AIBU to think DC should get a say in choosing a school

[Superheroessidekick]

It's coming up to the time of year where secondary schools start their open days and a lot of school chat has been going on. I spoke to one mum recently who believe the parents should be in control of the choice. AIBU to think the child should get quite a big say in what school they are going to attend for the next 5-7 years of their life?

We don't really have a choice here, all the schools are over subscribed so the only one we'd had a chance of getting was our closest school. It wasn't worth showing him alternatives.

Input - yes. Final decision- no.

We had to have a conversation about not choosing based on friends as the primary school has a split secondary catchment plus a 3rd over arching.

Luckily she liked the one I wanted and despite it not being one of the 3 mentioned above has been very happy there.

Ds will get no choice. (Asd I need to make that decision) but should be same school as dd.

What I do not agree with is sending them to a school they adamantly do not want to go to just because it's the best one in the parents opinion which was what the other parent was suggesting.

Frankly that's your opinion and of course you're entitled to it. Some parents want better for their children than to follow the herd to the local failing comprehensive.. Most children do want to follow the herd at 10. What they don't grasp is their class of 30 will be split and mixed with children from another 10 primaries and divvied up over 6,8,10 forms.

He hated every second of it, and remains bitter about it to this day (thirty years on). But has he actually got better life opportunities because of his parents choice?

Ds chose his school (primary). We have 3 village schools in catchment(ish) so we visited each one with him then asked which one he would like to go to. Our thinking is that he is the one that has to spend most of his time there so it should be his choice. Ok so he was only 4 at the time , and it may seem ridiculous to most to allow such a big decision to made by a 4 year old, but he made a cracking choice and he is so happy at school. Worked out for the best.

I find these threads about choice interesting, it’s completely hypothetical where I live.

There is no choice. It’s either the nearest school or one that the council allocates (miles away) if the nearest school is oversubscribed. You can put down lots of other choices but won’t get any of them.

I told my mum what high school I wanted to go to at age 3. Granted it was because they had a purple uniform and I was REALLY into Barney 😀
I did end up going to that school though. It wasn't a grammar school, it was a Catholic school with a very selective process. I worked very hard through primary and took my religion very seriously. There was no question of where I wanted to go. Thank god I did! It's where I met my husband and I genuinely loved it there!

I've always been a firm believer in children having input into school decisions - I was aware at highschool that me and my sister were very unusual in having had a strong input into our choice of schools, significantly because we'd only got places via scholarships (non UK). My eldest ended up boarding from year 5 - her wish though we wouldn't have given her the option had we not felt the school looked good for her (choirschool). We visited several senior schools for 13+ and the final choice between two was hers.

However with my youngest it has been quite different and emphasises that at 10 not all children are at all ready to choose. Although he was also in a 13+ system, we were doing visits and pretests in year 6 too. Since his sister was boarding we included that possibility but I wanted to know what he thought of schools, not risk him saying "what he thought we wanted to hear". He wasn't nearly ready to decide, wasn't thinking ahead to the future and his main response was "it's a school'. Forward 2 years, he did know which school he wanted to go to most, but was reliant on a scholarship to get a place (and did it).

Interestingly, the place he'll be going is the school his headmaster first suggested in year 5, that I fell in love with when I looked at their website, but didn't want to push him on too early. Might have been easier if I'd prepared him more at that point ... who knows?

Would agree with above poster with son at Eton, that some of the "big names" have much deeper pockets for bursaries so are much more likely to be an option for "ordinary" families than other independents.

DD1 chose her school (aged 14) and hated it. But to be frank, I think she would have hated wherever she went!

Unless you pay for transport we don't have a choice, there are only free school buses to the catchment school

We haven't visited any yet, but DS will have a pretty big say, but not necessarily the final say. She doesn't want to go to any girls' schools, and we're fine with that (I would have hated a girls' school as well), she doesn't especially want to go to the school that most of her friends will go to, and again we support her in that. I think that's a much better position to be in than DC wanting to go to their mates' school and you don't want them to go there!

Once we've looked at them, we will discuss the preference order and I expect that will be thrashed out between the 3 of us.

My parents allowed me to choose.

We’ve done exactly the same with DD.

She’s very sensible, in fact pulled out of doing one exam as she decided the only reason she was considering it was her friends were going there.

She got the place she loved.

We’re all happy and looking forward to September

My DD had a say.

