to say that most inner city high schools are wank?

[ladyfirenze]

Why are we getting it so wrong here? The culture amongst many kids seems to be that if they are trying their best and working hard they have somehow lost to the teacher. What the actual fuck is this about?

Of course you are being unreasonable! I am sure that some inner city schools are not very nice, but Lots are great.

And I would hazard a guess that with your crass subject title wording, you did not go to one of them

I am fed up of people starting controversial threads then disappearing with no explanation.

It's like 'Start thread' then immediately 'hide thread'.

YABU. What do you think is most wank? Would you say it's the teachers who are wank, or the children who are wank? Which is the biggest of your wank-based concerns here?

wanker

DP once said he had a wank at the back of the classroom.

I should add, he was a student, not a teacher. That would be quite different.

tether

:)

lunaticow Mon 20-Feb-12 19:24:09 wrote
They are likely to have kids with parents who are not so interested in Education and therefore a lack of encouragement from home results in a lack of performance from the pupils. It doesn't mean the teaching is bad.

Oh dear. My oldest child attends an inner city high school. My husband and I are most interested in education (note that the word need not be capitalised - we know that having had our own education - degrees, a doctorate and professional qualifications between us); and impart that interest to our child. We feel he is getting a better start to adult life than if he attended some poncey private school (I can be rude about your choice of school too) because it is comprehensive in the truest sense - it accepts students from all walks of life, and doesn't self-select the very brightest. If it did, I'm sure it could bump up it's examination results too, and artificially give the appearance that it's teachers were better than those at other schools.
One could say that parents who pay for their children's education are actually the ones who have little interest in their children - they throw money at the situation so they don't have to put time in themselves. Offensive, yes, but no more than your own assertion Lunaticow.
Finally, for the record, we do have resources for all our children to go private - our choice was ours to make.

I have three ds - one in a large inner-city high school and twins in primary. The high school is ok. Ofsteded as satisfactory I think. There are two others in our area (excluding faith and public) and his is the best by far. The staff are a mixed bunch, as I'm sure there are in basically any trained proffession. Some brilliant, amazing and inspirational, some good, average and mediocre, as well as the rubbish, negligent and dangerous. And children and young people are no different in that sense. What ires me greatly is the prevailent attitude that in achieving at school, is seen as a negative thing.

pavlov how very dare you! I truanted regularly from a very respectable community high school back in the day. Also, wank is a lovely word to throw about if one's feeling a little sweary.

It is interesting because in many inner city areas, the poor and very affluent live nearly cheek by jowl. However it is the children of the poor and disenfranchised who end up in inner city schools

Self righteous middle class tossers, are able to exercise their right to 'chose' which in reality means playing the system to get their kids out of inner city state schools, either by paying for private education, paying for coaching for selective schools, pay the cost of ferrying their kids to schools in leafier suburbs and playing the appeals game.

The inner city schools are left with a disproportionate number of kids with behaviour issues, poor attainment, SEN or English not as a first language and parents who in many cases (despite the best of intentions) can't offer the same level of support to their children to flourish in Education.

A self fulfilling prophesy if ever there was one.

Compos:
Self righteous middle class tossers, are able to exercise their right to 'chose'... (choose)

How does it make a person a self righteous tosser if they choose not to send their DC to schools
with a disproportionate number of kids with behaviour issues, poor attainment, SEN or English not as a first language and parents who in many cases (despite the best of intentions) can't offer the same level of support to their children to flourish in Education.

Maybe my grammar school was wanky too because I can't even understand the opening post

I can't understand it either fuzz. OP must have attended a wank school.

My DS attends a Manc school. IMO it's TOO strict! They push him all the time, never a minute let up. He's captain of his school footy team, represents the school at Athletics, review days every half term, parents evening every term, full progress report every term, head of year contact with any issues, zero tolerance for any disruptive behaviour (even uniform violitions), lock down all day etc etc

Im not from an innercity area but i agree with you it happens in our town high school , the kids who work hard get on with things are generally ignored unless they are super bright then they are in the paper for their achievments .

What's lock down all day.....No fresh air at break and lunch?

Rest sounds like my DS comprehensive.

I grew up in Greater Manchester, and my school was a sink estate one before the term was even phrased... .. that was 30 years ago, and it has not improved any since then. The area back then was a thriving mill town, with reasonably good employment, but is now a shell of it's former self due to the closure of all the industry in the town, and the pupils at the school have very little interest in their education, because many just see no point. :(

Audenshaw school is about 12 miles from Manchester and got some of the highest A level results in the entire country.

Fairfield, where i went, has a ridiculously high percentage of GCSE A-C pass rates and always has had. That's in Droylsden.
Maybe not Inner city but hardly affluent.

Depends on where you live and also how much research you do before you fill in the High School applications i would think OP.

kitty

I am not going to argue the toss over a typo.

I thought my point about it becoming a self fulfilling prophesy was clear. The folk myth about 'inner city schools' as being intrinsically bad, leads to middle class parents using their financial and intellectual clout to keep their kids out of such schools, causing then to decline.

I attended a school for which the description wank could have been invented.
It is still every bit as wank now.

I am also a governor of an inner city comp. And sadly, wank could adequately sum it up...

compos the schools I am talking about have far bigger problems than the loss of a few middle class children to private school.

The 'inner city' ones are pretty good here, it's more the ones on the shitty estates (guess where I live eh) round the outside that are crap. But I think that's a scottish/northern thing.