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

[fireflytoo]

...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.

BellaDonna - entirely agree.

I hope he does something to help the children at these schools now he knows how it feels to have children in one!

I think Cory makes a good point about being able to relate to all sectors of society - this is what I worry about in relation to my own DCs. It sounds entirely cringeworthy and I am so glad for the anonymity the internet provides but it's taken me years to get to be natural and normal with my plumber.

There is no way on gods earth that I would inflict the sink estate comprehensive that I went to on any child of mine.

My godsons have what their parents presumably think is "the best" by going to their pushy London private prep school. However, this entails ludicrous amounts of homework, hours and hours of the stuff, even through the holidays, and end of year exams which are graded from A to E. The older child is only 10!

My DC don't have "the best" but are far better off imo.

cory - I agree. I had a private school education and although I did well academically, I was a total social misfit. Not wealthy enough to be part of my social set, too 'posh' to fit in with the local children. Horrible. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The sense of entitlement that comes with private education is pretty loathsome too. My DB has it. As did all my cousins although in their case it came mostly from their general upbringing.

I have never had any problem with relating to all kinds of people. Private education can make you better at that not worse in my view. I suppsoe if you go to a posh all white school for thickos in the country then you might have that issue just as some children on sink estates can't relate other than by being abusive to people who are posher but I think most of our best private schools like Manchester Grammar, North London Collegiate etc they are not really posh schools, they're fairly middle class, crammed with clever immigrants of all colours and probably enable you to get on with more people than most state schools manage. I suspect a private school makes you better at dealing with plumbers than a comp actually.

Not offensive, swedes! just amusing that you find it amusing! Sheffield has had trams for 24 years, Manchester for even longer. Two of the UK's biggest cities!

14, 14 NOT 24

UQD Last night on Newsnight they were talking about it no longer being PC to tell any sort of joke about Islam whereas Judaism and Christianity are fair game. I think it's the same with jokes about the North whereas any joke about London, Surrey or Essex is absolutely fine.

Xenia, I hate to say it, but I would like my children to learn to get on with people who are not clever too. I suspect that is the great basic difference in our outlook.

And if a school is fairly middle class, full of clever people, as you describe, that doesn't seem to me to provide the richness of environment that I am looking for for my children. I want them to get on with highly educated successful people and highly educated less obviously successful people and non-educated successful people and non educated non-successful people etc etc. The Oxbridge professor and the businesswoman and the local cleaner and the single mum on benefits- I want them to respect and feel at home with all these people. It's looking hopeful.

From Xenia
'I have never had any problem with relating to all kinds of people.'
Arguable, Xenia. On Mumsnet alone. And you make huge assumptions based on your own experience of private education and private education for your kids which show you know very little about state education or really much about real life for the majority of people.

'I suspect a private school makes you better at dealing with plumbers than a comp actually. '

And this says it all really doesn't it? Some of us don't merely 'deal with plumbers'. Some of us are friends with them! One of my good friends is married to one!

No answer the OP - no I would not select against my children in favour of my own principles.

However, I would not just look at a school's accademic results, there are other things which are possibly more important. Dh left school at 16 with terrible exam results because the very accademic school he was at was about as nurturing as a shoal of pyranhas. He is very bright and subsequently went to Oxford and did a PhD but he went a long hard way about it He would have achieved a lot more a lot earlier and easier at a less accademic more caring school.

The other thing I would say is that although I would not do it, I can see the advantage of having children from more middle class backgrounds in a school. Dh is from a very working class background and one thing I have noticed with his nieces and nephews is that they totally lack any aspirations. As far as I can see this is because they simply have not really been exposed to and are largely unaware of all of the marvellous opportunities and possibilities that there are out there. They have an expectation that they will largely relive their parents' lives.

The ideal for me would be to get rid of parental choice altogether (which is laregly illusory anyway) and have schools which cater for different things (accademic, skills and talents) with children able to move between them as different abilities emerge.

Why is the assumption here that you can only get on with people if you go to school with people like them.

