... to think it slightly odd that so many of my school mum friends are hung up about secondary schools already, when their kids are only 5!

[sandyballs]

It seems to be the sole topic of conversation lately - how good/bad the local comp is, how extra tuition will be needed for the local grammar etc etc.

The kids are 5/6 years old! Let them be kids!

I'm sure our parents never had all this school angst!

makes me sick too and i have to live right in the centre of it all. i have to see all the local children being bussed off here and there. the south east is full of people thinking that the local comp just isn't good enough for their children and their children are too talented and clever to attend it anyway.

tbh i can't be bothered with it anymore. my son is happy at his local school and can walk home with his friends and walk to their houses. it's called a community.

I usually avoid these threads as one of the posters on here makes me want to be violent!

How can she be allowed to get away with such vile postings?

Lots of us are thinking the same way as MotherInferior too.

My dd1's best friend at her first school was the problem child of the school, her mother was in and out of jail with drug and alcohol problems, her father had a new family, she had been fostered as a baby and then adopted by a (spectacularly lawless) aunt. They were lovely, both child and aunt, despite their frequent run-ins with the school on a variety of issues and I was really pleased that dd1 had the opportunity to have the child as her friend. She learnt to swear from her too, but still, I think it's good for dd1 to have a variety of friends, not just the ones we met at NCT class.

and what happens when your over educated hot housed children decide to sod off travelling and open a yurt in India (or something)

and come home married to A Person Of Colour who maybe didn't go to University?

You cannot plan your childs life no matter how far you look ahead and book tutors etc

'Is it worse to say I want a school with well behaved children or with clever or musical children than with children who are middle class and I want to avoid a school where most children are working class'

Yes Xenia of course it is, can you really not see that??

You are right of course that many of us do choose schools with high results, musical ability etc which tends to mean they end up with other middle class pupils. This is not the reason for the choice however.

What I would ideally like is a school with excellent behaviour/discipline, good results, highh standards of teaching, high expectations, varied opportunities, and a mixture of class, family types/situations and accents.

I admit this school does probaly not exist(apart fron some grammars) and so my children are more likely to end up surrounded by only other middle class children.

But can you really not see anything wrong in basing judgements on peoples worth or suitability to associate with on their accent or family background?? Really?

Here we go again, Xenia.

"In a sense too late at state school at 5. They should be have already competed for places in the academic private prep schools that best prepare them for the best private secondaries in many a parent's book but it depends what your aims for children are."

Don't give up, people. DD1 was at failing primary in London, but nonetheless managed to get into no less than 5 academic private secondaries and Tiffin Girls, which is not even in our borough. No tutor, nowt. If a child is relatively bright and reasonably motivated, they'll do well wherever.

My little boy went to nursery at a very middle class school and we moved him when he started reception to another nearby school which is more mixed in terms of class, ethnic backgrounds etc. the more mixed school actually gets better academic results than the posh school. The main reason we moved him though is because we felt it was more important at this stage that he turns out to be a well-rounded person who can mix with any kind of people than someone who has only ever met other middle class people and doesn't know how to interact with them. None of us has any idea what our children will end up doing when they leave school/university but I wanted my child to have as broad a range of options as possible and not to be narrow minded. It's a big world out there full of all kinds of people and children have to grow with the skills to deal with all of them.

Everyone I met at NCT class was as dull as ditchwater.

On the bussing point aren't those parents who can afford fees just doing the same as everyone - trying to find the school best for their child? I think 7% of children go to private schools and in a recent survey 47% of parents said if they had the money they would send their children there. Does that not say it all?

I wouldn't, no

GG, I agree but it's a bit harder.
Also I never understood this social mix point. Why can't my children mix with people from different backgrounds. What would stop them? I never got that point.

i went to a state school which was not a middle class majority. There was so much money thrown into the school in the years i was there to improve the arts,music and drama departments to make it more of a performing arts school but it was an awful school. The behaviour of 20% of the kids in my year was awful really really terrible. 50% was just bad and disruptive and they just had no interest in being there. I would put myself in the 30% that did have a genuine interest in school and wanted to learn and get good grades and with the other 70% around me it was damn hard to get good grades. I was actually bullied for wanting to do well and for getting on with my work and for getting good grades!

But i still got good grades even though i am from a working class background and a dysfunctional family. and i dont speak 'proper' or use proper grammar where i speak most of the time, but im not thick and stupid or slow either

I would never want my ds to go to a school like mine and i suppose if i had the money i might consider putting my ds in a private school.

