Is it very important for children to go to a good primary school?

[LucyJones]

Or will they thrive whereever they go?
We live near a pretty bad school. We want to move to a better one but can't really afford to.
Dh told me last night he is beating himself up over it. He feels he has a duty to get them into the best primary scholl possible as it will have an impact on the rest of their lives. Is he completely overeacting or do we need to bust a gut to get the dcs into a good primary school rather than an average or below average one?

My DS1 attends our catchment school, it is not the 'best' school in the area but its results have started going up over the last few years. The school has a mix of children from different backgrounds and it is never an oversubscribed school.
However, the teachers at the school are lovely and it is a very welcoming school. DS may mix with some children he wouldn't at one of the 'better' schools but it has not adversly affected him and he is definitely thriving there.
I would recommend visiting the school and judging it purely on how the children and teachers are rather than on OFSTED reports.

Anna - A Q for a friend of mine who lives in France. Do you find that children do much more with their families than with their friends during the holidays and weekends than is the case in the UK?

Yes.

Weekends are family time. Couples are culturally pre-disposed to spend every minute together at the weekend, to socialise together and with other couples, and families spend a lot of time together and socialising with other families.

During the week children socialise with other children in the locality, probably children they are at school with, without their parents (ie at the playground, in the company of nannies and babysitters).

"Personally I would not worry about friends on the doorstep below the age of 10."

I think it's below the age of 10 that having friends on your doorstep is important. There are precisely 11 children under 10 around us. I know this because they take it in turns to eat people out of house and home. Tis nice. They won't be doing this later in life.

And in the holidays, children are often packed off to grandparents for several weeks while their parents are working, and then they go on a family holiday.

Though older children go to "colonies" where there are only children of their age.

On the friends on the doorstep issue, it is in any case a long-term issue for us, since any school I choose for my daughter now will most likely be the school she stays at until 18. And we cannot move house to be nearer for at least another 8 years.

Hmm... it depends what you mean by good and bad. Our school has just had a stinker of an Ofsted report (apparently - we haven't seen it yet but we were pre-warned by the school). We are minus a HT atm and I think that situation contributed, so we are getting one sent by LEA and will be inspected every 6m for a while. SO all in all not good. But d'you know what? It makes no difference to me. I have 2 children in the school and they are happy, settled and doing well academically. They might be doing better academically somewhere else but there is no way of knowing that. And they might also be less happy. How well your child does is the only yardstick you can use...(which I appreciate makes it hard for a parent trying to decide which school to choose in the first place).

How do you know it's 'bad' - according to Ofsted, other parents (who don't always give a totally unbiased account btw), results, the behaviour of the children out of school? Sometimes schools get a bad rep which is till hanging around years after the school has improved.

No.

My husband went to public schools (about 3 different, but don't quote me on that) and he is braaaaiiiny (apart from when it comes to following a shopping list and bringing it all back).
I went to a private (and I mean very private, where the royal children went) school, and I really did not get much out of it. Not saying that I am stupid, but academically I am just not "there" .

I feel it depends on how much your children wants to learn (this is where the parents come in to the picture).
How good the teachers are (you can get good and bad teachers in both public and private schools).

i agree with you ormirian and it bugs me so much that people think i've send my son to a less than great school. it has a speech and language base on site, which my son uses.

he loves his school and has friends that live nearby, so we won't have to drive him here and there to meet up with them after school.

my ds(13) went to the same school and still sees friends from the primary school. it's important that they feel part of the local community imo.

maisemor - in England a public school IS a private school. Don't think the OP was asking a question about private vs state education. Think it was asking about moving to get into a better state primary.

Hurly - In my last house (a village) my two older children went to a different school from all the other children in the village. I found that they played with the children in the village MORE than they did their school friends. So therefore I do not think it matters that the school friends are not on the doorstep.
I think that changes a bit at high school age though.

LucyJones, there's lots of good advice here, generally conflicting. I think you do have to see the schools yourself.

I would also suggest finding out if the local education authority have a questions and answers session - ours do one with the NCT - or meeting them, and focussing in on waiting lists, moving schools and catchment areas. If the local school turns out to be bad for the DCs, you can move after a couple of years. Then you would know whether the mega-mortgage was something you had to do or not.

