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...)

hecate, I hoped to make it clear in my post that your children's SN obviously puts a slightly different slant on your behaviour. Plus, as someone said below, there's a difference between vital needs and more general wants; it's absolutely moral to fulfill the former at almost any cost, but not so much the latter. My 'moral failure' comment refers specifically to those who think 'bugger everyone else's kids', even when their own children are already relatively privileged - I do think that that is an immoral attitude.

I hear what you're saying, Policy. But you know, it would have been ok if you had been saying I personally was morally bankrupt. If folks feel I'm horrible, I would defend their right to say so and say why. I certainly believe in hearing other people's opinions and taking time to examine my own beliefs. (I think I'm right on this though )

policywonk of course other parents feel like Hecate. Somebody who gives a false address to get into the "best" school doesn't care that they've taken a place from a child who lives round the corner (for example).

We live in a grammar area and loads of people are moving here all the time, either "downsizing from London" or being relocated with their firms. They all expect their children to get a grammar school place. Do they care that they are stamping on the toes of children born here whose parents and grandparents were born here? No they don't.

We are that mythical family Rhubarb mentioned. My DH works in a supermarket. I used to work in a call centre and at one point I had 3 jobs at the same time (one daytime job, one evening job and one weekend job). We had 4 children who we worked around so we didn't have to pay for childcare. Our earnings were low enough for us to qualify for 2 Assisted Places at independent school. The Govt did away with assisted places and everyone said good- only a few children benefitted. I don't agree. Why shouldn't bright children get a leg up?

evenhope - I know that a lot of parents think like hecate, I'm not disputing that. It's not a universal attitude though.

"I just think it's a shame that education is viewed as a commodity in this way - and that people who care enough to make actual proactive decisions about their children's education ultimately have their ability to carry their principles through defined by their ability to pay vast amounts of money to do so"

Pshaw (that's a wonderful word, don't you think?)

We live in an imperfect world .

Campaigning to change it is a legitimate course of action. Working hard to provide the best education you can for your children is also a legitimate choice.

But sitting on your arse weeping and wailing about it is really not productive.

And by the way I actually applaud Hecate. She's doing the best she can for her children. That's good.

Redadmiral - thanks, will have to check that out...

EBSW19 - "May Contain Nuts" by John O'Farrell.

Are statements legally enforcible riven? Can you threaten them with judicial review?

Obv. you know a great deal more about this than I do, but have you tried contacting your CAB? My mother used to be an advice worker and it's the sort of thing she would have raised a very big stink about indeed.

Of course no parent should have to stand for it, I completely agree with you there.

Policy- hecate's language (to me) comes from someone who has been in the SN system.

I was asking for ds1 to have full time 1:1 in mainstream. Now bearing in mind that at 5 he had the language development of a 12-18 month old and at 9 years of age isn't let out of an adult's sight- having full time 1:1 when he was in mainstream (mainstream not my choice btw- we weren't given a choice) was absolutely essential.

I was told by the statementing officer that if they funded ds1 with 1:1 then there wouldn't be enough money to go round the other children and yes I did tell them that was their concern, not mine. I wasn't having my child die (because without 1;1 he'd be out an open door like a shot, with no road sense) just so they could sort out their budget. IN the end I found out that a friend's child (with far less need than ds1 was getting full time 1:1) so I told them that I knew it wasn't true that they 'never' funded 1:1 (as they had said) as child X was getting it. "We can't discuss child X". I told them I didn't want to discuss him I was just telling them.

DS1 got 1:1. Mainstream was a predictable disaster, but he got 1:1.

I do understand that yurt, and FWIW it sounds as though your statementing officer was trying to blackmail you. SN children need extra resources; the state has legislated to provide for them; there is obviously (and shamefully) a problem somewhere along the line between statutory entitlements and funding; parents are absolutely right to kick up a fuss in the interests of getting what their child is entitled to.

Morally, I think there's an enormous gulf between what you and hecate have done, and the affluent parent of an NT child saying 'bugger everyone else's kids'. My biggest problem with hecate's posts was that she said that all parents thought that way.

What is a best school please?

terms of SAt type stuff I take it?

My kids are at the bests chool in the city (by catchment and chance), but in many ways its also been the worst- no after or before school clubs; lack of Sn support; too limites mix of people.

Now, thanks be to God the Head retired and things are on the way up (the Sn crowd will get my amazement when I say theyve offered to fund the rest of ds3's 1-1 to make the statement allocation up from 16 to 32 hours!) but it still shows that a posh uniform fcof w statrus and a few sats is not what it takes to amke a good school

Hear hear, Peachy.

I don't think it's right to vilify those who play the system when the system allows and encourages this. League tables, the parental choice mantra, faith schools, academies, specialist status etc etc have all encouraged this. And what is/ was the point of all this difference and information if parents weren't going to exploit it. It's not the parents who move, adopt a faith, rent houses in the catchment etc that I condemn it's a system which actually encourages this. It's because I couldn't stand all the hypocrisy and inequalities within the state education sector that I opted out of it for my own kids. Although I hasten to add I absolutely applaud the principle of state and particularly comprehensive education and am a teacher within the state system.

I can't understand a mentality that says I will not get something that is better for my child because by holding back other children will have more. I feel that's the morally unsond position. Whether it'#s me paying £50k a year for 5 lots of school fees at very good schools or someone with a child with SN who is shouting loudest to get more provision for their child or a parent moving house to an area with better schools. Who would not do that? Surely it's the same as trying to feed your children good foods rather than hamburgers, ensuring you don't swear at them, cuddling them loving them. I don't see how you can isolate education and say I will deliberately damage my child by choosing something mediocre but I wouldn't do that in terms of their feeding or whether I listen and read to them.

I don't get it either, Xenia.

I think the responsibility has to be handed back fairly and squarely to the state to whom we pay taxes for providing education.

I think it suits the state to have created this mess so that parents blame each other/exploit the system etc because its cheaper than having to sort it out.

Meanwhile, anyone who can afford to opt out does do.

Until/unless the state provides an education for my child that I find acceptable, I don't see why I should take responsibility.

I pay my taxes, I don't work for the ministry of education.

Depends whether you think it damages your child to go to a less 'good' school, doesn't it? I don't think life is as simple as that, personally, but my situation is different to some. I have had time to give them enough input socially and academically that I'm fairly confident that they will do well in an 'average' school.

I believe that the govt wants to push a certain percentage of pupils into the private sector or into home education to save money.

Xenia and ST.. I haven't seen a single post on this thread where anyone has suggested that they want to deliberately damage their child. I think you're avoiding responding to the many pertinent points that have been put forward in response to some of the outrageous and morally very dubious posts near the start of the thread.

Rearadmiral, I said "acceptable" rather than the vacuous term "the best"

Perhaps as others have failed to see my point of view, Alfie.

But I do see lots of posts in this and other threads where there is a belief that private school kids should be in maintained schools to somehow improve the demographic (not my view),