To ask you to reassure me that my own secondary school experience is not the norm for most children?

[crazyrabbit]

I am feeling quite anxious about sending my child to school. My own experience was horrible and I really want better for my dc. I have been considering private, but with little experience of the private sector, I am not sure if this will resolve some of my worries or not. The available state schools around us are very average. I don't know if my own experience is perhaps clouding my judgement.

My own secondary school was in an area with a high level of deprivation. Quite a few of the children had emotional and behavioural difficulties, and this would effect the quality of teaching and the environment. The teachers would spend more time managing challenging behaviour and less time teaching. Bullying was common and it feels like it was often ignored, I also witnessed a few assaults. Looking back I feel there was an element of misogyny as there was a group of three boys in YR 7 & 8 who would target the girls; they would frequently hit, shove, slap, etc and I actually witnessed one of them force his hands down a YR 7 girl's trousers.

Some of the teachers were excellent, some were disinterested, but even the excellent teachers had their teaching dampened by challenging behaviours and an environment that did not support learning. There was no pushing the children to achieve their full potential, if you managed a C grade you were not encouraged to improve and you were instead left to get on with it, as other children needed the help more. Music, art and sport were unrepresented in the curriculum. I think when I left that school just under 20% of the children were achieving the 5 basic GCSE's. The school has since been transformed into an academy.

As pp have said, it totally varies by school. I went to a state primary/middle then private secondary: the state school was lawless but the smart kids did well and once I figured out who to avoid and found a group of friends I generally found it tolerable. The private school was much more disciplined, which suited me in some ways, and I was never really bullied but it was highly competitive and the pressure to be “perfect” was unbearable, so like many other girls there I ended up with an eating disorder and severe depression. IME you’ll need to choose the school based on what your child is like as an individual - don’t assume private is automatically better.

Not my experience at all. My DCs go to a basic comp in a small town. Of course there are some kids who mess about in class, but my kids haven’t reported any bullying.

Teachers seem focussed and interested. Head is very present, keeps things under control. My kids have friends who are nice. No problems at all really.

Two things I have learned:

When people say "that was a long time ago, that sort of thing doesn't happen now"

and

"Nothing like that at our school"

They are always wrong.

I’m fully prepared to give up everything and home school if I need to, because I refuse to allow my DC to go through what I went through.

@DonkeyMcFluff
I feel exactly the same way. I would rather home school.

My current local secondary has a dreadful reputation for bullying and suicides.

@oldshoeuk
That is just awful and so depressing. No wonder you went private. There’s no way I could send my dc to a school like that, if I couldn’t afford private the. I would home school.

@DougRossIsTheBoss
Sounds like you found a really nice school for you dc. Glad it worked out.

@Titsywoo

Not too far off what my DC see at school. Dd was sexually assaulted at 15 (the boy was expelled). It's a nice area with pockets of deprivation but so many of the kids seem badly behaved. I went to a private school so I've found it all shocking - dh went to a state school and isn't surprised. If I could go back I'd find a way to pay for private.

Such a shame that things don’t seem to have improved. Its been ten years since I was at school, I was hoping things would have gotten better in that time. I can see by some of the responses on this thread that it’s still a postcode lottery.

You need to visit the schools and ask questions,
My kids have attended the same school I did and it's very different now.
I'm a Governor there and have reports every meeting regarding pupil behaviour and bullying incidents. Our school has a pupil premium level of 25% of intake and makes closing the attainment gap a priority through a number of different strategies. Another issue to ask about is persistent absence and how this compares to other schools, what they are doing to reduce this.
All schools are different.

I think I might have mentioned this previously on another thread, but I went to a naaaice private school that had a big drug problem and lots of crime (including grand theft auto!). My partner went to a public school in a more deprived area and the worst thing that happened was that people covertly dealed Lucozade to under-16s.

My school is pretty prestigious for it's area and has a very good reputation, but there is SO much insidious bad behaviour and pupils who fall through the cracks. I don't think you can rely on reputation alone unfortunately - I'm thinking about homeschooling my future DCs at least when they're young as school failed me in a lot of ways. Sorry not sure if anecdotes are especially useful but here we are!

I went to a secondary modern school back in the mid 50s because I failed the 11 plus. I probably did better there than I would have in a grammar school.

