to be bloody sick of reading about 'crap' and 'rubbish'

[southeastastra]

secondary schools on here from people who probably have no bloody idea what their local school is like

so effing what if you can afford the ponciest private in your area - it certainly hasn't made you polite as to others circumstances.

show offy wankey bollocks

Oh SEA, don't worry about the universitites. There are all sorts of ways and life is long. Your son will find something that is right for him.

Teach myself at a RG university and yes, admittedly we are only now taking school leavers with 3 As at A level in my department (as from last year, but of course this may change depending on no of applicants). But I don't suppose they have all got straight As at GCSEs, or that we're even all that interested. And there are people studying with us who have got in in other ways: as mature students, or having done a BA at some other university and then coming to us for an MA. All sorts of ways, but the main thing is, being RG doesn't make every single course we can offer better than every single course offered by some other non-RG university. It is about what your son wants to do and where he can do that best.

I agree with you OP. I discussed this very point with someone on here only the other week. She said she left Swindon - having grown up and lived here her whole life, because of the crap state schools (particularly secondary). But I know of at least 6, in and around Swindon tht are excellent schools, and the catchment area rules have been relaxed to allow more freedom of choice. There's really only 1 poor secondary school in Swindon and the rest are average.

Most Primary Schools in Swindon are fantastic and really promote creative learning, sports and music as well as academic achievements.

State schools also give you the extra money you would have forked out for private to provide your dc with other opportunities, which can be just as rewarding/inspiring.

People are too quick to judge schools based on Ofsted reports. These inspectors are very often failed headteachers who pop in for 2 days every four years and make snap judgements which are not always accurate.

I agree with you OP. I wonder how many people who reject them have ever been for a look around. Also I hate the assumption that all private schools are good - they really aren't and a lot of them are beyond crap. But at least the kids are well spoken

I agree with the OP. I also hate the assumption that drugs and bullying are the norm at state secondary schools. These problems also affect private schools.

Sometimes people choose private because they want their DCs to hang around other posh children but will never admit this.

And sometimes you can't get into any of the state ones because they are all over subscribed

belle - I think you did the right thing in moving your DC away from his state school and feel that 1 & 1/2 terms is long enough to judge whether a school is good enough.

The fact is there are good and bad schools, both state and private. Paying does not ensure that a school is worth what you pay - I know of one school who only wanted 'easy' pupils and happily encouraged more challenging pupils back into the state system. That said, this school provided opportunities that were not so readily available to state educated children. I am lucky to live in an area with excellent primary schools and a very good secondary school. I would not choose private education at primary level even if I could afford it because my DCs teachers are very good. It's swings and roundabouts - what you gain in some areas of your DCs education, you may lose out on in others. My Dcs are being well educated, but don't have all the trips and activities offered by a private school.

I have to say that I have rejected my local primary because I bumped into a 6 year old who had been beaten up at lunchtime and after school the poor kid still had a nosebleed.

But we are moving rather than go private. I have a well off friend who sent her daughter private for three weeks because she didn't get a place anywhere near where they lived. She hated all the competitive wealth flaunting the parents indulged in and I would hate it even more, given that I am not well off!

The thing is, there are some rubbish schools that let their pupils down.
If we don't acknowledge that, then how will things ever improve?
State provision is really patchy...and that's not right or fair.
Sure there are some that believe all state schools are full of feral drug dealers, but not many, and honestly, do you care about their opinion?

Ooh this is a good thread.

I was having this conversation with my SIL at the weekend. She is in a panic about catchment areas already (her dd is 6). Is in an utter tizz about her dd not getting into one of the good schools, she is thinking about asking her dad to lenfd her money to go to a private school. I think she is utterly mad - the private school she is thinking of is the cheapest in the area, and to be honest is a crap school, the results are incredibly poor. But she wants to send her dd there to keep away from the rough children.

FGS.

My 14 year old dd went to a selective school, one of the best in the county. She was horribly bullied so I moved her, tried for months to get her into another selective school with no joy, in the end bit the bullet and sent her to a 'crappy' comp. I felt I had let her down. But the thing is this supposedly rubbish school has been fantastic for her. DD was there for a month before they notice she was struggling with reading, referred her to the ed psych, she was diagnosed with dyslexia and given support immediately. I had raised concerns at her previous school to be pooh poohed.

I cannot be more pleased with dd's school - the teachers are truly dedicated (in speaking with one of them he said that he much prefers working in a less exalted school, the rewards are far higher and you don't just hot house the kids in order to maintain the high league places), dd has been given an enormous amount of support, her confidence has grown (battered after the bullying) and I could not be more pleased. When I tell people where dd goes to school, they pull a face as it is obviously not as impressive as a grammar school, but bollocks to it. DD is doing brilliantly academically, and most importanly she is happy.

People need to chill the hell out about schools. Don't just go on what the league tables say - go and MEET the teachers and speak to other parents.

And I feel utterly ashamed of what I said about her school when I was looking to move dd - 'you will go to that school over my dead body'.

And in talking to dd over the weekend, if we won the lottery she would still go to that school as she loves it so much. And there I was months ago trying to work out if we could afford to send her to Cheltenham Ladies (we certainly couldn't!)

My nephew went to a private primary where he really struggled and the head said there was 'nothing wrong with him that a good spanking wouldn't sort out'. That summer, he was diagnosed with ASD, is now at a state primary where his inclusion manager and a succession of teachers have given him enormous amounts of confidence and skills. He has a number of friends, is much more engaged and really enjoys school a lot of the time. Many public schools give no support whatsoever to children with LD IME

GOML - We have both very good state schools and very bad ones in my area. If my son does not get in one of the good ones he'll be going to one of the private ones because I want to keep him away from the rough children and when I say rough children I mean kids that deal drugs and carry knives.

