To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

[washingmachines4]

To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

I have always considered myself the primary educator of my child, manners, shapes, ABC, 123, speech, reading and over time that evolves into fractions, telling the time and so forth. I view any education at school as a bonus, to my mind I want them socialising and learning how to interact with others well when they are there. There are times I have failed, my husband and I said we were going to be a multilingual family and bring up our kids with English, Spanish and Chinese – we didn’t learn Spanish and Chinese so fell at that hurdle.
That said, I wouldn’t consider allowing them to go to any old school, before we had children we moved house and one of the criteria for me was that we were in a catchment for multiple good schools. Things can change, we could have got unlucky, in the 5 years after moving before they started school they all could have gone downhill, unlikely but possible, in which case we would have moved again. An acquaintance of mine says this is insane but will always justify sending her kid to the closest school rather than moving to be near the best school for her kid. She also thinks the school is to blame that her child failed the national phonics test in year 1 – she has never once read with her kid, ‘that is the teachers job’ and actively discourages him from reading – makes comments he wants to feel better than others, brainbox – proper nightmare Matilda’s parents style. She is an extreme example but the responsibility is ours right? (For reference, I work full time but try and make learning as time efficient/fun as possible – eg. Got a CD of all the times tables in a song to put in the car so whenever we travel to do something we sing the song of the times tables they are learning that week) etc.

[DaphneDeloresMoorhead]

@621CustardCream438

Yes, well done and congratulations OP on winning at parenting. Special sticker in the post.

There’s something unbearably smug about this post, and I say that as someone who probably leans closer to your views than those of your acquaintance.

Absolutely this.
Because lots of parents have the ability to move house for a better school. Lots of mums in refuges can just up sticks and buy a house in a pricey catchment area.

There's so much wrong with your post OP I don't even know where to start. And I speak as a passionate advocate of education beginning at home

[DaphneDeloresMoorhead]

And I am forced to acknowledge you must be a troll to be posting such nonsense and feel regret that I have engaged with your ridiculous post.

[RowanAlong]

You’re doing great, everything you can. Don’t panic.

[Spikeyball]

"All the attacks on OP have a hint of envy about them."

No they are pointing out her privilege. I don't have any envy of someone with that attitude because it will rub off on her children.

[Hazel444]

I completely disagree with your (smug) OP. Education is the responsibility of the state in our society and I am happy that trained teachers are taking care of that. My role as a parent is to ensure they have useful and fun life experiences and help them become well rounded people. Maths, writing and reading skills I am happy outsource this to the school system who will do a far better job than I would. I am happy to read with them every night and help with their homework, but I do not have the skills to teach well (even though I have taught at university level I do not have any knowledge of early years teaching which is a highly specialised subject).

I do agree it is important to get them into a good school (if you can, not everyone has that luxury), and we stayed two years longer than we wanted to in our old flat to ensure we got a place in our preferred school.

[Rno3gfr]

My mum worked full time and was a single mum. After catching the bus to school at 8:30am and not getting home from the childminder until 6:30pm, I think I would have cried if my mum had played time table songs in the car.

I never learnt my times tables. However, as an adult, I do have: a degree; a successful career; a loving partner; a child; a beloved dog; and a happy life.

[0ntheg0again]

Sure next thread will be on the G&T board no doubt

[MooseBreath]

I think that as a parent, yes, you are responsible for your child's education. Having your child attend school is your responsibility, and then supporting their learning at home is what you can do outside of school. That said, Ofsted doesn't always get it right, and a "good" school can often be outstanding, where an "outstanding" school like the one I worked at can be militant and frankly, horrendous for children.

Continuing education at home is important but certainly doesn't need to be formal. Reading can be done with recipes or board game instructions as opposed to books. Climbing trees is just as good PE-wise as a football team for a 6-year-old. Maths can be done by shopping for groceries instead of doing equations. Gardening is science.

While I read -obscene numbers of-- books at home with DS, I can see how other families work differently and teach their children without bedtime stories each night - especially single-parent households or families where parents might have dyslexia or struggled with literacy themselves.

[Herecomesspring1]

@621CustardCream438

Yes, well done and congratulations OP on winning at parenting. Special sticker in the post.

There’s something unbearably smug about this post, and I say that as someone who probably leans closer to your views than those of your acquaintance.

@621CustardCream438

haha! This

[BiBabbles]

Yes, morally, ethically, legally, parents have a responsibility to their children's education.

They do not have the only responsibility though and with normal interaction with wider society, they'll learn many things we don't intend. Even as a home educating parent, I view myself as a shrinking part of how they understand the world. I haven't been "primary" in years and even then, that was shared with their father.

That your focus on education is almost entirely on academics is as limited a perspective as thinking it's all the schools' responsibility. It's easy to get that way when trying to develop the basics in language - English can be tricky and some things we only learn are an issue when they can communicate clearer with age - but even then, it's only part of education.

