Private companies running classes in state schools, DD can't go because we are poor, AIBU to complain??

[PollyPeppa]

We are below the poverty line as we have 3 DC's and DH and I are full time uni students. We worked in low paid jobs and decided enough was enough and are now hoping to get better ones after university.

DD's school had just started up after school Spanish club. We sent her along to the trial session and she loved it. We had foolishly assumed there would be a concessionary rate (as there usually is with after school clubs) but there is not as it is run by a private company so we can't afford for her to go again.

I feel this is very unfair to offer this as only children whose parents can afford to send them can go, I think it creates a divide in the 'state' system.

"But at the very early stage you don't need classes you need exposure to the language. That's very easy these days with internet etc. "

WTF?

You think you can get useful exposure to a language that will help you learn it well, through the Internet?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha :o

Cant you read SheCut? Do you need English classes?

I said 'at the very early stage'. And further down i wrote 'after that you join classes'.

The BBC site has native speakers who are also teachers, unlike the average primary teacher with a phrasebook in one hand and a class in front of her.
'Uwn du twas.'
Comont sa va?
Muy mal.

Exactly Down

How could I need classes when I have the vast language resource that is being exposed to English on THE INTERNET?

I'll be fluent in weeks.

Maybe you are thick then....

Yeah, I'm really thick. People comment on it all the time.

You, on the other hand, must be very, very clever to be making a point like that.

I thought poor people shouldn't be entitled to have the internet. I see it on here all the time...

"So, are all our kids deprived and doomed to failure if they don't go to Eton and Harrow and fill every spare minute with out of school classes?

Tosh."

Well if you look at the long term outcomes for children from those schools against children from state schools, even high performing ones, you will find that the people from eton and harrow do much better (assuming measurement in terms of money / power / career ascent etc).

I am surprised anyone thinks otherwise TBH.

Why else do people think that others pay for top private educations for their children?

Our dds primary has some after school stuff that has to be paid for. French used to be one of them and dd went. It was run by a private individual, nothing to do with the school. So that person charged money and paid the school for use of their classroom.

I don't see it been any different to being able or not being able avoids private swimming lessons, horse riding lessons, etc.

It's bugger all to do with the school which is why it's not free. There will always be families who can't afford stuff that other families can. There are school trips which cost several hundred pounds, etc.

But I don't think it's fair to complain or ban them.

Also agree with scotts posts.

Sardine, but the rest of us aren't doomed because we didn't go to Eton, are we?

Although, DH from his sink school does have some staff from the top public schools. Earning ooh, about a fifth of what he does.

The lack of Spanish classes has really fucked him over

What because when he greets new people he doesn't know a jaunty little song to ask them what pets they have?

Oh good plan, bring up one example of a person from a poor state school doing very well and that totally over-rides all of the statistics.

And this "Children do have equal educational opportunities" is patent rubbish. If, for example, some children are provided with free after school classes, and others aren't, then there's an example for starters.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/18/money.schools

The poorer you are, the less well your children are likely to do. One or two examples of people bucking the trend does not invalidate this.

Stuck in the middle I expect you will find that is because the vast majority of poor parents are feckless disengaged types who spend all their money on fags.

I don't think that not going to after school clubs is going to do your children any lasting damage. If I worked full time we could afford all sorts of after school clubs but I choose to work part time so that DD can come home after school and spend time with me. It is frustrating not to be able to afford things and I am increasingly irritated by the book bag being used as a marketing too but think its better to focus on what you can give your dcs rather than what you can't.

I didn't get any after-school language classes, didn't start learning languages till secondary and yet I still managed to end up with two languages A-levels and studied abroad as part of my degree.

My mum grew up without running water or electricity, she managed to 'break the poverty cycle' by studying hard, getting her O-levels and then working her arse off. I suspect she would say that the way up is to take the best advantage of the opportunities which are on offer to you instead of moaning about the ones which aren't.

sardine and why do you think some poor kids do well but the majority don't? Is it parental behaviour, lifestyle and support?
Or something else?

Some kids get to school with two hours sleep and no breakfast and go home to the same. Do you really think free Spanish lessons will make a blind bit of difference?

The problem of low achievement is so complex.

Cheerup, Noblegiraffe: all of that is true for your familes individually. However, I'm not talking about individuals but statistics.

There is a difference.

We all know that social deprivation leads children to do less well at school. The factors relating to that are complex and often begin very young in life. They are not really that much to do with clubs. Some public money should be spent on trying to make extra opportunites for deprived children. The fact of the matter is that the OPs daughter will come from a family where education is valued and the parents take an active interest in what she is doing at school, have high expectations of her, and are able to help her with her education at home. This is one of the things that makes the biggest difference, not if you can afford ballet, ponies and extra Spanish lessons.
Children who are less well off but come from families where education is supported and valued, will have a better chance at school.
I'm not saying that the school has no part to play in this, of course they do. But you can't expect to get everything for free that other people have to pay for. You wouldn't turn up to the local swimming pool and demand a free course of swimming lessons. The same is true for this private company who just happen to be using the school building.

Sardine who said the poor spend their money on fags?
Are you referring to the statistic that 34% of the poor smoke compared with 13% of the rich?

I would love to see a country where all extra-curricular activities such as music, MFLs and sports were free. I'm not sure how we pay for it without extra taxation but I think it's desirable and I'd quite happily pay extra taxes to have it. After all, even an extra 20% tax would still be less than what it would cost me to buy all these things privately for two children and it would make a nicer, more equal society.

The trouble is that success (measured in terms of career wealth and reputation, etc) is based very much on being able to take opportunities. And some children from poorer backgrounds never get those opportunities.

How would the next Vanessa Mae even know she has that talent if her parents have never been able to afford to put a violin in her hands?

It's a well-known fact that the biggest single influence on children's educational achievement is family background - namely wealth. Not the child's natural abilities or talent, but money.

Money broadens horizons and buys opportunities. It provides a child with a much wider view of the world and opens up all sorts of exciting possibilities. Many children never get to see this. Not because their parents don't value it but because they can't afford it (e.g. not going on trips or attending extra classes because of money. This isn't limited to the working class).

People in highly skilled, highly paid professions deserve to be there. They wouldn't be able to remain in their jobs if they didn't have the ability (politicians excepted ). However, many of them got the opportunity to get that job because of a combination of who they know and being able to afford that opportunity, e.g. getting an unpaid internship because you went to school with a friend whose parents work in a field you're trying to break into. Then being able to take that internship because your parents can support you for the year that you do it. Successfully completing the year and being offered a job as a stepping stone to a lucrative career at the end of it. This is the reason many parents choose private school, not the educational standards which are actually slightly worse than state sector when each child's starting abilities are factored into account).

If our educational system was more encompassing it would do a lot more to improve social mobility in this country.

Ok, Jilly lets ignore those at the very bottom. The worst parents, those with huge problems whose children probably do need a helluva lot more help than Spanish lessons.

How do you explain why children from the richest familes also do better than those in the middle? This issue is not just affecting the most deprived.

That's the problem with so much of politics these days; people think that all of the bad stuff is about other people, never about themselves. It's all so individualised to the point that people not only look to their own plates, they dare not even glance beyond them.