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!

Well yes, they're selective schools. Everyone's there because they have a 'reasonably strong ability in something or other'. It's just that some parents can afford to pay and some can't.

But your point that 'the poorest it gets is struggles to pay fees' is just plain wrong.

I am constantly surprised at the level of judging that takes place on these threads so I'll try to get it back to the original question which was about parents from private schools...

I am a teacher at a state secondary (non selective) in west london. My DPs children are at private schools in west london (prep and secondary). I was privately educated at secondary and come from a very modest background - my mother was a single parent, my father paid very little maintenance (and what he did pay was infrequent) I was on an assisted place and my mother worked in a supermarket.

My experience tells me that the 'community' depends very much on the school in question and on how you define community.

• private schools have a higher proportion of SAHMs who have the time to get involved in the running of the school and this often creates a community of sorts.
• there are some parents at private and state schools who will judge other parents depending on the clothes they wear, the car they drive, the house they live in, the holidays they go on etc. These parents will produce children who do the same thing. In my experience there are more of these parents/children in private (or highly selective state) because of the competitive nature of the system. So be aware of that if you are choosing a highly competitive school.
• private schools are not generally representative of the wider community in which they are located. For example - there is one non-white pupil in my DP's daughter's class. In the class I teach (a 10 minute walk away) there are 3 white pupils in my tutor group of 30. So, for me, private schools don't always provide a community as they are not representative of the wider community.

That said (and going off the point of the thread), for many parents who can afford it private seems like the only option in this area and although I would much rather everyone sent their children to state schools I don't think anyone can be vilified for doing what they perceive to be the best thing for their children.

Agree.

I keep coming back because I was genuinely upset by amerryscot's comment and I am waiting for her apology/explanation.

In the meantime ""I live in an area where there are only selective schools"

So, all the schools in your area are grammar schools? There are no schools at all for those who do not take or do not pass the 11+?"

Yes of course there are - but they are just as much part of the selective system as the grammar schools. It works both ways, you know!

seeker you have waded into a thread in which you can offer notyhing to the op. It was specifically addressed to parents with experience of private school.

Let's be honest you always do it. No matter what the thread, if it has even the remotest link to private schools you pole up to say somehting negative.

Over the eyars I'm sure you haven't cared a kipper how many parents you've upset by your comments. I'd say that's the very point of many of your comments.

So please don't come back whining that someone has upset you by calling you a hypocrite.

I posted very helpfully at the beginning of this thread. I have said nothing negative about private school parents. All I have said is that it is wrong to give the impression that it is a choice open to all or even the majority of families.

And it was not being called a hypocrite that upset me.

We drive a crap car but are actually pretty affluent, but just don't chose to spend our money on motors because we can't give a monkey.

Ditto.

Lots of 4yos doing assemblies in DC state school, too.

FWIW, OP, 2+ of my DC attend local state school & I can't say that it has much of a community feel either, I don't have much in common with most of them, anyway. So it's not like you'll necessarily fit in with or have a proper community connection to your local state school. What's worse, familiarity has bred contempt.... there are quite a few parents I'll be gleeful to see the back of when their DC finish y6. I'm trying to say that I wouldn't let parental character/community be a big factor in which school to choose.

I agree with wordfactory to an extent.
I dislike any poster being upset so I can't be nonchalant about seeker being upset - I hope though that the number of posters objecting to references about seekers children diminished the unpleasant ones.

But it is hugely unpleasant to see how often any innocuous thread involving parents of dc at private schools get picked up on. I find the endless, santemonious and hectoring tone both unnecessary and spiteful.

I think there are far more useful ways of objecting to an educational system that by picking up individual on threads where they are asking for help just to be snidey. And pretending that stereotyping parents who chose the private system as inevitably snobby and unpleasant is being helpful is disingenuous and spineless. I would have slightly more respect for a position articulated as
' yes I will rip into anyone who asks about private school because I disapprove' because it at least has the virtue of integrity.

