"You have to do anything you need to to get the best education for your child"

[seeker]

Discuss.

Well, within reason but I'd stop short of flogging my house to pay for school fees.

I am struggling with this at the moment. I fundamentally disagree with the statement and always thought that I would send my children to the local school but as the time draws nearer seems that most of ds1's friends are going to go private and I am starting to wonder whether I will be making him suffer for my principles.

"you have to anything in order to ensure 'good enough' education for your community."

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I do believe that education is very important, but it is not everything. I'm not even sure how to define "best education". I would not put myself or dh under excessive strain job-wise or put ourselves at financial risk (eg in debt) for dcs education. I would perhaps move house though to get into a better school.

Would you profess a faith that you do not believe in, and if you would, what are you going to say to your children when they are grown up and ask you about it? Or are you planning a dark night of the soul and loss of faith when your youngest reaches 18?

Your own behaviour is extremely important in the education of your child

I wouldn't pretend to a faith I don't believe or am ambivalent about, to get my dd into a better school. I wouldn't be able to sustain the pretence apart from it being morally wrong my scale of things. I woluld probably move house if that would tip the balance.

I would fully agree that later educational oppertunities are there, and people take them to great effect.

I also feel that supporting and encouraging your child to get a wide range of qualifications helps to make things easier for them in later life. It is far easier to get a degree when you are 18 with no responsibilities, for example, than to go back to education when you have a job and/or a family to support. Which is not to say that it can't be done, or the door is closed, but it is a heck of a lot easier.

seeker, my beliefs are personal to me, as my children's will be to them. By going to a church school they have the opportunity to learn about the religion that is part of their cultural heritage as well as a set of beliefs. It is about the wider family/community, not what I personally believe. I want them to have the opportunity to learn and make a decision for themselves when they are older.

And it always seem to frowned on to choose a church school over a non-faith school when the church school is better academically - do people feel so strongly about someone choosing to send their child to an undersubscribed church school which is no better than any other school in the area?

It is such a personal choice where you send your child to school, nobody has the right to say you should go private/state, its your decision.

We have sent DD1 private because I wasn't happy with any of the local schools (moved here 4 months before she started reception so my choices were limited). It costs us £350 a month to send her and we are going through some financial difficulties atm after doing a full renovation of our house BUT we do without other things, £350 is easily spent on crap, takeaways, clothes you don't need, magazines so its all about balance.

She absolutely loves her school, not had one day where she has been unhappy going in so I know we have made the right choice.

Sobernow very interested in your comment

'I've been a Governor at two Ofsted rated outstanding primary schools now and the correlation between badly behaved children and middle-class parental whingeing is really clear. '

Can I ask you to elaborate a little? Are the parents whinging about poor behaviour of children in the school? Or are the children of whinging middle class parents poorly behaved?

I think that a parent makes a greater difference to a child education than anything else including the school. A child who has not be taught how to behave will do badly at any school.

Grapefruitmoon, because of the National Curriculum children learn about religion - particularly Christianity - at all state schools.

And if a church school was undersubscribed, parents wouldn't have to produce a Road to Damascus conversion to get a place - so that situation wouldn't arise.

Agree with you 100%

The desire to have the best for your child is totaly understandable (and praisewrthy to a degree) but to demand perfection is somethings else I think. Not only will it never happen, teachers being human and all that, but it is counterproductive

think you can expend you energies and resources inefficiently in the pursuit of a 'good education' for your dc.
the schools i went to didnt do much for me, but my bf, and a small handful of others in the year group of about 200 kids did v well. they werent smarter than me, but clearly better equipped in one way or another.
my bf had self confidence and determination.
so maybe spending time helping your child to build these would be more effective than working yourself into the ground to pay for an education you cant afford.

I don't think that the two things need to be mutually exclusive.

Working in a classroom can teach all sorts of 'non curriculum' stuff, like groups work, taking turns, sharing, basic manners etc.

The difficulty with (and for) some children is that they don't come in with the fundamentals for this sort of stuff in place. And in some cases the parents actively encourage the children to ignore some what is going on in the classroom.....small numbers granted, but the effect of these children can be considerable.

I'm thinking of a case of a bay who was very disruptive (at the age of 11) in a particular subject. When I discussed the issue with the father and the boy the father excused the boys behavior totally because 'Well I didn't like that subject when I was in school either' . At which point both he and the boy smirked. So I told him that while I couldn't expect his son to like everything, I could expect him to behave, if for no other reason that he was wrecking the class for children who did like the subject. This possibility had never occurred to the father, and naturally had never occurred to the son.

I have done the 'buy a house you can't afford close to best school' and was a pain paying the mortgage for something you were never going to stay in but it did the trick.We couldn't afford a holiday though for 2 years and also got us used to an area we couldn't really afford to settle in!But if it is important to you you will do anything and principles go out the window

What depresses me about our very good primary school is the number of little princes and princesses there are. These are children whose parents have obviously never said no to them. They live in nice houses and have all the 'stuff'.

"principles go out the window" Really? What does that teach children about principles?