The other thing you could do, depending how bad it all was, would be to rent out your house, and rent in the catchment area of the good school, till your oldest child got in/started. This might well be for about 18 months: in my part of London the relevant address is the place you live when the offer is made, but elsewhere they need you to still live there at the start of term. If they have a siblings policy, you're then safe to move back to your own house.

FWIW, DS1 is just about to start at the least good of the 3 state schools local to us. Not a bad school, just not as good as the others. We have been cheered up by already finding 2 other boys in the same class with parents who are as obsessed with education as we are: if they find some other pals and sit at a table together, the school could work well for us, regardless of its catchment area.

Actually I don't think the advice here is conflicting.

Posters who say to move mean if the school really would be a "bad" one ie a place where LJ's child would not do well.

Other posters are warning against making this decision on Ofsted and SATs results alone. I would definitely go an dlook round and get a good feel for the school, and any others you may be considering.

LucyJones, what was the overall rating o0n the schools OFSTED?

If the school is in special measures then I would not touch it with a barge pole. I would be extremely wary of a school that has been given a notice to improve.

Contray to popular belief OFSTED usually write fair reports. The schools that I have had experience of working in have all been given unbelievably accurate OFSTED reports.

However if Ofsted has rated the school as satisfactory or higher then the school is probably fine.

reallytired - how would you react in my situation? If your school has been given notice to improve (which I think has happened to our school) but as far as you are concerned it's doing a good job for your kids? Because although I'm really pleased with my childrens' progress and I know they are happy and secure there, I can't help worrying as my third child is due to start next week. What does 'notice to improve' actually mean in practice? Will it have any negative impact on the pupils?

Assuming from your previous comments that you are a teacher?

I'm not a teacher I do ICT support. I am just expressing an opinon. I have done various support jobs in schools.

I have worked in 5 schools doing support jobs and I think that the ofsted reports for all five schools have been very close to the truth. Admitally its hard to judge the quality of the education doing a support role, but I think I can judge the happiness of the children.

I have never worked in a school that has been in special measures, but I have worked in a school that had a notice to improve. (It was 100% deserved!) The particular school was not a happy place for either the kids or staff.

OrmIrian, I can't comment. You have to decide what is best for your kids. Why has the school been told to improve? Maybe the problems with the school do not affect your kids directly.

Thanks reallytired! I apologies - I just assumed. I do appreciate your opinion as I'm feeling a bit at sea atm. Happily pootling along with my children in a school where they (and the majority of the others as far as I know) are happy, the kids are well-behaved and friendly (they frequently get letters from places they visit telling the school how perfectly they behaved on their visit). Aparently the inspectors complimented the school on the children's behaviour and the pride they showed in the school. We haven't seen the report but the SATS results have not improved over the last few years for a fairly low start (mine do OK) . So I assume that didn't help. And we have had no HT for nearly a year - he's been off with stress. And according the the letter improvement is needed in the foundation stages. So all in all I'm a bit confused and edgy about it all.

CissyC, on boys and girls... we chose an all boys fee paying prep school for that reason. All the lessons are boy orientated, sport every day, books read, boy books, no girls with their differences (and in many cases superiority at this age), respect for the boy rather than criticism of boys for doing what boys do. So that is another issue for some parents, wanting single sex education which not many state primaries give, perhaps none. We have a few state secondaries here which are all of one sex or the other.

Yes, but education can be so geared to girls it helps boys if they're educated separately. Same with clever and not clever children. No point throwing them together as clever children can be held back.

Xenia, Yes, I agree. With non streamed teaching the issue is not only that the brighter children are not fed, but children at the other end of the spectrum do not get the help they need either. They teach to the class average (which is fair) - so great if you are average I suppose!

At least in England there is recognition of some differences... here in France all education is mixed sex (bar a teens-weensy number of ultra Catholic establishments) and streaming is illegal in primary school, and early secondary.

Hurlyburly my point still remains the same though, it is up to the child whether he wants to learn, the parents whether they want to encourage the child, and the teacher whether he/she is good at teaching.

Really does not matter which school you go to.

But could English private schools set up in France offering those options and would French parents then flock there to get the choice of single sex, academic selection etc?