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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to avoid a primary school that has a high proportion of traveller children

288 replies

APeePleaseBob · 30/01/2011 20:42

I live in a catchment area for several primaries so when we were thinking about schools for my DS we started be looking at Ofsted reports for the closest ones.

One of them got a 'good with some outstanding features' report but in the school make-up section it said it had a high number of traveller children in the school. It is near a well-known traveller site so this makes sense.

I have to confess this put me off and I didn't even go to see it. We have since made our selections elsewhere.

I still think about it though - AIBU to be put off? Would you have felt the same?

OP posts:
penelopestitsdropped · 30/01/2011 21:52

"velouria Sun 30-Jan-11 21:46:37

You can only go by what you experience. I bet all these "ooh it's racist, die nazi die" people have there children safely ensconced in a private/middle class school.

sorry to disapoint but actually My DD goes to the local primary which also has a 7% traveller enrollment.

balloonballs · 30/01/2011 21:53

Tether, it's amazing what you find when you scratch the surface isn't it?

But really have to go now. Godwins law has been invoked and now we are really gonna get some 'specia'l posts.

Appletrees · 30/01/2011 21:53

no keyboard issues

of course you could read it.. any facts?

you are turning it into race ..this is also about education and outcomes

Mrswhiskerson · 30/01/2011 21:53

I would worry about putting my children in with yours if they are going to be taught to judge people they don't know purely on their living circumstances

Rhadegunde · 30/01/2011 21:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Appletrees · 30/01/2011 21:53

bored

LoopyLoopsPoopaScoop · 30/01/2011 21:53

Valium, I wonder if an extensive survey was undertaken, which group would spend longer on paining their picket fences white, traveller or non-traveller communities? My money would be on the former.

Seriously though, the days of castigating an entire ethnic group for seemingly having lower academic expectations of their children are over. This is not being PC, it is living in the modern western world. Those of you who think it is OK to maintain these destructive prejudices do not deserve the other fairnesses that our civilised western world allows.

rosie1979 · 30/01/2011 21:54

Sorry, no I could not understand it and have absolutely no interest in replying to you

Appletrees · 30/01/2011 21:54

lol

but only i know that because of my persoanl circs whoch i am not going to share here whiskers

ValiumSandwichTime · 30/01/2011 21:55

BalloonBalls, you're actually quite ignorant on this subject despite your knee jerk outrage.

NO female travellers ever took FAS training courses until new courses were created and run exclusively for women in the travelling community.

LoopyLoopsPoopaScoop · 30/01/2011 21:55

painting

tethersend · 30/01/2011 21:55

The children with the poorest outcomes of all are children in care.

Would you not send your child to a school which had a 'high proportion' of Looked after Children?

penelopestitsdropped · 30/01/2011 21:55

arf @ godwins law.

ValiumSandwichTime · 30/01/2011 21:56

LoopyLoops, I'm guessing you've never lived near a halting site or a cluster of caravans.

HarrietSchulenberg · 30/01/2011 21:57

OP - I know you've made your choice now, so this is obviously a bit late, but as with any school don't just go by the Ofsted report, visit the school and see it for yourself. My 3 dses have been to the most fantastic Infants' School in the world (IMO) but it's only rated Good. We are in an "area of rural deprivation" so a significant percentage of parents are low income/low achievement and don't value education, so school values are not the same as home values (which are often not much more than "eat yer Monster Munch before you get to the gate").

However, the school itself is fantastic. When I first went to look round it I knew it was great - you can tell by the attitudes of the children and the general atmosphere.

We don't have any Traveller children that I know of. When I was at primary school we had a couple each year, different ones each times, and they rarely stayed for more than a term. They weren't bullied but they kept themselves to themselves and didn't really want to know us.

The only Travellers that I know of now are the kind that trash everything they can find then move on. They don't stay anywhere long and AFAIK their children don't go to school at all. One of 'em nicked my purse from my bag in my doctor's surgery while I was sitting with a very ill ds3. I know I can't hold her as a representative of the entire travelling community but I am now very wary of the whole lot of 'em, racist or not.

LoopyLoopsPoopaScoop · 30/01/2011 21:57

Indeed I have Valium, in fact I've lived on a few different caravan sites.

I have never painted a picket fence though, and neither have any of my settled, middle class neighbours, I imagine.

BitOfFun · 30/01/2011 21:58

I have heard Ben Goldacre use "plural of anecdote is not data", but I believe the phrase has an earlier origin.

altinkum · 30/01/2011 21:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ValiumSandwichTime · 30/01/2011 21:59

NObody SETS out to send their child to a school which may for whatever reason have a lower than average standard.

Those of you who are screaming 'racism' are missing the point and being disingenuous I think. I am not anti-traveller, but I am PRO my children mixing with other children whose parents will be encouraging a high average.

balloonballs · 30/01/2011 21:59

I'm thinking it might be time to up the dosage of the valium, but to be fair most good comedians are slightly deranged, so I'm told.

hobnobsaremyfavourite · 30/01/2011 21:59

OP really has lit the touchpaper and retired to a safe distance.

curlymama · 30/01/2011 22:00

Racism is being shouted far too easily.

As the OP hasn't come back, nobody really knows if she was being racist, or if she has genuine concerns.

To be fair, she wouldn't be being unreasonable to have concerns, the plenty of members of the travelling community to nothing to change their stereotype. They quite often do exactly the things that people dislike them for, and don't give a shit about it.

So what exactly makes anyone so positive that the OP is being racist? Maybe she just doesn't want to take the risk with her child's education, I know I wouldn't.

Even with a good OFSTED, there is every chance that the OP will have very different values to the majority of parents at that school, that there will be a high turnover of pupils, that there will be a high level of absence.

I wouldn't want my child to go to a school where the majority of children didn't speak fluent English because they predominantly spoke something else at home. That's because I want my child to be given the best chance possible to achieve his learning potential, not because I'm racist.

LoopyLoopsPoopaScoop · 30/01/2011 22:00

altinkum, thinking school is a break is very different from outcomes and achievements, isn't it? Also that statistic sounds improbable to me.

ValiumSandwichTime · 30/01/2011 22:00

Are you a traveller Loopy?

falsemessageoflethargy · 30/01/2011 22:01

What did happen to the morris dancing - I went off to ogle Mitchell in Being Human nd its gone tsk.