Do you feel you are *entitled* to the "best" school for your children?

[UnquietDad]

If so, why?

and just a few other questions/points.

Define "best"

and

Does this apply also to people up the road?

and

Does this apply also to people in different social classes?

i.e if you're entitled to the "best" school why isn't everyone else?

Is there a middle-class sense of "entitlement" to the "best schools" in this country?
Is the problem that we have such a variation in standards of schools across a supposedly comprehensive system?
Is it people playing the system, moving out of catchment, "getting faith" etc, and making themselves part of the problem and not part of the solution?
Or is the issue simply one of being too obsessed by the schools that do well in the league tables and/or have a nice uniform?

(It's a quiet Saturday... Walks away whistling, hands in pockets... Gas Mark 6, set to simmer. I'll be back...)

If there were any sense of entitlement, the state has failed our family in a big way.

However, I feel that we have a sense of responsibility, so take matters into our own hands, stop whinging, and go private.

Oh, good. I have that sense of responsibility too. Someone give me an extra £20k a year and we'll go private too.

/shrug

study engineering at university and get a good job.

Well legally you're not- you're entitled to a 'suitable' education, not the best.

A good school should be able to meet the needs of a wide school community.

But I don't really see academic results as the most important part of school (I want my children to do as well as they can but I'm more interested in them being happy). I think I see education as important though (which is different from exam results).

oh have I strolled into the remnants of a previous row?

cool, UQD

See the difference between entitlement and responsibility.

What's the point in working to improve your life if all you want is for people to hand you things on a plate?

Is that really a good message for your children?

what! Science Teacher you are so far up your own bum.
I thought teachers didn't get paid enough.

Well said btw UnquietDad

Who said anything about being handed anything on a plate?

I fail to see how this links with my initial questions (all connected with the fairness or otherwise of the state system) and a snide, sneering, know-all, glib comment (assuming it wasn't a joke) which totally fails to take account of the complexities of people's lives??

A truer statement I've not read in a long time on this board, ST.

I would consider I'd failed my children if I did not teach them that you are entitled to big fat FA in life, or if they learned as little personal responsiblity as I see on some of these boards.

What do you mean, Pablop?

I really think it is more interesting to have a debate without personal attacks, btw. Then we can get to the real issues.

Your life is as complex as you make it.

Well I'm nodding along to expat (but still sure I've stumbled into a barney).

It takes an awful lot on here for me to feel I have to respond in such a way. People will know that. I will debate serious points which I disagree with. I will NOT debate glib nur-nur-hee-nur-nur asides.

I did, too, yurt.

Whoops! That's what I get spending the day IRL actually meeting the folks around us, just killing time till tea's out of the slow cooker before the emergency meeting in the village hall tonight.

Yeah, Expat. Maybe it's my American side, but I really don't feel entitled to much. If I get something that is unexpected, then I think of it as a bonus. If I am disatisfied with what is handed on a plate, I will not cry about it - I will go for it myself (as long as legal etc.)

I don't cry that I have grey hair, or expect the NHS to fix it for me - I pay to get it dyed myself.

ooh what's the emergency meeting for?

Well, I do have to say I am with you in that, ST, and it does even after so long here without ever leaving perplex me from time to time.

But I have found the more folk I meet here IRL the more I find similar points of view.

Perhaps it is a generational thing. I don't know and if that comes across as patronising then I do apologise.

Science Teacher it was the "stop whinging, go private" comment that annoyed me. That option is not viable for most people and to follow it up with "study engineering at university and get a good job" is completely patronising.

Fuel strike, yurt.

We'll be making plans to club together and see what we can come up with if the strike carries on past a week or so.