will someone scold and spank me and remined me I am a stubborn socialist guardianista?

[twinsetandpearls]

I have always made my feelings clear about private schools but the family has been working on me again and have ordered a proespectus for a private school that I have been idly flicking through and I have fallen in love with it and even - and this is a big deal for me - looked at the website.

For me this is a huge step and I am feeling sick with guilt, so guilty in fact that I have just re planned all my lessons tomorrow for my classes as some kind of penenance.

I need other socialist guardianistas to take me in hand.

It sounds like a lovely school which would suit your DD beautifully.

It sounds as though it would fit in well with the values you have as a family as far as arts, faith etc are concerned.

Where it falls down is in how it affects your relationship within your community and your professional life - your credibility and integrity are cast into doubt.

If you ask yourself "would this suit DD and the family as a unit" rather than "how does it affect me" then I think it might be easier to get your head round it.

Whereabouts is this school anyway? I want to get the prospectus

Firstly it is not bizzarre as if dd was to go to this school we would need to move which is not going to happen overnight. We also care for elderly parents , who acually live closer to where we would need to live than where we live now, but again another reason we just could not up and leave without making big decisions. We are about to move as our income is about to increase considerably and we want to be closer to dp family whom we care for but if we wanted to send dd to this school we would want to avoid increasing our mortgage, another reason why we are plannig ahead.

If I am going to move her into the private sector which is a big if, about 80% against and 20% for I would do it before she got to secondary.

I dont have the figures for the number of asian families in our town, it is very few as I live in a very white working class town. In my own village which feeds our primaries I never see a face that is not white, there are I think 3 families at dd school that are asian, one of these families are asian, one is from an Islamic background and the other I don't know.

The school fits in with our family as a unit but not with me and I just don't know if I could live with myself if I took dd out of the state system. I feel certain that my credibility would diminish,( although just moving away will damage my credibility TBH and I am going to do that in the next few years) I know I would find it difficult to justify my positoin to my colleagues and family and I am certain that any political career that I may have had would be over. But I am certain dd would be very happy there, and she has clearly stated that she wants to go and that she would be willing to leave the primary school she is currently at which I thought she adored. But she would also be happy in our local state schools.

THe school we are looking at is St Mary's Hall just outside Clitheroe which feeds into Stonyhurst,

Truly not meaning to be unsympathetic but am really struggling to understand the problem.

You like the school, you can afford the school, but it makes you feel guilty.

Uhuh. In the west, we spend so much daily on ridiculous and unnecessary frivolities. You can get your head around (i'm guessing but it's a racing certainty) unnecessary clothes, expensive house, unnecessarily large car, too much food blah blah. But paying for schooling makes you feel guilty?

Sounds just a teensy bit like affectation.

Twinset - my remarks about people assuming that private is automatically better was not directed at you. I sympathize hugely with your dilemma - I have had a similar, but much less extreme version over grammar/high school.

Interesting, that you need to buy ethics in a sense. But isn't that just a cop out just as supposedly Catholic parents say it has to bea religious state school because of religion but they're just pulling the wool over their own eyes even and this can be subconscious because they want the better school, better in the sense that the other parents tend to be more middle class etc - same point re Stonyhurst. I'm paying but it's not for academic reasons it's because of God. I'm sure God wants all parents to buy whatever advantage they can for their children whether that's good food, housing, the time to spend time with them or schools.

(On Asians etc there are loads of Catholics in India and our local Catholic church has lots of people from there so I don't think Catholic schools are any less mixed in terms of colour although in some parts of the country they are on religion clearly. It depends where you are. The Catholic school in my parents' parish in Newcastle has never had enough Catholic children to fill its places and it is very mixed of various religions whereas near here in London if you want a local Catholic school not only must you go to mass every week but also play an active part in the life of the church)

Absolutely Xenia - the Catholic schools near me are so oversubscribed that not only must you spend half your life in the church and be best mates with the priest but the parents must be married (hardly surprising) and they must have had their children baptised before they were six months old.

I know that the local Catholic schools have no non-Catholic children.

I can see that this discussion has moved on a lot since I last posted, it has been very interesting reading.

With regards to Catholic schools, I can only speak from my experience of getting my dc into a Catholic school where we live, a in a reasonably affluent London borough. All the church schools, Catholic or CofE in our area are heavily oversubscribed, as are the state schools. There is also many private schools in my neighbour hood, and a few relatively good state schools. Our dc was number 65 on the waiting list for the local state school, which means that they would have to fill two more classes for my child to get a place.

Looking at the prospectus for the Faith schools, they all state that first priority is siblings of children already in the school, second is faith and active life in the church, thereafter baptizm, further geographic proximity to the school and finally other religious beliefs.
So in theory other beliefs are welcome, but in reality when the siblings and the children of active church goers have been offered a place, there may only be one or two, or maybe no place for geographic proximity and further down on the list.

My husband is Catholic, our dcs are baptized Catholic, I am very active in my local CofE Church, doing lots of voluntary work, so we had the choice of either.

