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...)

Could always go homeschool, apply for bursaries, take out loans or get other jobs to pay for private, sell up and downsize to move house, train for a new job at night or at OU to make more money.

I know it's not easy. But it's really as complex as you make it with the exception of a scarce few things.

I guess I've grown tired of taking the path of most resistance myself and I'm old beyond my years - and ALL of it my own fault.

My ds went to a lovely small local primary school. Times top 100, great Ofsted report .... Most of the kids there do really well.. Just not him! Yep, this great school was not right for him. Should I have left him there getting a worse education than his class mates? Not all children are the same and not all schools are the same! It's up to each parent to do the 'best' they can for their child. Who else will?

That was the decision we made in our own personal circumstances, Pablov. A decision that we were able to make because we worked our way up to it via education and hard work up the greasy pole.

We worked 17 years before paying our first set of school fees, btw.

but even given that circumstance, riven, you can make it more complex than it needs to be.

i cannot tell you how much of a mess i made out of my life or how much unhappiness i caused myself tying it all up into knots.

you have to fight, fight, fight for everything in this life.

that is most unfortunately how it works.

so in that sense it's a relatively uncomplicated choice:

'Do the thing that's less passive.'

well my dh studied engineering has a Ba Hons and is half way through an Msc. He works in a managerial position within a multi national company that is supported by the government and we cant afford to shop at tesco let alone send our children private. So piss off scienceteacher

k, you can't work, riven. but it's not all 100% about work or even money.

sorry, i'm not making much sense.

but i'll step out on a limb here and get flamed for a moment because it's just my small observation that for some reason quite a few folk here tend to be quite hopeless and of the throw-up-your-hands variety.

and if that offends again i apologise as it wasn't my intention.

but there is ALWAYS something to do. even in the worst of situations. if you keep your wits about you.

k, you can't work, riven. but it's not all 100% about work or even money.

sorry, i'm not making much sense.

but i'll step out on a limb here and get flamed for a moment because it's just my small observation that for some reason quite a few folk here tend to be quite hopeless and of the throw-up-your-hands variety.

and if that offends again i apologise as it wasn't my intention.

but there is ALWAYS something to do. even in the worst of situations. if you keep your wits about you.

Scienceteacher. Private does not necessarily mean best. I was employed at a private school with no previous teaching experience. I was not given a police check nor were my references followed up. I could have been anyone, but they were desperate at the time and so took me on.

Having a degree does not mean that you are automatically entitled to a well-paid job either. Depends on the degree. If everyone simply got an Engineering degree then there would be too many engineers!

Your "solutions" are too simplified and I don't think you have taken into account the complexities of life.

This is a capitalist society and we need manual workers to ensure a stable economy. Therefore we need people to go into factories and make clothes, we need cleaners to ensure those factories are clean, we need construction workers etc etc. These people hold together the very fabric of society yet are denied the many luxuries that their efforts, in part, pay for. So whilst the boss of the factory can pay for his children to go to a private school on the back of his profits, due to his workers hard work, those workers have to make do with the state school.

So dear, I really do think you need to intellectualise your debates somewhat if you want to be taken seriously and not have insults hurled at you.

So, Riven, we should all down tools out of compassion for those who have been struck down?

What will that do for the country, and how will that help us to support those who are unable to support themselves (ie those who have been struck down)?

I am very convicted that we should make the most of our gifts, and not to be swayed by the negative aspects of political correctness.

I'm pretty happy with it, thanks, Rhubarb.

I think we are all entitled to expect our local schools to be decent. As they were, it appeared to me, when I was a child. My family moved around a lot and my sister and I just went to whatever the local school was - and they were fine. It wasn't as polarised as it seems to be now, these were just the neighbourhood schools that every child went to. OK, we never lived on sink estates, but no-one had to fight to get into my CofE junior school, it was just the local school with a mixed intake.

Seems very different now. Dh and I moved house and pay a heck of a premium to live in a commuter town with good schools.

Mind you, the lovely little village school I went to for the first few years had outside loos, the headmaster didn't know about the two brains of the diplodocus (now disproved anyway, I hear) and my reception teacher had a nervous breakdown...

I certainly think that my children are entitled to the "best" education. I was lucky enough to go to one of the best comprehensives in Britain. Funnily enough all the comprehensives in the area were good to excellent. Even funnier was the complete lack of public and private schools within a 2 hour drive.

So, having come from one of those very rare areas where the best students and teachers are not "skimmed off" by private education, I am convinced by the potential of comprehensive education.

I think one of my current issues with schooling is the lack of responsibility taken by children for their own education. Those who get on and do well (in any school) will be those who work the hardest for their grades. I am utterly sick of hearing
"Miss I can't believe I failed my test.",
"Well, did you revise?",
"No."
"Argh!"

Hmm, have rambled about nothing in particular for long enough, and I'm sure I haven't answered any of the OP's questions, really. So rant around me if you could

riven if i didn't have shit luck i'd have no luck at all.

riven, YOU have to take responsiblity for the girl, as i have to for my disabled daughter.

i can't kick back and expect it all to work out.

i don't even know if it will.

but you know what? i'll be damned if i'm going to let other people have all the control over my life anymore.

bullshit! i'm sick of sitting on my hands and being unhappy with the outcome.

i'm tired of being pissed off with the world.

because it's useless. just as useless as anger is unless i decide to put it to use for me and mine.

and i don't know how that's going to work out. it may go as disastrously wrong as just about every other thing in my life.

in fact, i'll be mighty surprised if it doesn't.

but i'm not going to take it lying down.

I've missed Rhubarb

And funny how "hard work" seems to now relate only to the middle class. Factory workers who work shifts for £6ph will never be able to afford the fees that Private Schools demand, yet no-one could ever accuse them of not working hard.

To simply say that if you worked harder you would make more money is false. And not exactly an intelligent comment to make. If that statement were true then the economy would collapse. We need people to work very hard for the bare minimum to keep the economy stable, maintain levels of lending and so on.

i never said otherwise, riven. so you fight for it. keep on.

but admittedly there are a lot of people who don't do that.

and then are displeased with the outcome.

If people want me to take scienceteacher's jibe seriously then I will. And it was a jibe, not a point, which was why I responded in the way I did.

It has the underlying assumption that there is an integral relationship between what you choose to study and the financial rewards for this - and assumes a great degree of planning and predictability in people's lives (not saying this is what happened to me, but what if you worked hard, had 50K in an ISA then found you needed it for an emergency operation? or to get emergency repairs done on the house? or you divorce/separate?)...

The whole idea that if you want to send your children to a "good" school than all you need to do is get a "good" degree followed by a "good" job with "good" money is rather startlingly simplistic.