‘Posher’ versus ‘poorer’ school – what’s the real difference?

[stickygotstuck]

A bit long, sorry.

Please feel free to be very candid about this, I am being! I am forrin and my perception/hang ups about class/social advantage are different to DH's (or the majority of the population for that matter).

My DD will start primary school next September. So far, we have seen two state schools. Both are in our catchment, although one of them is very small and oversubscribed (we are talking 70 vs. 170-ish pupils) The larger school has a Good Ofsted, so does the small school. The larger school is in our relatively 'poor' (if you like more 'working class') village, whereas the small school is in the more affluent village next door. When I have spoken to parents asking for advice I can't shake the feeling that there is a certain snobbery towards the larger, 'poorer' school, and I am not sure that it's actually a better school.

We like both schools, but they are totally different and we can't decide our order of preference.

I guess my question is, would we be missing a trick by not pushing for the small school? Is there some sort of 'social advantage' to be gained for DD? (also could it even influence whether she gets a place in the oversubscribed local state grammar later on?). We are not the type to engage in convoluted social dilly-dallying for personal gain, but we are not so naive that we think it does not exist (we are just useless at it!) and we are aware that it's not all about numbers and academic ability.

Why is it so bad to aspire to a well paid job? One only has to go to the other forums to read posts from people who hate their jobs/boss but can't afford to leave. Then there are the ones about how the school is failing their DC but they can't afford to move or go private. Or etc etc.

There is no nobility in being poor.

Haven't read the whole thread but I moved heaven and earth financially to live close to the schools I wanted ds to go to. As did a lot of my friends. There are limited schools here and the good ones are always over subscribed etc. However now that he is 18 and at college he is part of a big group of boys and girls who went to all the different schools in the area from private to those seen as the 'worst'. They all have virtually the same gcses and A levels and there is no higher incidence of going to university among any particular schools and they are all really close mates so doesn't seem to have made much difference over all. In fact the ones who seem to have done really well and can drive have jobs etc are not the ones from the 'better' school

APMF I would be a big advocate of your point of view of course. Just look at all the threads about those who are struggline because child benefit is going from them or cannot afford childcare or on credit crunch threads - how can I save 2p on apples or how to sell my dress on Ebay. Being poor is no fun at all and if we can encourage women to earn more I think that's a good thing.

Obviously greed does not make you happy but you can be happy and have enough to live on and having both happiness and enough money tends to make life a bit easier and it is a nice thing to want for your children and important daughters earn their own money rather than hope to nab a rich man who will keep them (as he may well run off later).

Who says it's bad to aspire to a well paid job? I just think it's bad to aspire to a well paid job you don't enjoy just so that you can pay the school fees if you are an intelligent, resourceful person with a lot more to offer society than a job you despise just for the cash.

I mean, when it comes down to it, more than 8% of jobs are worthwhile and interesting, yet only 8% of children are privately educated. Do we really want everyone chasing only the jobs that will pay the school fees, or abusing their power to ensure that their job remains one of those well paid enough to cover school fees? Has that been a good thing for our society to date? Thinking of all the overpaid pension fund advisers, City solicitors, bank leaders, etc????....

And BBC directors, MPs, GPs...

Seems to me we are all becoming more and more like pigs with their snouts in the trough as we become aware that there are fewer scraps to go around and we want to ensure we stay fat, even if it has to be at the expense of those who can't get past our fat backsides to reach the trough in the first place.

yep

@rabbit - Are you simply generalizing or do you have someone or some poster in mind? I'm asking because both my DCs are at Indies and I don't see the person that you've described in me or any of the other parents.

Being one of the 'overpaid' people mentioned above I laugh whenever I read comments like that. Feel free to apply for my job :) :) :)

I don't need to apply for your job, APMF. Are you assuming that I can't afford private education??? Or that I don't have a degree from Oxford? I can and I might one day use the private sector, but I don't personally feel the need to at the moment, even bearing in mind that I might have to stick my snout a bit further in the trough in the future.

My father was a GP and I was a solicitor in the City . I thought my job was unbelievably boring and hugely overpaid.

I don't doubt that you was overpaid :)

Anyway, my dad was a waiter but so what? What has your dad's profession got to do with things being discussed unless it's to establish your bona fides as a 'posh' person and not as some resentful working class oik.

Because GPs are one of the groups I identified as being overpaid, although I do think that is more the case now than it ever was in the past - it's not as if you can get a GP to visit you at night any more, after all. And yes, of course it was also to identify myself as a bona fides "posh" person, since you appeared to assume that I must be someone looking at this from the "outside" to be making the comments I made. In other words, it was a reaction to you and your comments.

GPs are overpaid??? Interesting perspective.

Why, thank you, APMF . Glad to hear my perspective is not run of the mill.

What is overpaid? It's all a relatively free market. Most people cannot do the jobs that are better paid. Just about all of us can be cleaners and mind babies. The market reflects that.

As for mouths in troughs isn't that simply how people are - we need to be fed so we seek out food whether we are living a subsistence existence in a jungle or in a modern town. There is nothing wrong with seeking to ensure you have enough to eat and your children (or the modern equivalent).

If money does not buy happiness why does it matter if some have more money or a better education or better looks etc than anyone else? We are not clones of each other.

Most GPs on mumsnet sadly go on about low pay because they are women and tend not to own the rich group practice but work for relative pin money on a fixed salary more fool them (not all but more than the men because they are in sexist marriages where men come first and men's careers).

1. There's a difference between ensuring you and your children have enough to eat and what most people actually try to ensure.
2. Whilst money on its own does not buy you happiness, poverty, which is frequently accompanied by powerlessness, does not buy you happiness either.
3. As you are clearly aware by your comments about "the modern equivalent" it's all relative - if all the power is increasingly held by a tiny minority, all of whom are astronomically wealthy, then it very much DOES matter who holds the money, how and why.

As for just about all of us can be cleaners and mind babies - as I've pointed out before, it's that attitude which buys us poor hospital hygiene and inferior childcare services.

Today's young are tomorrow's future, but absolutely anyone can care for them?! Ha, ha.

What is life all about, anyway?

If you said that the Earth was flat then that too would have been an 'interesting perspective' as well. So it's not necessarily a complement :)

To me Tube drivers are overpaid. Hold lever down. Train moves. Red light? Stop. And for that they get paid £30k plus???

They get paid what they get paid because of their union. Where salaries are determined by demand one can't be overpaid. Just because you don't think much of the service provided doesn't mean that the profession is over compensated.

Well, speaking as someone who eventually ended up firing every nanny and cleaner they have had, not everyone can be a good cleaner or minder.

Obviously I want the women to have the power, but if someone is arguing more power is going to one group (I am not sure it is) does that matter? I am constantly told on mumsnet that serviing at home, washing the feet of the elderly and the like is just as legitimate and worthy an aim (indeed what we give to others tends to make people happy) then surely it matters not at all if more power is going to say rich white men or whatever. That is not my position. I want fewer women doing the foot washing and more leading companies. We can leave the men to wash the feet.

Go for the "posher" school. I can't believe you are even angsting over it. You liked both.