I never understand this argument at all. If children are brought up by their parents to be respectful, polite, empathetic and appreciate that there are people in society with a lot less, then you will be able to get on with everyone.

I would suggest that going to school with certain groups of people is going to put you off them for life, making it less likely that you will mix with everyone.

Children need good role models, not bad ones.

You seem to be suggesting, Scienceteacher, that the kids from the council estate are necessarily bad role models who would put you off for life? This has not been our experience. But then my kids do go to school with them

I might add that I have met people from all levels of society who would definitely "put you off". If I were as naive as to judge a whole class from the actions of individuals.

My own (large) extended family is a great social mix, from very poor working class backgrounds to members of the nobility (foreign), and I have never noticed that those doing manual labour are less good role models than those doing high-powered jobs or engaged in scholarly pursuits.

It's obviously untrue that you have to rub shoulders at school with people of 100 different classes and IQ levels in order to be able to function and get on with those people (and even to ensure you're happy top marry someone with a low IQ, a bad job etc and why anyone would want their children to do that is beyond me unless the child were also IQ 80 or something). private schools give you very good people skills, ability to articulate, get on with all sorts, a tolerance of difference, better moral values often in some ways in my view and that is not the warped view many people have of them.

GL's point is true too. Good schools give you aspirations that you can achieve your full potential. It's one of the things I've bought - high aspirations. Someone I know said he was in a state school and all the posters on the walls for for nurses and plumbers etc in the careers room. Then he took his 11 year old to the careers room in the academic private school and the options suggested were much higher.

Also I fundamentally disagree that children who are clever benefit from being in a mixed ability class (although I accept many comps do stream children). Children will meet people of different IQ levels all the time out of school but they do better and enjoy school more and have more chance to bounce ideas off each other if they are with people who are similarly clever (assuming one has a clever child). I am afraid I find people very very dull whose brain moves slower than mine as I'm sure people do who are more clever than I am and most people tend to want to end up with friends and a husband who is a similar IQ level to them otherwise you're bored to tears in minutes.

I have made no such suggestions, cory. But there must be something in it if people use direct relationships with unnamed groups of people as a benefit of state schooling.

What I have said that if you are brought up with good manners and good attitudes to all people, you will be able to mix with anyone.

I see that mixing with the thug element in schools does no one any favours, except make them want to avoid them in the future.

Cory - Does your children learn Latin at their state comp? If yes, is it a comp as in Watford Grammar is a comp?

I am not from Somerset - just a typo!

How can you be so naive? Of course segregation breeds ignorance and snobbery just as it would if it was segregation by ethnicity or religion. And no where is that more evident than on this thread where the assumption (surprise, surprise) by people who have been through the private schools system or chosen it for their children is that their children will be corrupted or have their aspirations dashed by the unclean masses. Whereas, of course, if they go to a private school they will be allowed to mix with the elite and learn how to 'deal with plumbers'. Nauseating. Xenia, your assumption about mixed ability teaching just like your assumption that bright children cannot do well in state schools is also, typically, wrong. As for IQ making someone dull, what rubbish. Badly researched, snobbish opinions, however, very, very dull.

Here's a link about mixed ability teaching:education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2255677,00.html

Must return to marking the cwk produced by my lovely, modest student who has just got full marks in his A2 January module and is going to Cambridge. And who has somehow survived the state system for the whole of his life with aspirations intact.

A better link education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2252159,00.html

Good on yer, fivecandles.

I send mine to a 'good enough' school and know that I have done my utmost to improve the standards and facilities and outreach programmes in that school since my eldest started in nursery 4.5 years ago .. 2 years before he started it was in special measures

I am pleased with my choice, I am pleased with what my child is learning, experiencing and how they are developing

I am delighted that I can make a difference to more than my own children

and I'm especially delighted that by doing so I am raising the standards of the school ... I am exceptionally happy that this aligns with my principles, morals and sense of community

the school now has a frickin' waiting list fgs!

Interesting link fivecandles and great post.