We were lucky to have a headmaster who wanted every child to reach their potential. We were encouraged to take GCEs and there was a possibility of staying on to take A levels, Unfortunately not for me because my parents insisted i leave at 15, get a job and "repay" them for their efforts in bringing me up.

Being one of the brighter kids in a secondary modern school I got a lot of help and encouragement from some of the teachers. We were taught French and Spanish (I still speak both languages well) and there was even the opportunity to visit Paris with the school. Again, not for me because my father would not give his consent even when I was offered a bursary to pay my expenses. He response was "It will give her unrealistic ideas above her class".

Thanks to encouragement from my headmaster and teachers I had higher expectations of myself than working in an office or a factory. I qualified in a profession and worked my way through the examination schedule. Later as an adult I returned to education securing a 1st class degree, a masters and a doctorate. I subsequently worked as an academic and saw it as my responsibility to encourage students like me who were not handed life on a plate.

I was lucky in the teachers I had. They encouraged my self belief.

My school was like that too. Fighting in the playing fields pretty much every day and it would be a full on scrap most of the time. Some teachers were just totally disinterested in the job, we had one maths teacher who used to spend the duration with his legs up on his desk staring at the ceiling... Lots of teachers would be off for extended periods with crappy substitutes filling the gaps and if a substitute was in we all knew we wouldn’t be doing any work. Lots of troubled children and the teachers would spend half of the lesson sorting them out. Bullying was rife, fair amount of teenage pregnancies and rumours of abortions. This was considered one of the better schools in the city too...

My DS goes to secondary next year. I’ve put the best one in the area at the top of the list in the hope it won’t be anything like my school. The head teacher swung it for me, she seems great. A good head teacher makes all the difference in a secondary school.

DH went to private fwiw, quite an elite private school as well. They do still have their fair share of idiots, I guess because teenagers are naturally quite idiotic.

Your experience of secondary sounds similar to mine. OH had an even worse time at boarding school. DS started state secondary only in September but loves it and is a sensitive soul so either things have changed or we got lucky.

@crazyrabbit

If going private meant my dc would not have to deal with everything I mentioned above then I would definitely do it. It would be a big sacrifice for us, but it would be worth it. However I am not convinced that going private automatically mean that dc has a better experience.

Quite. I went to both private and state. Behaviour and motivation in general were better in private (and everyone had lovely shiny uniform etc) but both bullying and drug taking were worse.

The important thing is you as a parent.

Have faith in yourself, I had faith in myself.

If your child is bullied or miserable, you will sort it out - won't you? So you need not be fearful. Parental input is shown to be of vital importance in education.

My children have been very happy in state school and have done very well.

Don't project from your experiences. That is the past.

It just depends so much on the intake, how the school s run, the attitude of the senior staff...

Like SneakySnoopySniper, I went to school a long (!) time ago. I'm in my fifties. It was a state comp in South Wales. It was really excellent.

I never had any issues at all. Staff were generally very good. I think it helped tremendously that it was known to be a really good school, as it meant that they could pick and choose their staff. Turnover of staff was quite limited - I had all the same teachers as my elder brother - some had been there for decades! It's not in a particularly posh area, plenty of SH etc, but it had (and apparently still has) very high expectations for the kids. There is an Oxbridge entrance class for example, (4 kids got in from my year). When I was there, they still taught Latin and Classics, as the head was able to do it. Fighting was very rare, and any offenders were immediately suspended.

In your position, Op, I would be thinking about Private or home schooling. My kids go to a private school, and we have had no issues at all. Bullying and poor is very rare, and is dealt with swiftly. Put simply, they are selling a service, and they are not going to let some little sods screw it up, and put other "customers" off.

Sounds just like my school in the 00s. They too had this heartwarming idea that you can just take a load of kids, from different backgrounds with different problems and just dump them in the same classroom and it will all be fine. It wasn't even in a particularly deprived area, it was the "good" comprehensive so they didn't even had that excuse.

I'm open to home education if we can't find a decent secondary. People always crap on at me about how it taught me social skills and how to get on with people from all walks of life. It was traumatic as fuck, taught me to avoid people from certain walks of life and I don't have any contact with anyone I went to school with. I'd have been better off avoiding it.

I agree, the availability of the smart phone must make things worse for teenagers at school.

