To be pissed at people fleeing our nice primary towards the trendy free school round the corner?

[FiveRingsForDinner]

I bet they're bitching about us as much as we're bitching about them.

If half a million children are leaving school unable to read not only does it make me about the schools but wtf were their parents doing?!

No honeytea, not alternative teaching qualifications from having trained in another country but no teaching qualifications at all.

But the schools won't just employ anyone, they have to have some sort of benifit to the school. I'm sure they wont be putting ads in the jobcenter saying "looking for anyone, must like kids, no experience necerssary"

Private schools manage to maintain high standards with no trained teachers, they do this because they have to if they have low standards people will stop sending their kids there. The same with free schools, thay have to have high standards.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/free-schools-are-disaster

Hope this works.
I'm going to slink off quietly now ......

Umm, private schools DO have trained teachers. OK, they are allowed to employ people without teaching qualifications if they wish, but it's not exactly common. DH works at a private school and there are four unqualified staff out of 140, and two of them are doing their PGCEs whilst working for the school. Just because the schools are not obliged to use qualified staff does not mean that they wouldn't prefer to and do so wherever possible. Same goes for the free schools.

Those bleating about how unfair the free schools systems is to kids with SN need to educate themselves about just how shite LEA provision for such children is.
Parents are using the free schools programme to set up schools that genuinely meet their childrens' special needs. Fuck LEAs and their obstructive, uncaring attitudes. Give power to the parents.

Love that you assume that just because a teacher is qualified it means they are any good. There are loads of qualified and shite teachers out there.

No-one has assumed that callisto. There are inadequate doctors, but I'd still rather be treated by one who was trained.

Our local primary is very good. I would be very nervous about sending my DCs to a new free school which hadn't been tested and you didn't know how good the teachers are. Just because it's new and trendy doesn't mean to say it's any good.

I think that's probably why they struggle to attract big numbers initially teamumizumi. I expect they are all hoping to do brilliantly and gradually begin to win over local parents, and those that don't will fail.

Parents are entitled to send their child to the school which best suits their children's needs. I'll send mine to the best one I can find. Your primary doesn't sound very nice by your description of it; rude children, uninterested families, 'enrichment rather than homework'(?), if must be pretty bad (a lot worse than you've described) for people to be fleeing it in such large numbers for an experimental school with an unproven record.

Yes - everyone knows that the mark of a great school is a full homework schedule for 5 year olds . Since as a parent I can't be trusted to input into my own child's development, and I need it set out for me turgid worksheet by turgid worksheet.

Our school is a nice school in an inner city area. This means the enunciatiation leaves something to be desired in some of the DC - but I don't recall characterising it as 'uninterested parents'.

My dd is 3 years ahead on maths, and my 5 y.o. DS is reading Horrid Henry chapter books. They skip into school, come home with interesting ideas & then voluntarily spend their evening 'writing stories' and such like. I really can't pick a bone with the school. Trips, second language, chance to learn an instrument, after school clubs. But - yes - 30 people in a class, national curriculum, decisions driven by the head teacher & an established group of governors, a refusal to build a whole school around SATs & OFSTEDs and a school day that finishes at 3.15. RUN! RUN!

To those who say that free schools in Sweden get such brilliant results - universities are : read this

Apparently free schools in Sweden are responsible for all their own marking. Well, no wonder they get good results then, with no external scrutiny at all... I would not put my faith in such a system, ever, and I hope that free schools in the UK will not follow this part of the model.

As for the free school in Beccles - words fail. It sounds as if the school in (Bradford, was it?) in a deprived area had more of a right to open than this one, and yet it was the latter that got its funding pulled last minute. It was in a deprived area - the Beccles school is seriously leafy. Coincidence? I think not.

Given that there are 800 children in London without a reception place for this year (and the situation is only going to get much worse with the rising birth rate), I would prefer that any money to be invested in additional school places was put where the places are needed, rather than where someone fancies setting up a school.

What is wrong with learning Latin?

But Rosebud there is no glory to be had in setting up primary schools. The children who go there will not start showing results until many years down the line, when another government is likely to be in power

I agree with you, it's bonkers that a school like the one in Beccles costing £2 million is allowed to open but there's nothing in place to provide primary places where they are truly needed. But then people wouldn't have choice, would they?

People whose children don't have a school place aren't in that situation through choice though, are they?

My point entirely, Rosebud - this government's 'choice' agenda is all about appeasing middle class Tory voters. At the same time they neglect young people's rights to education. It's completely immoral. My use of the word choice was ironic, btw.

E320 there is nothing wrong with learning Latin. However, spending £millions on vanity projects in areas with surplus school places when there are children with no reception places tells me that this government has its priorities wrong.

Apparently free schools in Sweden are responsible for all their own marking. Well, no wonder they get good results then, with no external scrutiny at all... I would not put my faith in such a system, ever, and I hope that free schools in the UK will not follow this part of the model.

The reason for this is that Swedish schools unlike English ones don't make their young adults sit loads of exams. The grades are given in part bassed on what they do in the classroom. I have friends who teach at free schools, I had a conversation with them about the freedom of marking that they have and they said it was very very fair and a school would never give a child a higher mark than they deserved because it would be obvious when they went onto the next stage of education that the school had given them an inflated mark.

The culture has alot more focus on fairness than the UK, people don't tend to cheat things. Also i don't think there is way of finding out how well a school does in terms of grades, we are in the process of choosing which schools to put our baby down for and it was one of my first questions, how do we find out which school is "best" my Swedish DP was confused and said well they are all good we just need to decide which teaching style we like.

I would actually hate that because I suffered at the hands of a teacher who disliked me so much that my dad and my best friend concocted a plan to submit the exact same piece of work word for word and see what happened. I got a bad mark and my friend got a good mark

My dad went to parents evening and told her an showed her the work and said he didn't have any faith in her as a teacher and that he didn't give a toss if she said I had to try harder as she was the only one with that opinion

If there was no external exams I would have been totally fucked over. There is NO WAY that would be fairer than an external body marking exams

It would be fairer if people who didn't like children didn't teach them. That is really awful that your teacher did that to you kayano.

The young adults here certainly seem alot more relaxed and happy than the poor teanagers going through GCSEs and AS levels.

The free school that has opened up here is a Steiner School. Steiner isn't my cup of tea and some of the ideas actually worry me slightly!! I just want my DD to have a 'standard' education the same as the majority. I have heard lots of bitching in the playground though lol

I do agree with honeytea about the damaging effect of high stakes exams for our young people at such a young age. With course work, the pressure is on from 14 years onwards.

Op

It'll settle down. Remember this is a new school and at the moment there is a honeymoon period and there will be issues like there is in every school.

Your primary is solid with experienced teachers and a settled population, just smile and talk about all the good things with your children and your friends.