To feel we are all a little bit too obsessed with education and school?

[TheOddity]

I've seen threads recently about people remortgaging their house for private education, teachers publicly shamed in front of their peers for results beyond their control, people moving house to be nearer a good nursery, and on and on.
I recently moved to another country in Europe. I asked my new neighbour what the local nursery was like as that's where we intended to send our son. They said "it's very close and convenient". My spidey senses were tingling, did this mean it was a failing nursery? Next I go to the first parents' meeting. Not a word was spoken about targets, the curriculum etc. it was all about food and naps. In the end section for questions, the questions parents asked were about.....food and naps! He is there now for half a year, it's fine, And hopefully sometimes he is learning. There is one secondary school nearby so everyone goes there and again, it's fine. I am not overly worried my son will fail, because he is bright and I will help him.
I just think, are we all insane in the UK? Is it worth the stress? At the end of the day, if you are worried enough about them to remortgage your house, surely you could just do a bit of homework with them each night and it will all turn out ok? AIBU to think that school is all a bit out of proportion and life is pretty unpredictable unless your parents already own a fortune?

And leadership.

"I'm willing to bet no one will be happy to send their DC to their nearest school if it happened to be crap and I mean, by quite a margin!"

My ds's first choice for secondary is a school rejected by most m/c parents in the area because it takes in only very small numbers of high achieving children, and its GCSE grades reflect that.

My dd is at a school with similar intake of high achieving children (ie, a low percentage). I have no doubt that many local m/c parents would describe it as 'crap' because it takes in lots of kids from the local estates and is considered 'rough'. There is a thriving private girls' school half a mile a way which is bursting at the seams, because local m/c parents reject my dd's school.

Many parents reject state schools because of the intake, not because of the way the school is run or managed.

I see a difference between departments in the comp here. Those with clear expectstions re homework and who give useful timely feedback are getting better results.

arna
I do not send my kids to my local school.
Nor do around 1000 other local parents.
The school lets pupils down in such ways as having no science teachers for a term or no language teachers for two terms.
But it is a sponsored academy so nothing will be done.

Therefore hundreds and hundreds of children of all of the parents who care - rich and poor - get the bus, cycle, walk, get a lift to the other schools around ~ all of which are comps as well.

The local school, at the last count, had over 400 empty places.
Its building holds 900, the buildings it replaced fitted 1700.

I went to a rubbisg secondary school. When I told the careers advisor that I wanted to be a lawyer and asked for advice she laughed and told me "not from this school".

Dh could only read and write because his parents paid for tutoring(dyslexic).

Dh and I both work in supermarkets as general assistants.

Ds1 is at one of the highest performing ss state grammars in the country. Ds2 is at a local(not catchment) secondary as he missed out on a grammar place. His dyslexia was diagnosed in yr7 as his new school listened to us.

Dd is being tutored by the same tutor as her db.

Am I overinvested in my dc education? Yes. I want them to have opportunities and ambitions that I was unable to have. I do not believe that this would happen in our catchment school which doesnt offer triple science as an option.

Good for you Mushypeasontoast!

I think people being forced to send children to poor schools is a separate argument to the high end tutoring/ oxbridge entry stuff.

There are some truly awful secondary schools. Ones usually in very deprived areas with serious behaviour problems.

Wanting a child to have better opportunities than this is normal not OTT or pushy. In that type of school children who want to learn dont always get the opportunities they should.

Thanks Canny. As others have said a good education is with you for life.

mushypeas
As I said on another thread,
one of the biggest problems is that a lot of the people who are now secondary parents were at school in the late 70's and early 80's which was a frankly CRAP period in education

• state schools lurched madly into comprehensive schools with no setting or differentiation
• schools hid their results and tolerated some diabolical behaviour by teachers
• careers advice was still sexist and crap across both sectors
• theories of learning were half arsed at best

NO school could now get away with what some of us had to endure.

We need to remember that and try to not let our experiences prejudice our childrens' chances

I don't believe for a second that all these people happily send their kids to failing schools as anything else is being "over invested"

I believe this ridiculous assumption comes only from people who's schools are decent or even the requires improve not ones are failing in insignificant departments rather than things like maths and science etc.

how on earth cab it be seen as anything other than understandable?

