How many parents base their school choice on prejudices?

[huffandpuff]

Of course, I very much doubt anyone will come along and say they do

I write this thread to air my exasperation.... Last week I attended a toddler group and everyone was discussing primary schools. No-one else at this group was going to send their child to the school my dd will be starting at in September. No-one else mentioned it as a consideration.

The schools these mothers favour are either the CofE school or the schools in the area with a one-form entry, which are the old-style village schools. It seemed like none of the parents had done any research of their own. Their opinion of a good school was either small country village school or a CofE school in the middle class area. It bothered me somewhat.

I have read all of the Ofsted reports for the surrounding area and there are pros and cons to all of them but none of them are bad. I have visited DDs future school and there are some things that the school does well that are of value to me and my dd.

It annoys me that this school has been written off by other parents who know nothing about the school and base their opinion on the age of the school building, the size of the school and slightly less middle class in its intake ie.e the house prices are a bit less than the surrounding villages!

Thank you. That's my rant over with

I know what you mean dinosaur, believe me. I think I am prejudiced against everyone actually. Tempted to set up my own little school with one teacher and about 5 handpicked children.

100% of parents base their choice of school, such as it is, on their own particular prejudices, I reckon.

Cloudhopper, I know exactly what you mean.

I'd have the Scummy twins at my school any day, though .

I think we'd all do that cloudhopper . And then fight over who got scummy's twins.

I'm prejudice against schools that are more than 15 minutes walk from my house and that don't provide breakfast/afterschool club.

Sobernow, hope it goes well.

You know the theory that people pick partners with the same 'attractiveness score' out of 10. So if you are a 5, you are likely to marry a 5. If you are a 10, you marry a 10.

Well I think that is what is going on with schools. People want to fit in with the other parents. The only problem is that we probably all think we are an 8, when really we are a 6. And we want our children to mix with other '8's, but really they are going to mix with other '6's.

Sober, unfortunately, a lot of parents at CofE schools are not devoted CofE church goers. A lot of them are only there for what they can get.

CofE pretenders and materialism! Natural bedfellows, eh.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Isn't the CoE supposed to be the Tory party at prayer? Not particularly associated with meekness...

Interesting theory Cloudhopper. The only thing is that I actually want my dd to mix with a whole range of kids, 1-10. But then I'm passionate about comprehensive local schooling so I guess that's not a great surprise...

sobernow. How awful for such young kids to be coming up with such crap.

Thanks for kind words re boys, dino and Marina but am not sure they are deserved. I'm afraid to say that they have actually both been flirting with being evil bullying toerags as part of mostly silly but occasionally nasty little boy gang at school recently. We have all had to have vvv severe words and they do seem to be remorseful and back on track, thank goodness. It was my worst parenting moment to date.

That sounds very grim, Scummy. Hope the back-on-track-fulness continues. Not easy, parenting.

Speedyand Sobernow- sometimes the onlys chool in the catchement is C od E (us) and non- Churchgoers don't get a choice. y DH isntt eh least bit religious and would love the boys to go elsewhere, but he is ahrdly a hypocriye.

All my schools based on distance to school. Its all very well signing up for a school miles away, the kids learn as much from their social lifes and they need rest

Scummy. I do honestly think that this year is a ripe one for inappropriate behaviour in otherwise fab children, though. Ds reports All Sorts of conversations and playground goings-on and I am sure does his share of the rudery.
Aww you two C of E baiters! We're not all bad or Tory you know. It is v. liberating to worship at a church where there is no cachet school attached though sobernow. Difference is shocking I freely admit

No indeed. Sigh.
Thanks dino.

Dino and Scummy, can I be cheeky and ask if you have any opinions on ds's school issues ? [hopeful smile]

Marina, you know I am being very tongue in cheek. The only reason we no longer go to local, lovely CoE church is that noise=sensitive DS1 used to get horribly distressed by the organ, so now we go to an organ-free United Reformed church.

Frogs, I will have a look.

I got really cross when I found out that our school was being bad-mouthed by a local estate agent!! Unless they have personal experience, which in this case they didn't, what on earth makes them an authority on education?? An official had to give them a stern talking-to and a detention.

Fio, there's nowt wrong with that school - it made me the man I am today.

We moved to a nice area to get ds into his school. However, we could only afford a 1 bed flat there at the time until he was sbout 7. We never had any problems having his friends around who on teh whole had whopping houses. Only once did one boy ask where the upstairs was.

That's comforting to hear, Marina. Our investigation into how it all came about revealled that their playground can be a bit Lord of the Fliesesque for my liking. Not a nice eye opener, really, though luckily the school do seem on the ball as far as they can be.

Frogs- going to have a gander now.

My catchment primary school has a brilliant reputation amongst those in the know - ie anyone who works in education, or who bother to look at the HMI repoert (the Scottish equivalent of Ofsted).

However, I do know if people who were inthe catchment who haven't even bothered to do the research and have assumed that it would be "too ethnic" for thier child and have done a placing request to a school further away, which will mean that thier child will never be able to walk to school.

I have to admit though that we had thought that our catchment school was a different ne (actually closer to us), which we didn't want ds to go to - not becasue it was predominantly Asian, but becasue I'd done my homewrok and the HMI report itself acknowedged that the school roll had 98% English as an Additional Language - which I feared would be detrimental to ds' own early learning experience.

As it is, 60% of the kids at the school he has gone to have English as an Additional Language - but it is also extremely well dealt with, with the approraite additional resource 9which had been fought for by the headteacher over many years).

So you could accuse me have having certain prejudices!

There are also others who send their kids to the local primary school, again with no real analysis of which is the actually the best school - as Sicks and Muslims, they are not doing it for the religion per se!