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

Oh I agree re. sld/pmld schools too. They are actually REQUIRED. My dd attends one and has done since she was 4 (she to a pd school for 2 years prior to that) and there is no way she could cope in a mainstream environment

@Agincourt I hope you aren't implying that I was using 'rough' and 'ordinary' as synonyms? Ordinary people are not rough. That was my point.

god no, it wasn't directed at you at all, it was just a general feeling of how people talk. Me and dh were ordinary children from ordinary families and we have good manners and strong moral values and there is absolutely nothing wrong with us and there is nothing wrong with my children either - that is what i meant. I don't like that people are judged because of their socio economic status

Rough here means police in the playgrounds. Or are we in weird MN reality where kids fighting, intimidating others and who hang out on street corners are really nice kids???

And by 'nice' and 'rough' I mean polite v intimidating.

One of the nearby schools gets most of it's pupils from a large estate, mainly white, that has numerous kids shouting racist abuse. Another has an intake from the gun/crack capital of the city.... now obviously not all the children are like this, probably not even half but it's a significant enough number for the results to be dire... less than 40% get 5 GCSEs.

@Agincourt OK I'm not sure I like the use of the word ordinary to mean anything other than say law-abiding or not in the public eye, though. I don't think people with a bob or two, or people with little money, are any more or less ordinary than each other.

well that's true too, people are ordinary of they are ordinary but I think people forget that!

if not of

I understand what you are saying Posie, and I think it's ludicrous that parents can be made to feel like they shudo send their children to schools like this because if they don't they are letting society down and promoting segregation. Who in their right mind would want their children to go to schools like that? Like you say, the shame of it is that there are some nice families that have no choice.

I think all of us think we are ordinary. People who I would consider to be rough probably think they are ordinary and I'm some kind of snob. But I live in a normal three bed semi that is an ex council house. It just happens to be in a nice area with a good choice of schools.

People are going on about segregation as if it's some sort of crime. It's not. There are lots of different types of people in life, why should my child be expected to meet all of them before they have even left primary school? What would they actually gain from being around people who have low standards. I don't socialise with people like that in my adult life, nor did I when I was a child, and it's not caused me any problems. I have friends from different ethnic backgrounds, and I have friends who have disabilities. My children and I are not segregated from anyone that would have a positive effect on our lives, and if we are segregated from people I'd consider to be unpleasant, then that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Shag not sure about your theory as yet again the squeezed middle will miss out.Having just been landed a £300 bill we have to pay for school trips X3(not voluntary) I'm getting a tad pissed off with the amount of cash we have to keep shelling out and the assumption we'll just pluck it out of thin air.

It's a total myth that everybody except the poorest are pumping money into schools,paying for extra curricular lessons,music lessons etc,etc.The vast maj of parents can't afford any of this(trying to think of any of my teaching friends that have the spare cash to lavish money on their dc's schools and lessons).

The very parents that work their arses off supporting schools I don't think should be penalised for going into help,toiling at fundraising,supporting discipline,helping to give schools a good reputation in the first place etc,etc.

The squeezed middle miss out from the beginning to the end.The rich parents buy their way into Oxbridge and the poorest allegedly get help.The squeezed middle yet again loose out from both sides.Your idea would just add to that.

And so it goes on.Truely wonder if there is an answer.Wonder what they do in Scandinavia as they're supposed to currently have the answers to everything re children and education.

MrsH this is the second time on this thread that you've had a dig at the people who attend Oxford and Cambridge . What makes you think rich parents can still buy their way in? And in precisely what way do you think the poorest get inappropriate or unfair help?

Well they're a pretty depressed bunch in Scandinavia aren't they, or is that another stereotype?

Erm you can buy your way into Oxbridge, with the right schools! Surely we're not disputing the notion that if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth you have a better chance of going to an elite institution like Oxford/Cambridge.

If you don't make the grade then you don't get in. Of course, if you don't apply you don't get in either. But it's not the fault of the kids of rich parents if the kids of poorer parents don't apply.

Wow, that's rather simplistic. If you grow up in a place where noone EVER goes to Oxford why would you even think of going? It's not the fault of the rich children, it's the fault of the system.

How come 70% of Etonians currently fail to get in then Posie? That's a lot of fees wasted.

Well if it's simplistic Posie then I wonder why getting such kids to actually consider applying is the main focus of the Oxford and Cambridge access schemes?

30% do get in though, that's an awful lot more than our local comp. One pupil getting in is NEWS.

I can't be arsed to continue if the starting point is that some are going to deny the fucking advantage of pupils that attend elitist schools... it's beyond stupidity.

Prince Charles would not have made Oxbridge back in the 1960s on his grades so this has been going on a while ;)

Posie you said you could buy your way in. Clearly Eton's results suggest that you can't.

No Glitter, it's different now, both entry to Oxford and Cambridge and grades.

@posieparker I did. And then, I went to Cambridge.

@posieparker Are we still saying that rough=!polite?

I actually said a better chance, not an absolute. Besides Eton is not the only elitist school. Buying/Paying your way in may not be as straight forward as opening a library or funding research but if you pay for the right education you do, without doubt, have a better chance. Less than 15% are from poor families and then there are those just above that whose parents can't cough up the fees or don't want to get in years of debt.

I'm currently sitting here doing three SFE forms (with MN providing displacement activity). If students want to go they borrow. If they don't think it's worth borrowing to go to Oxford or Cambridge then that's obviously their choice, though if the least well off looked into it with a modicum of care they'd find out that the reaction of the best universities to the fee hike has been to vastly increase funding to the least well off group and to provide generous tiered help to the next groups up.

Quite Rosie.

Perhaps the other 70% go elsewhere eg Yale,Harvard,Bristol,Edinburgh,Warwick and all the other top unis everybody would love to get into on the back of a comprehensive education but often don't.

Lets just say I'd wager my kids would have more chance getting into any of the above applying from Eton as opposed to our local comp.Denying that is just hysterical.

Seriously it's 2012 we're all well aware how the system works.