Its good enough for mine if its good enough for yours

[educationforteachers]

If the school is not good enough for the teachers kids, then should it be good enough for our kids?

Should this apply to primary and secondary?

Should this apply to the methods they are using in school?

Since teachers are after all the best people to ask!

'People can't argue "for the sake of it" unless there is someone else (namely, you) also in the debate.'

You're right and you've won.

You've hounded me off along with most of the other people who have dared to suggest a different opinion from yours.

I hope that makes you feel better about yourself.

OK, whendidyoulast, we all know about that ONE deputy head at that ONE school now. Do you have any other arguments?

I refer to my previous post. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if that ONE school was written off completely based on the opinion of one deputy head on one occasion. One would hope that the poor teachers would be dealt with and that the school would make necessary improvements.

Oh ffs! IT's NOT US, IT'S YOU!!!

Feijoa I think that is a fair point , our school has a strong tradition of staff sending their children there - so nobody pays much attention. Sometimes the children get a bit of stick at the start of Yr7 but everyone gets bored and they soon blend in. As I said in most classes I have children who have a teacher as a parent .

It would be tougher in a school where it was not seen as the norm.

That may also be clouding my view on this thread because it really would be seen as unusual if a teacher did not send their child to our school and eyebrows would be raised by staff and the parents. It is also something that we are proud to say at open evening and parents evenings . We do see it as a positive of the school.

I may be strange but thinking about it I would see that as a negative Philoslophy

I send one child to my school and one child to another. Read into that what you will - children are individuals, possibly?

I guess we would have to agree to disagree . Is it a negative for the staff, students or parents .

It's no-one else's business.

Many teachers don't live in the catchment area for the school they work at. They might want their child to be free from being "so and so's son/daughter" at school. Their child might not have been offered a place where their parent works. Etc. etc.

People should stop judging something which has nothing to do with them. If they have concerns about the school, take them to the head or the governors instead.

I'm sorry if you think I'm being uppity. I actually agree that it might be a reasonable concern if absolutely NONE of the teachers sent their dc to the school. And in a case that extreme, the school's shortcomings would almost certainly be obvious from its Ofsted report and its reputation in the community. In the vast majority of schools, presumably, some teachers do send their dc there and some don't. And parents would have no reliable way of knowing the real reasons why the teachers made their decisions, which would make it a bit pointless to speculate.
If I were looking at a school for my dc it's not really a question I would think of asking. I'd be much more likely to ask the opinions of other parents who already had children at the school.

It's negative that teachers feel the need to tell me that in an attempt to influence my decision.

Exactly, whome. There are no absolutes here. It's a matter of "mights" and "maybes."

But also, I think that location might also play a large part here too. If you're in a part of the country where all children go to the local school, with little or no deviation of that, then I can see that it might be more of a statement to send your child elsewhere. Might.
But there are many, many areas, mainly urban, where it's much more complex than that and not immediately obvious where any particular child might go. Here, for instance, we have four primaries within 5-10 minutes walk, and the children in our road have all been allocated different ones over the years - sometimes due to a change in admissions policy, but other reasons too.

It's just not clear-cut. But no one, to my knowledge, has made any type of statement by choosing School A over School B. Nor would I infer anything by it either, whether or not their parent taught at one of them.

We don't really need to influence or persuade parents, but at any open evening a head will talk about the things that give your school a special feel or things that you are particularly proud of.

Being in a rural area, most parents don't choose their child's school, that happens by virtue of where you live.

Again I agree clam. You can't help but draw on your own experiences. We live in a small close knit community where everyone knows everyone. Our school serves a number of local villages of a similar character and the edges of small towns . In that scenario it is a statement to send your child elsewhere . As you say clam it might not be such an issue in a more urbanised area where there is a wider choice of schools.

OK I would feel put off if the head stood up and said we are proud that our staff send their children to this school ...why?

Why would it put you off? I am not saying you are wrong , it is a personal judgement - I am just interested to hear a view different to my own.

As a parent it reassures me , I know it is something my husband likes about the school - and he is not a teacher.