Our dc was offered a place in a very good Catholic school in the neighbouring borough (its a trek in the morning but worth it if he gets a good education - no way we could afford private at the moment). Looking at the mums/nannies in the playground, they have minimum 2 kids, maybe 3 or 4, so no wonder the quoata is nearly filled when siblings have been allocated their place. There are two other state schools withing walking distance to my dcs school, and they have a much wider mix in ethnic belonging than my dcs school, although there are different european nationalities in his school, and many children in his class are bilingual.

I think that goes for many Faith schools, they welcome other faiths than their own in theory but in reality when looking at the entry requirements in pecking order, there is no space left for children of other faiths.

Yes, just depends on your local area. The church school attached to my late mother's Catholic church in a poor area of Newcastle could never fill the places with Catholics. Nearly 20 years ago our oldest daughter got a place at our local Catholic school in London and at Haberdashers. If she hadn't got into Habs at 4/5 then she'd have gone to the Catholic state school but even then the fact her father regularly played the organ there never mind we went to mass there and all the children were baptised at a few months old was necessary. They've had to open a completely new local Catholic school too to cope with demand since then. We're about to site our first Hindu school too locally and there are lots of Jewish primaries. One Muslim I think too in state and a few in private system.

I think all state schools should be secular and I say that even as a Catholic.

quelle thread!

I do hate private/state threads. Twinners, I could never send my kids to a private school and probably for very much the same sort of reasons as you.

But if you make the decision to send your dd there (and I am pro the existence of private schools) then really, you Must Be Strong in that decision. Otherwise the misery will outweigh the benefits.

Can you leave socialism out of it? Can you stop seeing this as a Political Issue and just start seeing it as The Education Of Your Child? If you can't, then stick with political principles and send her to state.

There is a line in Ruth Picardie's book which came to mind. It went something like ...

"if push comes to Oratory in the New Labour school of hypocrisy".

Now Ruth Picardie was fab and she was poking fun at herself obviously but her point is valid. Isn't coming to terms with these sort of things part of living in an imperfect society?

Pointy - Don't understand how you can be pro the existence of private schools yet object to sending your child to one. You mean theoretically they have a right to exist but practically you cannot stomach them?

In this world where there is guilt to be felt over private schools, why can't you think of using them as being relieving the state of the cost and burden of educating your child?

Not that I get any of this guilt anyhow. Surely there's far too much parental guilt around to get angstridden about education as well?

"You can get your head around (i'm guessing but it's a racing certainty) unnecessary clothes, expensive house, unnecessarily large car, too much food blah blah. But paying for schooling makes you feel guilty?"

I don't do the above, due to my past experinces I loathe any show of money, so we don't have an expensive house, we don't have an unneccessarily large car and many of our clothes are second hand or I make them. My one flaw is that I like nice makeup.

Paying for school makes me feel guilty because in my opinion I think it affects the quality of education for other children and I see first hand every day the results of selective education for the very pooresr in society.

Sending my dd to a private school goes against everythong I beleive in but it is what dd and my whole family want.

"(i'm guessing but it's a racing certainty)" it is anything but a certainty as I said I am 80% against and 20% for, but that is a leap of twenty percent I suppose.

"Surely there's far too much parental guilt around to get angstridden about education as well?"

My dp would agree with you as I am eternally guilty about everything. I don't know if it is do to with my faith or becuase I ahve been very very poor to the extent of loving on the streets and very very well of and have seen the effects of bith states of living on people - both the good and bad.

I used to be a rampant consumerist and TBH I then was not a very nice persons and dp thinks that is at the root of this eternal guilt the fear that I would turn into that rather shallow bitch again.

OK, I'm skipping back and picking up on SofiaAmes' point about neonatal mortality rates. I was intrigued enough to check whether this had any validity or was just - gasp!- prejudice. And guess what? It seems to be prejudice.

2006 figures give the US an overall rate of 6.43 deaths per 1000 live births, compared to the UK's 5.08. Well, that's nearly 1.5 babies in every 1000 better in the UK.

2004 figures breaking down US neonatal deaths by ethnicity give 3.9 white neonatal deaths per 1000 live births agains 9.3 black neonatal deaths. So not exactly an equal risk for different groups there either.

There may well be equivalent racial and social splits in the UK, but I didn't immediately find the data.

Sorry it's OT about schools.

Twinset sorry I think what I meant came out wrong. Was not trying to criticise your personal lifestyle.

What I meant is that living in the UK, virtually everyone is part of the whole western consumerist culture. So inevitably you (as I, as most of the people on this forum) is part of a very wasteful not to say greedy society with really unimaginable wealth.

I am interested in what you say about the effects of selective education upon the whole of society. Why do you feel that this is generally undesirable? How does this manifest itself (Please treat this as a genuine question borne out of total ignorance).

According to this wiki article, the numbers are a little hard to compare, as the US is more aggressive in its definition of "live birth" than other countries. They are more likely to attempt to save an infant that other countries would count a miscarriage or still birth.