And tbh it does look just so awful and grim that the position taken is ' all education should be equal except for my children because we have special circumstances' . Lecturing others when you are making a clear choice yourself is hypocrisy. Trying to couch it as anything other is just the same as every other left wing politician who buses his kid across London.

I am happy for the 'private schools should be abolished. Discuss' threads to become as robust and fierce as possible.
But this endless jumping on every individuals query is back handed and unpleasant.
This is supposed to be a section about education.

Well said Paggy.

seeker you are being disingenuous.

You are anti private school. You did not come to this thread to offer any help. You came to point out somehting negative about them.
Plus ca change.

And as others have said, I could almost take it (htough would still think it inappropriate where someone is seeking help and advcie) if you were a political warrior with impeccable credentials. But you're not.

You say you have to use GS because you have no choice. Rubbish. You have every bit as much choice to use the local sub-standard school as I do. The difference is I wholeheartedly undertand your choices because we live in an imperfect world, whereas you choose to belittle mine.

Seeker - I'm sorry about your son. Presumably tutoring for grammar schools creates an anomalous outcome? So that those selected are not the top 23% at all, but 23% made up of the super-bright and those whose parents tutored/had them tutored to within an inch of their lives? So perhaps the other school will be much better than you think? And the parents might be more easily stomached, ideologically. Presumably plenty of his primary school friends are going to this other school?

This is definitely not the moment to ram Seeker's opinions on selective schooling down her throat.

I think we all agree that we have a shit schooling system (state and independent) that favours money, sharp elbows and the motivated.

Wordfactory - I'm anti private school. Where my own children are concerned, I've decided to make an exception.

Hi,
I'm new here looking for some clairvoyance!

After a long search we've recently seen an affordable family home on Layzell Walk off Mottingham Lane which would mean that we could then afford the Eltham College fees for our 2 DS if we were to go for this.

The upsides - in addition to crucial affordability -are no more school runs as across road from college and near the station for DH (although a bit of a pain for me as my job requires me to use car and I guess the road is grid locked in mornings). The downside is that youngest DS won't take college entrance exam til next round. Currently at feeder school and 'should' get in but we all have know that there are no certainities. Should we wait or should we jump? What would you base your decision on?

All comments welcome :)

Martha - I think you may have posted in the wrong place.

thanks diablo, I'm new to this - where do you think I should post this? Many thanks. M

MrsJ this IS exactly the moment to bring it home, so that she might undertand.

"understand"

Matha - just click on "start a new thread" at the top of the page.

Martha you should start a new thread in the Education topic, and pick whichever sub-heading you think is most appropriate. You have come crashing into an unrelated thread of somebody else's that is dealing with her specific issue.

Or, not - as it turns out.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Bulletpoint, you're missing the point. There's no contradiction in being in favour of grammar schools being closed, because it's not the grammar option Seeker is looking for in and off itself - it's that where you have grammars, you don't have comprehensives. Grammars not existing would be fine - it's precisely because they do that there is a problem.

Oh and I will sign up for the position that Pagwatch identifies as having the virtue of integrity!

It would be lovely if people reacted to what I actually said, not what people think I say. But that would involve reading stuff. So much easier just to make assumptions. And to assume that I am hiding things. Which I am not- I have always been completely open about my situation.

Thank you for those of you who and good wishes to my ds. He will be fine- he is a grounded and resilient person who will be going to a good school with many of his friends. The system has denied him the opportunity to study 3 sciences, music or more than one language because those delights are reserved for the grammar school or to be in a class with more than a few children at his academic level, but he will survive!

And those who felt that it was ok to attack me by attacking a 10 year old child-you really are contemptible.

Perhaps Seeker's husband favours the appeal and she remains ideologically opposed. In fact, to my mind it's perfectly possible to appeal and remain ideologically opposed to selective schooling.

I'm sooooo sorry! Thanks FellatioNelson. Is there a way to delete my post from here?