If we had left the choice of secondary school to our DS he would have gone for the one at the bottom of our street as it was a short walk as opposed to the bus ride to the school we knew would suit him better. In the school we preferred he said "the corridors were too small". At 11 he hadn't a clue which school would suit his abilities. We knew he needed a foot in his bottom the whole time or he would happily coast along. We chose his secondary school and he starts his A level exams on Monday. We are all happy it was the right choice.

On his bottom - not in! 😳

Can I just point out that
'The United Kingdom has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Article 12 of the UNCRC requires states to provide a right for children to express their views and for due weight to be given to those views, in accordance with the age and maturity of the child'
This is contained in a draft of a document which contains proposed guidance for LAs on Education Choices made by parents. so those of you saying you made the decision arbitrarily would be in breach of this.

Where I grew up it was definitely my parents who chose because of the options available. I would have probably chosen the easy option that looked the most fun when actually the academic school was much better suited for me (clever but lazy). My parents made the right choice and the decision was made with me at the centre of their thoughts.

But here we have 3 mediocre schools so most dc get to have a lot of input as the only difference between the schools is whether dc would be happy there. We will look at the schools together and discuss it but I guess Dh and I will make the final decision taking DD's opinion into account. If I can make dd feel like it's her choice then that's good I guess but actually a friend's ds chose his school and started last September. It's all gone horribly wrong (long story but school refused to listen to concerns and it escalated). He's now at the local independent feeling like he failed and chose badly and won't make any decisions about anything as he's lost his confidence completely. It's a lot to put solely on a dc aged 10 (dd will be 10 when we have to apply).

NewYear

Well luckily our local comp isn’t failing, in fact according to its GCSE, a level and progress 8 scores it’s positively thriving. I just wonder whether its lack of sport and creative opps are right for dd2. So it’s not as if we’d be failing her by sending her there, i just wonder whether she would be happier in a school that had more extra curricular stuff. On balance though I think we’ll stick to the state school and see how she gets on in Y9. It’s easier to go from state to priv in Y10 than the other way round. If she wanted to go private we would do it, so I guess we really are going by what she wants not the other way around. If the state was failing though I think we’d have to overrule her.

You are right and the other woman is wrong.

10-11 year olds are children but they have thoughts and feelings to know their own mind. I had an awful time when I was that age - my parents wanted me to go to x school while I wanted to go with my friends to another. My feelings didn't matter and they applied for their choice. I didn't get in, and ended up going to the other one anyway but it was a very stressful year for me.

You should talk it through with your child and hear their wishes and come to a decision together after going to open evenings etc.

Our DgD went with her parents last year to choose which secondary to attend, she had 3 to choose from they were all very good. One was dismissed by her for having mismatched bricks at the front, another because the science room was painted beige. The one she has decided to attend to her mind was perfect because all the class rooms were nicely decorated. This was actually the one her parents had wanted her to go too.

My child would not have chosen the school he is currently thriving in. The choice was based on understanding the educational needs of my child, not his desire to be with his primary friends.

no, schooling should be a parent's choice.

Which is not to say that they don't listen to their kids opinion, and talk them through their decision, and take them to the open days, but in the end, a 10 year old has no idea what a good school looks like, or what influence their grades etc will have on their life.

My dd will do 11+ in september, while she likes the grammar school, she wants to go to the same school as all her friends and is giving me a concerted campaign on that front.
The school her friends are going to is the local comp. It was the sink school around here for 20 years, mainly because it is fed by a large estate with huge problems, which results in a large number of kids with huge problems. Their results are crap, and the behaviour in class leaves a lot to be desired.
If she doesn't get into the grammar, there are other comps she can choose from.

Her only focus is her friends.

I have 2 older ones, both were hesitant about the grammar school, both are now completely flourishing. One of them wanted to go to the school where they were allowed to eat a chocolate bar in an experiment on the open evening!
With the oldest I said that if he was still unhappy at the end of year 7 we would swap schools. He thrived in year 7, and now, at the end of year 10, he admitted he understood why we had chosen this school, and that he NOW got it. He didn't get it aged 11.

can just say that there is the world of difference between giving them the choice of 3 excellent private schools, and the choices we have.

If there are equally good schools to choose from it isn't really a choice is it? Any of them are fine.

But in our case, to get away from the sink comp required a leap of faith for the child, into something a bit unknown. Of course at 10 that was a big step, and it would be easy to take the 'easy option'