Maybe a certain sort of person is drawn to live in a very small close knit community and maybe they are the type of people who see teachers sending their children to the school as a positive.

Maybe they might be trying to promote a family feel to the place. Although that might be at odds with the LA's policy of splitting siblings if the family lives in the wrong street.
And if the school was over-subscribed, I'd be wondering how come a hole load of staff had managed to wangle a place in the school if the rest of us were going to struggle.

I just don't see it as relevant and not on my list of important reasons to pick a school.

I live in a very, very small close knit community and don't see it as a positive

I agree, mrz. In fact, my HT is quite anti- having staff members (particularly TAs) with children in the school. She reckons it can throw up more issues than it's worth.
Her opinion, of course, but it does mean that it's not universally considered a good thing.

And ^^ up there should have been whole, not hole!

Why should my colleague have to explain to nosey parents that the reason his daughter doesn't attend our school is that she has severe special needs, or that another colleague's children attend the local primary because her parents look after them after school as she is a single parent? It is nobody's business, it doesn't impact on any other children attending the school, so why should teachers have to explain their actions?
And any teacher ( deputy or otherwise) who says that " my child doesn't come here because it's a crap school" won't be there long either!!

My last school was shit. Honestly I wouldn't send my child anywhere near it. The SMT were hopeless and the whole place was run on the basis of trying to placate the troublemaking kids (pupils removed from classrooms because they were refusing to do any work and disturbing others were allowed to play computer games in the student support office instead of being made to do some work ). However, there were plenty of teachers who sent their children there, because their children would be in the top sets who rarely saw the sort of disruption that made it hell on earth to work in. Strangely, Ofsted deemed it Good at the time but not now, but the local reputation had families converting to Catholicism in droves when their eldest was in year 5, just so they could bump up the criteria for the Catholic school down the road (and it was literally just down the road, not even 5 min walk)

There was absolutely nothing I could do to change the overall school, I was just a classroom teacher doing my best in a challenging environment. I absolutely did not believe it was good enough for a single child that attended, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. So I left. If I hadn't left I would have had a breakdown.

What would you like individual classroom teachers to do if the school they teach in isn't good enough for their own child (or any child)? Mostly it's not classroom teachers who can change the ethos or quality of a school, it has to come from SMT and be a whole school approach.

In a small, close knit community it can be particularly difficult if staff members have children attending the school - particularly if the school itself is small (many village schools have PANs of 20 or fewer).

One aspect that has not been discussed is that it can put parent members of staff in awkward situations, as with one 'hat' on they may know a lot about e.g. the family situation, needs, difficulties of particular children (and they need to in order to do their job well) but on the other hand they may also socialise, live next to, have children who are friends with those very same children.

The need to keep professional and private worlds separate - and not allow knowledge acquired in one to seep into another - can be very difficult to maintain, especially in cases where teachers or support staff are regarded as 'fair game' for other parents to use as sources of information about a school or (most difficult) about particular individuals within it, which does happen. So when on the one hand a school employee is filling in child protection forms about child X, and on the other hand other parents (friends of the school employee for many years, living in the same tiny community) are asking them 'is your DD going to child X's birthday party?' it can be very hard. In cases like this that I have come across, the staff members in question have always been limtlessly discreet and professional, but I know from discussions with them that it is a source of strain.

It is not surprising or suspicious in the least if a member of staff - teaching or support - at such a small school in a small community muight say 'you know what, I'd like to keep my private and professional worlds separate by sending my own children to a different school'.

Yes, and consider scenarios such as sleepovers. Your own child begs for so-and-so to come to stay the night. Do you really want to be seen in your dressing gown coming out of the bathroom by someone you might have had to tell off the week before for talking in Assembly?

And would other families want your child for a sleepover, knowing they would report back that they were fed fish fingers and chips with fizzy orange for tea!

Last night most of my children were at a sleepover, tonight one is still out. We have sleepovers for one of the children most weeks and there are constantly children back for tea. We threw parties for much of the village at new year and Christmas! really not an issue.