Our local. primary o's shit. has always been shit and I know people who travel several miles a day to get their kids into better schools.

Our catchment secondary is shit too. If you think it doesn't matter then your in for a nasty surprise

We used to live in Trafford where most state primaries are outstanding and high achieving, no doubt because of the existence of the grammar school system with the consequence of high parental expectations of those within the region and beyond.

We now live hundreds of miles away in the countryside. DC1 attends a school whereby the good teachers are leaving in dribs and drabs and the supply teachers are struggling. This is our nearest school which he is able to walk to. I truly fear that it may well be a wasted year so he is 'lucky' that I am invested enough to provide an alternative. It's not as simple moving him to another state school - my friend has rung all the other state schools in the area for her DC - there are no places for our year group so it's a waiting game, put up with it, home ed or the private sector. Meanwhile, the top set in Eng and Maths are filled with children with similar invested parents who are providing them with support at home making them work at home

But Giles is that what this thread is about? Or is it about cramming/tutoring/ obsession with top grades (how it started out).

Private prep schools will always do a better job of preparing DC for selective secondary school than state primaries will. That is the very raison d'etre of why they charge!

Giles - I think you'll find that many people will think a school is 'shit' on the basis of intake and raw results regardless of the quality of teaching and management.

Giles - it does matter that kids with low aspirations are all crowded together in the same schools, where they happily undermine themselves and each other.

But the answer to the problem is not to continue to encourage educational, social and economic segregation, which is what those people with children at selective schools are contributing towards.

Really?

Then explain why children who left were all miles behind their peers?

who could barely read or count.

or the children found wandering down the road having got out.

It's shit because it's shit. and no one sends their kid their by choice.

And those at the better comps them.

Sorry I have no intention of basing my school choices for my dc on raising the aspirations of others.What is best for them will always come first. So sue me.

I will admit freely to being very heavily invested in DS's education. We live in a pretty small village, and our local primary school is in special measures. The nearest secondary school is in special measures. It is dire dire dire. I was actually having coffee with one of the TA's who is a friend, and the headmistress saw us in a social setting and came over to say hi and started gossiping about one of the children BY NAME and about how he is probably ASD etc. It was so fucking unprofessional.

We are lucky enough to not be bound to location by our jobs, so we are now looking into moving for a better school or going private, and that would be quite hard for us. We would have to juggle things. My primary aim is that DS gets a good education. Gets the same opportunities that I had. My aim is also that he is happy and well adjusted. Will I do anything I can for those aims? Damned right I would.

mini by all emasculated send your kids somewhere crap to prove a point or to tell yourself your doing something noble on supporting your local school and having principles.

but don't get on your high horse about others sending their kids else where

Ffs typo

by all means.

Wtf happened there

And if parents themselves received a poor education they may not be equipped to be supportive at home.

Basically it boils down to the fact that you can relax about education and send them to the nearest school, if you happen to live in a good area for schools -but you have to become obsessive if your nearest school is failing the pupils- and your child runs the risk of being left with having to go there.
Whatever the system it is unfair-those with supportive parents and/or money get the best.

And if parents themselves received a poor education they may not be equipped to be supportive at home

I don't think this is true. My PIL both left school at 15yrs but DH won a full scholarship to a fee paying, selective school. They were very supportive-read to him, talked to him, played games, took out etc etc.
Doing my family history we came from poor beginnings, but my ancestors used education as the way out.
It is attitude- and you have to see the value of education in the first place.

The school of hard knocks is only a salutary lesson for the minority who are spurred on to achieve and succeed. The majority don't. We live in the country and it's obvious to me, that we see more of the social spectrum than an affluent city suburb in our local state schools.

I was discussing the programme of Mr Drew's school for badly behaved boys with some fellow school mum friends and we agreed that actually, we had quite a few DC in our year group who were of a similar ilk. We laughed only because we would otherwise cry!

mehitabel6 yes, that pretty much sums it up for me