The idea that schools teach them how to interact with others - some do, but many can discuss how any social skills picked up there is more luck than anything else. A good school academically isn't automatically a good school socially - as from the scandals that have come out from some top schools, some even teach anti-social behaviours. Even schools that try can miss their social marks for a particular child.

Kids don't automatically learn good social skills by being in a group than they learn good music skills by being around instruments or CDs of time table songs.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

YANBU OP
You are in early years so do not realise that your child’s educational needs will soon surpass your ability to teach them. But, the main point of your post is that parents should make their children’s education a priority. To this I agree. And I have moved home or changed schools to ensure my children get a good education.

The most important thing you can do as a parent is to instil a love of reading and learning and then support your children to pursue their interests.

[daisyjgrey]

Well, I hope you earn enough to foot your child's therapy bill when they're older.

[OverTheRubicon]

@Skyla2005 A baby swims for free in every council pool an adult is around three pounds the baby can wear a swim nappy for about 2 quid a pack. If you can't afford to do basic parenting then I question why you would bring a child into the world in the first place

Adults around here are over £5. Even a concession is over £3. Then you add onto that a bus fare in both directions and it's over £6 for the visit alone.
Plus there's the swim nappies - £5 around here so nearly £0.50 each - and then the upfront cost for the neoprene nappy cover required by my pool, which is £11 or £8 if you can find it on sale (and needs replacing every 6 months for a larger size) and £20 for a cheap adult swimsuit on Amazon.

It gets cheaper per swim as you keep going. But for that first swim, it's a cost of around £40. Then there's the question of what to do as the child gets older, and swimming lessons are more expensive again, and require time commitments that can be hard in some circumstances. And as someone who had to take public transport to and from pools, children are far more reluctant to go back when they'll be when it's winter and they'll be waiting for a bus in the cold after swimming, instead of hopping into a warm car.

For many people from less well off, immigrant backgrounds (like mine) or Black families, the parents themselves have little to no experience in pools also, so the places are intimidating as well as expensive.

I can do it. But I'm aware that many great parents, whose children live comfortable lives but without lots for extras - could not. There are so many reasons why, and I'd love for the blithe 'children is a life skill' crew of Mumsnet to look around at the pool sometimes, and wonder why it's almost all white and middle to upper income and at least consider that the missing demographics are not necessarily all just crap parents.

[notanothertakeaway]

[quote OverTheRubicon]**@Skyla2005* A baby swims for free in every council pool an adult is around three pounds the baby can wear a swim nappy for about 2 quid a pack. If you can't afford to do basic parenting then I question why you would bring a child into the world in the first place*

Adults around here are over £5. Even a concession is over £3. Then you add onto that a bus fare in both directions and it's over £6 for the visit alone.
Plus there's the swim nappies - £5 around here so nearly £0.50 each - and then the upfront cost for the neoprene nappy cover required by my pool, which is £11 or £8 if you can find it on sale (and needs replacing every 6 months for a larger size) and £20 for a cheap adult swimsuit on Amazon.

It gets cheaper per swim as you keep going. But for that first swim, it's a cost of around £40. Then there's the question of what to do as the child gets older, and swimming lessons are more expensive again, and require time commitments that can be hard in some circumstances. And as someone who had to take public transport to and from pools, children are far more reluctant to go back when they'll be when it's winter and they'll be waiting for a bus in the cold after swimming, instead of hopping into a warm car.

For many people from less well off, immigrant backgrounds (like mine) or Black families, the parents themselves have little to no experience in pools also, so the places are intimidating as well as expensive.

I can do it. But I'm aware that many great parents, whose children live comfortable lives but without lots for extras - could not. There are so many reasons why, and I'd love for the blithe 'children is a life skill' crew of Mumsnet to look around at the pool sometimes, and wonder why it's almost all white and middle to upper income and at least consider that the missing demographics are not necessarily all just crap parents.[/quote]
Yes I agree

Swimming is a great life skill, but for people on low incomes, it's expensive

On Jobseekers Allowance of approx £80 pw, many people are struggling to put food on the table, far less buy swimsuits and pay bus fares to get to the pool

[Skysblue]

Yanbu to say parents are the primary educators of their children, that’s obvious, the law, and mentioned in most school policy documents. And it is true that a worrying amount of parents don’t read enough to their children despite libraries being available.

Yabu to come on Mumsnet to basically accuse other people of crap parenting. There are many crap parents in the world but calling them out on Mumsnet won’t help, and there’s a boasty vibe to your post that makes people unlikely to be inspired by the choices you made.

[Thebookswereherfriends]

I agree that parents need to have an input in order for children to be truly successful at school, but I think that input really only needs to be ensuring you read to them/with them, helping out/showing an interest in homework and supporting school learning. I have a child who is very resistant to doing “schoolwork” at home. Now at the age of 8 she has finally realised it’s easier to get on with homework and get it out the way than sit and moan about it and will happily read before bed, but doing times tables and spellings on anything other than an app completely stresses her out and so those things only get done once a day for 5 mins. I know that’s still more than many children get.

