To not give a fuck about schools?

[sensuallettuce]

AIBU to be totally hacked off with this subject every bloody year.

I don't care that Saffron didn't get into your first choice school even though the local school is varie good she just isn't "suited" to that "environment" all the council estate kids .

It's such thinly veiled snobbery and competitive parenting at its very worst. Kids should go to the local school end of and if there is a grammar system state educated kids should be permitted to take the entrance exam (not privately educated kids who are trained to pass an exam) and this should be means tested.

I live in one of the most competitive school areas of the country with a massive social divide (Poole in Dorset). Because of this I ended up with all 3 kids at 3 different schools for 3 yrs .

How can people bang on about the state providing a perfectly good education then spend an extra £50,000 on a house in the "right" area. It's hypocritical snobby bollocks.

Kids will learn if they want to. I do not believe any of them have faired any better or worse due to my non choice of school. They are fulfilling who they are.

They have a loving home and are well balanced grounded kids and they know if I believe they have been "wronged" I am behind them 100%, if they have done "wrong" I am behind the school. I a, supportive of and interested in their education.

We all need to bloody calm down about this seriously

But private school is an option for some parents that passed the exam. The local OFSTED outstanding is an option for some parents. Why shouldn't they use it? The same way you use the grammar.

It's all the schools being shit or the shit being evenly distributed amaongst any of us I object to. But if somebody has got to have a crap education I'd rather it wasn't my kids, I think that's fair enough.

I feel really sad that kids who live in the crap areas with the crap schools are getting stuck in a loop and they kick back at that and fuck up their own chances. Maybe if there was a good "social" mix in all schools there would be a level playing field, and we as parents have a social responsibility to ensure this and stop being so selfish.
If you had said this in your OP I would have mostly agreed with you. It is a compassionate statement.
I think you are blaming the wrong people though. You are angry at the (middle class? Not always) parents who don't want to see their DC dragged down by disaffected children of parents who don't give a s**t.
My anger lies with parents who bring their children up to have no work ethic and no consideration for the rights of other children to learn.

The working classes can afford to be involved in their child's education though. That all the middle class parents are doing when they choose to move.

Where I live in London, catchments can be tiny (500m or less sometimes). I have lived in this borough nearly all my life. If I were being sent to primary school now, I would no longer get in on distance to the school I went to from my childhood home (about three minutes walk at child pace). I would not get into the next two nearest schools either (probably ten and twenty minutes walk). I suppose I would eventually be allocated a place several miles away but this would in no way be my local school, just the only one that had a place.

My anger lies with parents who bring their children up to have no work ethic and no consideration for the rights of other children to learn. as these parents are the ones messing it up for everyone IMO.

sensuallettuce I agree with you that the if everyone went to the local school, the education would be better for everyone. And yes I think it's terribly unfair on the children who end up with a dire education because their parents were unwilling or unable to play the system to their advantage - for whatever reason.

This situation was made much worse by testing. The publication of SATs and league tables massively fuelled the fires here and should never have be allowed!

If I had my way I'd ban all private and selective schools, and make it so everyone goes to their local school. If the children of the rich and powerful had to send their kids to the local school you can be sure they'd be a damn sight better resourced and supported than they are now. (FWIW I went to a private school for some of my education, and also a local comp).

However I will be adding to this problem. We are moving and a good school is top of the list. There's no way I'm sending my DS to a failing school, I think a good school is massively important to children's development and wellbeing. We will move again for secondary if needs be.

We aren't supposed to have a "class" system though and we clearly do.

My dad was illegitimate born in the 1930s and was brought up in abject poverty by his natural mother. He went o Grammar - that's what Grammar is for. Not for people to stick their kids in private primary so they can pass the Grammar exam because private secondary is another story price wise - those kids take the Grammar opportunity from the kids in shite social circumstances.

However I will not be sending my DC private, out of principle.

Not at all keen on the grammar system, sorry.

Labelling kids successes and failures at 11 is doomed to failure IMO.

We aren't supposed to have a "class" system though and we clearly do. oh you're joking?! There has always been a class system! And one far more divided than it is now!

I think the divide is getting worse though - not better.

I agree that grammar schools are equally divisive and ideally wouldn't want them either.
Wibbly, i completely get where you're coming from and it sounds like in your lea you did have a choice. In my London borough there is really very little choice, you get a place wherever there's a place. This means many opt out of the state system completely. But all the 'dire schoos' near us are actually not so dire- they are full of kids after all, not monsters.
Having said that although I can't blame you personally, if you and people like you didn't opt out of the local school but stayed and put pressure on them to offer more subjects then that would be the wy for real social change to happen.

I agree with you completely when it comes to grammar schools, I think something does need to be done to ensure it is used by bright children who can't afford to go private. BUT, at the same time, my ds is at a SS grammar school, and all of the children there are clever enough to deserve their place. I dont know about other areas, but here children dont get in from over tutoring, they get in because they have put in the work and they are capable of high achievements. I'm not sure it's right to deny a child a place when they meet the criteria just because their parents are too rich.

I think you are being slightly hypocritical though. Surely having bright, eager to learn children would help the comps out as much as having middle class parents around. You can't say it's ok for one group to abandon their local comp but it's not ok for the other to do so.

Did you see this OP?

Social aspiration! It all started in the 70's apparently!!

If all kids should go to the local school regardless why did you even bother entering your son for the 11plus? and then take a place at the grammar school if all children who want to learn will do so and wont fair any better than those in a outsanding school

I don't feel I am hypocritical using the grammar school. I am complying with the system in place in my area, I have "supplied" the local comp with my other two bright children (who also took the grammar test btw and did not pass and were not in the least bit bothered - apart from the fact the exam was on a Saturday morning).

How on earth are we going to send all children to their local schools when as the situation stands, many local schools (certainly in London and probably elsewhere too) simply do not have space for all the children within a reasonable distance?

The grammar option is open to everyone - moving or being religious is not.

I suppose your child might not always get in to the most local but the point would be that you wouldn't be selecting. All children would go to the nearest school that had places and therefore the expectation would be that all schools would cater for all types of children and all types of children would go to all schools.

You still haven't justified your ridiculous suggestion that grammar school entrance should be means tested.

Agree with Heswall about hairdressers. It's a valuable job.

Oh dear OP. The Grammar school / compehensive school model
is the equivalent of the good school/ poor school situation you are talking about now!!

Im doing the same as you and my younger child will be going to the comp.

It is hypocritical though, because you are saying that you are using the system that is available in your area, but you are expecting other parents to not use schools that are available in their areas. You are saying that parents should use their closest school, even if it's scrap one and they have an outstanding one an extra few minutes away. But you aren't doing that with all your children, you are sending them to the school that suits the best. Which is exactly what all these MC parents you speak of are doing.

Sensual the grammar school option clearly isn't available to everyone.
I agree completely with your take on everything else but grammar schools do also create socual division.

Social even