secondary education - not privates school choices

I should say also identified by initials only......

Now my old school WC (yes really) is a very good comprehensive.

OP has a point though. If you click on the Education link right now, at least half the questions relate to independent schools of various sorts. Similar position on the Secondary Education link.

Still I suppose if there is only one state school which is feasible then there is not much point posting - you have to send your child there and find the way of making the best of it.

No, but there are people on here (you are not one of them) who don't seem to see the different levels of not having a choice that exist. If you can stump up fees then you do have choice, though I completely understand that it's a choice between a rock and a slightly smaller, more comfortable rock.

It's madness that there are places in the UK where a child can't get a place because the only provision available is faith provision. This government is doing nothing to help that by insisting that local authorities aren't allowed to open up new schools because all new schools must be Academies or Free Schools. It's very sad.

Of coursepointy

Anyone who can stump up fees somehow aint poor. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that have they?

word it is compared to people on a low income who might have exactly the same issues but cannot afford to pay their way out. That isn't a judgement on anyone, it's just fact. You say you pay £12k a term, so £36k a year. If you're a family living on NMW then private education is completely out of reach no matter what your children's needs are, but you have to suck it up.

There are no easy answers, though there are a few obvious 'Don't do it this way' resolutions. Opening up a free school with a uniform costing £megabucks, like the one in the very deprived town next door to ours, would be one of those....

martorana I must admit I'm always a bit dubious about what people coukld cut back on to pay school fees.

For my two it's over twelve grand a term...hardly loose change.

But then again, there are much cheaper schools, and lots of people just have one in private, don't they?

I suppose what people are trying to get across is that they're not rich. They're not bankers or memebers of the landed gentry. They might be just two full time working professionals who aren't spending their cash on things that their mates might be to pay for school.

Some people leave themselves pretty strapped to pay fees. But what choice do they have if they don't get allocated a place close enough to hand, or their local state school doesn't have the right provision?

It's not a real meaningful choice really.

Martorana it would depend which 11+ exam you used, reasoning or attainment, and whether they were tutored or not, those Collies are great rote learners

I seenodust you are right, in our local park it is all poshos Labradors andchavs pit bulls

Yep, Weegiemum - 3rd of March for state schools. It must be hair raising for a lot of people, I'm glad that I have no choice. Though if our local secondary were bad, I would these days have the option to Home Ed - it would be tough financially, but not impossible the way it would have been even 3 years ago.

You don't find out till March?

We got confirmation before the Christmas holidays here (Glasgow) that ds had got into the same school as his big sister (feeder primary, no surprises, exactly what we wanted!).

March? I'd be going nuts!!

Sorry about that!

Pottiottie- did you miss my post where I pointed out that all the things state school parents are giggling at on this thread aren't stereotypical constructs- they have actually been said? And worse?

Word- what analogy ? I didn't think I had made one. The issue with saying "I had no choice but to go private" is the choice of words. I would have respect for someone who said " I did have a choice- because I am rich and I thank heaven fasting every
day that I did" . But it is very rare that anyone says that. There is always the suggestion that anyone could do the same if only they tried hard enough, talk of bursaries and scholarships which everyone knows are rarely more than a drop in the ocean....

Privileged people have more choices. Rich privileged people have even more.

Hmm- which is more intelligent- a collie or a Border? I think I'd back the border....

Pottiottie- did you miss my post where I pointed out that all the things state school parents are giggling at on this thread aren't stereotypical constructs- they have actually been said? And worse?

Word- what analogy ? I didn't think I had made one. The issue with saying "I had no choice but to go private" is the choice of words. I would have respect for someone who said " I did have a choice- because I am rich and I thank heaven fasting every
day that I did" . But it is very rare that anyone says that. There is always the suggestion that anyone could do the same if only they tried hard enough, talk of bursaries and scholarships which everyone knows are rarely more than a drop in the ocean....

Privileged people have more choices. Rich privileged people have even more.

Hmm- which is more intelligent- a collie or a Border? I think I'd back the border.....

I agree pointy: I am fed up with hearing statements like 'comprehensives have failed'. Far from it; in many cases they are offering a far better education to children than those children would have been offered 40 odd years ago.

It's not to say that there aren't problems in some areas or with particular schools, but let's not condemn them all out of hand - which some posters and some people in society do.

I don't want to completely derail this thread so I will keep my Catholic Richmond parent views about faith schools to myself.
However I totally agree that it is very easy to be blasé about school choices if you have not been directly affected. To be told on the phone by RBC that my road was a black hole and that I would not get a primary school place for my child was awful. I then asked what do you suggest and was told well we find most parents in your street tend to go private.
We didn't but we had to fight tooth and nail to get a place as I was not prepared for my child to be one of those starting after Christmas in the church hall.

