Feel under so much pressure about education choices

[strawberrycornetto]

My DD is due to start reception in September.

I feel so stressed about making the right decisions for her and for my DS and other parents seem so much more clued up than me.

Does anyone else feel like this? I feel like I am making a decision now for DD (and my implication for DS who will follow the same path) which will shape the course of her whole life.

I have loads of specific worries about type of school etc but this post is really about the more fundamental concerns about getting it right for them. I feel like its the most important parenting decision I will ever have to make and I don't feel up to the task.

Am I alone? Anyone got any good tips for putting this into perspective?

Good parenting, plenty of support, lots of nice friends to play with should be the mainstay. You can't look out for absolutlely everything, just have to have a few tick boxes if your child is unhappy then make a change.

I was like this last year and I stressed over so many things.

The thing is, what your child will mostly remember about schools is her friends and teachers and you can't regulate for that.

Just try and go with your gut instincts

Thanks, just called DH and chatted to him and he made me feel a bit better. I have to focus on one thing at a time I think and stop trying to cover off every decision for the next 14 year!

I think it's become just one more thing to worry about for a lot of parents TBH - just try not to fret too much, whatever school they end up in will probably be fine, having concerned and interested parents makes up for the short-comings of schools which are not quite the most wonderful (ie all of them!)

Ach, chill. No school is perfect anyway. Just see it as free childcare and a bonus if she actually learns anything. That's certainly what the infants' is all about, frankly.

I think as long as the school doesn't actively do your daughter harm, which most won't, you should try not to worry. I wanted my children to learn to read, write and do sums, to make friends and to learn how to behave without me, and anything else was a bonus (of course I'm not really disregarding the rest of the curriculum...)

I think its normal to be stressed. I agonised over mainstream or special school for the best support then have got ina right old tizz over equipment and communication aids. Trying to learn to chill! It will happen when it does!
And yup, I see it as a break from her 24 hour care.

In the big picture of life, it really isn't that big a deal. Apart from some truly dire 'sink' schools, by and large I believe our system is actually OK.

By all means try and choose a school which manages behaviour well- I DO think that's the most major barrier to learning, but your DC will get FAR more out of their educational experience if they're happy at the school and well supported at home. Yes, it IS possible to 'get it wrong' for a specific DC, but nothing is riven in stone, tweaks can be made.

You'll hear all about fantastically staffed and equipped private schools which offer the DCs SO MUCH! But you won't hear about the DC who just cannot be bothered to avail themselves of those facilities. You'll hear how such schools manage to push and push such DCs into achieving (read: get straight A*) but you won't hear about how they fall apart once the teacher standing over their shoulder isn't there any more.

You'll hear people complaining about how their awful school let them down- but you'll observe that they're 30 and have still chosen not to actually DO anything to remedy that perceived situation.

Personally I think we read far too much into this education lark. I think it's a bit of a displacement activity, a certain amount of living our lives, our 'could have beens' through our DCs. At the end of the day they're their own person and all we can do is nudge!

Good post gaussgirl. I wasted so much time worrying about the dc's school. They all ended up in this ghastly 'alternative' school with super competitive parents who were all intent on giving their dc THE BEST POSSIBLE CHILDHOOD (think Milly-Molly-Mandy meets Desperate Houswives).

I drove myself and my family bonkers with it all. Have just put them all back into good local primary.

SC,she will probably love it. Most children have a fab time at school. I think if they have a good home life and a nice group of friends they will do well.

Maria, ROFL at 'Milly-Molly-Mandy meets Desperate Housewives!

There's an 'outstanding' OFSTED'ed primary near here with a 48% intake from up to 8 miles away. I happened to live in catchment, but, retrospectively, thank the lord it was full when WE needed schooling as I have subsequently got to know several mothers from the school and sadly they are, almost to a woman, APPALLING! They are smug, competitive, manipulative and actually only give a shove about ONE thing, their child and how everyone else has to bend to accommodate that child.

Well done for your decision. Your DCs will thank you for normalising their lives!

I've never met Milly Molly Mandy

I must introduce you!

"other parents seem so much more clued up than me."

There's only so clued up you can be at this stage. Some of the absolutely central factors (will the peers be nice and will your child like the reception teacher and will your child be too tired) are completely unknowable. Though I would look for a play-based Year 1.

I only have one friend with real regrets - she chose the "outstanding" school for her 31st August boy instead of deferring him for a year and risking going to a merely "good" one with my boy. She is about it and that is hard as she sees my boy thriving whilst hers is unfairly compared with children who are not his true peers.

Another acquaintance was very sure of herself and her clever decision but has since said to me "I can't imagine him becoming best friends with any of the boys there".

And parents at the other "outstanding" school in our town report bullying but the school's attitude is "oh no that doesn't happen here".

so you see.....they aren't really clued up, and the ones who think they have all the answer are really the ones putting their child most at risk.

So very true. Not 'clued up' at all, just unshakeable in their certainty. Part of that smug, 'every other middle class yummy mummy is doing it so I won't question the orthodoxy, I will go with it as it must be right' thing that the boom times ('Only the best for little Jemima!') visited upon otherwise normal women who 15 years ago would have happily have settled for the local primary.

I can so recount the times, as an example, I have helped at Cub camps and encountered women I sort of knew as fellow helpers. I'd say 'Was your (8 yr old) DS keen to come or did you have to persuade and bribe him?' "Oh Tybalt couldn't WAIT he's been talking about NOTHING else and it's SUCH a good opportunity for him, he'll learn SO MUCH' etc etc. Now, I might know Tybalt and be a little surprised that such a quiet, shy and meek boy had suddenly expressed such uncharacteristic enthusiasm...Then, come campfire, I'd be there long after yummy had left- to see MY DS singing lustily along to the campfire songs and Tybalt sobbing into Arkela's arms!

My point isn't Stupid Tybalt, it's Misunderstood Tybalt. Yummy had decided that 'Cub Camp Was Good and Character Building' and 'We Are That Sort Of No Nonsense Parent' therefore she'd chosen to overlook, nay ignore her DS's misgivings as that might denote FAILURE which is not to be accepted.

You know way more than you think. Have confidence.

Some of the parents I know are incredibly clued up, know which are the good schools through good teaching, which appear to be good but are in fact the result of extra spend by parents on private tuition, whose in, whose out etc. A whole mums network that being a full time working mum I play no part in. I remember looking around one school with two other mums who obviously knew each other. I discovered that their dc went to the same nursery - as my son, for the last two years!

I think we all do the best we can and hope when they get to adulthood that our dc turn out okay. Everything before that is frankly a bit of a gamble. In choosing a school I went on gut instinct based on hopefully knowing what type of environment my ds would prefer.

Gaussgirl's last post has made my evening. and inspired me to continue to be mildly unorthodox whenever convenient

Gaussgirl, I think you must live in my town!!

One thing to remember is that nothing is set in stone. If the school you chose didn't work out you can always move them somewhere else. It won't be easy, but it is perfectly possible. I applied for all my local schools (except the religious ones) and found I didn't much like the two "best" ones on visiting. They went to one that was middling in Ofsted, but had to me the right balance between discipline and creativity. I don't think it was perfect, but the children made friends, liked their teachers and seemed to be making progress. Two moves and two schools later and they are still OK. Where we are now all the schools are quite good, so that really reduces the stress.