Are the majority of classes in state schools as disruptive as the class on Jamie Oliver's Dream School?

[mummynoo]

After watching Jamie Oliver's dream school, I am wondering if all state school classes are as rude and disruptive as the class featured in this programme. Since my daughter is due to start infants school this September?

Can any teachers who might be reading this give me their opinion. Is it impossible to teach because the pupils are constantly talking over you?

Xenia I really wish you wouldn't comment about state schools of which you have NO EXPERIENCE. You weren't educated there, you didn't send your DC there. I would be mildly surprised if you ever set foot in a state school. Yes I know your husband taught in a few, but that was a long time ago, now -- and he doesn't contribute to MN (does he?).
Be happy with your own choices but please don't comment at length about things of which you can only know very little.

No Xenia going for wealth and POWER are incredibly male. Most women's PRIME instinct is their biology which tells them "look after your babies, make sure they are happy and healthy". If you go back a few thousand years, when Eton and the such didn't exist, women had very little power to do anything.

Public schools, priviledge, snobbery and the class system are invariably the creation of MEN. I think even David Starkey might be able to give us a history lesson (or two) on how power and priviledge have been created universally under PATRIARCHAL systems.

Your theory on women seems to be "if you can't beat them, well then, just join them". Sure, that's ok for a few women, but not for all.

I used to have a high power, big shoulder pads job in the City of London. I ditched it to stay home and look after my son. Now you would say, WRONG you should have stayed in the City like some of my collegaues, earned the dosh and had nannies to look after your son and carried on to work 12 hours a day, as I used to. That is not an attractive option for many mothers. My priority was to be my son's main caregiver round the clock until he was school age.

I very much admire women in business and politics, etc. I don't much admire the ones who become egotistical "men" in the process. It's very unattractive to watch.

yellowstone - my view is that how money and power is weilded in this country, indeed worldwide is hugely important.

Those involved in politics, the judiciary, the finance sector, the media ect essentially run our lives.

It is only logical therefore that women should be equally represented in those establishments.
I for one am sick of having all decisions decided by men.
It is time this nonsense ended.

But it will only stop if women step up to the plate and do it.

Now it won't be every woman's cup of tea, of course, but I think we need to guard against discouraging women by setting these positions up as below our female sensibilities. Or disparaging women who do step up as unmotherly or being 'men'.

That's the sort of shite we hear in the Daily Fail.

TheBfactor - of course all these establishments were set up by the patriarchy...but we're not going to eradicate them by standing on the outside looking in, tutting.

We need women to infiltrate, lead from the front, make what changes they can.

No point huffing and puffing about how all the judiciary are white men, better to get in there are encourage our young womne to aim high and become judges.

As I say, that is a very convenient for men.

I'm not huffing and puffing you and Xenia are. I at least got taken on by a Magic Circle firm years ago when only a small proportion of TC's were given to girls rather than boys, though I'd have been rubbish at it had I stuck at it but that's a different point. My eldest daughter is about to start at one soon and we both think merit is what counts and shouty women are dull.

I choose to send my kids to state school, believe profoundly in the value of education for itself as well as for jobs and think my choice in bringing up children is also valuable in itself, way more valuable anyway than earning money to pay private school fees.

Just read your post Bfactor, quite agree.

It is a fundamental difference between us then. I think it's sexist and unfair to suggest all women want to be home caring and baking cakes. It puts us in a ghetto and says big nasty work and money and power are things only men want and only men have. That is very wrong. Plenty of women are more than happy to leave the nappies to others and have a balanced life with money power and work and a family just like men.

There has always been that split amongst feminists of course so it's nothing new on this thread.

ALl I can say is from experience life can be a lot of fun if you as a woman earn a lot. You don't need to bleat on threads about poverty, you don't have to put up with so many dull tasks in life and doing very well at work you love can make like fun. I would exhort women to do likewise. There are obviously good political and moral reasons why women should do so as well.

I think though Xenia and Wordfactory that we are very much in the minority. The overwhelming opinion amongst women themselves is that a good mother is one who stays at home with their children. My mum thinks there has been a massive backlash and this is a much more prevalent opinion now than it was say in the 1970s, where women were desperate to get out there and work.

For God's sake Xenia. I would never say and have never said all women want to stay at home. I am saying each to their own and you asserting that one choice is better and inherently more valuable than another is wrong and in arguing that you devalue yourself. My eldest three girls should all leave Oxford with reasonable degrees. I'll back them whatever they do.

There is a difference between saying women should be able to work at whatever they like and earn as much as men, and saying that women should work in order to pay school fees. Surely the way you always frame it, Xenia - that it's the mother's responsibility to get a job which will pay fees - is fundamentally incredibly unfeminist?

I think women should work or stay at home as they please - but I think working with the primary aim of paying school fees is a bit sad.

I do'nt htink it's any more sad than working to pay for food or a roof over your head is it?

Just what people do.