ZZZenagain,

Sorry, joining in again way too late!

My personal experience of a 'crap' school (as a teacher) was that we had a VERY mixed catchment area taking in one of the most affluent areas in Scotland, and one of the most deprived. The kids from the deprived areas were treated like second class citizens by the management who didn't even bother to conceal their disdain for the 'poorer' children, who weren't expected to achieve anyway, so the attitude was 'why bother with them'. On the other hand, the children from the affluent area were treated as demi-gods, got away with murder and didn't really want to work, so they, and their parents, thought that it was the teacher's responsibility to get them the grades, and if they complained that a teacher challenged this, the management took the side of the children. I loved nothing more than a class of the 'bad' children expected to perform badly, as I always got great results (in relative terms!) and had brilliant relationships with them. Management couldn't understand why I bothered and this was frowned on. The discipline system was also two-tier, in that the poor children were harshly punished for minor things and the affluent kids got away with murder. When a colleague and I were asked to work on a discipline policy we were told 'parents wouldn't like it', so basically there were no sanctions. Management didn't have a clue that yes, children have rights, but they also have responsibilities to themselves and others. This was the final straw and I had to leave.

Also, the headteacher had strange ideas about condoning alchohol for senior pupils at school functions (with no thought to the consequences eg accidents, inappropriate sexual behaviour etc) then berates staff because they don't want to supervise school events and mop up the vomit of teenagers
Don't even get me started on the inappropriate flirting with the teenage (male) pupils that the 60 year old female headteacher does- it is just so WRONG. Never mind, hopefully her career will end with a drunken pic of her draped all over sixth year boys on the front page of the News of the World.

The quality of a school is ultimately down to how well it is managed, and I believe that with a good senior management team most schools can become good, or excellent, but when our headteacher makes her staffing decisions based on whether she fancies the guy she's interviewing, the rest of the staff are pissing in the wind.

My DD private school is actually much more tolerant of different backgrounds than the state school I worked in, and the sense of personal responsibilty and responsibility to others that her school fosters is much greater than the selfish and arrogant attitude which is accepted in my former workplace.

However, this is only a comparison of 2 schools and I went to a fantastic state school and have nothing against them. I've also worked in very good state schools too.

Sorry everyone, this is an epic, and is also very specific to where I worked.

good grief roomonthebroom. I'm quite shocked, I really am that schools distinguish between dc from wealthy and poor backgrounds. Even if it were just one school, that would be one school too many.

Have to digest that a bit. Thanks for replying.

That woman should not be a head, in fact she should not be in education at all.

Litchick: "The thing is, there are some rubbish schools that let their pupils down.
If we don't acknowledge that, then how will things ever improve?
State provision is really patchy...and that's not right or fair."

I agree with you Litchick. I see so many posts on MN where people obviuosly are resigned to patchy provision which is to say a considerable number of inadequate schools. We need to get out of the mindset that this is inevitable or even remotely acceptable.

Where to start fixing it, I am not really sure but I have a feeling it is with specific, full-time training of anyone who is planning on moving into school management. It needs to be a tough course on full-time pay and not an anyone can pass thing either. We need the best running our schools, for the good of the staffa nd for the good of our children. Ridiculous that we don't ahve this and fuss about school dinners and curricula and who knows what. People need to train to do a management job well.

Even the best and most well-meaning hard-working teacher would lose the will to work in an environment that encourages discrimination based on parent's wealth and fawning about drunkedly over children is beyond a joke.

"I agree with you OP. I wonder how many people who reject them have ever been for a look around. "

I would have loved to have looked around my local state primary when my child was 4, but unfortunately I couldn't, because the school secretary told me that the Head was far too busy for that kind of thing, and they didn't see a need for an open morning either because it was 'a waste of time'.

The school was one step from special measures at the time, and I would have been prepared to give it a go, working on the basis that a middle class child like mine could probably do well anywhere, but strangely, the school's attitude put me off somewhat.

The only other options open to us were to move to somewhere cheaper in the same town (equally bad schools), or out of town (never see my husband who would have had to commute) or move to a more expensive area with a good state school (but we couldn't afford an £800k house) or put our children into an independent school (have almost no disposible income but stay in our house, and spend time together as a family).

Things have changed a lot in this area now, and there are a number of good state schools. I meet some of their staff through a voluntary group I work with, and they are lovely, committed people. If I have a 4 year old now, it would be a different story, but that wasn't how it was when I was choosing for my child.

The thing that drives me wild about this debate is that there are two contradictory views which generally are held by the same people.

One view is that it is these nasty sharp elbowed middle class types who cause all the trouble in state schools - they get the 'best' places because they are pushy and can afford inflated property prices, the want to have cake sales, their children are all PFBs etc etc.

At the same time, there is the view that failing, ghettoised schools are like that because the local middle class parents don't send their children to the local school but use the private system or church schools instead. Those pushy middle class families and their children are perceived as a factor in raising standards.

Now, you can't have it both ways - either my middle class values (hard work, thrift, valuing education, tolerance, kindness) are good, or they're not. Until those parents who despise private schools can make up their minds on that one, my children will be staying where they are.

Once again ,only the middle class have values and value education bollocks comes out .... I give up

I didn't think she was saying that Usualsuspect. She can speak her mind, can't she? Stay on the thread and talk about it.

I think education is the social mobility factor number 1, even in tradtion-encrusted Britain. It should be important to anyone who feels they are not middle class (or indeed beyond) and worries this may limit their dc's chances in life.

Usualsuspect, that's not what I said. I don't for one minute think that only middle class families value education, or work hard. If that were true, then half the education threads on MN wouldn't exist. I was pointing out that people who argue about private education often have those two contradictory thoughts going on ... I find it troublesome.