Shooting Sorry to point out your accessory error but Collie is not the breed of first choice of the private school parent. It is surely the slightly dim, ball games obsessed retriever?

I think many of us on this thread who send our children to state schools - for whatever reasons - are just tired of hearing them endlessly slated - not just here on MN, but also in the wider media. There seems to be a powerful perception out there that state education in the UK is mostly bad, and the picture just isn't that simple. It gets tiresome.

The point about not being able to access local schools because they are all faith schools is an utterly valid one, but as long as we have faith schools it will continue to exist. And that's a whole fresh can of worms right there.

What a lot of different people there are on mumsnet. Different backgrounds, opinions, opportunities, choices (or lack of them). Isn't that kind of the point of mumsnet? I love parodies and can't get by without having a laugh. I was just pointing out that the mums on the threads being laughed at never had a go at anyone! If "angst" was only the domain of private school mums, the original poster wouldn't be on here looking for stuff! I'm happy enough to say that worrying about my DD's current situation and needs is what brought me here. I'm sure mums have been on the receiving end of some snobby idiot's remarks about their kid's school or the area they live in, I've had it the other way round, too. One mum once sneered at me for the state primary my kids go to (our nearest, in catchment, no choice but am happy with that, er, I live there!!) because she thought that all that mattered to the families there was the number of bathrooms in everyone's houses!!!! That reminds me, must tell the cleaner not to forget the seventh bathroom in the south wing this morning. If I can find her, she might be in the gatekeeper's lodge.....;) I think if we all steer clear of labels and stereotypes this thread would have been shorter! How about we support each other instead?

By the way Martorana I will admit I am jealous, what I wouldn't give for a hay bale and bridal in the back of my car (though I prefer my Collie to a terrier, because obviously being a private school parent I have to have the most intelligent dog ) but that's another choice I don't have......

martorana that's a bloody daft analogy. Choice is a multi faceted idea.

For choice to be meaningful it has to have viable alternatives for the chooser. Just because someone else has even fewer choices doen't mean your situation isn't difficult or that it feels any freer. Or that you're not allowed to mention it.

And it doesn't excuse endlessly depicting parents as all having the same reasons and views... which is what you do ad infinitum...

Martorana if you have the money and are faced with no school place, or one that is inaccessible, or doesn't meet your child's needs then you will feel you have no choice. It's a brave parent who stands by their principals and inflicts that experience on their child when they have the means to not do so. It doesn't stop you having empathy for those who don't have the means, or indeed fighting to make sure that in future parents are not faced with those unacceptable experiences. But clearly you can't expect any empathy for your decision and have to accept being stereotyped as a snobbish ignorant yummy mummy ever after who in any case is not entitled to a view (you may have missed that gem) One parent just highlighted that in our Borough, if you did not embark on a project to meet the faith criteria in utero you have a 1in 5 chance of being offered none of your local school preferences (or even a place at the 6 nearest schools) for a first born child. The parents posting about private school choices live in that environment.

"But maybe their feelings don't count" Of course they do. But people saying that because of those circumstances they had "no choice" but to go private might be just a tad upsetting for the majority in the same position who do not have that option, no? Even if they stop smoking ?

Well word I do have highlights, and I have had a boob job (just don't mention that it was the removal of one) and my DDs walked over me into a private school (because they weren't prepared to wait for the outcome of the late application we were only allowed to make when we actually moved back into the house we had owned for a decade or travel via several buses to the state school we were eventually offered a place at, must have been past at least ten other nearer state schools, including three within a mile, the private school was considerably more local)

Do I get to be a yummy mummy?

I don't feel remotely got at .

I mean I probably am a yummy mummy ^ checks highlights ^ and I've never even applied for a state school for my DC, let alone appealed or turned one down or chosen one oabove another (though to be fair I bet I've visited more state schools recently than anyone else on this thread)...

But I suppose those parents who weren't able to drive past yob central to a good school, or weren't given a state school within a fifteen mile radius, or couldn't find SEN provision within their state sector just might feel unfairly got at and pilloried by this thread.

But maybe their feelings don't count .

I'm sorry if anyone feels got at. But I do think it's important to remember that all the things that state school parents are having a little giggle at on this thread have actually been said to us in all seriousness. And there have been worse, less funny things as well which I have to assume are very minority viewpoints and therefore I don 't repeat. But the wilder inaccuracies are fair game, surely?
For the record, I drive a battered Subaru Forrester- usually with a bale of hay, a bridle and a terrier in the boot........

HSM I think you do! But I would advise having a badge made to thast effect. It's important that everyone knows you would have gone there, if you could ...