Slave to the fees

[Uhu]

On Monday, I bumped into a male colleague who wanted to know how the babies were doing. I asked him how his seven year old son was getting on and then he off-loaded on me the perils of private school fees and how much it was costing him and his wife. He said if I could get them into a good state school to do so because finding the fees every year was such a hassle.

In the first place, I had not contemplated sending my twin DSs to private school so I think his point was nugatory. Nevertheless, I did wonder why he bothered and he said it was because he did not think much of the state schools in his area. Fair enough but I'm sure that there are some good state primary schools if he bothered to look. Ultimately, I did not feel sorry for him.

Yesterday, I saw another male colleague and he started telling me about problems he was having with a bullying boss and that he would like to leave the organisation. However, he is well paid, over 50 years old and does not feel he would find a job that would pay him what he earns now. He has a daughter (age 13) at private school and he said that was the main reason that stopped him from leaving. He needs to the pay the fees and at the moment feels trapped. I actually felt sorry for him because he is a humble guy and reading between the lines, he and his wife had to wait a long time before their daughter was conceived so obviously, they want to give her the best of everything. He also said that his wife wished that she had spent more time with their daughter when she was younger instead of working full time. Despite the private education, it is not a happy household and I sense there is resentment on the daughter's part. I felt sorry for him because he is a decent and humble guy.

It made me think that most parents do want the best for their children but there are some things that money cannot buy. Like spending time with them when they need it. Is it worth sending your children to private school if you have to struggle to find the fees? Children are not stupid and I'm sure they pick up on the anxiety so how does that make them feel? I firmly believe that if a child has ability and supportive parents, it will succeed at any type of school. Is being a slave to the fees ultimately worth it and what is the emotional cost to the family?

Uhu, You call US immature? Yet your posts could well have been written by an uneducated 10 yr old.
A complete load of tosh. You have no experience of what you are trying to talk so expertly about.
IMO your whole attitude stinks. What a rude woman.

blimey. I don't think Uhu's posts have been that rude - I can see where they are very very contentious but lets not go mad

just don't even go there girls....Uhu has made these points about teachers all being moaning old bags before so don't rise to it. So pathetic and 'Daily Mail' it's untrue! Hence my refusal (as yet another of those awful teachers) to even contribute until now. At the end of the day we know what we are talking about and someone else basically doesn't, and can't bear that fact!! amusing really.....and is 'participative' actually a word?

Has she? I must have missed those. The red mist must have decended and I blanked it all out

JoolsToo - I also remember schools not being so bad when I was there. But then, although I was in a not so good state school, I was in the top band and within that in the top 1or 2 sets. So I guess I was away from most of the problem classes.

Main problem now is lack of respect and ineffective discipline. The latter has got to come from the top - the Head and SMT. Without that a teacher struggles to make headway, and if his'her authority is challenged, then there's nothing they can do about it.

there are loads of brilliant state schools near here. So they aren't all crap. I do find it odd that people who teach in the state system send their children to private school though - sorry. If I knew that was the case with my own child's teachers I wouldn't think much of their commitment/support to a state school. And it would make me feel rather upset, as though we were second best. But thats just me

So if the only choice for a teacher in the state system, is a failing school (that they know from first hand experience), they should sacrifice the education of their child to show their commitement?
Its not enough to just turn up every day, put up with all the abuse and try to make a difference?
Honestly you whinging teachers you-did you not sign that contract in your teacher training

I don't think that the kids I teach are second best. I work my arse off being the best teacher that I possibly can be, thanks. I spend large amounts of time doing this, well over 40 hours a week, and I also put my hand in my pocket to buy books, stationary, Computer disks for the kids I teach. So far this year I estimate I have spenf over a hundrad pounds on things for the kids I teach. I can do this, in part, because my kids are being looked after in their private school. Their needs couldn't be met in the primary schools local to me. I don't live in my schools catchment area, but wouldn't send them there anyway as their life would be made hell.

Do you expect all your teachers to have identical life coices and situations to you? To be blunt my life choices are my own affair, all that you (or the parents of the kids that I teach) should care about is how well I do my job.

What do you do for the state sector enid?

well put hmb, I do see where you are coming from. And I suppose you are right about life choices but...its a shame that you are in this situation.

Hulababy, that makes sense. I was just going to say that. I'm not a teacher so I don't profess to know everything but my best friend is secondary school languages teacher - she's just left her job in her very rough secondary school which this year went on to special measures. She said the key things that make her school so dire is the management, or lack of it (ie the head) and the catchment area - i.e. the kids don't give a s**t and neither do their parents. She said she'd be lucky if she could ever get them to calm down and sit down in a lesson, never mind teach them anything.

My aunt is a head of a state primary in a very rough area too - she says she really feels for the kids, some of them are really eager to learn but most of them aren't and their parents are just as abusive as the kids are. The school is regularly broken into and looted by it's own pupils

Participative

Definition: \Partic"ipa*tive, a. [Cf. F. participatif.]
Capable of participating.

Final comment. Mumsnet is an open forum where people should be free to voice their opinions without being harangued. Those of you who have problems accepting other peoples views, opinions, comments etc are welcome to this site. I will not post on here again.

Good riddance!

!

funny you should ask hmb - apart from send my kids there and raise money with the pta, I spend a lot of my working life fundraising to support our local state primaries and secondaries arts provision, running free workshops for kids who wouldn't normally get the chance to do stuff that the local private schools take for granted. Only this week I have successfully organised a project to put a poet and sculptor in our local schools and work with kids to hopefully produce some fantastic work.

