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 think the issue is that you have made generalisations without any real experience and also appreciated that others have perfectly valid views. I can accept your beliefs and respect them - it appears that you don't do that to others?

sorry - should have said NOT appreciated that others have perfectly valid views

I am not a hypocrite.
I am not rude
I am not personal
Of course other people have different views.

But when have I said anything upsetting?

I think it would really be pretty easy to see if grammar schools offered a path to social mobility and opportunites to the poorest children by looking at the FSM rates compared to the non-grammars in the area. If there is even one grammar school that has rates as low or lower than other non-grammars in the area I'll eat my hat. If it is true that there is as much innate ability to be found at the lower end of the social spectrum as there is at the top, then it seems that grammar schools need to find a better way of identifying those children, as the 11+ exam sure as hell is not doing it.

Seeker you need to look deep inside yourself and ask what it is that you are desperately wishing to avoid by getting your son to the grammar school. I'll bet every penny I have that it is more than just a worry that he won't be educationally stretched or satiated.

Of course I do not expect you to say it out loud on here, but I think you know it to be true. Don't worry - this is where a lefty always struggle with his/her conscience and realise that political idealism and Real Life don't always dovetail neatly together. Ask Tony Blair, Ruth Kelley or Diane Abbott - you're in good company.

I think the situation is worse in areas with grammars (as I'm sure Seeker knows) because the schools end up with a more polarised demographic. Sec Mods will have with lower performance obviously, and many will have a general lack of aspiration, a risk that the brightest, most hard-working kids will be ostracised and sneered at, more behavioural issues, more truanting etc, and all those factors lead to higher staff turnover, poor pupil and teacher morale and the perception of a 'bad' school.

If all the schools were truly comprehensive there would be fewer 'outstanding' ones, but they would be fewer 'failing' as well I think.

So Seeker's objection to the grammar school system in Kent might be, the one hand, the classic lefty objection to a two tier system and the inevitable segregation of the social classes it (unwittingly) brings about, but on the other hand on a more personal level, it might just be that she's terrified that one of her own children wil, God forbid, end up on the wrong side of that system, and that she will have to get up every morning and look herself in the eye knowing how she really feels about that.

Sorry for dodgy grammar in paragraph 3. I edited one bloody word and it mangled the whole sentence.

seeker quite a number of us have told you in no uncertain terms that we find you rude and upsetting.

One poster refused to link nbecause she has name changed, I ave refused because, frankly, it is a waste of time, you will simply defend everything you have said in the past.

People like you always defend their actions on the basis that 'the truth hurts' etc And that is what seperates people with manners and people without.

You have been asked time and again to keep your political leanings in the appropriate place in ordere to allow genuinely confused, worried parents to ask questions openly. You refuse. The fact that you refuse speaks volumes about your attitude to others.

Just wanted to say GOOD LUCK with your son's appeal seeker, let's hope he gets into that grammar school.

Agree with blu - it's been unpleasant to see the bullying. I commend you seeker for attempting to defend yourself but I think you should let it go because they're not going to.
Feel a bit sullied reading this...

Bullying? Oh FFS. Disagreement is not the same as bullying.

Look, if I posted on a thread saying (eg) that I thought people who took advantage of tax loopholes were immoral, but then said, "Oh and by the way, I'm a non-dom but i cant do anything about it due to personal circumstances, so it's okay for me to do it" people would quite rightly tell me I had little scope to comment. It's a clear parallel.

I don't think it's bullying either.
Seeker says: I have not done wrong. Show me examples of my wrong-doing.
People give examples.
Seeker says: I have not done wrong. Show me examples of my wrong-doing.
More people pile in with more examples.
Seeker says: I have not done wrong. Show me examples of my wrong-doing.
Ad nauseam.

I doubt that seeker feels bullied. Her posts seem, to me, to show that she believes that she is right and it is everyone else that is out of step.

No, she says, give me examples and they say 'it would be more noble for you to find them yourself'.

The whole 'heeker' thing, in particular, really does smack of nothing so much as bullying.

Saying 'we don't like it when you criticise private schools, we find it annoying' isn't the same as evidence of nastiness or unkindness, either.

On this thread, only one poster has given an example of seeker's supposed wrong-doing, and that was a pretty dubious one. Others have claimed that she has upset them, but are unwilling to be specific as to how. Apparently she is just supposed to know which of her thousands of posts have upset someone.