That may be true, and thanks for posting that link.

Still, the figures within the US of differences between ethnic groups are valid, as they are comparing like with like.

I just don't get the argument. I fyou send your children to private schools you benefit other children, you save a place in the state system, you are gifting £5k a year to the Government for 13 years. It's a huge benefit and saving. Also parents in the state system group around other similar parents anyway so you'd only be consistent if you moved to the middle of the worst bit of an inner London borough and sent you children to a failing state school - you have in effect to bus in to create a proper fair state school system. Picking a religious school is just hypocrisy surely - saying you're buyhing into the state system but then in effect achieving segretation by a more dishonest back door as we all know that in a good few parts of the country faith school equals fairly posh middle class school or rather second tier who just about can't afford fees.

Catholic/socialist - I think more Catholics are socialist than C of E but obviously not all of them.

Sort of valid, singergirl. One always has to take statistics with a huge grain of salt. The very first thing I learned in my statistics course at uni was that there is a direct correlation between the stork population in holland and the birth rate and that consequently jumping to the conclusion that storks bring babies would be quite easy (and obviously incorrect).

There is clearly a large income difference between most of the us blacks and the rest of the population. Though interestingly that difference does not exist between the US West Indian blacks and the rest of the population. In fact the West Indian blacks do better than the average. What might be intreresting to see is whether some of the health differences are due to poverty levels or to genetic factors. My guess is that it's somewhere in between. They are now finding that the blacks are genetically predisposed to be more likely to get things like diabetes and heart disease. There are also diet issues that vary from culture to culture. Or for example, in the UK there is a huge level of Vitamin D deficiency and high rates of rickets amongst the asian population. They believe this is due to the lack of sunshine getting through the more covered and very dark skin.

Anyway, all of this is to say that it can be misleading to compare statistics without a whole lot more information about the background. The health system in the usa is by no means perfect and varies hugely from state to state (like from one eu country to another). The powers that be would do well to see what does and doesn't work and learn from it instead of just blindly throwing more plans and goals against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Xenia - the argument is that if there were nothing but state education, then all the energies of all the parents would be directed at making state schools as good as they could possibly be. If Tony Blair/Prince Charles/Liz Hurley's kids had to go to the same schools as yours, mine or little Johnny Scrote's, they'd probably be a whole lot better than the average comp is at the moment. (Having said that, I had a great education at comp schools.) I take your point about middle class areas producing 'good' schools, which is why I think the lottery system is a more equitable idea. 'Bussing' would indeed be the answer, as they first suggested in the US about 50 years ago...

Or perhaps exceptional clever children of the middle classes are better educated separately so they can excel and then lead the masses thereafter rather than being edcuated with the lumpen proletariat of all abilities. Who knows? My children were of course bussed to achieve segregation in a sense - school buses to private schools a distance away.

But I still don't see why people have principles over education but not say reading to your children? Why not leave your own children to watch 10 hours of TV and go and read to the under privileged children? Surely that is the same argument. Parents who can afford good private schools and choose state schools are putting themselves before their children - they are selfish and wrong.

Well, because people who think as I do think that a more equitable education system would be a good thing for our kids, as well as for other people's kids. I won't be sending my kids to state schools in the belief that it isn't the best thing for them, I'll be sending them to state schools because I think it's the best thing for them.

doesn't the US system have children resitting a year if they don't do well enough - how does that do for a child's self esteem if it happens more than once,

The school I teach in forms many of my views on education it borders on a relatively affluent area who send all their children to the acceptably good secondary school or to private schools. For this reason my school is a ghetto for an underclass who rarely work, have failed themselves in the education system and are battling with social deprivation largely fuelled by drink, drugs or what to them seems like inescapable poverty. If more parents like myself used that school it would not be such a ghetto and the teachers would not be batling against a culture of negaivity and underachivement. I work very hard in my school with good results but I know some of my colleagues don't and they get away with it as we serve families many of whom are not interested in education, if the school had more familis who were willing to take an interest and demand a better education all pupils would benefit. How can I hold these beliefs as passionatly as I do and then choose to opt out for my own daughter - I can't.

Fact is that some kids aren't bright, and some are difficult. I recall at the age of 17 getting one test that but my intellectual development at about 7

Was a valid test, I'm utterly rubbish at some things.
The argument about how we separate kids for ability is so nasty because the more difficult kids are typically shat upon by the system.

That ain't necessarily so. Any attempt to teach me to draw or play soccer is doomed, and the time wasted. I don't like that, but it's true. Same goes for other people and other subjects, we who are successful to some degree are merely those fortunate enough that our flaws don't matter much.

It is also the case that a small number of highly disruptive kids can screw it up for a vast number of others.

We are doing education on the cheap, and thus most of the problems aren't state vs private education, faith schools, are small beer.

I'm sticking to my analogy of the health service. Some people need a dentist to sort them out, some need a gyanecologist.
80% of the education of both types of person is the same, but if for cost reasons we use the wrong one, the fact that one is private and the other a state employee doesn't matter.