To be worrying about my child's school place

[minesapinkgin]

My child is 4 and has attended the school nursery of the school where he has been offered a place for reception since April time. We moved areas hence why he only recently started.

I was originally happy about this as the school is walking distance which is something I had always wanted.

However, having now experienced this school for a couple of months I am now panicking that I have not made the right decision for reception.

It's not the school per se, although with the exception of a brief chat with the teacher I have no idea how he's getting on or whether they have any concerns. It is however, the parents of the children that is making me question his place. Parents smoking literally right outside the school gates. I overheard one parent talking about getting the termination pill in the playground! This is not what I want for my child.

I will be calling the local council to see what I can do but the other school we liked we'd have to drive to.

Would you be concerned by this? Or AIBU?

@Meanmate, that’s your view and what you want out of life, that’s fine if that’s what you want, everyone is different. What I find interesting and exciting is obviously very different to what interests you, thats fine, as someone who is obviously very keen to mix and understand people’s differences I’m sure you will appreciate and accept and surely encourage everyone’s right to be different.

Im sure you’re not the type of person to only appreciate others differences if they fall within predefined categories.

I personally just feel more comfortable mixing with people very similar to myself. It’s not a negative thing for myself, nor for others. I find virtue signalling very boring and predictable, I don’t want to shape my friendship circle to tick a number of diversity boxes. I prefer to treat people as individuals.

Lol.

For what it’s worth I’d be unhappy with my children being around yours. I wanted them to grow into well rounded, thoughtful adults. Judgemental people prevent that.

You make me cringe.

I detest smoking, and tbh I don't believe parents should smoke at all, but I can't make the leap from smoking to poor morals and work ethic. (IME, anyway, the selfishness of smokers transcends class).

I also don't see what's worse about a mother mentioning the 'termination pill' (do you mean the MAP or an actual termination?) in the playground (absent graphic details, which I'm sure there weren't in this case) than about a MC mum at the school gate giggling with her friends about wine o'clock.

I do get the desire to have your child be around 'people like us', and that has, to an extent, been a factor in some of our schooling decisions, but we all lose as a society, in the long term, if we all grow up in hermetic bubbles, and we have never set out from the outset (not great writing there ) to exclude entire social strata from our children's experience on the basis of a belief that they are somehow inferior people. The smoking (as yuck as it is - and easily solved by having a word with the head and asking him/her to intervene) is just a signifier.

@minesapinkgin

So have you actually looked in to the other aspects of the school (attainment, absences, pastoral care etc) or are you just judging it by a handful of parents who you happened to come across at the school gate? Given that others have asked this question also, but you have only replied about your perceived quality of the parents, I am beginning to think you are winding us up.

In all state schools you will get a mix of people. We also live in a society (certainly in London) where rich and poor live side by side...YABU to be so snobby as to assume the latter arent who you want your children mixing with by default.

For what its worth I think, as with adults, like minded children gravitate towards each other and become friends- and children are a representation of their upbringing. (Hopefully your child isnt so judgemental)

with the exception of a brief chat with the teacher I have no idea how he's getting on or whether they have any concerns. From OP's first post.

So you haven't bothered to keep an ongoing dialogue with the teacher about your DS's progress, but are about to change his school based on your own judgmental attitude.

I'm feeling quite judgy myself right now .....

@Gazelda yes of course I have tried. We have not had a parents evening since he started. Catching the teacher with 30 other parents is quite difficult. The most I've managed is yes he's been fine

I think you’re being short sighted and you’re going to miss out in life and so will your child probably.

The lady you’ve judged for smoking might also be a lovely mum, a kind friend and a loyal sister (or whatever) but you’re so fixed on this one point that you’ll never get to know these things.

My daughter has a girl in her class who is bilingual, sweet, very innocent seeming to me and extremely bright - this is partly my impression and partly what my daughter has told me. My daughter was invited to a play date, I was surprised to find out that her and her shy seeming ‘well to do’ mum live in a council house in a bad part of town.

Who cares?! She’s still a lovely girl and so is her family. We’re lucky to have met them.

My ds old Primary school had a group of. Very undesirable parents. One Xmas fayre they got into a huge scrap.. I mean 6 mums all. Lashing out at each other.. They got banned from the premises for 6m
Others smoked outside gates. Etc.
This didn't make the school bad or affect his learning in anyway.

My french teacher used to smoke in class!

Op you do sound snobby. Morals and lack of them cut across all classes and probably in about the same ratios.

However I do understand the worry about children picking up bad behaviour, bad morals and bad attitudes.

For this reason and some others, I home ed. The parents I come across in home ed are very very different races and demographics and religion and class but for 70% or more, we have one thing in common. This is the desire to educate their children to the best of their ability and to instill a good attitude to learning.

This is what any form of education should be about. Maybe that school is not a good fit for you op but it may have nothing to do with smoking parents, the schools ethos and how it teaches all the children is more important.

"I overheard one parent talking about getting the termination pill in the playground!"

Is this a new service that schools offer?

Don’t worry OP, with your classist and judgemental attitude your poor son will struggle to be invited to play with any friends from school and you’ll be able to keep him away from all the nasty riff raff.

Oh dear God, don't make a rash decision about the next 7yrs of primary school education for your child purely based on a couple of parents you don't approve of! That's just beyond ridiculous!!