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Original poster

Innocent poll: Would you willingly send your DC to a so called poor school for the sake of.....

309 replies

fireflytoo · 01/04/2008 17:45

...improving the standards of that school? There are often threads about all the issues revolving around so called good or bad schools. Many factors are blamed; class sizes, teacher child ratios, the middle class influence, sociological environments etc.

What I would like to know is whether anyone (especially anyone who gets cross at parents who move to good school areas or who pay for tutors etc) would willingly send their DC to a school where they know the DC would not nessecarily (sp?) get the best education....but where the school would benefit from having them there. (Presuming these said DC have supportive parents and the DC are quite capable of doing well.)

Hope I am not stepping on any toes here... I am genuinely interested in this question though.

OP posts:
Umlellala · 01/04/2008 18:07

PS if teachers were miserable, it's probably management of course...

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:08

We get kids who get A*s and 10+ GCSE's in poor schools y'know!!

Jacanne · 01/04/2008 18:14

My dcs are in a great infant school, absoutely wonderful, but it is an infant school only. The Junoir school in catchement hasn't such a great reputation due primarily to intake (rightly or wrongly) and though I am not over the moon about her going there (how I wish her lovely school was a primary) I'm not prepared to be pretend to be religious to get her into the only other catchement school. Then, of course, there are all those out of catchement schools that are over subscribed anyway - but I don't see the point of that particular battle.

So I am consoling myself with the thought that if I am an interested enough parent it won't matter what school they go to, and the hope that all the rest of the parents who are lucky enough to live in the so-called "pockets of affluence" in our rather deprived area will go for this school too - perhaps it will make a difference?

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:14

We can't all send our kids to, or work in, Mallory Towers.

Jacanne · 01/04/2008 18:17

Also I hear that the teaching staff are wonderful - I hope that is true - they certainly had a good enough Ofsted. It is just that once a school gets a reputation it is very hard for them to lose it and then a child in dd1s class is leaving to go to the CofE school because his mother isn't happy with the children his older sister is mixing with. It is all so difficult.

Original poster
fireflytoo · 01/04/2008 18:19

I am a teacher too. I know all schools have the whole spectrum of abilities in children and teachers. The idea was not to slag off schools. I think teachers suffer as much as pupils when schools become so called poor schools.

The question is also not whether you would send your DC to the nearest school regardless, because I think most of us do.

My question refers to the perceived effect of parents choosing so called better schools for their children and thus causing some schools to become "poor" schools. Some people have suggested that these parents should be forced to put their DC in schools that are "poor", to bring the standard up... in other words the school benefits, but the pupils might not. (And I do realise that so called poor schools actually do fantastic work. This is more about perception)

OP posts:
Jacanne · 01/04/2008 18:19

I totally agree with Umlellala about being an active parent in the school - I fully intend to be that too.

Orinoco · 01/04/2008 18:20

Message withdrawn

Swedes · 01/04/2008 18:23

Undervalued - I hope you are pushing your highest achieving pupils to apply to Oxbridge. They need to know before they choose their A level subjects that A level PE, IT and Film Studies and all other non subjects are not suitable evidence of attainment.

Quattrocento · 01/04/2008 18:25

I don't think I like the idea of sending my children to Mallory Towers. They put the lesbians in closets in those books ... and they weren't remotely academic

TheFallenMadonna · 01/04/2008 18:27

So unlikely that sending my children to a school would improve it!

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:33

The problem we have is a lack of role models at home. It is a challenge to show some of these children that there is more to life than the dole - which most of them are third and forth generation.
Yes Swedes. we show them the way and most staff at our school work very hard with our clever and determined students to ensure they aim for the stars.
I have taken my year, several times, for University visits and they are stunned that these institutions exist and -shock, horror - available for them!
Results in our school were 5% 5GCSEs in 2003 - now 37%. This is due to good staff. We cannot just focus on their school work, we need to focus on their home life and expectations.

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:34

fourth -ooops, sorry

Quattrocento · 01/04/2008 18:36

Yes that's all very well undervalued, and no-one's going to disagree but let's cut to the chase shall we?

would you send your children there?

and if the answer is yes, which I imagine it is, you old zealot, don't you feel worried/anxious/conflicted about this?

Swedes · 01/04/2008 18:39

I would always ask this question of a school - how many children don't get any GCSEs at all?

