Do you get nice areas with rubbish schools, and vice-versa?

[UnquietDad]

Just wondered. I recalled on another thread having spoken to an estate-agent who said the key thing in what made an area "desirable" - for families, at least - was having a successful school.

Where I live, all the "best" schools (on paper) are in the areas with the most expensive houses. The nicest cars. In short, the most "middle-class" areas, if that's how you want to define it.

There must be "bohemian" places, though, where arty people who don't earn a packe live (people like me), and which still have schools where they are happy to send their children. And conversely I bet there are some horrible-looking schools from rough estates which do really well.

Any examples?

We'll never have true equality in the comprehensive system until the day the parents from the leafy suburbs are desperate to get their kids into the sink-estate school...

I think there is some perpetuating snob/kudos thing attached to some schools. I live pretty close to 2 really good primaries with almost equal Ofsted and SATs yet one of them is considered "the" school by the middle class snobs that mostly live round our way, and the other looked down on. I visited both schools and was way more impressed with the one that was considered "inferior", it was more vibrant, outlooking, had a better system of letting children work at their own pace, tailored learning plans for children who were not very good at sitting still etc. A friend of mine sent her child to the supposed great one on the grounds it was "the best" but got dissallusioned and moved them midway. But I find the kudos attached to this particular school baffling. Is it a kind of self perpetuating hype or desire never to see anything change, or some need to say your child attends the "best" even though the "best" is undefined?

Miggsie - it's just that people like to mix with like-minded people - all the MC people choose to congregate at one school (which is academically no better and no worse than the other) and for that reason alone it is more desirable in their eyes. And the whole thing becomes self-perpetuating.

what a coincidence Mrs B

I live in a nice area the comprehensive educational facility closest to us is rubbish people like to think its desirable but it really is the pits as far as pupil concern goes

Islington in north London. Million quid flats. No decent schools.

No kids in those million quid flats though, just singles and DINKYs.

Battersea in London. Very expensive houses, crap schools (except one decent primary - but you have to live next door to stand a chance). Secondary schools are shocking.

Everyone sends their children to private school (or suddenly finds the Catholic church, like Tony Blair, and sends them off to an out-of-borough faith school!)@MrsB

Presumably there might be areas in places like Bath/Somerset, Cambridge.. not that can't be right because they're both expensive for house prices.

Here in my neck of the woods (SE London), there is a secondary school smack in a conservation area of lovely Victorian houses at the top of the hill, right next to the royal park, 1+ million pound properties just outside. It is sink, and the source of a lot of the vandalism in the area.

The local primary school, however, in the same area, has a catchment of 500m and is THE state school to get into.

lol at yr last sentence in yr OP UD.

There are schools in very inner-city areas of the city I live in which have recently had "outstanding" ofsteds, and then all 3 schools in my (middle class) bit of the city got "satisfactory".

Mind you I don't reckon much to Ofsted.

But yes, I think there are schools where fab teachers and a good building and lots of resources and hard work can help disadvantaged children go from maybe a poor start to a really good achievement.

But if an area is middle class then those children will by and large be well supported and have money for books and other fripperies. So while that doesn't make em bright, it does mean the school's results are likely to be better. If that's how you assess a "good" school (it's not how I do it I shoudl add)

(BTW I assumed you were in London, don't know why! A Sheffielder eh?

lookey at this being in school catchment adds £165K to house priceSchool catchment adds £165K to house price

My dh's first teaching post was in Croydon surrounded by large detached 4 bed houses but the children came off the sink estate about half a mile up the road. When I was a child, I travelled 3 miles across the borough to go to my good comp. I think this is very common in London.

UD we've looked at Sheffield and it does seem to be pretty clear cut there, expensive housing = better school, but there doesn't seem to be the mix of schools there, ie church schools, grammar etc - is that because it's Blunkett's back yard?

But some towns do imo produce good comps. I've teach/taught in NYorks and the midlands in broadly prosperous areas and the local school are good & reflect their environs.

clary - not born & bred - just adopted! I still say glaaaas and paaath.

I know you can find examples to contradict my OP, but I meant as a general principle it's not going to happen.

heated - yup, Blunkett and co., with their lefty chips on their lefty shoulders ensured that a) there are no more grammar schools here and b) sixth-forms were got rid of. But the sixth-form battle was won in nwhat was Sir Irvine Patnick's Tory-held constituency of Hallam (now held by the LDs and Nick Clegg). So, the reforming and crusading 70s Labour council, with the workers' interests at heart, got rid of all opportunity to do academic A-levels, except in the areas of the city where you need two big professional salaries to buy a house.

This, among many other reasons, is why I think Blunkett is a wanker.

There is the odd faith school but they aren't that widespread.

I live in a very desirable area but the schools are a very mixed bag. The primaries vary from outstanding to satisfactory and the local senior school is currently under a "notice to improve".