Request a state school place if you want it or not

[clarkkentsglasses]

This email is doing the rounds aimed at private school parents:

"The idea is to try to flood the Council with requests for urgent school places from September. If they get tens of thousands of emails like this we may see them under pressure."

Basically request a state school place if you want it or not.

And just because someone sees the world differently to you, that does not make their opinions 'snide'.

"Carefully characterised sob stories"....no that's definitely not snide 🤔

@Pip67893

Because some of them are carefully characterised, especially the ones that are about "other people" rather than the poster.

Did you read the one about the poor plumber parents who withdrew their child from school at the end of the last academic year as they just couldn't afford the increase in fees when he was on 90% scholarship?

Nowhere else is it acceptable to dismiss the concerns of a parent which relate to the impact on their disabled child.

Quite.

@Pip67893

No one has dismissed the concerns of parent which relate to their disabled child.

If they don't see that they totally dismissed and belittled your concerns then there is v little point in engaging further.

@CatkinToadflax

I was not dismissing your own concerns, and I totally understand them, it must be hard not knowing what the future is bringing. If you child is disabled will their fees not be VAT exempt under these proposals?

What I was identifying is that there are carefully constructed narratives here which are crafted to support points against adding VAT.

In cases where a child is disabled then I would expect the school to make concessions for them rather than have them go back to a placement that didn't work. If they are so hard nosed that they won't do that then how can the school be working for your child in the first place.

I have disabled children. I also have children for whom mainstream didn't / doesn't work. I was also a child moved to private school because MS didn't work for me. That doesn't mean I am unable to realise that the majority of children in private schools are privileged. I recognise my own privilege, too even though my family wasn't rich. We've had choices that other people haven't been able to have.

There are lots of great teachers in the state sector. I did 25 years in it :)
I think this is a little bit of a Tu Quoque argument though

@Aladdinzane Im sure there are lots of great teachers in the state sector, but there is also a shortage of teachers.
What made you decide to leave the state sector for private?

@Barbadossunset

Different opportunities.

Yes there is a shortage of teachers, one of the things Labour will be trying to fix.

I notice you are asking leading questions hoping to get an answer that gives you another Tu Quo Que point.

Keep trying

Yes there is a shortage of teachers, one of the things Labour will be trying to fix.

Indeed. It will be interesting to revisit this thread in five years to see what progress has been made on this.

Do you not remember how things were in state schools between 1998 and 2010? I certainly do. They had money. They also had things like special programmes for gifted and talented kids. Social mobility you see. The current government doesn't want to enable that...

I left school in 1999 and went to a state grammar (because we were poor - so in many ways you're more "privileged" than I am - I actually dislike that word in thdle context of this debate because it doesnt mean much) but I'm just grateful that there was an abundance of private schools in my town which left state grammar places for people like me whose parents could never have afforded private.

@Onomatofear

I remember it.

I remember the extra funds for students with SEN/EAL or who came from deprived backgrounds. The fact that we had the resources to build specialist curriculums for some students to keep them in education. For example we had a system where some of our students in year 11 started to do mini apprenticeships 2.5 days a week, and when they returned to school from weds afternoon they followed intensive programs in the core subjects. They almost all ended with 5 GCSEs with Maths and English as well as a NVQ 2 in the area they had been training in. They almost all went on to do paid apprenticeships after and then on into careers.

However this took cash, coordination and staff. It was one of the first things to go when the Tories cut the budgets. Like the extra GCSEs that used to run after school to allow students more options, these were exceptionally popular with languages but there was also other subject available. All gone after the cuts, along with TAs, R and R points to keep good teachers in the school, and in the classroom, any kind of external CPD and much more.

I remember not having to put buckets in the portacabin classrooms cause they got demolished and new and well planned facilities were put in.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that would really have benefitted my dd3, who is now 15. She has always struggled academically, mainly because of the combination of ADHD, autism and dyspraxia that she has. Focussing is difficult for her. She would not have passed any of her GCSEs. I took her out of MS school at the end of year 8 because she just couldn't cope with the environment - they had tried their best but it wasn't enough. She started riding lessons around the same time and turned out to be brilliant at it. The yard owner is amazing and runs an NVQ programme which she suggested my dd can do. So she's been doing that the last year. It also includes the equivalent of English and Maths. So this has worked out really well and has given her the chance at a career. None of this is any thanks to the government, of course.

I also have a preschooler who has a very different profile, can already read & write and seems to be academic but struggles with her emotions and probably has PDA. With her, I have the worry of her possibly falling through the cracks because state schools will have children with greater needs than she has and in some situations she appears NT.

It's clear that children with SEN wouldn't need to be looking for alternative provision if this government hadn't screwed them over in the first place.