Would you send your ds to Eton?

[Flum]

assuming you could afford to.

this was going so well till i killed it

hello, batters

No.
don't want my boys at private school
don't want my boys to board
don't want my boys at a selective school
don't want my boys at a boys school
don't want my boys to wear cloaks unless they're dressing up as batman
don't want my boys to cheat in their art exams
and probably more but that'll do for the moment.

Hello bk and batters

Cannot possibly read the whole thread - too late, too pissed: but...in answer to original question...no, never, nohow, noway - I am so not posh enough (nor do I aspire to be) and don't move in those sort of circles.

Only posting at all really to say , Flum

(and everything ScummyMummy said too - especially the bit about Batman)

hey scummy!

quoting scummy - with my own additions...

don't want my boys at private school - no agree, at least not in the ideal world

don't want my boys to board - agree, absolutely not
don't want my boys at a selective school - see comment on private school
don't want my boys at a boys school - agree
don't want my boys to wear cloaks unless they're dressing up as batman - can't bear ds's superhero obsession, so no cloaks, period.
don't want my boys to cheat in their art exams -teehee - agree!

Agree wholeheartedly with Scummy ...

I just asked DH (who went to a well known public school) if he would want DS to go to Eton if we could afford it and he said an emphatic "NO" ... he said the same about any kind of Public Boys School ...
His reason? "Too elite ... too much of a 'club' ... not healthy"
He never talks about his school days and has not kept any of his friends from those days. They were NOT the happiest days of his life AT ALL and his parents only sent him there for the prestige ... he says it 'sucks'.

I went to Exeter University where there were loads of ex boarding school students (Tara Palmer Tompkinsons sister Santa was in my halls of residence ... what a name!!!)
I remember a couple of old Etonians and Boarding School people and they all had Coutts and Co cheque books, drove VW golfs, wore cream chinos and blue stripy shirts, wore brown brogues or 'boat' shoes, boys had floppy Hugh Grant type hair, girls had long straight hair that 'flicked' boys were all called Ed and girls were all called Harry ...
Seemed nice (in a kind of 'nice but dim' way) on first meet but when they asked what school you went to, if they didn't recognise the name that was it, end of conversation.
Maybe generalising a bit but that was what I remember about the boarding school crowd at Uni.
DH isn't like that ... which is probably why he hated it ...

ha ha at this thread, esp no bumming. ah Prufrock so dh went to The other Place?

I once knew an Old Harrovian - he was extremely good looking is all I can remember about him - my dh went to Berkhamstead and does have beautiful manners. He loved all the rugby and other sport.

nope not at all, nor oxford/cambridge, DH say's it's because i'm a snob and don't want to send my children there.

he'd send them thou

um, Oxford/Cambridge entirely different matter to Eton though surely?

Would hesitate over Eton etc as I don't think that dh and I would 'fit', and I do think that matters in those circles. I knew a few old Etonians at uni and some of them were perfectly normal, a couple were a bit odd and one was downright horrible. A bit like people from anywhere really.

Have absolutely no problem with the idea of maybe sending ds to private/public school later on if that is the right choice for him, although not keen on boarding and clearly would prefer to have good state school so dh and I can invest the school fees for v extravagant retirement etc instead.

Well, I went to Oxford. My father worked in a factory, my mother worked in a sweet shop. I went to the local comprehensive. We lived in a terraced house in a working class part of south wales. I met dh there. His mother raised 4 boys on her own and was a teacher.

Not everyone who gors to Oxford is either posh , priviledged or a snob.

Well quite, hmb - when I was there 15 years ago (oh god, I'm getting old) my friends were pretty evenly split privately/state educated. I know that at that point it wouldn't have been the case in all colleges, but in mine it certainly was, and they've made great strides since then too.

It's a stereotype that persists though, isn't it? Even lots of dh's friends from UCL (many of whom were waay posher/richer than me) bought into it.

Mrs Flowerpot, you are but a child! I have my 25th(!) gaudy this september!

I went to one of the supposidly 'poshest' collages and large numbers of us came from bog standard backgrounds.

My dad went to eton, as did his father, grandfather and so on. My mother was adament that we would all go to state school and be AT HOME with her. While dad is very self-assured, he is socially responsible and caring too. But awful with waiters and shop staff - really embarrassing. Also can be rather emotionally detached. I don't really blame that on eton so much as the prep school he went to at 7 (my god).
Could not comtemplate sending children to boarding school, no matter what elitist advantages they offer. Not much opportuniy for beagling round my neck of the woods anyway. In fact will be sending children to state schools. DH went to Dulwich and achieved much less academically than I did, despite having the advantages of rich parents. I had the advantage of a mother an a father who took the responsibility for parenting rather than passing that responsibility to a school where no matter how privileged the children are, no matter how many excellent facilities and travel opportunities are offered, children can never be as loved and nurtured by staff members as they would be by loving and nurturing parents in the home environment.

But it's not a choice between being loved by staff or being loved by parents - just because you don't see your kids every day doesn't mean you can't lavish them with love. And just because they sleep somewhere else part othe time doesn't mean that your home isn't their home - I won't be redecorating ds's room the second he starts. And I don't agree that children would automatially see being sent to boarding school as abandonment - parents who live with their kids can be far mroe emotionally unavailable and less loving than those who don't.

My dh is somewhat emotionally detached (and a bit hairy Jimjams), but I put that down to the fact his parents were emotionally detached, not boarding school. It was the reason they sent him there, not the result of sending him.

Re results Batters - it's not the main thing at Harrow (more so at Eton though) - they make a big point of providing a fit education - so if you are reasonably bright you do tend to come out with A grades, because you have the teaching time and suport to enable you to do your best. Harrow actually has 13.4% of pupils with SEN. There is also an understanding that sons of old boys have to be really quite bad to not be accepted - and they put as much emphasis on personality and other skills (sport/art/acting) as they do on pure academic results.

"assuming you could afford to."

is a big assumption. "Opportunity of good quality education for all" i cry loudly, frequently, tourets stylee

Therin lies its elitist nature Custardo, most of us are simply priced out of its market

P.s. Where will you send your dd Prufrock?

RE special needs kids and behaviour at Harrow, wasn't one of the kids from the first Brat Camp, the one with the scarey eyes, expelled from Harrow (along with a lot of other schools)?

No point being made, just musing.

"just because you don't see your kids every day doesn't mean you can't lavish them with love. "

intrigued by this prufrock...how? also intrigued by use of word lavish. does it come in instalments?

No cos I don't drive a Merc