Headmistress attacks parents in national press

WF is right. Furthermore, amongst the super rich of West London, there are many families in which only the father goes out to work.

Anyway, OP's complaint at the start of this thread was that it was the amount of homework her DD had to do which deprived her of time to spend with her. It's hard not to sympathise.

The vast majority of parents in the UK have too little time for their DC, not because they have high flying careers, but because they need to pay the rent and put bread on the table.

There is a lot more working poor in the UK than rich professionals.

I thought it was an excellent price. After love and security children need time- lots of time from their parents and many don't get it because they parents can't make it, their lives are too pressurised.

Even if your parents are not pushing you to succeed it must be pretty scary to get a string of Bs and Cs when it is simply not done at that school. The expectation is that you are a high achiever or you wouldn't be there- once there you have to keep it up.

OP My posts have been a bit glib and facetious. The concerns you have so well expressed are obviously sincere. Yes, of course you are an important stakeholder. You have a right to speak out. If you don't think Ms Farr is inspirational after all but do think she has displayed poor judgement and has upset parents, you should let that be known, especially when you are being asked to pay record breaking high fees.

Btw, I think it's the now astronomical level of the fees for these private schools that explains the press interest: journalists, like other salaried professionals in London, have been priced out in the last few years, so they are withdrawing their support. David Mitchell wrote quite a hard hitting piece about this in The Observer a few weeks ago.

And in a school like that the pressures to succeed are enormous

They're not! They're only enormous if your parents are making them enormous. I don't remember feeling any pressure at all when I was at SPGS. I did feel a huge sense of possibilities being opened to me.

What I've realised from reading this thread and thinking about it is:

a) Clarissa Farr is probably right if a bit cack-handed in the method of delivery.

b) Most of the pressures in a school like this come from parents not other children or the school, hence her comments.

c) If you are actually at the school or another school like it and relatively well-adjusted with parents who are kind to you and don't expect the impossible, the pressure will just pass you by. The children who suffer are just not supported in a good way at home.

d) The ethos instilled in a child is mainly achieved at home. If you model resilience, good sense, trying hard, helping others, being kind, using your natural talents, whatever is important to you , at home, then your child is likely to pick up on it.

I think there is a lot of absolute nonsense talked about schools of this kind, tbh. I know current pupils as well as having been one myself and I just don't recognise the hothouse stereotype that gets applied.

Poisonwoodlife I do take your point. It's perfectly true that if you look at the "Ethos" page on the SPGS website, as I have just done, you get a photo of Ms Farr and a message signed by her. Perhaps she is indeed one of those inspiring heads who wants, as you say, to transform the school and take it in a new direction.

The 38% hike in fees in the last five years, as reported in the Sunday Times, might be part of her plan to change the parent body: perhaps she wants the school to be more financially exclusive than it was when she joined. If she thinks that will help to foster the warmth, fun, creativity, and laughter she says she's keen on, that's up to her, I guess.

OP's concerns about parents' relations with the head sounded reasonable to me but maybe I shouldn't bother to comment if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Head must know best.

And actually implicit in that agenda is that there are problems with the parenting of the pupils in those schools as well as issues with the environment they are brought up in...... So do we say all GSA Heads are guilty of undermining the relationship with their parent body? Every Head I have had experience of has returned from their conferences, be it GSA or the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference with a report on what they have learnt and just as sometimes they were criticising the government, sometimes they were actually criticising modern parenting.......

Granola I made that exact point earlier in the thread, this is not a consumer product or service but an institution, parents are not consumers who have a right to expect to be served up "customer delight" but, albeit they are paying for it, parents of the pupils who attend a school with a particular ethos they have signed up to and that it is the responsibility of the Head to ensure is delivered. I only used the word product in the context of making a comparison with Ratner since OP had tried to argue it was a directly comparable event and should possibly result in the same outcome.

