OMG surely this is a joke?

[TwigTheWonderKid]

Ladies & Gents?!

Or does everyone send their 8 year olds to this kind of class and I have been a negligent parent?

I think this is a brilliant idea. Seeing children with good manners is such a rarity these days but when you do, they really stand out. So many children now don't even know to make eye contact or shake hands. It's sad and makes them unpleasant to be around.

Totally brilliant idea Zoe and I would love this course for my autistic child. It’s difficult to teach her this ourselves as she is much more receptive to instructions in a school type setting with other children.

If you took childcare vouchers and ran courses during term time, that would be huge huge bonus. We’d happily traipse to a central London location for the classes.

@ChiaraRimini No, I can't teach social skills to my children. I am autistic, my dh probably is and my eldest probably is. We can't teach things that we don't know ourselves. I can do table manners and practical things but social interaction is a bit beyond me.

Late but @Urbanbeetler that's really good, being polite and direct makes SUCH a difference to how people read you-it's far far more important than accent, dress etc. Glad your 'rough' kids are being taught how to carry themselves.

My sons are now 23 and 27, their primary school taught manners, including table manners and enforced them. A good idea.

Great idea. There are lots of children and their parents who would benefit from this!

Biggerboat - your dd sounds like exactly the sort of clientele they're after....

I like this idea too. Would love to see it delivered in the Cotswolds as one off day courses.

Zoe - I agree about the re-branding issue.

I don't need to send my children to learn etiquette I think I have brought them up quite nicely :) But hey, each to their own.

I like the idea. The Sunningdale Academy sounds enough to me, I don't think you need to brand the courses further, as the little ladies bit does sound a bit dated.

I'm can think of dozens of adults who would benefit too

I would definitely do this course and would send my kids on one too.
Wish the OP would come back...

Whilst I'm fairly sure the OP meant this thread to go a different way, I'm another who is actually really interested in these courses.

I'm seriously considering sending my older DC on one next year, as whilst we try our very best to cover these topics and ensure he knows all he needs to be a polite, functional member of society, most of the time it seems to go in one ear and out the other. Hopefully being in a more 'educational' environment would ensure the information sticks more in his mind.

I would like to see holiday courses (so all sessions over a few days / a week) as well, plus a schedule of up coming courses further in advance.

What the heck happened to parents teaching this stuff?

If this was a school holiday course in London, I'd fly in for it. I'm abroad and know my children would absolutely love to do (and really need to do) a course. It's all very well to teach them at home but when you live in a place where there are very few examples of good manners its hard to get it to stick.

Slightly off topic but I saw a program about Sunningdale once :

"Britain's Youngest Boarders"

It was a bit sad really, how one DM in particularly was quite cold about how her child needed to learn he was a man ASAP even though he was only 8

And another, as far as I remember left her sons sports game and drove off because he was crying to come home.

I do think that the ways in which they benefit come at an emotional price.

What the heck happened to parents teaching this stuff?

Read the thread. Not all parents know this stuff. Not all parents were brought up by parents, or in the U.K. or with anyone who cared that they even ate let alone used cutlery. Use your imagination.

As someone who just dropped soup down their front, I think I need to book on myself.

The courses are a great idea though - a lot of parents struggle to teach their children these things because people in nice restaurants tend to want the child to already KNOW how to behave and not be learning to behave to the detriment of others experience and how can you take them if they don't get to learn ?

I’ve just had an evil thought. You know all those threads we read about people going out for dinner and being subjected to screaming children, playing on their tablets at full volume, eating spaghetti with their hands and running round the restaurant annoying everyone? We should all carry a wad of business cards for the sunningdale academy and hand them out to the parents of such children when we encounter them I’m just imagining the threads now “cheeky mare handed me a card for boarding school when I took my kids out for tea”

@BiggerBoat1

"My 12 yr old DD would lamp me if I suggested she could learn how to be a "little lady"."

Sounds like she's in need then of these kind of lessons.

But it isn’t a boarding school, it’s just extra curricular style classes isn’t it?

Sunningdale is a good, well known prep school - don't think this venture has anything to do with them whatsoever, unless the proprietress is a parent?

Oh I’m confused! Someone upthread was talking about this place being on TV as a boarding school?

These classes look brilliant