How much does school matter?

[Marcia1989]

We are considering moving because our local school is not brilliant. Poor teaching, discipline issues. Results not awful, but not great. But I'm torn: how much does it matter? As long as the child is not being actively bullied, should we worry about it? Our eldest DC is 9, not one of those 'bright kids who will do well anywhere', but we can help at home if we need to. A part of me thinks education, particularly at secondary level, is really really formative. Another part of me doesn't want to be a helicopter mum and thinks maybe it's good for them to learn to get on with it. Any thoughts?

School can matter with friendship skills, creating good memories, academic learning and life values.

Children spend a long time at school.

What do you want your child to get out of school?

I would be concerned about poor teaching - what does that mean, exactly?

Personally, I’d send my child to the best school I possibly could (within my means and taking account of the fact we have to live in a particular area for work). I wouldn’t just happily accept a mediocre school with poor discipline and bad results for the sake of teaching my children some kind of life lesson.

But. I would want to make sure whatever school I chose suited my child, not just looked good on paper. Sometimes schools also have an unfair poor reputation based on issues from ten years and two headteachers ago. My children attend a primary school that on paper looks a bit rubbish, but is really nurturing, has a lovely ethos and absolutely suits my children - it just doesn’t have great SATs or shiny facilities. So I’d want to visit, talk to some current parents and make an informed choice. I wouldn’t rush to move house.

Personally, I’d send my child to the best school I possibly could (within my means and taking account of the fact we have to live in a particular area for work).

Me too. We are choosing to stay in a flat rather than a house for now so DS1 can stay at his lovely school.

That doesn’t sound ok. Poor discipline is really corrosive.

The list of things I'd ideally like them to get out of school is as long as my arm, but the key things that are important are the child being socially happy, being interested in learning and absorbing good values. Local school probably wouldn't achieve any of these. @AlexaShutUp by poor teaching I mean formulaic, no control of class, teaching rigidly to the test. We know families with kids there, but we're not in a very aspirational area so most people don't worry about it.

I guess what I'm asking is, how much would you sacrifice for your kids' education and is it worth it?

How do you know so.much about the teaching styles?

@PyjamaFan My DH is a teacher locally and has done work experience in the school

My local primary school was bad. We used to play games on fridays and there would be no teaching. I was kept in the school (because I was in year 5 when my parents found out just how bad it was) and my sister was pulled out (she's 4 years younger than me).

I started secondary school not being able to tell the time, not being able to do division/multiplication or knowing my times tables. The teachers at my primary school didnt spend time with me. Im not sure if they knew I was struggling or not, but they must have because they must have looked at my work books. Either way, I dont remember getting any help at all. I suppose i'd caught up by year 8/9 but it wasnt nice and I dont have happy memories.

If you have the option to move to a better school, 1000 times over, do it.

As long as the child is not being actively bullied, should we worry about it?

Imo, this is an incredibly low bar to set for educational standards

As the parent of a Year 11 currently at a shit school (the past 2 years, only 17% of kids passed GCSE English and Maths at a Grade 5 or above) I would definitely have sent him somewhere better.

With 83% of kids at the school struggling to pass their exams, it has a knock on effect on everything including morale.

Teaching is constantly disrupted, and unless you are incredibly bright and hard working enough to put in so many hours at home, it's virtually impossible to achieve better than average grades.

But DS is happy, he does like his school and his friends, however he does wish he'd have gone somewhere better and staying local probably wasn't the best choice.

It matters more than you'd think for some children.

My ds attended local academy that wasn't particularly known for its results. But like you I thought we could manage that through support from home.

But the fact was it was just symptom of a whole host of issues which ultimately meant the teaching and learning suffered too.

I ended up moving my son (for a whole host of reasons!)

“ the key things that are important are the child being socially happy, being interested in learning and absorbing good values. Local school probably wouldn't achieve any of these.”

“ I guess what I'm asking is, how much would you sacrifice for your kids' education and is it worth it?”

