Help Please? Anyone's D got into Haberdashers or NLCS at 4+?

[funkychic]

My D is will be going for the 4+ 'play group' asesssment at Habs and NLCS. I'm desparate to know what they ask them to do. Really need advise from all mums whose child are already in these schools. Pleeeeeeaaaassse help!!!

Just to add I guess I may be bringing them up to see the world differently to how you are bringing your children up but our world is not like your world if you see what I mean.

Yes, I understand that. I don't think sending them to an academic private school where they will mix with the daughters of Indian shopkeepers and pharmacists who are putting every penny into the school fees pot etc is any more elitist than you sending them to good local state schools in good areas.

I absolutely have never wanted to show them there is one true way to live though...all 5 children are very different. Some work harder than others, some have different interests than others. I've even maintain neutrality over whether the girls' sports, riding/school enthusiasms are any more meritorious than my son's computer games. I admire as much those that have drive as those that are kind. Sometimes one will say - I'm the "best child" and I'll set them straight on that.

I suppose your point narrows it down to the issue of whether we think mixing with different religions and races (in my children's schools - our borough is 18% hindu, loads of Jewish children as well and I think only 2 children including my daughter had 4 english born grandparents in her class at Habs and immigrants value private and learning education more than the locals) is better than them being in a state school with children of a different IQ and with disabilities.

So what mix do we all want? Do we think we want to ensure we have very very posh children in a class with those from the worst council estates - that is one mixing and you can achieve that by forcibly bussing chidlren around.

Another mix is the one I mentioned of entry by raw IQ old grammar school system, doesn't matter who or what your parents are or where they are from or their religion or race or whether their first language is English. in a sense we got that with our children, except you need also the parents to afford £10k in fees as we don't in most places have those grammar schools any more that are free.

Or other mixes - do we want to ensure we have classes with say fixed percentages reflecting the general population so x% black, x% with mental problems, x% with disabilities, x% with an IQ of 80 and x% with an IQ of 150 etc That's social engineering and I'm not sure it benefits the child.

I'm working today anyway so I'd better go.

my own ds (with a recent psych assessment and report giving him an IQ of 160) was turned down by one of the selective boys independent schools in North London at the age of 4. He is dyspraxic and failed the test set which included using scissors and drawing (things he is not very good at - in fact he couldn't use scissors at that age). I think that it is one issue if schools want to select on the basis of academic ability - or if parents want to select a school on that basis, but it is another issue entirely to exclude children on the basis of other differences.

xenia, I do not have children at NLCS, but lived in North London for many years. I am intrigued that you you find the independent schools there so inclusive - we could not afford to send our children to private school in North London and dh is earning a very good salary. My experience of those schools is that academically they are fantastic, but where I lived only the very wealthy could afford to send their children there.

Well it's £10k a year or so. So it depends what you earn. The average salary in Central London or the CIty is about £100k. London is not like the rest of the country. Yet of course a lot of nurses and teachers keep families on £25k and clearly they can't afford fees of that amount. I know a lot of female GPs for example who work or work part time and use their pay to fund the school fees because their other half's salary pays for the food the mortgage. A lot of women go back to school when the chidern turn 5 and use their wages to pay the school fees. That's only feasible if your other half's income can pay for the rest of the things the family needs. Quite a few people have grandparents who pay. Some very clever children get the fees paid. These are not normal private schools. They are very academically selective, large and I think really great places to be educated and I am lucky when I was 14 I sat down and thought about the kind of life I wanted to lead and then made choices which enabled that. Those choices were only possible because I was born with a certain IQ and drive andn thus stem from the inherent unfairness of life

Just a quick add. Ds is mixed race and his school has quite a lot of children who are non white although of course of the same faith. In dh's family there is some mixture of faith so I'm happy with his exposure to other races and faiths.

Dh and my mum came from very priviledged backgrounds, were both sent abroad from their respective countries (neither are British) to be educated in very expensive boarding schools. My mum didnt want that for me nor did Dh want the same for our kids.

I don't like the idea of separating people with regard to their disabilities and not sure I've understood your stance on that.

I guess the main point of disagreement I have with you is the idea that the IQ makes the person. I don't go with the idea that people with high IQ's are the best - academicaly yes but morally and ethically no more so than lesser beings.

Xenai - how would your family unit cope if a child was born with a disabiltiy of some sort?

I reckon the mix in our local state school in Scotland is one to be aimed for by all schools. Local MP's, wealthy expats and the chairman of Shell all seem quite happy for their children to mix with the offspring of the unemployed or low-wage earners, people who live in council housing, children with learning difficulties and, heavens above, even those with disabilities. And the school is consistently at the top of the ratings so it must be doing something right.

Btw re drugs; it's a bigger problem for private schools than state schools here. Private school pupils are the ones who can afford to buy drugs.

