.. to think a mum is an idiot for putting her DD into a failing school?

[Pusheed]

At the start of Year 6 DC came home one day and said that x's mum was putting her down for a secondary school that was officially classed as 'Failing'.

At the next school gate huddle I made it my business to ask the mum why that school? Her reason? A close friend's daughter went there so the mum thought it would be cool if the daughters could go to school together.

Well, we bumped into the mum a few days ago for the first time since the summer and she was telling us how she is trying to get her daughter transferred coz vandalism was rife at the school, kids would be f-ing swearing at the teachers etc.

I nodded my head understandingly and churned out the usual supportive comments but inside I thought - what an idiot. The school was/is a joke to the local community yet she chose to send her daughter there coz a friend was at the school???

tethersend I dread to think

My son is autistic with moderate learning difficulties, he will never be academic and as such will not boost any school's academic grades. However if I could see a "failing" school had excellent pastoral care for example I would seriously consider it as an option.
The local school is good here, I am fortunate and DS will go there, their A-C grades are good even if my DS won't add to them. They take a higher number of SN pupils than other local schools. There are 4 applicants for every place. But just 8 years ago it was a "failing" school. Things can turn round very quickly with the right head in place.

Mrbojangles1 Thu 01-Mar-12 20:08:44
I. Personally think your a bad parent to send your child to a school in which you know their chances of doing well are slim and the teaching is substandard, but some people who read the guardian far to much think they are doing some sort of social good by sending their child to a sink school.

If people want to gamble with their child's education to prove somthing then good for them

I wonder how socially moral they will feel of their child fails to achieve or maybe they will don their guardian with pride in one hand and their child's low grades in the other and think it was all worth it"

Doesn't this depend on what you know about the actual school rather than just the grade on the Ofsted report?

If I had known that the school I sent dd too was pursuing their Outstanding by harassing any pupil whose medical or SN problems might stand in the way of their statistic, in the hope that parents would withdraw them, I might have preferred a failing school with more savoury attitudes.

Dd is gifted and talented: she is now also seriously screwed up. She would have been well capable of getting top grades even in a school with less than perfect teaching. But at the moment she is not capable of attending any school because the flashbacks make her throw up and want to cut herself. You wouldn't have known that from the Ofsted. But I have met several medical professionals later who are concerned about the high number of students from this school with anxiety problems.

I would be very proud if she was able to go back to school and get low grades. It doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.

A lower grade at Ofsted doesn't have to indicate students selling sexual favours. And there may be factors that never make it into the Ofsted report.

I'm so sorry to hear that cory.