Unsavoury reasons for avoiding a primary school

[spokette]

I attended church yesterday and it was a special family service. The choir from a local school sang several songs and they were absolutely wonderful.

This school is about 10 minutes drive from my house so I am not considering it because I want the boys to walk and I am currently considering four schools which are 10 minutes walk from my house.

A number of mothers at the nursery and the music group have indicated that there is no way that their children will be going to this school because many of its intake live in a socially undersirable part of the borough. One mother has actually sold her house and is renting near the popular CofE school.

After what I witnessed yesterday, I think that view is rather harsh. Those children would have been practising for a long time for this event and no doubt, the parents were supporting them. I just wish people would remove their blinkers sometimes. After all, as I child, I belonged to that undesirable category.

This school, btw, has good Ofsted report, SAT results (70s/80s%)and a number of their children go to the grammar schools.

I don't understand why you would pass up on a good school - with good results and children that achieve well despite coming from poorer social backgrounds...???? Ridiculous. Are they all part of Hyacinth Bucket's extended family?

Lol LoveAngel

Go with your own instincts and ignore other folks. Make sure that you look around the schools you are listing. People have numerous reasons for choosing, or not choosing a particular school.

One of the schools that I will be putting down as one of my preferences is another no-no apparently. High number of free school meals, single parents and dare I say it, council house dwellers!!!

With school I think it is best to make your own decisions about what is best for you and your children. We all have different things we want and different priorities/needs. I went with my own instincts based on my own research and our own visits.

That is true Hulababy. The school I am actually putting as my first choice receive a satisfactory grade in its recent Ofsted report. However, I was shown round by the children, I saw their work and if my DTS end up as articulate, teeming with aplomb, uncynical and full of joie de vivre as these children, I will be delighted.

It is also worth bearing in mind that snobbery works in both directions.

I know LadyMuck. One of the mothers whispered to me that she was sending her DD to private school and I made her feel really comfortable about it because she has received some unwelcomed comments about it.

I was thinking of things more subtle - not returning playdates etc. To be different in any social grouping can have difficulties.

Santa, absolutely agree.

Their loss I would say spokette. A school is supposed to add value to the child not the parents' social standing....

Saf your child is nice and is choosing nice friends with nice mums then the issue of what anyones house is like is neither here nor there.
As it happens I have lived in very huge and very small. We are currently at the huge posh end of the market and my DDs best friend is in very small. It matters not a jot to either of them - not least because it does not matter a jot to us or to friends parents. i would be quite upset if I though a friend would not have us to their home because they thought we would mock their house. Who would do that?

That was "santa if" not Saf - computer stuck !

Some parents like nothing better than to send out the message that "even though my child plays with yours and lives on the same street, the school where your child is going and is perfectly happy is not good enough for my child."

And therefore, by association, "I don't want my child going to school with kids like yours."

I remember a child in my school making jokes for days because my mum bought a dress for me from a jumble sale and it turned out to be hers .
My point is that that said a lot about her and nothing about me. I remember it clearly and whilst I was embarressed at first we all talked about it and I made some good leaps in my learning . Like how I had a much better friend who was REALLY rich but no one knew unless you went to her house because she never made a fuss. And how I would never have embaressed my 'poorer' friends about something as unimportant as money. Funnily enough she still lives in that small village we grew up in ( big fish small pond ).

Don't let that one memory taint how you behave all these years later. I really believe most people arn't like that - and if they are they should be easily identifiable - rout them out now! The worst thing you can do is let your kids grow up feeling that home is somewhere to be hidden or emabressed by. Our house was packed and messy but i always had my friends over.