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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not give a fuck about schools?

569 replies

sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 21:13

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 Hmm.

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 Hmm.

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 Hmm

OP posts:
Shagmundfreud · 20/04/2012 22:32

Should add OP - I have a lot of sympathy for your view. I just can't stand by and watch my dd have her happiness and future destroyed for my principles.

The system is horribly polarised. My dc's primary is only half a mile from the secondary I've just taken dd out of. It's got a proper mixed intake - seriously deprived children, some kids from middle-class families, and lots in between. But the secondary school has a disproportionate number of really disadvantaged kids. It shouldn't be that way but it is. And being in a challenging social environment at school is impacting on my dd's life in a way which is difficult to stomach. I know it wouldn't affect all kids and this way, but it has affected my dd badly.

Shagmundfreud · 20/04/2012 22:34

"Some kids are more important than others then yes?"

My kids are more important TO ME than other people's children. Which is why I put their needs above everyone else's. Including my need to be seen as right.

Shagmundfreud · 20/04/2012 22:35

OP - should I keep my dd in her school despite the fact that academically, socially and emotionally it appears to be failing her?

GrahamTribe · 20/04/2012 22:37

Shagmundfreud, that's exactly what I meant (and have experienced similar too, sadly).

OP, to me, some kids are more important than any others. Mine. Which is why I chose my DC's schools on the basis of their suitability to my DC and not for the good of others, to be some sort of social experiment or to suit any one else's political ideals.

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 22:37

Well that's a pretty shit attitude then IMO. I think ALL kisses are important as they will form the society MY kids will need to love in.

OP posts:
Original poster
sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 22:38

Kids not kisses Blush although kisses are important too.

OP posts:
Original poster
sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 22:39

Live in BlushBlush

OP posts:
FreudianSlipper · 20/04/2012 22:39

i was very upset that ds got his 6th choice, the furthest away. i only put that school down as two that we are in the catchment area for i would not want ds going there i would rather home school or send to him to a prep (and yes one is in the middle of a council estate) why because there has been no improvement unlike other schools in this area the standard of maths and english is very low and absence rates are very high something is not working in those schools so why should i want to send my son there Hmm all the other schools i picked are closer with better reputations and results (closest is a fantastic school very very hard to get into, flats are rented out empty to get children in there). I am not sending ds to a school hoping it will get better

i really do not care if that makes me a snob or i am seen as a competitive parent i want what is best for my child

Ouluckyduck · 20/04/2012 22:39

So what would you do in shagmundfreuds situation?

MissGreatBritain · 20/04/2012 22:39

Schools have become "failing schools" because of the amount of choice allowed. My DD is in her final year at our local comprehensive, despite her grand-parents' pleas to send her to a private school. She is predicted all A and A* grades, has enjoyed her time there and has had lots of opportunities. Maybe not the same opportunities she would have had elsewhere, but ultimately she's a decent person, with some good friends and [hopefully] good GCSE results.

I agree with the OP in a sense that you should send your child to your local school, and that grammar schools should have to take a certain amount of pupils from each school in their catchment area. After all, there are plenty of bright kids at every primary.

I am not in favour of choice, or of public schools (in case you hadn't noticed) and really feel parents shouldn't worry so much about it. My DH went to grammar school; his best mate to the local (quite rough) comp. Best mate is now a chief exec in the public sector. Didn't hold him back.

kipperandtiger · 20/04/2012 22:39

Yes, YABU, you can choose another topic/page! Already four pages on the subject!

usualsuspect · 20/04/2012 22:39

I'm glad my children never went to school with bobbledunks children . if their attitude is anything like their mothers.

K999 · 20/04/2012 22:40

I deliberately chose the shittest school in the area so that DD1 appeared advanced and border line genius.....she now has delusions of grandeur.....

hiddenhome · 20/04/2012 22:40

I went to two rubbish comprehensive schools. I'm determined that my dcs won't go through what I went through. It ruined my education and my chances. I wanted to learn, but simply wasn't able to because of the little scrotes that I was at school with.

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 22:40

No one is more important than anyone else?!

Of course we love our kids more than other kids.

So that gives us the right to trample over everyone else?

OP posts:
Sabriel · 20/04/2012 22:40

I'd like to have sent my DD to our nearest school, but she didn't get in. The school she got into is the other side of a dual carriageway, and all her friends live on the school-side of it. They all live near each other and are going to eachother's houses, while she is left out.

Our nearest secondary is rubbish, and unless it changes completely I will do my best to send her elsewhere. Looking at the detailed Ofsted reports it seems that although the intake is 50% average ability, 25% above average and 25% below average their GCSE results are 41% A-C. Given that raw material there is no reason for such poor results, except poor teaching, and/or a poor ethos within the school.

Anyway if you don't care about schools why start another thread? Just don't read them.

wordfactory · 20/04/2012 22:40

Nope, some schools have always failed. There just wasn't OFSTED around to give them a name.

piprabbit · 20/04/2012 22:41

Where I live, there are very simply more children than there are schools. There is very little before or after school childcare (gap in the market? or is that too materialistic?) So people get in a state because they can't begin to imagine how they will cope if they fail to get into their local/round the corner school and get palmed off with a place that is hard to reach (or children at different schools with identical drop-off and collection times).
It's not that parents are being snobby about schools - it's simply that there is not enough room in the most local schools.

usingapseudonym · 20/04/2012 22:44

You're from my area! I agree its hugely polarised here. However that does mean there are unfortunately a couple of schools I really wouldn't want my children going to. There are a couple of areas where the state schools might as well be private for the cost of the houses in the area.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 20/04/2012 22:44

While I completely understand and sympathise with the point you are making Sensual, I don't think you can expect people to use their children to help solve the problem. We just aren't programmed to sacrifice our own offspring in the hope it might benefit other children, it's not going to happen, nor should we expect it to. But it is a crap situation, and the only victims are helpless children.

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 20/04/2012 22:46

I think the parents are helpless not the children.

Usingapseudonym - Grin

OP posts:
elportodelgato · 20/04/2012 22:46

Agree with you totally OP. you send your kids to the local school and if it's not brilliant you bloody get involved - schools are crying out for parent governors and engaged parents to run PTAs. I get hacked off with the sense of entitlement on mn on this subject and the lack of responsibility. It only takes a few engaged parents to turn the ethos of a school around for ALL the children there.

usingapseudonym · 20/04/2012 22:48

Wow at Lilliput not being any good! Really? I thought it was outstanding ofsted and pushy rich parent land... (hmm well that in itself could be a problem.)

Our area is very mixed socially but the first school is luckily fantastic. Not so keen on the secondary but it does seem to change every few years.

I have noticed that the lower parkstone lot would rather go private than go anywhere other than the school there ;)

GrahamTribe · 20/04/2012 22:48

This is moving too fast but the typos are still great! OP, to strive to send your child to a reasonable school/the best you can is not to "trample over" other DC. What a ridiculous statement! Your DC may have more trendy clothes than mine, he/she may have better toys, does that mean that because you have done your best for them they and you are trampling over my kids?

And there is a huge difference between local comp and shit school which is unfortunately the nearest. The first may well be fine. The second isn't.

wordfactory · 20/04/2012 22:49

See I don't get this point about schools being 'mixed' if everyoone went local. Areas are not always 'mixed'. This is a totally Londoncentric view.

Outside, there are schools in areas where evryone is a mono culture and of a mono class. Very little class/income mixture.
So schools in poor areas tend to be poor and schools in leaft middle clas areas ted to be good. Do the people who happen to live in the former just suck it up? Is the good school only allowed for the middle classes?