So your local school achieves nothing you want your child to have, you’re married to an actual teacher, and you’re basically asking is education important?! I find your attitude bizarre.

To answer your question, the things I wouldn’t sacrifice: financial solvency, anyone’s physical, mental and emotional health. I won’t lie, cheat or find religion I don’t believe in. I would regard anything else, including seriously downgrading our lifestyle, moving house or going back to work (currently a SAHM) as absolutely worth it, both from an education standpoint and if I thought my children would be happier there.

I have a somewhat controversial, but not entirely unsupported, view on this.

If we use educational attainment as our barometer, then there's a bit of an unavoidable, statistical conclusion. The school matters a lot less than the intake of the school. When you control for a bunch of different factors (parental education level, parental income, parental IQ etc etc etc), the school itself is responsible for a surprisingly small amount of the variation in educational outcomes (in some studies, less than 10% of the variance).

"Good schools" are mostly good because the intake is "good", i.e. there's some kind of selection gradient at play. That gradient can be overt (i.e. entrance exam), or it is indirect (high house price which selects for high income which biases for higher educational attainment in parents, generally).

There's probably other benefits to going to a good school, and it's probably not as simple as saying "bright kids do well anywhere", but equally it is a surprising result for the actual value add of a school to be so difficult to statistically determine.

My parents moved me to a "better" upper school in year 9. I was quite bright and in the top tier of classes but I never settled and started to avoid school as much as possible. I was painfully shy and the other pupils had been through lower and middle school together whereas I didn't know a soul when I started. If your child is a social butterfly I wouldn't worry but if they're shy, it's worth bearing in mind. At the very least, I'd discuss it with them to see how they feel about the better school. My move was a last minute surprise and I was inconsolable when they announced it.

@Dissimilitude this is really interesting.

I appreciate I sound a bit flippant. I do really believe in education, but equally I believe in kids not being too insulated from 'reality'. Trying to find the balance.

And @Dissimilitude I guess a key point is 'if we use educational attainment as the barometer', because of course there are a lot of quite unmeasurable things that are important.

E.g. values, peer group, character development, soft skills, attitude to learning. For me these are more important than attainment.

I'm happy so long as my kids are happy, if they are not I will find somewhere different/better/more suitable. I don't put a massive value on grades or anything, much more concerned with my children's happiness and social education.

I would want to know what the parents and students say, not what Ofsted do. I really couldn't give a flying frisbee about frigging Ofsted reports

I think the friends they can make are important

@Marcia1989 yes, of course, that's exactly why I defined that - there are many intangibles to this.

People don't like the implications of it, it feels essentialist or deterministic, or that it devalues teachers or schools in some way, though that isn't how I view it.

Another way of viewing it is that it is enormously difficult for schools to meaningfully override the effects of economic background, intelligence or cultural factors that may push one towards or away from being academic, in a way that shows up in the data. There's always exceptions etc.

There's a whole literature out there which is a somewhat depressing tale of the long term failure of education to solve the fundamental problem - "how do we reliably improve educational outcomes for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds".

The short answer to that question is "we don't know. Nothing seems to reliably work in the long term in a way that is measurable across the population".

I think part of secondary is your child coming out with as much choice as possible for what they want to do next. Passing exams, particularly GCSE english and maths gives them that choice. Of course children need to be happy at school, they won't learn well unless they are. I'd move somewhere so they can go to a good school which gives them both things.

If your child has a problem in a 'good' school there are normally systems and processes to support them. I dont mean academic good but one where its well managed, teachers have support and safeguaring etc is all place.
We found out the hard way that a school can be nuturing but actually really poor at doing the evidence keeping needed to secure an special needs support for instance.

I agree with @Dissimilitude. Even if a teacher is not great, if most of the children want to learn and have parents who really value education, then the outcomes are likely to be good.

But to answer the OP’s original question - I think school matters a lot.