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

So why is that "diabolical level" ok for the "masses" but not for your child?

Really? get over it

For some people there is a lot at stake

Difficult school runs that might mean giving up work
Moving house and trying to find a school if not remaining behind with kids and separating family for long time
Not having a school place at all
I wished to separate 1dc from the violent other dc with complex special needs to give them all a break and prevent physical injury

Its actually really really important to me and pretty important to them

Actually have you considered blocking threads you find so irritating?

It's not ok for any of them, but I don't see why we should make all children and all schools suffer because of a minority of parents who won't engage with their children's education or support their schools.

You seem to want children to solve the problems of other children, instead of making the parents and the professionals that work at these schools responsible for their own failings.

But according to many state school is marvellous so why shouldn't it be inflicted on the masses if anything it's those poor little privately educated children with their unqualified teachers you should feel sorry for

No but I think maybe you should Southwest

I was talking about schools within the state sector btw, I don't think private schools make any difference, except to ease the burden on already overstretched state schools.

If we don't allow children to socialise with each other and see that we all have similarities and differences how do we ever cross social divides?!

As a PP said schools are full of children not monsters.

I don't find it irritating, isn't it poor form to start threads about threads even if multiple though?

Isn't it also poor form to be so dismissive about things that potentially others find important when you are presumably projecting your own conclusions onto their motivation

(that is a really clumsy sentence!)

I remember my school years - plenty of monsters there!!!

I think schools are the symptom not the disease. I agree with the principle of your concerns OP but think reform should begin in the wider society and filter into the schools not the other way around.

Some schools are filled with little horrors, I wouldn't want my child in the same class as my nephew because of the way he's being brought up. I'd like to say he's a nice kid being my own flesh and blood and he has good moments I'm sure but I wouldn't fancy 6 hours a day 5 days a week with him and I love the little bugger.

School is for education more than it is for socialising, so education should be the priority.

This is why I asked who completely mixed education is likely to benefit, because it works in favour of disadvantaged children to cross social divides, but I don't see how it benefits those children who aren't disadvantaged. They can learn to respect everyone in society without having to be in a class with children whose parents don't support their learning, read with them at home, smoke outside the gates, or who do nothing when their child is continually disruptive.

Of course schools are full of children, but some children do behave like monsters. Some get the right support at home and at school to help them overcome that and allow them to reach their potential, but that cant happen when parents aren't supportive. In those cases, a disruptive child remains a disruptive child, and those children who have the misfortune to be stuck in a class with that all the way through primary get no benefit from being mixed, all they get is teachers who have to disproportionately give their time to someone else.

An 8 yo hooligan is only a child if you are an adult looking in, if you are a fellow 8yo stuck in the same class - they're monsters oh yes, and if you don't recognise that you probably were one of the monsters!!

Learning to socialise is a massive part of education

Of course it is, but learning to socialise can be done outside of school too, formal education isn't often done outside school. So the academic stuff has to take priority in school. That's what school is for!

And you are still avoiding my question.

I'm glad my kids don't have to go to school with and be exposed to your snobbishness Outraged. That's appalling. Why should disadvantaged children automatically be monsters? Two of the worst kids I've come across, which includes outright physical violence, are middle class kids with professional parents. Son goes to a school next to a large estate and I know there's kids in his class with parents in prison, sectioned under the mental health act, and other issues. None of them have behavioural problems at all in class and certainly nothing to match the little 'darling' boy who pinned a girl down in the playtunnel at a birthday party by standing on her hair, and then proceeded to punch her.

agree sensual which is why you want your children to learn to socialise well, not learn to socialise with children with dubious activities as their norm. That goes for schools in nice areas too. My Dh wants us to move to more rural place (when/if we can afford) but I know many rural communities where drugs are rife as the children have little else to do, so I am sceptical of the choice. I would like to think my dc would say no but who knows.

outraged I think advantaged children do learn about the person behind the facade if they have chance to get to know those other children. I think kids on either side of the divide can have positive and negative experiences of meeting the other half which can affect their POV. I think you can learn to theoretically respect people from a completely different walk of life, but you will never understand them (and therefore our society as a whole, thinking big picture) unless you get to know them.

Don't think mental health issues have anything to do with social advantage/disadvantage .

What was the question?

I never said disadvantaged children are automatically monsters, please don't project your assumptions on to me.

I am not a snob just because I don't want my children to be educated in a school that doesn't get good results because of a lack of parental input and engagement. Wanting your child's education to be undisputed is good parenting, not snobbishness.

I also know lots of examples of the disadvantaged children in the class being the best behaved and the ones that come from the family with a range rover and a house in France being the ones with problems. I work in a school. But I know that it does only take one child to disrupt an entire lesson, and it only takes a few more to in turn do a lot of damage to what other children are able to achieve. So it makes sense to most parents to reduce the chances of that happening to their child as much as possible.

I think this whole discussion is just a wider symptom of the honest debate we need to have NOW in this country, about social inclusion, aspiration, and what what we want and expect from education for children. Our own children and every other child.

I don't have any answers, it does upset me that there seems to be a two-tier system developing in state schools, it's not good for any of us, whether our children go to private, grammar or state schools.

Sensual you don't think the higher stress levels of living with too little by way of financial resource gives those people more to cope with and therefore a higher incidence of stress / depression type mental problems.

Not sure if you live on the same planet as me. :)

I think you are judging by your own standards, you have coped with a lot and come through great, therefore you think all those with similar disadvantaged should/do too. But it is known that less money creates more problems, fewer choices and that leads to higher levels of lack of coping mentally than those who are financially comfortable and don't have to cope with numerous additional daily issues such as not having enough money for the bus to work / leccy meter etc etc

That wasn't what I meant ginpalace - kind if didn't like it being grouped in with parents in prison IYSYIM.

X posted.

Sensual, the question about how does it benefit anyone other than the socially and economically disadvantaged children to be in a school with a very diverse intake?

Gin, I see what you are saying and I agree to an extent, but personally, I don't think it's worth it. Yes I want my children to mix with people from all different backgrounds because it's good for them to have an understanding of all walks of life, but I'm not sure school is the best place to learn those lessons. That's the sort of thing parents should be exposing their children to in their home lives. School is for learning, and I would rather school time was used to learn educational things rather than social things.

I can do social things with my own child, I can't do a huge amount educationally.

I don't think that having a better understand of other people is worth sacrificing education for.

YANBU to not give a fuck.
YABU when you expect others not to either.
Schooling, like all other parenting decisions, is a personal choice. Judging another's choice is not right. If I want to move school, house, city, country to provide what best I can for my child (this is not always a financial decision), I will. In judging me, you are bring unreasonable.

I don't like the competitiveness that surrounds the whole school thinking either, however this thread contributes to it too.

Totally agree with witch and with you to a degree ginpalace - we just need to start somewhere.

The first thing I would like to see is teachers being given more powers to discipline in the classroom.