But chances are i wont be able to afford that as i am WORKING CLASS and im not going to feel like a failure for not being able to afford it and if i can afford it i wont be a snob about it or make myself sound better than others.

I know there are good state schools out there and im sure you get some disruptive little shits in all schools even if they are middle class and private.

No Xenia it doesn't say it all.

I may choose private eduaction for the reasons I stated earlier, high expectations, good reults etc, many people would agree with that *(and many wouldn't I know.)

What poeple really object to I think is the class snobery reasons given for this, as well as the academic reasons.

Once you start talking about accent and dysfunctional familes your argument looses credence and just sounds likes like it's based on class bigotry

The main thing that puts me off private education is that DS's would have such narrow and sheltered experiences in terms of the people they would meet. The opposite reasons you give.

I'd like the high standards and opportunies and would consider it for that reason, but your views make me concerned about the class snobbery that may exist.

But actually I went to private school, know lots of people who send their children there and they do not spout such bigoted views. I think, and hope you are the minority.

Well I'll choose some song lyrics for Xenia:

"It's not how big your share is but how much you can share.
It's not just what you're born with but what you choose to be."

As the child of over achieving working class parents who are fundamentally good people but who spent so much chasing after some dream that they forgot about their kids. Who had dreams of what their kids should be but who forget that they should ask them I think that the most sad class are the over aspirational parents.

PS: My dad has gone from the working class to a knight of the realm.

But you just pick on the one class issue. There are lots of other reasons to buy good school places. Lots of middle class parents choose white middle class state schools and would hate the racial and religious mix at my children's schools. We all have things we favour or don't favour in our choices, where we have any choice at all.

jc, yes class room disruption I have always wanted to spare my children from and an ehtos where 100% will go to university so study and doing well is not laughed at or worse. Why couldn't you afford private school fees though? Surely that has nothing to do with class. Clever people tend to succeed at most professions whatever their background. I don't think we have huge class barriers to things in the UK.

On class I didn't choose "posh" schools. I could have sent them off toe Wycombe Abbey and Eton if I'd wanted that. I deliberately avoided it.

Good post kaz.
I don't think I am over aspirational for them actually. 3 are at university. I don't mind what they do, genuinely don't. Two of them have no idea. I hope they can earn enough to support themselves as they choose to be but that's all.

I don't just pick on the class issue Xenia, it'd just that is the reason that seems offensive.

The academic reasons seem understandable to me.

The 'accent' and 'avaoiding working class' satements do not.

Choosing a school to avoid certain racial mixs would be equally aborhent. In fact it is a good analogy you make.

You can work hard, make money without that being a negative thing. I'm sure your parents did what they thought was right for their family at the time just as we all try to now.

because i am a single parent and when i start working in the next few months it will be part time and i have no chance of getting a decent job until i have finished my degree in 3 years time and even then i will only be working part time as ds will be at school. We have no help from his dad and i would never ask my dp to help me out with school fees as he has his own children to worry about.

Xenia I agree with much of waht you say about the importence of education and freedon it gives to make choices, for those reasons I would consider a private school if I thought it would provide better educational outcomes.

But not because I want my children to mix with people who talk a certain way or come from certain types of familes.

I am suprised you cannot see the distinction.

i should feel more offended as the working class probably means me round here. but i don't care really anymore. everyone has to have the bigger house/car/income. makes for a more selfish society.

i'd like to move up north like alot of the southern working classes i imagine. life's over before you know it sometimes. what's the point of struggling to get by when london is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Can't leave it, even though I'm trying .

Real life is full of people from all sorts of backgrounds, with all levels of intelligence, and they all have different things to give. So, in answer to a couple of threds below, yes I do want my children to experience their schooling in this mixed environment. My DDs have children with special needs and/or "low IQs" in their class and from this they are beginning to realise that not everyone is the same and some people do have a bit of a struggle and I'm thrilled to say that this is making them more compassionate and caring and has been the subject of many discussions at school and at home.

Surely that is a better start for children then being surrounded by perfectly behaved, super intelligent clones, where the "special needs" kids have been sifted out .

I don't really know if this is related to the OP, so I guess I'm just having a general ramble "out loud" ...

... these selective, academic schools (both state and private): of course they do well and achieve high places in the dreaded league tables, because they take the most intelligent children, don't they? Easy work for the teachers, I would have thought.

But, Xenia, you are right: all any of us are trying to do is the best for our children and our families in whatever circumstances we live.

plus say i could afford it, i would still be working class so wouldn't that go against your reasons for sending your kids to a private school? or would i be let off because i am paying?