It does make me cross that I see this side of it then visit our local, very prestigious, private school and they have a sculpture studio sorry thats my private rant and has no place here

This thread has worried me a bit, and I just have a query for teachers, Are these kind of schools more common to inner city areas or are there "sink" schools everywhere?? My dd twins have just started local primary which is lovely but I am worried about what I will do when it comes to secondary schools if they are as bad as I am beginning to think. Think all teachers do a fab job, I personally couldn't teach anyone who displayed no respect or willingness to learn. Think alot of it is down to parents (sorry) but if they don't show teachers respect which I believe many don't then what chance do the kids have?

hmb, I'm also in the East Mids and DD's private school provides before and after school care. Like the one you mention, there is free care from 8am until school starts (8.40am) and then 20 mins free after school to allow for children on different leaving times.

There are free after-school clubs which go on until 5pm or 5.30pm for children from Y3 onwards. All childer in Y3 - Y6 are encouraged to participate in max two of these but they aren't compulsory. This also helps anyone who needs after-school care.

An after school creche/homework facility is avilable 5 days at a reasonable charge - those who book it and use it regularly pay slightly less than those who only need it occasionally (or last minute panic, like me!) but is heavily penalised after 6pm when it closes. Care can be provided but at a cost of around £8/hour, I think.

mykidsmum - I teach in a well regarded comprehensive in a leafy suburb. in fact 'our' kids get grief if they walk home because other local schools think they're stuck up!

The vast majority of the kids are great - but a significant minority are HORRIBLE. I think that's true of any school: actually colleagues in other local schools often comment that some of our kids are exceptionally arrogant & stroppy, whereas a supposedly 'rougher' school in a less expensive catchment area has an ethos of greater respect for authority. & I've heard some stories of pretty foul behaviour in the private sector.

My honest advice to any parent would be: don't worry so much about which school you choose. Worry about which sets/groups your child is in (is he spending all day being ignored whilst his teachers deal with the class psycho?), who he socialises with (is he spending every breaktime getting stoned behind the bike shed?) & who his teachers are (has he been unlucky enough to get ALL the incompetent ones? There's a handful of hopeless cases in any school tbh).

Sorry - bit of a ramble! But I do think that MOST schools do a decent job of teaching MOST kids...however in any school whether state or private, inner city or leafy suburb, there's going to a few appalling classes where no-one learns anything (except the best way to manufacture an offensive weapon from a sheet of paper, blob of chewy & a drawing pin, perhaps...)

uhu has a point 9please don't leave) and if we, all of us, can't accept the fact that everyone has the right to express themselves, then who are we to judge anyone else. There are good and bad teachers, good and bad kids, good and bad people, good and bad circumstances where bad kids might be good and good kids could easily go bad. I hate using those good and bad words but who knows, I might start another "PC" thread! Who cares, live snd let live. Uhu is not a troll, 'cos if she was I would jump on her hard, she's a human being with an opinion. If you don't like it, argue constructively and agree to differ, but if you resort to mud slinging and name calling, sign off mumsnet, take a deep breath and decide to come back with a kinder attitude and an open heart/mind/soul. There are people out ther living a life of hell and arguing like this is an insult to them. RANT OVER

I don't think anyone's any more guilty of namecalling than Uhu herself. Sure, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but if she wants to dish it out then she should take it too.

Can see very opinionated opinions but no actual name calling. Other threads have degenerated into actual name calling, but as far as I can see, not this one through uhu? Happy to accept corrections ....

kaz33 surely parents who send their kids to feepaying schools are still paying tax for state schools so really there should be more money available in the state sector for those that go there...ha ha.If only that were true.Very interesting hearing peoples views i must say but i think i will keep quiet on this one!

Thanks CarrieG for responding to my enquiry, I will most definately keep a close eye on my kids education, sometimes I wonder whether with all this horrisstuff that goes on in schools whether I would be better off home educating. Having said that I suppose we live in a pretty rotten society at the moment which extends from school, and all kids unfortunately have to face up to that at some point, rather they didn't though!!

Jollymum you sound like a lovely person, and I think your post sums up how I feel about this thread, why people have to take offence in such an aggressive way is beyond me, I often read things on mumsnet which are direct criticisms (not aimed at me) about the way I have chosen to parent, rather than argue I take a deep breath and sign off, it really isn't worth it, I personally couldn't handle the fact that by typing I could cause someone deep hurt about their character.xx

Have to disagree with jollymum (kindly though your sentiments are). I am not a teacher so to some extent impartial, but I can see exactly why the teachers on here took offence. Of course Uhu is entitled to her opinions but it wouldn't have hurt her to express herself with a little more tact and diplomacy.

Uhu, as someone who was harangued in a similar fashion because I didn't agree with what was being said, don't go! It's an open forum, with all sides of the debate free to come forward. You might not like what is being said, but life would be very dull if we couldn't all express our opinions without fear of retribution. I think in some countries, it's known as censorship.

Can you send a poet and sculptor up to my boys' school please enid? Sounds like a great project.

I think this is one of those arguments where fear, hearsay and misinformation sometimes inform the debate to a greater extent than many people realise. Just 1.4% of all schools nationally are "bad" enough to be placed on Special Measures, and an even lower percentage are deemed to have serious weaknesses, yet so many people claim that they have little choice other than to go private because their local state schools are so bad. Obviously a tiny minority will be living in the catchment area of one of the 1.4% and there are presumably also some schools which are only just not included in that figure. But that still leaves a lot of people rejecting pretty good local state schools and, it seems, bankrupting themselves for the privilege. Seems a shame all round really.