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...)

why?is it not empowering to know, assess and discuss school results. why should information not be disseminated. i am aware not to be viewed in isolation and they are a blunt tool..but nonetheless

Yes but Xenia, if you would kindly refer to my earlier arguments, you cannot have people earning that much money to get their kids into these schools. You need unskilled workers, we all need unskilled workers, your most basic needs are provided for by them. If you do shift work and weekends at Asda (which is open 24hours a day, 7 days a week), then you can hardly spare extra hours to have a second job can you? Also, how do you pay for the childcare? And when would your children ever see you? Or would you say that their education is more important than parental contact? Perhaps you would.

You see, I've worked in a factory too, I don't think I could have held down a second job. I save up enough money then to pay for my first year at University.

Don't you see? The government doesn't want everyone to be able to access private education. How many children do you know have had a private education and ended up in one of these "unskilled" jobs? This country, this government, you and me, need these workers. We need them to have children and for their children to become "unskilled" workers too. So private education, University education is deliberately placed beyond their reach.

You are an educated woman, you must understand the politics of education. Your children are priviledged and will mix with other priviledged children. That's fine because I'm sure they will achieve something and make you very proud. But please don't insult our intelligence by saying that private education is available to all, because it clearly isn't and only ignorant people would say such a simplistic statement. I wouldn't like to think you were an ignorant person, don't prove me wrong now.

Surely you have done economics?

Oooh, what did UQD say to ST?

In general I agree with riven (as per usual) and Rhubarb (hello!). Also agree with Blu that a lot of parents are far more motivated by a wish to avoid working-class children than by finding a school that would really contribute to their child's education, wisdom, confidence and happiness (which would be my idea of the 'best' school for my children).

I think people in general play very fast-and-loose with the idea of 'entitled' - just as people have a tendency to say 'I have a right to...' when in fact they have no such 'right'. Sometimes it's a way for people to avoid expressing their self-interest in more direct terms I think. True, enforcible rights and entitlements are rare and precious. At the risk of being extremely pious, many millions of children across the globe receive no formal education at all. It's spurious to talk about 'entitlement' to the 'best' schools in a country where almost all children receive a decent (by global standards) education up to the age of 16.

I certainly don't believe that I am entitled to the 'best' school for my children; it's not possible for everyone to go to the 'best' school, and why should I regard myself as being more entitled than anyone else?

private education is freely available to those who can afford to pay (albeit a few scholarships do exist) nonetheless remains an advantage for those who can afford it. In fact the majority do not utilise private schools

but edinburgh has the highest rate in Scotland at @25%

The do have some merit scottishmummy but I also think they make parents feel they've not 'succeeded' if they don't get their kids into the top schools. It makes parents feel their kids have been ranked before they've even started school. i also want to say that I speak as a parent who sent her ds to a top-rated school (the nearest to where I live btw) and yet have been thoroughly disillusioned. The results are undoubtedly better than most but the place is dull, dull, dull, pastoral care is shit and the head is invisible (probably speands all her time perfecting her Ofsted-pleasing skills).

Yes i agree.such jostling for good places is firecely competitive and a wee bit toxic

Before I go to bed may I just add that whilst I've always thought that UQD has a beautiful turn of phrase, I fear that should he turn his hand to engineering, he'd be as much use as a chocolate teapot.

It's lucky that I have no desire, need or ambition to do so!

I made the point about Oxford, UQD. Why is the concept of choice OK for Uni but not for school?

I've been deleted ! There's a first.

purits - because it's totally a totally different kettle of fish. You are choosing course, not just the place to go. And places are not limited in quite the same way.

There's no such thing as a concept of the "catchment" university and there never has been. People don't "jostle" in quite the same socially aspirational way for places.

But you could chose a course at school these days. Now they all have specialist status, you could argue that a child needs to go to the Science school as opposed to the Drama school (for example).

Specialist status is a pile of toss. It's meaningless at a lot of schools. It's just a way of trying to shift kids out of popular schools into less popular ones.

I don't want my kids to specialise at 11, anyway - I want them to do a broad variety of subjects.

Sorry, would love to stop and debate but I need to be up early in the morning so I am away to my bed.

if everyone had the best - wouldn't thatbe the 'norm'?

as a parent i should provide the best that i can.