Umlellala · 01/04/2008 18:39

Undervalued, are you talking to me? Because I have been a teacher in challenging secondary schools so kind of know the score here!

I would be much more impressed with a school that got a few stellar A grades but generally a rubbish percentage A-Cwise (like my old school in Tottenham - hard to get A grades in Science if you have only learnt English two years ago...)
than one who had 75% A-C but no children with all A grades or 'should' have got 95%.

I think the point is - how do you define a 'poor' school?

Do you mean the intake is poor financially, in which case absolutely no worries about sending dd there.
Or do you mean the school is poor in results? Or poor in management, discipline and teaching? Or poor in value-added?

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:42

We live in a different county Q. My son goes to our local school which has it's problems. If he was unhappy there I would change it. I would remortgage my house and max out all my credit.
I have said all along, you do the best for your child.
I just hate when people think that good kids cannot succeed in these schools, I see different every year.

Original poster
fireflytoo · 01/04/2008 18:43

I think I mean poor in image, poor in the minds of the parents who choose not to send the DC's there.... management, discipline and teaching I think comes closest.

OP posts:
Dottydot · 01/04/2008 18:48

dp and I argue about this quite a lot... She's one for putting bright children in crap schools because it's the only way (or one of the ways) it'll improve.

I'm a 'sod that' kind of person and would send them to the best school I possibly could!

Both of us would think we were doing the right thing.

Fortunately ds's go to a fab primary school that has a wide mix of family backgrounds, is supportive and seems to do well. Secondary school's a bit more scary so I'm getting ready to do battle with dp in a few years' time!

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:48

I teach in an economically poor area, inner city in the north. These tend to be the poor schools as they are generally seen as having poor expectations, poor aspirations, poor behaviour and the rest.
No Um, I am not talking to you personally - just generally.
I have worked in a so called beacon school - results 97%. The pressures are different - lovely behaviour though. I enjoyed it but I love it where I am.

Umlellala · 01/04/2008 18:48

Oh, I have said this before on threads like this and I should prob stay clear because I am not very eloquent today

BUT

I learnt loads from going to a v small school on a council estate (rather than the 'better' one down the road). I learnt how to read and write. And I learnt how lucky I was and lots of social lessons too.

My view is that dd (and ds to come) )will be fine wherever. I want her to be resilient enough to deal with real life. For me, the social experience of school and mixing with a variety of people from a variety of different backgrounds is far more important than going to Oxbridge (although, if she wanted to then I am sure she could). I don't know yet how smart my dd is but I suspect she will do pretty well at GCSE - this more down to parents than schools.

It will be fine!

undervalued · 01/04/2008 18:56

I think that's why the thread was started. Sadly too many 'good' kids are staying away from schools like the one I work at. I see their POV but agree with umlellala, good kids will succeed wherever you sent them.
Parental involvement and interest in your Dc is the difference. Sadly most of our kids don't have parents who give a stuff. We have our ways of getting their attention though.

policywonk · 01/04/2008 19:02

Umlellala - can you think of any state schools that you would not be happy to send your children to? What things would you specifically avoid (or is it not that simple)?

Judy1234 · 01/04/2008 19:03

It was important to us. We wanted schools which were in the top 10 - 20 in the country out of all sectors for A levels, music, sports, facilities and were prepared to work to pay for that. It's worked out well and the 3 children at university stage seem to have benefited from a good education. Why would any school benefit from having had them in its class anyway? Have other children really lost out because they didn't spend 13 years in class next to the hallowed Xenia off spring?

The principle that you sacrifice your child to benefit others because of your political principles is not very morally sound in my view. I fyou're that bothered you'd be better off giving up a day's pay a week to volunteer to mentor children from rough schools.

Jacanne · 01/04/2008 19:12

I don't think it is that schools benefit from having your children - it is that they benefit from having interested and involved parents.

For example, dd1's school are very open and have lots of workshops for you to attend, learning conferences every term, learning festivals (where you go in an spend time working with your child in class on the kinds of things that they have been doing). Recently there was a reading workshop, open to the whole school, lead by the literacy coordinator - only 7 parents turned up.

We constantly tried to involve parents in literacy and numeracy workshops in the school I taught at - the apathy was overwhelming. I know that some parents have to work - but I am sure that there were more than 7 available on that particular day - oh there was a free creche available too.