To ask - If your school was torn to shreds on MN …

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How would you respond ?

1. Make yourself a brew
2. Make something stronger
3. Be glad that you came away from it with 3 CSEs

a bit lightheaded perhaps, but my recent experience

Hope I’m not giving away my approx age … lol

The school I went to as a child wasn't good.

I knew that then and I know it now.

To be fair, the knife fights were a bit of clue

I wouldn't care

Fair enough ..

I left school at 16 in 1988, so I doubt it would even register. I'm not even sure the place is still there.

We were poor and the school I went to wasn't great, I knew this I made the best of it.

*lighthearted not headed !!

Id take it all with a pinch of salt, as i think lots of views on mumsnet are a biased and bonkers

I went to an awful school. Bullying and drugs were rife as was sexual harassment. The head was an alcoholic and one of the teachers was asked to leave after inappropriate behaviour with a student. I wouldn't have sent my children there if it was the last school on the planet. Weirdly my two good friends did although they both ended up pulling their kids out.

Years ago my school was mentioned on here. I had left within the last five years a land a perspective parent pm'ed me about it 😊

MN ers say they’d never send their kids there …

on one hand I’m thinking RUDE 😄

on another I’m mature enough to accept that everyone has the right to their own point of view

Yes. My school was notorious for truancy, teenage drinking, and a high rate of dropping out due to pregnancy. As a clever child, I learned to use my fists early on. Which turned out to be quite useful when someone tried to mug me in my early 30s. Unexpected advantages of a shit school!

did you go there as a child or do you have children there atm? If the latter how old are they and how many years left?

My old school has poshened up so does get mentioned on the Education boards as an aspirational choice.

I once got asked by DS’s SENCO to remove something mildly critical I’d put about the SEN support at his school on a thread about the local schools. Someone at an open evening asked him about it, he’d come on here, searched my other posts and worked out who I was. That behaviour just bore out my already low impression of him.

I had the opposite problem in some ways - I went to a state grammar school that everyone was desperate to get their kids into, but hated it. I get angry when people wang on about how great it is.

If you did your CSEs there, it's likely that even if the school were good when you were there, it has gone through several cycles of change in the last 40 years!

My schools is generally referred to the opposite way - it's a grammar - when I went there nearly 50 years ago the whole Borough sat the 11+ and the top quarter or so went to one of the 5 grammars in the Borough. Now, kids from 30 miles away sit the exam to go there and if I tell people that's where I want they think I am some sort of genius 😂

If you left school with CSEs, I’m presuming you are heading towards your mid 50s or older so went to this school a very long time ago!

If people are saying it’s rubbish now, that has very little bearing on what it was like when you were there. I’m presuming the head and most of the staff are different!

You might think it was shit when you went there, you might think it was lovely. If you got 3 CSEs but feel you should have gone 9 O levels, then I’m presuming you might agree with them though.

I wouldn't care as I know its an excellent school so I would assume the problem was them rather than the school.
Everyone has a different experience at school, my DC went to the same one and one loved it but one hated it

My school was not great so I doubt I'd be bothered. It's become quite a lot more desirable and quite a lot more expensive, so it's a very different place now.

Mine wasn't terrible but wasn't brilliant either.
It was just "meh".
It was better than the awful academy that's replaced it though so I would probably jump in to defend it's honour 😂

It's nearly half a century since I left school, a whole world away. I'd be faintly interested, no more.

😮😮 very long time ago !!! I think of people born circa 1970 as being very youthful ! 🤣

in all seriousness - it’s not me it’s my partner as I was cough too young to do CSEs/O levels so haven’t idea if 3 CSEs is any good as I did GCSEs

However, my DP isn’t quite the MN demographic so I’ve posted but was shocked when his school was slated as not one people would send their kids to 😮😮
… should pearls be provided for the clutching thereof?! 🤣

on a serious note everyone’s entitled to their opinion so I respect that

my DP one of the VERY last years to do CSE/O level

No my DP went there not me actually but he’s not quite the MN demographic!

🤣

no my DP went there actually- I am naturally 🤣 too young for the CSE/O level dichotomy

I wouldn't give it a second thought.

I can so relate to this.

I’ve found people get offended if you s much as dare criticise a ‘middle class’ school