Anyone else disappointed with their state choices?

At DCs school I'd say parents evening turnout is around 60% in the upper years
BUT
guess which 40% are missing? : those who most need the guidance.

Glad you find it so amusing, Jane.

Talkin - that's not encouraging . But was the parents' evening turnout decent?

Would you be interested in knowing the % of parents who come to Parent's Evening in ds's school?

Yes.

I have btw come across a parent (colleague at work) some years ago , in the ilk of Shegot's post who thought that because he was paying for his daughter , it was the school's job. rubbish.

I think most parents are quite supportive
When I stood as a parent governor, election turnout was under 10%

"I think most parents are quite supportive?"

Would you be interested in knowing the % of parents who come to Parent's Evening in ds's school?

I think most parents are quite supportive? But I agree that having coughed up a wedge concentrated the mind .

That said, there is always the minority that thinks paying relieves you of having to do much ( I wish ).

Quite true,
but in private schools, chances are that the vast bulk of parents are motivated as they are coughing up the cash

whereas in state schools - particularly of the non selective variety - motivated parents and children may be in the minority

That's not exactly a notion that applies only to state schools.

Private schools require pupils to fully engage to get the most out if them. No one will force them to join the netball team or attend the Oxbridge meetings or revise etc.

There are lots and lots of opportunities but pupils have to grasp them.

The thing with State schools is that you get out what you put in : if you and your kids try to get the most of as much as possible, you will.

Any non selective school will always look worse on paper than a selective ( by god, gonads, cash or random exam) but that does not mean any individual pupil will do worse.

And please do not worry about the IGCSE's are harder myth : state schools use them to drag D grade students into the C grade because they are simpler to pass

Shegot, that was exactly what was behind my question, is this a biological/genetic thing or to do with the roles within the family, however that family is made up.

darkling I suspect if the same reseacrh were being done today, the education levels of both parents would play a part as traditional gender roles become less common.

I always find it hilarious when people trot out the line a church school is all about the religion. My dd went to the primary attached to a church. Undersubscribed, slated by ofsted and on a council estate when I actively chose it and no religious criteria for places. Most of the churches congregation at the time chose local outstanding non denominational primaries if they couldn't get places at further away outstanding church ones. They also fell over themselves in their battle to get enough points to get a place at the excellent church secondary. And funnily enough by the time dd got halfway through primary, and it got a reputation for being an excellent school, it suddenly got oversubscribed, with some parents trying to get religious criteria reintroduced.
I've heard the same thing about other church schools too. Next door lea has a church secondary that is also undersubscribed. Funny that parents who don't get a place at the excellent church school don't seem that bothered about religion when it comes to going there.
So with the exception of a very small minority, I call bollocks on people choosing a church school for the religious education.

In which case if mother is being used as a convenient shorthand I could see that, rather than she is your female biological parent. Thanks.

I don't know- maybe because children tend to see more of their mothers in the early years?

Bertrand, out of interest why is it academic achievement by your mother ?

"I don't agree. You might simply be a Christian who has been attending church as part of your normal life."

Yes of course you might. But getting yourself and your children to Church punctually on a regular basis says something about organisation and commitment and a family structure that precludes a lot of people.

Clavinova Mon MumTryingHerBest - "With regard to attending church, pretty pointless if the school is oversubscribed (which many faith schools are) and you fall outside the distance cut off (which for many high performing schools is very small, 224 metres for my nearest secondary...)."

This statement is not correct at all - one of the main reasons that some popular faith schools are so successful, high achieving and oversubscribed is because their catchment areas are huge, with pupils coming from up to 15-20 miles away.

Interesting, so if they are over subscribed with families meeting all the criteria, what tie breaker are they using to decide who gets in?

I understand that siblings may live many miles from the school. However, first-borns not so much. It was for this very reason that one of my local faith schools removed the sibling rule.

Maybe this was the only faith school in the country with the problem?

This programme has a family who lost out to a school place due to a shrinking catchment for a faith school (towards the end):

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0689z66/panorama-the-schools-scandal-playing-the-system

I don't agree. You might simply be a Christian who has been attending church as part of your normal life.

No hoop jumping required.

As I said upthread, I am sure hoop jumping goes on but the sweeping generalisations about church schools are not fair.

The point is not so much rich children/poor children- although poverty and the educational level attained by your mother are the two most reliable indicators of academic achievement or lack of it. The issue with Church schools is that, if they are oversubscribed (and it is only if they are oversubscribed that they achieve better than a similar non faith school) you have to jump through hoops to get your child in. And that means you have to be switched on, organised, literate, capable of understanding the system and committed to your child's education. Otherwise you won't realise about the hoops, or won't have the time and/or ability and/or inclination to jump through them.

Which means that oversubscribed Church schools have a pre selected group of families of the type whose children tend to do well. The Christian ethos thing is a smoke screen. It's actually back door selection.

I think there is a huge gap between being eligible for free school meals and middle class!! What about all the ordinary working people in between - or are you suggesting that if you're not entitled to FSM you're automatically middle class??

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10322429/State-schools-the-top-50-most-socially-exclusive.html

I'm just being pragmatic - I'm pleased for my middle class friends who can access good schools by attending church every week;we pay school fees instead to access the type of education that appeals to us.

I understand that - the point I was trying to make was that the parent bussing the child in at a cost of £100 might be doing so because they specifically want a church school - irrespective of performance. It might be that they're middle class pushy parents but also might be a lower working class making sacrifices to pay the travel costs to get to a religious school.

I've just been taken aback at the sweeping generalisations about families at church schools. London might be an anomaly (always seems to be on MN ).

My post was in reply to MumTryingHerBest re the most oversubscribed faith schools. Not all church schools are high achieving or oversubscribed of course. My example schools are located in Central London - there is no need to extend the catchment areas into the Home Counties, although of course these catchment areas may be historic. The highest achieving schools are often not 'the nearest church school' (or even the 10th nearest in some cases) for many applicants but applications from middle class families who 'jump through all the hoops' and pay the travel costs (we know several families paying £100 per month per child for the school bus to a church school, bypassing an 'average' church school on the way) will be denying places to poorer dc living closer. There are similar examples in other large towns and cities, e.g. Coloma Convent School in Croydon.

Why does it have to be "flooded with applications from organised middle class families"???

Don't get me wrong, of course there are middle class families who see church schools as alternatives to private school fees but equally, there are families (from all sorts of social backgrounds) that live further afield for whom the church school is the nearest church school and welcome the ethos / spirituality of a church school. The reason why the catchment is so big is that there is generally not a church high school in every small town / village.