And yellowstone I wish your DD every success.
Though I would be very wary of telling her that merit alone ie being clever and a good lawyer, will see her to partnership in a magic cirlcle law firm.

What gets people made up is a solid business case ie fee paying clients. And getting 'em involves making and using every available contact you can get.

I think it is more sad, because you need food and a roof but not school fees.

People should get on and do what makes them happy and not assume that it suits all. Earning a lot would be nice-but not at the expense of free time, time for hobbies and interests and being able to volunteer in the community.

I much prefer the other option of DH earning a lot enabling me to out source cleaning and childcare and allowing me to indulge my hobbies. .

Why have a dog and bark yourself?

That's a very very politically and morally bankrupt position - that women live off male earnings and just provide sex and presumably some other types of services in return for being kept. Most women don't want that kind of a position. It doesn't lead to long term happiness nor the good of our daughters.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying it is better women don't lose the gains they have made. If they're all going to marry rich men and live off male earnings you'd be better sending daughters to very very posh schools to meet very rich men at 16 and then finish them off rather than bother for them to do a lot of hard exams and then give up work anyway but live off the earnings of a man who doesn't earn much which is how some housewive mumsnetters end up.

SW - that's all well and good, but don't go bleating if your DDs and GDDs find themselves subject to laws subjecting women to low pay, or removing their rights to maternity leave.

I find it incredibly depressing that nobody mentions men when discussing issues like these. Why is the ideal position not one where men and women can share paid work, responsibility and childcare??

When women talk about the importance of their roles as SAHM I always think that the flipside of that in the majority of cases is a partner and father who spends very little time at home.

I feel strongly that men should take as much responsibility for their children as women do. When the workplace starts to shift in that direction we will all benefit.

I love the childcare, feel very priviledged to have been able to do it and do not want to have equal shares! I would resent bitterly going out to work and leaving my baby with DH or paid care.How can paid employment beat bring up another human being?

Surely one of the best ways to achieve that is to get women into positions of power and for them to say, hang on a minute...

exotic - well that's all very lovely for you.

But how about sparing a thought for the vast majority of women in this country, nay the world who have to work?

They need better pay and conditions...and to do that we need more women in positions of power.

Xenia, I'd bet serious cash that most women's ideal lifestyle is not to have to work and to be " kept" by a man who adores them.

It certainly has lead to long term happiness here ( we've been happily married a VERY long time) for all of us involved.

Can you not ever see that what suits some may not suit others?

Each to his or her own exotic but personally I hate the way that childcare and housework is presented as some sort of mystical, instinctive domain which excludes men and likewise the workplace for women. When you say that childcare is women's work you are excluding men. I think many men increasingly resent that just as many women resent the fact that their earning power and potential in the workplace starts to shift when they have children.

If I suddenly decided to stay at home and take exclusive or the majority of childcare my partner would hate it because he is a brilliant, brilliant hands on dad. If i had decided to stay at home after my kids my partner would have been denied a whole realm of experience and he and our family would have been poorer (in every possible sense) as a result of this.

Which is great for you fivecandles, super dooper.

Would have driven both DH and I insane, however.

My issue again relates to the fact that certain people assume that women have the choice to work to pay school fees or not to work. Many women have to work to pay the bills and therefore paying school fees is completely out of the window. At the same time some men are home husbands because the wife/partner has a higher earnings capability. Thus the reasons for this current discussion are based on a limited number of women who are in the position to be able to choose. In addition, as somebody has pointed out, what about men? Are we programming our sons to be high earners so that their future partner can choose whether they work or not. Surely this is sexist and we should be providing our children with all of the options available to them male or female and that would lead to true equality, not specifically telling girls to do historically male jobs.

I have generally always been the only woman doing my job and sometimes it is hard and you need to be the right type of person to be able to cope with the gibes and the sexism that you encounter along the way. I was once the only woman to attend a gentleman's rugby do including 120 men at a dinner and me. I argued that I should be allowed to go. I don't regret it though and am proud to have done this, more women are now coming through and facing equal opportunities. This does not make me an uncaring mother. I am still a mom when school finishes and my DH is a Dad in the mornings when he takes the kids to school. This for me is the best form of equality, both being able to pursue a job we enjoy, not just for the money, because two incomes are coming in and not just one.

Shirley that's my idea of hell. Dependency on a man and staying at home would depress and bore me. My job and my independence are hugely important to me.

And dependence at what price? I wouldn't swap Colleen Rooney et al's lifestyle for all the money in the world especially since it comes at the price of a philandering husband.

I have met very few women who are genuinely happy to be entirely dependent on their partners for a lifetime. And those that think they are are often the ones that are dumped after devoting their lives to their husbands for a younger model.

SW have you been asleep for the last one hundred years?

Women here and all over the world have been fighting for the right to have equal status in the work place.

Lots and lots of us don't want to be 'kept'.

By being kept we get no say in anything...that might suit you, but for the rest of us, not so much.