to be amused that the more exclusive a school is..

[seeker]

.. by faith, fees, ability, aptitude..whatever- the more diverse a community the school's parents say it is.

Thank you HandMade, I did think it would be along those lines and apologies to OP for not knowing.

Apologies - my message above was meant for another thread. Have reported so hopefully it will get deleted.

I Don't see how an exclusive school can be diverse

Our local state comprehensive excludes those children who do not attend a specific primary school and live too far away.

Why not usual? Diversity doesn't have to include every walk of life, just a number of them. There are too many groups of people to include everyone in everything.

Well, usual, there maybe cultural diversity in any school, socio-economic diversity in a religious or grammar school (and even in a fee paying one, although its unlikely you would find anyone right at the bottom of the income scale, as you could for any state school.)

The more exclusive the school, the less diverse it is.

Maybe less diverse, but less diverse doesn't mean not at all diverse. And it certainly doesn't mean something negative just because it doesn't include everyone.

I suppose it depends what you mean by diverse. From readig mn I would say some parents choose Exclusive schools so their children don't have to mix with the plebs etc

A while ago, I saw one of those documentaries about people getting their children into the school they chose. One was a single motherlooking at various local schools for her son. (I think it was in Birmingham, but could have been London.)

Her choices were severely limited by the gang culture which meant that children of one postcode would be assumed to belong to a certain gang, and therefore may be deemed as fair game by the gang whose territory the school was in.

Seemed pretty exclusive to me. And possibly discouraged diversity.

• mother looking

My local school is very inclusive (it's undersubscribed) and yet, strangely enough, the school community is not very diverse at all!

tbf I went to a faith school in London. Was it as diverse faith wise as the school over the road? No.

However, was it more diverse socially, economically and culturally diverse than the schools of people who get all smug about having gone to their 'local bog standard comp' in littlemiddleclassanglo-saxon ville.? Yes, of fucking course.

I live in one of the most culturally diverse citys in England , on a council estate so hardly littlemiddleclassanglo-saxon ville

Fortunately there are no Grammars either , so the majority of parents use the local comprehensive schools .

So really I don't get the MN school angst.

If you were that anxious to send your children to an "exclusive" school - surely the last thing you'd boast about is how diverse the school population is?
Aren't they mutually exclusive?

I didn't mean you! But the number of people I meet in rl who get on their high horse when the hear I went to a catholic school (in the third most deprived borough in the UK at the time) who went to a school in one of the richest places in the UK gets on my tits.

Which city is it usual? Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool all have fantastic LEAs. If I could get out of the south east I would love to send my children to inner city comps there. would be like the best aspects of where I went to school.

Exlusive and diverse in the same sentence seems an Oxymoron to me.

@flogging I think people are right that you need to define diversity. my school was catholic. So not faith doverse at all. however, it was massively more culturally, socially and economically diverse than most other schools in the country.

I've never fully understood it either usualsuspect. The only faith schools I know of are C of E village schools and there is no faith test to get in. All the village DC go there whatever their religion/skin colour. At secondary everyone goes to the state comp.

ethelb - I worked with a girl from South Africa once who was a Catholic - she attended Catholic primary school and it had children from all walks of life and all colours there, so long as they were Catholic. They didn't have a senior school though so when she had to go to the next school she had to go to a white-only school and was no longer "allowed" to associate with her friends with different-coloured skin.

Depends on the exclusion criteria as to how diverse the school population can be.

The school I work in is one parents really want their dcs to go to and no, it is not diverse. Population is mostly white and asian and middle class.

the only truely diverse school near me is the local comp - is inclusive and not selective so most kids go there.

we are surrounded by private/religious schools that certainly aren't inclusive at all!

people can bleat on about how great the private schools are imo but it really pisses me off when they totally dismiss the local comps and can be quite offensive in their remarks.

here anyway. that's why i get so passionately wound up about it.

At my DDs super selective grammar, approximately 1/3 of the girls are of ethnic minorities. This is far more culturally diverse than the area as a whole, where approximately 1/10 are from ethnic minorities.

However, if you looked at the parents, you would find that they were mostly professional people, which would seem to mean that it is not very socio-economically diverse.

The private schools attended by my other DCs are also culturally diverse, but less so, and even less socio-economically diverse than the grammar.

My dc have been to a cofe primary - exclusive because when we went church attendance for all children was part of the admissions criteria - some is now based on distance. However, it initially excluded non practicing christians and now excludes, in the main, children living in property worth less than £5-600k because of catchment. DS attends a super selective London hothouse about which there are many threads where parents wring their hands wondering how to get through the entrance test. You get through it by being exceptionally clever and then having parents who can afford to pay. DD goes to a lovely leafy indy in Surrey - she goes because she was interviewed, they liked her and we can afford it.

Exclusive - means for various reasons some people are excluded from being part of something - the reverse of inclusive.

FWIW DS's school is a bit diverse. I have never heard any of those schools claim to be diverse. DS recently laughed at the latest magazine because the picture included four nationalities and it wasn't in the least bit representative of the make-up of those who actually attend.

Race and faith are not the only exclusions
ANY fee paying school automatically excludes around 80% of the population
so the diversity of parental views and backgrounds will be similarly limited.
ANY selective school automatically excludes bright kids of indigent parents

The ONLY inclusive school is a non selective, non fee paying in an area where more than 95% of the catchment children go to it and the catchment is varied.
They are few and far between.
In fact I cannot think of any.