I don't agree with boarding schools/separation like that. Does too much psychological harm. That's one point - It's not state school or boarding at 7 kind of choices for most parents in the private sector.

I think chidlren do better when educated with children of a similar IQ. This has nothing to do with disabilities. As I said my faitly clever eldest has mild dyslexia. My sister who died had down's syndrome.

We're talking about schools you certainly don't choose. They are schools where most people who don't apply don't get a place just like if you want a job at Goldman Sachs. It's a real life environment, a very good start for most children.

I am not sure what you are trying to get me to say about disabilities. Some have no impact on your ability to keep up with a class working at a year or two ahead of the state sector. Other disabilities would mean those children could not thrive at those kinds of schools. That's all and as someone said below often the private schools geared for that are the best choice for children with disabilities.

How did my family cope when my sister was born? I was too young to say. I'm sure had she lived they would have loved her very much. I have been surprised all my children seem very similar in terms of looks, fitness and IQ although they differ in other important areas too. If you have very mixed range of abilities in a family you need to draw on what each child is good at and make the best of it so it feels valued.

When did I say IQ makes a person? I don't think that. I am a Catholic and think all people are equally of value. I don't see why I can't believe that and still think parents should have choice over kinds of schools.

What I did say is if you are prettier, cleverer, taller, thinner then in our capitalist world of work and dating you do "better" whatever better means.

Drugs are quite cheap. I think boarding schools are bad for drugs because the parent isn't around to keep an eye on them. I don't agree children need to mix with children with various kinds of problems and different backgrounds in order to grow up well. Scotland is different anyway and doesn't have the same educational system as England.

How can a school which most children won't get into, be the best start in life for most children?

Don't understand the point. Best start in life for those children who get in. It's the same with most state schools and all those supposedly socialist but hugely hypocritcal parents that populate this land sending children to state schools where only those who earn a fortune to buy a house near by get in or only those who practise their religion.

It is not a good start in life to be educated amongst the mass of the general populace, those whose parents don't believe in education, those who cannot sit still, those who in essence make the classroom a learning nightmare. I would move to Communist China or North Korea if I wanted my children to be in that kind of situation. You virtually never get middleclass children from smart areas driving their chidlren into Tower Hamlets to state school do you?

We bought our house here because we couldn't afford a home in other areas, yet this area turned out to have the better school.

I don't suppose children need to 'mix with children with various kinds of problems and different backgrounds in order to grow up well' but imo it makes them more rounded people if they are not partitoned off from life. Personal knowledge is the thing - eg next week I shall again be living in a Third World country. I am now part of an unspoken-of club of people who've experienced the same. Reading about, seeing TV programmes about or holidaying in such places simply doesn't bring the same enlightenment as living there. I don't kid myself that I now understand the life of a street beggar but the underbelly of that country has been exposed to me and blasted away my assumptions. And that's what children can gain from mixing with others with different lives.

v true sue.
I went to a similar school to HA or NLC, it was a very bad preparation for real life.

Yes, but they don't have to do the mixing at school, do they? If the mixing at school lowers their educational standards, makes them speak ungrammatically, makes them follow their peers (most children have hugely influenced by their peers) then of course you want to separate them off and make sure they're not with those people you don't want them to emulate. You want them to be in an atmosphere where there is a love of learning, a positive, enthusiasm for life and its opportunities and chances so they go out like my 3 at university knowing they can achieve what they want.

In a private day school you're not cocooned from the real world. My daughters had lots of friends out of school who went to state schools.

I agree about meeting differnt people but I also think by the work experience, exchanges, trips abroad, opporuntities etc their schools have given them they have had much much more of that kind of thing, including on an international basis than they would have had at their average comprehensive.

doesnt happen in real life though, does it. typical out of school activities tend to be packed with other middle class kids.

my parents also subscribed to the high educational standards theory, in other words OMG, my children are so thick that they need spoonfeeding in a hyper studious environment to get into Oxbridge.
I have more faith in my children, they will shine in any environment as long as they are not being bullied, because we have a positive, achieving attitude at home.

Xenia, with all respect the first two sentences in your post of 16.26 are total b*llocks.

In the first place, if children don't mix with kids from different backgrounds at school, where are they going to mix? Oddly enough my children's extra-curricular ballet, sport and music activities are not populated with children from under-privileged backgrounds who attend poorly-performing state schools. And funnily enough most of our friends and family are not entirely dissimilar to us either. So unless you count passing ethnic minorities in the supermarket as 'mixing with people from different backgrounds', if it doesn't happen at school it ain't gonna happen.

