Does your own school experience influence your DC's?

[Tainbri]

Just curious really. Was chatting to a friend who hated school herself and she is very bitter and cynical and she was saying how hard she has to try to even get through the door of her dc's school. I am sure this is a bit extreme but wondered if this is unusual?

DH & myself both had dreadful educational experiences. We both went from brilliant primary schools to sink comps (the only option in the v early nineties). I survived high school by the skin of my teeth and had an exit plan in pace from age 14. Got out of there aged 17 & never went back.

DC attends a private single sex school and it's heaven. I wish I went to it. We work very hard to afford the fees but I will sell the house before we move DC.

Well, I did very well academically at a GS but didn't thrive as a person. DD has chosen to go to GS. I have made sure that she knows it isn't the only option and that is it doesn't suit her personality she can choose to go elsewhere. Unlike DH, who thinks academics are everything, I am more interested in the whole child.

I was at a boarding school. I didn't hate it, but the experience meant that I knew there is no advantage to a child in boarding. So none of my children have been to boarding school and it was absolutely the right decision.

Gosh yes. I went to a middle class, "desirable" state primary where I was hideously bullied. The school weren't terribly interested and quite a lot of victim blaming went on. I had assumed this was because it was the 80s but I've heard from someone else that it hasn't changed.

My children go to a selective prep school.

Yes. Plus I've taught at schools where children were treated like shit badly, so I'm wary of it in own DCs.

Yes I had mainly positive primary experiences and realised I picked a school very similar to my own for DC. I wasn't unhappy at Secondary but neither was it a resounding success. I was taught well and did have friends but the pastoral side was shocking and I really needed it. I have started looking at secondaries and the pastoral side is my main criteria over academics

I travelled for an hour plus each way on a slow moving bus to high school. It was a great school but that commute killed me. Now as an adult I've never lived more than 2 miles from work and my kids will go to the local school even if it's not the best!

Not really, I lived in London all my life, I never moved schools. Didn't like it or hate it really. I pulled my socks up for a levels, until then I was run of the mill.
We've moved a lot so my children have been to four different countries, with three different languages and lived in 8 different cities. That's influenced their attitude to school more than anything. Now we're staying put or at least this is our base for the teen years, so they are settled and happy. They see school as part of a bigger picture, they are very hard workers with very little input, they are much more academic and ahead than I was. From the school of life more than anything else though.

I was bored and put off in high school- didn't really know why I was there, as it was all about passing tests, and not about intellectual curiosity or creative expression.

I have never been ok with sending our kids to a school that they weren't interested in going to, so they have all ended up with periods of HE and with a couple of changes of school. I know they have enjoyed their schools more than I did, so I guess we have muddled through ok.

As a result of my schooling - or at least, my own parents' attitude to my school- I've instilled it into my DCs not to think of teachers as gods and to question authority somewhat. E.g. I went out of my way to make sure my kids knew SATS are meaningless and just for the benefit of the school, when all the DCs' friends and their parents were getting worked up about them.

I enjoyed my state single sex secondary very much. Unfortunately these are thin on the ground generally and non- existent in my particular area state-wise. There are two selective independent girls secondary schools though and I very much hope to be able to send dd when she is secondary age as I believe in single sex education at secondary level, based on my own experience.
I am also influenced by my work as a teacher. If I can avoid the poorly funded and huge state secondaries in my area I will, and send my dc to private secondaries instead- I work in a private school now and it is a phenomenal place to be educated.

Many years ago I was put in the wrong stream for what would now be year 8. It was a year of wasted education. My friends were allowed to go and get educated in their higher streams and I had to sit through easy and tedious lessons. I was eventually moved up one set for year 9, and it took until about the middle of year 10 to be put in the top maths set. (Having come top of the year in the maths test at the end of year 8).

It made me very aware that my dd's education was my responsibility, not the school's. The argument that they are the professionals and know best has never been one which holds much sway.

Yes my education experience certainly affected how I approached my DC's education. I was much more sensitive to my DC's educational needs & actively involved in their schools. I'm not normally a control freak, but I am when it came to my kids education.