I went to a state comprehensive similar to what you describe. When it was my daughter's turn to go I had similar misgivings to you. However, she went and absolutely loved it. My eldest DS has also gone to the same school and, again, absolutely loved it! Both have now left but reminisce all the time about their amazing teachers. So please don't automatically assume that all schools are the same. There are some fantastic teachers out there at our state comprehensives so please don't write them off! Speak to some parents at your DCs primary who have older children, they may put your mind at rest.

Sounds just like my school in the 80s. Bullying, violence, sexual harassment and attacks, constantly feeling on edge. I was traumatised by it for years and under achieved as a result of this.

However, several people who also went there or had similar experiences have just shrugged it off and now laugh about the things that went on there. I've always been an anxious over thinker, so that's why it affected me so much. Others saw that time as character building and are grateful for it. Children can be cruel, I don't think any school environment, anywhere can ever be free of nastiness and bad behaviour, it's just what happens when you throw a load of teenagers together.

There are bullies and drugs at every school, including independent. I went to an independent and I hated it (and was sexually assaulted in a similar way to what you describe). It might happen anywhere but I would personally not pay for my child to go through that. In my experience they covered up bullying because it was bad for their reputation. Conversely DH loved his state school even though it was considered the "bad" school in the area.

I think it varies wildly. The secondary my DDS attended was very much as you described it when DD1 was born and I vowed she would never go there. Roll round 11 years later and it was completely different, having been transformed by a new head. Bullying dealt with hard and fast, behaviour management sensible but strict - I couldn't fault them. The school does still have that hard core of pupils whose families don't give a damn about education, because our area is very mixed and there are spots of deep deprivation, but they manage and they get good results. Their 6th form is even better, because obviously that's more selective.

If your local secondary is as bad as your old school, you should definitely look at alternative options.

Private isn't always better. A friends son was assaulted including broken nose after racial bullying. School did nothing as the bully had rich parents and my friends son was a scholarship student. I went to private all girls school. There was definitely bullying and quite a few poor teachers who couldn't manage even our behaviour. Another friend had a dunk teacher who never came to class in her very expensive boarding school.

I went to my local comprehensive and it was awful. So many badly behaved kids who disrupted everything - one set fire to a classroom and a whole wing was out of use for months. They had to create a special area they called ‘the base’ to give these kids extra support and we frequently heard of exclusions due to people throwing chairs at teachers, etc.

I was horribly bullied for years and even though I was very bright and capable, I totally disengaged due to a combination of depression and lack of support from teachers.

I went back to college in the evenings as an adult and have since completed a BA, an MSc and I’m doing a PhD now. I do wonder how things would have turned out if I’d gone to a school better suited to me. My mum wanted to send me private from the beginning but finances just didn’t allow it.

I had a private secondary education (fee-paying but not an uber posh boarding school). I did brilliantly academically but was bullied mercilessly (not so much for being bright as for not fitting in - wrong clothes, old parents etc). It scarred me for years. But on the other hand it gave me a leg up to university and I've had a wonderful life since. I'm not sure I'd swap it for a crap local school. However, private is not a sinecure.

I'm not sure they've changed. I am worried sick too about DD starting secondary school this year she is very quiet and introverted.
I was much more resilient and tougher and it was still horrible most of the time.

Depends on the school. Not all State schools are that bad.
Unfortunately the one available to us is so we send the DC Private. There is none of the behaviour you describe, in fact there was an issue last year with a bit of a culture of toxic masculinity amongst a small group of Y11 boys. The (female) management team were down on them like a ton of bricks. DD was bullied (verbally) by a group of girls who were warned and made to sign up to a behaviour contract- when one broke it she was asked to leave immediately.
I’m sure the school isn’t perfect but it’s small and any bad behaviour is soon picked up on and dealt with it. Certainly no weekly fight videos appearing on snapchat or wherever, unlike at our local State school.
Of course there can be bad behaviour at Private schools and State schools where there is very little but it’s not the case for us. Even the 2nd closest State school to us, which is seen as very good by a lot of people has quite a few problems with behaviour - Police called for knife incidents etc.

Oh and DD is a scholarship pupil abd the girl who was expelled was from a well known very wealthy farming family so it doesn’t matter who your parents are at their school, behave or leave is the simple message

It's interesting to see the difference in responses between this thread and the one re 250k house deposit vs private school, where everyone is saying "money for house deposit and just get tutors", as though academic results are the only important thing in school choice.

We don’t send our DC Private simply for exam results, that’s not what it’s about at all for us. It’s sure as hell not for the networking opportunities or to avoid “poor people” either!