And secondly yes, I do think children benefit from that mixing. Even though my dd1 spent her primary years in a class which was probably bordering on the unteachable because of the range of abilities and behaviour, she speaks perfectly grammatical English, writes extremely fluently and elegantly, is interested in learning and ideas for their own sake, and has developed a very healthy resistance to the main forms of peer pressure. She knows that doing well at school is what matters to her, while being very well aware that lots of other people don't share her priorities. She can talk to the rough kids at the playground without sounding like a prissy little princess, and she can learn Latin too. And she has the added confidence of knowing that these achievements are not the result of us buying her way out of the education system shared by 93% of the population.

I have no problem in principle with independent schools (though I wish there was less demand for them). But to suggest that an able child from a supportive home will not be able to cope in even a moderately rough state school without transmuting into Vicki Pollard shows a remarkable lack of confidence in your child's innate abilities and your own influence as a parent.

i grew up in the local town to habs and belonged to loads of clubs. alot of habs pupils also went there so to say they don't mix isn't really true. it's quite diverse around here with some very competitive schools. and if i were being honest i would love to be able to afford my son a place there.

Yes, this bit of NW London is very unusual. If you go t Newcastle or Manchester you have N Roygal Grammar, Manchester Grammar, kind of one really good academic private school and a few others that aren't quite the same. Instead around here you have Habs, NLCS, St Pauls not so far away then you have all the competition which the poorer (i.e. normal) parents use of the state grammars in Bucks, then Watford Grammar (state), lots of religious schools. It's a fascinating area and the choice of schools in all sectors is good too. We're very lucky but in a sense not - we moved here and chose to live here.

Happy for people to say they disagree with what I write. I don't think most children from private schools have problems mixing with people from state schools. I never have. I've never found my accent was a problem in life.

frogs if your daughter was in a class bordering on the unteachable and she did fine that's great but I don't see why there isn't a big risk there that the child would suffer and if you have the means surely m ost parents would seek to avoid that.

On the mixing point surprisingly some of my daughters state school friends who they still see they met at their riding stables which you wouldn't expect. What we want is children who can talk to people of all backgrounds. I haven't noticed my chidlren being unable to do that. In fact one thing most people say private schools give you is a self confidence to talk to anyone.

(Nothing prissy about the girls from Habs and NLCS by the way).

Oh what utter bollocks. I went to a bog-standard comp, as did my brother. I got into Oxford, he got into Cambridge and we can both talk to absolutely anyone. I'm a lawyer, he's a journalist. We both see our very ordinary background as a huge advantage, not a handicap that we had to overcome.

Frogs, excellent post.

Yep.

DD1 is getting exactly the start I want her to get in life, by being in a class which includes (gasp, horror) working-class children, black children, black children who speak a different language at home...and indeed quite a few people with whose values I fundamentally disagree. So she's got a tinge of a Sarf Lunnon accent. She's also doing rather well academically.

That's fine and Habs and NLCS as I said are very racially mixed and most children don't speak like I want my children to speak but I don't see why people should criticise my own choices. Most children go to state schools and many end up doing very well. More children from private schools proportionately do better academically and in terms of income over their lives etc but that's only part of what you pay for. Some parents enjoy the private school experience, grounds, activities etc.

I still think private school children are more confident but obviously there are exceptions.

I' mnot quite sure what we're now debating. The interesting point was whether we should divide children on various grounds - like educating them with others of the same class, race or the same IQ or the same religion or the same lack of disability. State school parents choose those aspecs too in picking where they will live - Tower Hamlets or Sevenoaks or worship as much as private school parents.

When, and only when, state schools, yes, even the ones in what you think of as good areas, start rejecting four year olds on the grounds of their inability to kick a ball, colour within the lines, pass 'interviews' and play in the 'correct' way with other four year olds will any of what you said make any sense at all Xenia. These things have almost nothing to do with IQ but seem to be to be clearly designed to root out children who do not fit the cookie-cutter template of a child that some schools deem the only kind of pupil fit to enter their hallowed portals. ie they are filtering out any kind of difference or disability. It is the attitude that this is a good thing to do (and that being in the same class as a person who is different is utterly appalling) that makes me shudder.

Gosh, Xenia, state school children go to riding lessons?! Well, whodathunk it?

And of course those state school children who go to riding lessons will be entirely representative of the state school population, won't they? And ballet, too. I'm guessing that what you mean by 'mix with people from different backgrounds' is 'share a class with lots of children from academically ambitious Asian, Jewish and Chinese children, and attend extracurricular activities with a few midddle class state-educated children'.

Whereas what I mean by 'mix with people from different backgrounds' is dd1 knowing that some of the children with whom she's spent her primary years in a classroom have unimaginably difficult lives in all sorts of daily Mail headline-making ways. And being able to chat with them when they serve together at Mass on Sundays or bump into each other at the playground knowing that they have seven years of shared experiences despite the obvious differences between them.

Dino, my ds says hi to your ds, and he's looking forward to saturday week!