My wrongdoing seems to consist of posting on threads about private education pointing out that it is not an option available to any but a small minority of the population. I have also been accused of derailing this thread. I did make a 4 word comment- not in response to the OP- which prompted someone to post details of my personal circumstances. Others then piled in. I defended myself, and then was told that I should just accept what's anyone said without question. I have apparently made extremely upsetting posts thatnhave reduced other posters to tears, but I genuinely don't know what I have said, and nobody will tell me.

When my daughter was being bullied on facebook, a similar thing happened: 'You'd better just give it up now, as the evidence against you is so strong and we will c&p it if you don't give this up' - some invented rumour or other.

She knew there wasn't any and held her nerve - they fucked off in the end. and incidentally her state comprehensive dealt with it very well and followed up with calls and emails for which I was very grateful.

"I have apparently made extremely upsetting posts that have reduced other posters to tears, but I genuinely don't know what I have said"

QED.

Honestly, heeker, you don't want us to start copying and pasting from old threads. It doesn't look good for you.

This has nothing to do with not everyone having access to independent education. We know that, we are not stupid. We know that most of us have to bust a gut to do it.

What this thread has to do with is your hypocrisy regarding your selection of education for your child, your playing a system with your sharp elbows. You do not approve of other people doing this and you have said so many times.

The majority of us here who use private schools do so because we feel the state has failed us in providing adequate schools for our children. That seems to be the same route you are going down with your DS. The details may be different but the reasoning and objective is exactly the same.

At some point, you have to accept that you have offended people. You may be so insensitive as to not realise how you have done this, but if multiple people are telling you, then you should just believe them. If you want to be helped into not making the same mistakes in the future, I am sure most of us are open to doing that.

oh fgs, seeker, how disingenuous is it possible for you to be?

as you well know, it has nothing to do with your pointing out that private school is only available to a minority of the population, but instead more to do with your refusal to countenance the fact that posters may actually have valid reasons for sending their children to private school.

there is no reason valid, according to you (this from past threads ad nauseam) - it is always about 'superiority' or 'snobbery' or 'Daily Mail hype'.

and then it utrns out that (by your admission on this thread) you are appealing to get your ds into grammar school becuase there is no triple science, or choir, or apparently, a suitable peer group, at your local secondary modern.

so - all those years of pooh-poohing other posters' decisions to end their children to private schools because of a differnt curriculum, or because (in their opinion) the peer group would be more suitable really do just serve to highlight how much of a hypocrite you now are.

I understand your points about monetary concerns - although you have been shown to make sweeping generalisations without being in possession of any facts whatsoever on this thread - but you don't stop there. you go on and on with snidey little 'Daily Mail' style barbed comments, or sarky little snippets about 'Tarquin and Angelica' (or similar).

well, you are doing the same - trying to get your child into what you see as a 'better' school for him. good luck to you, I hope oyu are successful.

but please, just give up the eyerolling and sneering over posters choosing private schools - they are not always chosen because they are more expensive, you know. I could well do without the bills, tbh. and if the school at the ned of my road suited either of my children, they would be there. yes, I am lucky that we can afford the school fees - although as I posted before, there are other routes available, and I went to private school from an economically deprived household.

I am (yet another) poster that you have cheesed off with your constant carping abut my choices. No, I won't post examples because again, it was under an old name. but don't pretend you don't know what you have been doing over the years, and dont pretend that your situation is so vastly different now.

Yeah, you go for it amerryscot - maybe you should formspring her?

"Honestly, heeker, you don't want us to start copying and pasting from old threads. It doesn't look good for you."

I do, you know!

And, for the millionth time, what course of action couldni take which would NOT be hypocritical?

You could just go to the school that his 11+ performance merits. Simple.

Or you could say that you were wrong and had the scales removed from your eyes - and then either do what you are doing, or gracefully go to an independent school.

My LEA offered my DS a place at a special measures school with less than 20% pass rate. What would have been the right thing for me to do?

But she is not beating the grammar school door saying 'let my little lad in' - she is saying 'these results may be anomalous, is there any chance you could check that'. Not the same. And I seem to remember Seeker saying months ago that she thought ds may well not go to grammar school, anyway.