[Icecreamsoda99]

Why is this woman your friend? She sound horrific.

Laughing out loud that you thought you were all going to learn Spanish and Chinese in order to teach your children, I mean it's a nice idea but completely unrealistic! Even stranger that you and your DH feel you have failed when the obvious thing was to send them to classes from a younger age.

Moving school...well it kind of counters the fact you believe it's your job to educate your kids as you moved to get them into a school where you thought they would benefit from a better education from their teachers and surroundings.

[Echobelly]

I think parents should read to their kids and talk to them but shouldn't be expected to teach reading, numbers etc. Parents should lay foundations buy no need to teach specifics.

And bilingual parenting is great if a parent is fluent or a native speaker but I think learning a language in order do so is way OTT and not likely to work.

[Dozycuntlaters]

YABU and you sound exhausting. Yes it's a parents responsibility to encourage and nurture our childs learning, but we are not teachers, we can only teach them so much. You sound very judgemental on anyone who doesn't do things the way you think they should be done but then admitted that although you wanted to teach them spanish and chinese, you didn't. People lead busy lives. For my sons secondary education I was a single parent, working full time with another job that required occasional evening work. As for playing times tables in the car, that just sounds ludicrous. Let them be kids, let them enjoy fun, no everything has to be educational.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@washingmachines4

To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

I have always considered myself the primary educator of my child, manners, shapes, ABC, 123, speech, reading and over time that evolves into fractions, telling the time and so forth. I view any education at school as a bonus, to my mind I want them socialising and learning how to interact with others well when they are there. There are times I have failed, my husband and I said we were going to be a multilingual family and bring up our kids with English, Spanish and Chinese – we didn’t learn Spanish and Chinese so fell at that hurdle.
That said, I wouldn’t consider allowing them to go to any old school, before we had children we moved house and one of the criteria for me was that we were in a catchment for multiple good schools. Things can change, we could have got unlucky, in the 5 years after moving before they started school they all could have gone downhill, unlikely but possible, in which case we would have moved again. An acquaintance of mine says this is insane but will always justify sending her kid to the closest school rather than moving to be near the best school for her kid. She also thinks the school is to blame that her child failed the national phonics test in year 1 – she has never once read with her kid, ‘that is the teachers job’ and actively discourages him from reading – makes comments he wants to feel better than others, brainbox – proper nightmare Matilda’s parents style. She is an extreme example but the responsibility is ours right? (For reference, I work full time but try and make learning as time efficient/fun as possible – eg. Got a CD of all the times tables in a song to put in the car so whenever we travel to do something we sing the song of the times tables they are learning that week) etc.

This attitude is all very well when you are talking about teaching shapes, numbers, letters etc, @washingmachines4 - but could fall down when it comes to teaching physics, chemistry, history, languages etc at a senior school level.

To be honest, it sounds to me as if your child/children are still infant school age - and it is much easier to teach the sort of things taught in an Infant school than in a secondary school or Sixth Form.

I know that people do home-school their children all the way to 18, so it can be done - but I highly doubt it is as easy as your OP suggests.

[Suzysunflower]

I think it's our responsibility to give out children a safe place to stay, healthy food, a moral compass and a positive attitude towards learning.

Then there will be varied approaches. I loved reading with them and we did it for a long time - however I did not feel it was my job to help with fractions, etc. unless they were struggling and then I'd help out.

It is wonderful now that my younger offspring is towards the end of secondary school and asks for my input in the subjects in which I am involved professionally, that is such a gift that is been given to me, to involve me in that and see a side of my child that I had not really known before.

where is the OP, though?

[lazylinguist]

On reflection, I think it's not just smug, it's actually blatantly untrue. It's one thing to claim that what your child learns at nursery or primary school is 'a bonus' (though it's still ridiculous imo), but unless you're planning to be delivering the GCSE or A Level syllabuses at home, I don't see how you can claim that what secondary schools provide is a bonus.

[3scape]

Its a shame, but no child in the lower school is going to learn much in a class of 30 or so. Learning to concentrate around that many other people probably takes up most of the day.

[Suzysunflower]

@3scape

Its a shame, but no child in the lower school is going to learn much in a class of 30 or so. Learning to concentrate around that many other people probably takes up most of the day.

what? do you have kids? do you have any experience of this at all? Most children at primary have large class sizes and they do learn!!

[Suzysunflower]

@lazylinguist

On reflection, I think it's not just smug, it's actually blatantly untrue. It's one thing to claim that what your child learns at nursery or primary school is 'a bonus' (though it's still ridiculous imo), but unless you're planning to be delivering the GCSE or A Level syllabuses at home, I don't see how you can claim that what secondary schools provide is a bonus.

I agree with this