigner card again).