I do not agree that a Head is just the current caretaker though. Good Heads can and do transform schools, state or private, and they set the vision and strategies. Locally Latymer (previous Head) , LEH (the one before last, Miss Candy, who I gather took the school from being the very unremarkable private school attended by Lynn Barber and portrayed in "An Education" ), Godolphin (the previous Head), KGS (previous Head) have all seen what a difference a good Head can make to a school, inspiring the community, governors and pupils to take a school in new directions. I certainly noticed when my DD moved secondary school what a difference an inspiring engaged Head can make , and what an uninspiring one can do to dilute the ethos. Perhaps as one poster said up thread Clarissa Farr does want to change the nature of the parent body? Though actually I suspect she was just trying to share experience and good practise of a shared issue with fellow professionals (just as actually Ratner was doing). If you look at the agenda for the conference itself you will see that there was a lot of emphasis on the psychological well being of pupils. gsa.uk.com/annual-conference-2014-2/

Poisonwoodlife, I'm interested by your comments about Gerald Ratner but SPGS isn't Clarissa Farr's own "product": it's a long established school, of which she is privileged to be the current head.

I sympathise with OP's concern about the head's relationship with the parent body. OP is entitled to make the observations she has posted here and should certainly feel able to raise them elsewhere. Ms Farr should pay attention to her relationship with parents, just as she no doubt takes care of her relationships with pupils and staff at the school.

And in a school like that the pressures to succeed are enormous-how dreadful to get a B when they all get As.

I read it and thought that it was quite true. Children need time -not quality time just time and lots of it-mainly parent time. Obviously there are exceptions like OP.

Fayrazzled - you hit the nail on the head. There are schools that are clubs - for DC and their parents. Hence the huge stakes involved in securing a place.

I mind very much whether I like the Head and find that a productive long-term relationship with a school is immensely difficult without mutual respect for and easy communication with senior management. Which we have, fortunately.

Poisonwoodlife- my comment about Yorkshire was neither here nor there really. It wasn't specifically about Yorkshire. It could have been Scotland, the Midlands, Northumberland, Shropshire, East Anglia etc etc. Really, as UpsetofWestLondon appreciated, my comment was regarding the very particular angst and hand-winging that accompanies a subset of London parents desperate to get their children into a very narrow 'club' of schools.

Which isn't to say that if you move to Yorkshire (or Scotland, the MIdlands, Northumberland etc) the schools are perfect. Of course they aren't. No-one would pretend otherwise. And of course, I understand the 'market' in London for education is very different to other places too. But, despite the angst and the competition, many parents wouldn't move out of London precisely because the very particular kinds of school that St Paul's, NLCS, Westminster, Gdolphin & Latymer are, don't exist elsewhere.

But surely when we choose a school we want them to like our child and our child to like the school NOT the Head to like us. It won't put anyone off. You are paying to educate your child not to feel loved.

She wasn't misquoted. She said these things. If you don't want it reported, don't say it.

Actually as a fellow marketer I had heard Gerald Ratner make the same presentation at several conferences over the years, illustrating how they segmented their market and targeted their customer offer. It was usually met with interest, understanding and an appreciation of the wit (and you might well have just sat through some humourless corporate clone from Mercedes). The MD of First Direct used to deliver a similar witty rundown on their target customers and strategy for exploiting the market which their customers probably would not have wanted to hear. The difference was when Ratner's comments it made it out of the professional environment of the conference and into the very popular press that target the same market.

However Ratner was dependent on attracting his consumers to buy, Clarissa Farr is selecting hers from the very many who want to buy into her product, and as shown on here, many who buy into her words and want an authoritative Head leading the school. Big difference.

To be fair, UpsetofWestLondon, however media savvy, in order to avoid a journalist misquoting you, you have to zip your mouth shut. Then you will be accused of uncharacteristic silence, instead! Better to say these things in a public forum and risk being misquoted than to have some journalist getting their hands on private letters you have been sending to other headteachers of other public schools, complaining about parental attitudes, which a delighted journalist could publish, instead under the heading, "What Headteachers Really Think of Private School Parents [but are too duplicitous to say]."

God the angst! It's interesting how other people live and the stresses they have. Move to Scotland and then send your kids to the local school. Jobs a good 'un! No head teachers moaning about parents in the Times here!

Hasn't St Paul's always been rather keen on publicity-courting High Mistresses? It's part of their 'thing' I think.
ROTFLMAO
That and they made one of the greatest recruitment clangers ever some years back hiring somebody without checking their references

That was a really interesting thread to read, especially as an old Paulina. Hasn't St Paul's always been rather keen on publicity-courting High Mistresses? It's part of their 'thing' I think.