Parents from private schools

[freakazoidroid]

We are considering private school for our dd. She is already at the nursery of the school we like and is due to start in reception in sept.
What I am worried about is the community of a private school. If she went to our local primary it would be more like that.
Can anyone please say what their experiences are? Have you made good friends with other parents and socialise with them?
Also we are not loaded and do not have a massive house and lots of nice holidays. In fact holidays would not occur much if we go private.
Will this hinder my dd at school as she gets older with her friends, will they pick on her for not having the lifestyle?
Thanks!

I know. That's the point.

What a discussion - on a thread about what the parents at private schools might be like. Hah!

MrsAJP and merryscott - This needling about Seeker's DS having not got through the 11+ to the great surprise of his teachers is really upleasant.

Actually, I didn't start talking about my son. Somebody else did-in great and surprising detail. I suppose with hindsight I should have ignored her.

" "There are all sorts of parents at my childrens private school "

Except poor ones, obviously!"

That is what Seeker said. Lots of people on private school threads talk about how inclusive they are, no class or financial barriers, all sorts of families, all they do is drop the foreign holiday and rely on the old Volvo. It is a shot of factual reality that poor families have no car at all. Poor families have no holiday at all, even before paying out for a one-day school trip, never ind fees. Have a look around MN and you will find a more inclusive version of 'poor'. Maybe Seeker does often put in a challenge about private schools, but it was in response to other things that often get said, and it was a factually correct challenge, IMO, and based on the evidence around us.

I must be really dim because I had never noticed Seeker's grinding axe before . This thread did seem to turn into a witch hunt, though :(. I'd ask MNHQ to delete if I thought they'd listen.

applauds Dunrovin

The disingenousness of the assertion that private schools are inclusive and have a very broad spectrum of families using them never ceases to be annoying, and never becomes entirely ignorable, I find.

They're called 'private' for a reason. Because they are not open to everyone. So use them if you will, and in some cases that may be mildly less contemptible than in others, but do not pretend there are 'all kinds of parents' at them, because there aren't.

I'm actually not needling. Just being nosy about the appeal. I missed the original thread and can't be arsed to search for it (if someone had a linky)

Looking back,MIT was JordanBaker who first mentioned my son. I presume I must have mentioned that we were appealing on mumsnet somewhere, although I don't remember doing so. Otherwise I would be worried that she imported information from another forum- which I would not be happy with.

I've never claimed that my DC's schools are hugely mixed myself, but I suspect that others say it to dispell the completely wrong idea that everyone is either a Russian olligarch or second in line to the throne.

And for a lot of people contemplating private education that's somehting they want to know about. They want to knwo that theirs won't be the only DC who don't have a pony/second home in Tuscany/heli-pad.

They're not stupid. They know that it's not going to be as mixed as a comp in Hackney, but that's not what they're asking is it?

They just want reassurance that they won't be completely other. And lots of us can tell them that from our personl experience they won't.

I don't think anyone thinks everyone attending is the child of an oligarch or second in line to the throne.

I think people do think that everyone there is going to be very very wealthy. Or they suspect that. Or they worry about it.

You've got to remember that for lots and lots of us we have had no experience at all of private school. We went state ourselves and all our families went state. For many parents they will have their own DC in state education and are thinking about a move.

We hear in the media generally that private schools are this or that, biut we don't know.

I remember being very worried that everyone would have been privately schooled themselves and would find DH and I most definitely not PLU.
But I was wrong.

Why are all the posts addressed at me made the moment I have to step away for a while? :)

Master Seeker was simply to differentiate between mother and son. I don't know the little boy's name, so that was a pretty close alternative. It is not usually offensive unless the surname is Bates. It wasn't intended to be offensive.

That his best was not good enough - this is something I come across all the time. We all want our children to be good at everything and some parents find it hard to accept that they may not be. Typically, the parent will blame the school, blame dyslexia, slow processing speed, death of hamster to try to get exam consideration or extra time. Appealing against the 11+ is broadly in the same ball-park in my opinion.

His best wasn't good enough on the day - for the school authorities and also for his mother, it seems. I do find that rather sad - I see it all the time and know the children at the centre and really feel for them.

By appealing, a child whose best was good enough is at risk of being bumped down. How can that be fair?

A thread was bumped in Secondary Education yesterday where Seeker vehemently argued the morality of taking a grammar place away from a deserving child. I see parallels here. She also hated those who manipulated the system for their own benefit - the very thing that she is doing now.

All this could have been avoided if Seeker kept her nose out of threads designed for private school parents.

Wordfactory, that makes sense, and I can understand people asking the question. It's just the answer can be a bit effusively blithe, and to people who really couldn't afford it (whatever their views in principle) that can be hard to stomach.

And I think that it's outrageous that so many people assumed that Seeker's DS failed his 11+ because he isn't up to it, rather than taking on baord the reported views of his teachers and sympathising. I would be anguished if my bright DC was denied the opportunity to study 3 sciences. I thought you needed the support of the Head to appeal an 11+ result anyway?

Sorry - Seeker's ds should never have been discussed on this thread at all. Especially if it came form another forum

Well i think we need to differentiate between public schools and independent schools then because there sure as hell were not any oligarchs and heirs to the throne at my kids' school! A few local builders and bisnessmen done good, a few doctors, a few solicotors and accountants, a few city types, and a few people scrimping and saving to keep their kids out of the catchment hellhole in special measures, that's all.

businessmen. That was a typo before anyone starts.

seeker apologies, you are quite right that you did not start discussing your son .

FN was about to say the same about the demographics at my dd's school

"They know that it's not going to be as mixed as a comp in Hackney"

It probably is as mixed as a comp in Hackney though. Just not the same mix.

Actually, it may be more mixed given that there will be less well off families at the private school and no super rich ones at the Hackney comp.

Now, there's a massive assumption.
And pointless.

It's no more massive an assumption than the ones made about private school families and no more pointless than mentioning a Hackney comp in the first place.

The very wealthy can (and do) choose state education
The poor cannot choose private education. So those two assumptions are not quite equal in credibility.

However, it was 100% pointless me being rude.