Does this apply also to people up the road?

bymydefinition - yes
and

Does this apply also to people in different social classes?

by my definition - yes
i.e if you're entitled to the "best" school why isn't everyone else?

by my definition - they are

Rh, yes I did read your original post that we need people to serve in shops, work in call centres, empty the bins etc. We could import those from abroad as we do in many areas of the UK. There are some countries such as parts of the middle east where the locals do not do any of those jobs but immigrants do. But leaving that aside we will probably continue to need some unskilled jobs to be done and there will always be a rump of people in schools who have the average 100 IQ or less who will do those jobs.

If economics decides things as is very likely, even issue such as discrimination legislation, then when employers want school leavers to read and write and add up better then the Government takes action to try to ensure that is so.

Individual parents however do want the best for their children. I live amongst immigrants who put every last penny into a child's private education, you might have 4 fairly low paid family members all contributing to that pot to buy a better life so the child can be the doctor or lawyer or whatever that the family want for that child. On a lesser scale that is how most parents are. Most parents would starve in order to feed a child. It's our natural instinct.

But as I said above the factors which determine how a child does in life are genes, the home etc too as well as peer pressure in adolescence so although school is very important it is possible to "do well" if by that we mean high A level grades and a good university followed by career from all sorts of circumstances. The trouble is that a very disadvantaged background makes that harder and a background like say my children have makes it a huge lot easier.

I don't necessaril think I am entitled to it, but I do think I am entitled o the right to try and find the school I feel is more right for my child.

No way to define best. What is rught for one child/family may not be right tfor another set of sitations.

2 points:

1. University fees are means tested on a sliding scale

1. Don't blame the children for the schools their parents send them to

David Cameron visited my town recently and the local Labour MP appaered on television that evening saying "Don't vote for a rich Etonian"

What's that all about? How does "Don't vote for a poor Comprehensive bloke" sound ?

I'm quietly accepting of the fact that my inappropriate comment has been removed, but I see the crassness which provoked it is still there.

University fees are about £3,100 a year for most students (unless you've very poor) but you don't have to choose to pay a penny of that until you start earning, whereas when fees first came in my older 2 daughters had to pay them upfront. So although they are 3 times what they started at they are deferred (although I am paying the children's fees now but that's my choice and certainly not the norm for many parents even those that can afford it).

(I see Eton and St Paul's are boycotting next year's league tables in part because the new governmentt tables rank physics A level equally with needlework so parents are getting mislead by the tables.)

Physics, German and Maths are generally thought to be the most difficult A-Levels. It's not surprising that sixth-formers are moving away from these and doing Leisure & Tourism and Aromatherapy instead. This is what happens when you give people "choice". It's similar to what happened in 1982 when they stopped proper school dinners and introduced a "canteen" system - the vast majority go for beans and chips.

Am I the only person that finds it at least slightly amusing that UQD draws attention to the fact that he's starting a provocative thread, then he's the one to spit the dummy seven posts later.

Just kidding, but TBH you should accepting that if you make a personal comment it is going to be deleted - that's the rules that everyone plays by. I just find the 'she provoked me' argument a little weak...

ST was just debating the point - she made a comment that many people disgreed with - that is a free debate, surely?

But scienceteacher's was a silly point with a personal edge, and several other people have said so.

No dummy-spitting here - I'm still here, still responding.

Well, I think she was saying that they as a family had to 'stop whingeing and go private'.

I think you are coming from similar sides in that neither of you think that a 'sense of entitlement' to a good education is right or helpful?

I found her comment interesting as I did an Arts degree (my true interest) and could make little money as a result. I chose to do exactly what she just prescribed - an engineering course to get a decently paid job. That actually was huge compromise as I found the work very dull at times. There were people there (some without degrees) who worked very hard to send their children to private school, though the pay was TBH not amazing.

Not everyone could do it, but many could - I'm sure you could if you wanted. I don't actually agree with that as advice, but I think her point was totally valid in terms of the discussion and doesn't excuse you insulting her.

But UQD you do seem to have a vendetta re private schools. People can do what they like re schooling their children.