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!

And as a teacher and a parent, it wouldn't even register on my consciousness. Except, now you've mentioned it, to maybe wonder if the school might be a bit cliquey.

I'd much rather my children could learn where they weren't Mrz's children and they could just be themselves. It might be easier in a secondary but in a primary school it isn't easy to escape and develop independence.

Both my children attend the school where I teach; I teach both my children and many of my colleagues have / will teach their own children. It is not a problem because we have all known it will happen and the children grow up expecting it. I am not sure what we would do, were there another choice but our nearest alternative is 50 miles away and my school is way, way better anyway.

Surely teachers have to do the best they can for their own children, and their own careers and this may involve children at their school, it may not. In our (very rural) area we all just get on with teaching our own children.

I am often in and out of other schools , our departments work with departments in other local schools. We have staff who have moved from one school to another. Teachers often socialise with other teachers that they may have trained with or worked with on other schools.

I also see the data from other schools. I can read inspection reports with an informed eye. I know that the issues are in schools locally .

That all makes me more informed .

I'm not sure I'd find it rude to be asked at an open evening or whatever, though my answer would be a straightforward "absolutely, though they're only 7 at the moment". It would be a fib though - for reasons explained above. The question is whether I would be happy for my child to attend that school. There would be no need to go into but we're out if catchment/ I don't want to teach my own kids / I would find it awkward if I was accused of favouritism etc - that would be too intrusive.

I used to work as a fashion buyer, whilst not everything I bought was too my taste it was to a quality that I found acceptable .

Many stores ask their staff to dress from the stock.

Sheesh - nobody's arguing that that there aren't good reasons why teachers may not work at the same school as their own children attend.

But it's still of interest to parents. And may be ONE of many factors they take into account when making their choice.

I'm never going to send my kids to the one that the deputy heads have told me would not provide a bad choice for their own son am I?

I couldn't give a toss what underwear/general clothing a shop assistant is wearing either. Why would working in Next, but wearing an M&S bra mean Next bras were shite? Maybe it was a gift?

Have to agree with the person who said some of the posts on here are odd, although from the other perspective!

And I'm never going to send mine to the school where friends who work there have referred to it as "hellish". One of those friends is the one who intends to send his kids there though.

What do you make of my acquaintance who intends to use the state grammar if her DD makes the cut and stick with indie otherwise?

And whilst I have always researched my kids' schools very carefully, I can honestly say that the number of staff who have their own children attending has never been a factor. But I live in an area where all the schools are hugely over-subscribed, so you pretty much get what you're given anyway.

so, honestly, clam, you wouldn't find it even vaguely of interest and it wouldn't influence your decision at all if you found that not one of the teachers at a school you were looking at sent their own kids there and that a deputy head had explained that this was because there was a great deal of incompetent teaching and his son would get a much better education at a completely different school? This is a real example.

I don't have access to data from other schools that isn't available to other parents. I visit other schools but it's a bit like OFSTED you can't get a real picture of a school if you aren't there day in and day out.
A school just needs a change of staff to change the whole ethos so the school you knew last year may not be the same school your child eventually attends with the next intake. Like everyone teachers have different ideas what makes a good school so their opionion is no more valid than any other parent's.

Because I would have thought that most parents would avoid that school like the plague if they had that insight and they had a choice. And they would be right to do so.

clam - I couldn't give a toss either, but the analogy stands - if the OP thinks teachers sending/not sending their kids to their own school speaks volumes, surely she applies this "logic" to other industries

But would any teacher actually give a complete and totally honest answer? "No, the school is crap", "No I'm not happy with the progress kids make", "No behaviour here is appalling", "No, the leadership is useless", etc. should surely result in disciplinary procedures from head. Even milder "No, I don't like the approach to X" is still pretty damning. So I can imagine any teacher would either lie or make up an answer that circles the question in a really positive way, so a parent would be none the wiser.

I confess I didn't research schools at all just sent my two to the only school in the village for social reasons.

It's also ridiculous to argue that customers would not be influenced if the shop assistants in Hobbs were actually wearing clothes from New Look or vice versa.

Again maybe it is different in secondary schools, I know the data for the local secondaries in my subject and across other subjects because of my wider role . I have also seen lessons in those other schools, attending training sessions with their staff and jointly planned lessons . It all gives me an insight that most people don't have.

Not sure I'd be able to tell...

In my case the teacher was honest and said my child goes to another school because of behaviour issues. Perhaps she was honest with me because I was a teacher.

I think body language and verbal cues are quite easy to read.

Evil I have friends who teach in local - very well know independents - quite a few of them use the local state grammars. That just adds to my perception that those local schools lack academic rigour.

I still think that very very few teachers with a negative view of their own school would give you an honest answer. I would answer honestly if I were asked by a friend or acquaintance, but if I were asked at an Open Day or something by a prospective parent I would consider myself duty-bound to toe the party line and either support my school or at least say that I was out of catchment.

In that scenario I would say it's likely that parents could read between the lines and, as I said earlier, there's a big difference between the teacher saying 'No, this is a great school but my kids actually go to another great school which is actually next door to my house which is in another LEA' and the teacher who looks very uncomfortable and it transpires that they have actually chosen a neighbouring school which gets much better results.

I really do think you need to give parents some credit but also they should feel empowered to ask this sort of thing.

I'm staggered to find that people even think like this. How could you even TELL, let alone care, where a shop assistant got her clothes? I would have to assume, if I was quizzed on it, that she perhaps couldn't afford Hobbs' clothes on a sales assistant's salary.

I know it's a selling point that I send my own kids to my school. Parents tell me so and they sign on the dotted line. There is nothing I could do that would demonstrate my faith in the school more.

clam, you do come across as spectacularly naive. It is usually compulsory for shop assisants to wear clothes from the shop where they are working.