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Education

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bbc news tonight - parents lying to get into schools made me wonder...

328 replies

jollygumbear · 02/11/2009 19:00

if you rent your house out and then rent yourself in catchment and live there for a year does that make the application for the school illegal?

i won't say "wrong" as that's another thread as its all about personal opinion!

thanks

OP posts:
lisianthus · 05/11/2009 11:59

Thanks ISNT. My goodness, what a palaver. I'll dig out my walking shes then!

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 12:06

Have a good look at the relevant section on your council website first is my advice. Might save you the journey!

ABetaDad · 05/11/2009 14:08

I'm loving the 'body of water' envy!

Xenia - I never realised a lake was such a key indicator. My old school only had a fairly large puddle. I'll raise you an entire river and a boathouse at my DSs school but they do seem to have rather missed out on "class, accent and best exam results".

ZephirineDrouhin · 05/11/2009 14:22

My school had a lake. Well we used to call it a lake - looking back perhaps it was just a rather large pond. And I'm not sure it actually belonged to the school. But we used to go there to smoke fags.

Anyway, it didn't do me any good.

Deadworm · 05/11/2009 14:26

Our playground used to flood sometimes. And the portakabin classrooms were v. damp

ZephirineDrouhin · 05/11/2009 14:33
Grin
selectivememory · 05/11/2009 15:36

One of my schools had an island and a moat... and it was a state school (shudder from Xenia).

ABetaDad · 05/11/2009 18:30

Did it have a duck house?

selectivememory · 05/11/2009 20:04

Not that I know of, but it did turn into a comprehensive, was a girls' grammar school originally!!!

However, this is getting very off topic. Just pointing out that Xenia talks a
load of tosh sometimes may fool people that a private education is the only way to top examination results and being able to speak nicely.

Judy1234 · 05/11/2009 20:35

It's a huge lot easier to pay than all this fussing over tape measures and buying expensive houses to be in catchments only to find they change the rules though.... And paying makes a massive different. 6% of children go to private schools and 50% of those at Oxford and the good universities are from those private schools.

What the state sector needs to do is emulate the private sector. It needs better meals, stricter rules, more and better uniform, it needs lots of selection but also very small classes for the thicker children.

What I think the private schools do over the state even the very very very best state grammrs of which there are few, is educate the whole person. They limit numbers of GCSEs, they teach you about things taht are well off syllabus, they give you your accent (although perhaps not at NLCS and by the way I'd never mention a school my child was at - she has left there now although not without a life long lacrosse passion but that could equally have been a passion for any of the other hobbies to which you get exposed at good private schools which are better than state schools even the best state grammars).

So I suppose not only have I enjoyed the lakes (and we have by the way had lovely family sailing holidays and one daughter spent summers working for a sailing company in the EU and Caribbean solely because of that sailing experience)...But also paid to have them segregated by IQ from less clever children and also from children from poorer homes. This is only what the state parents do on this thread but they do it in an underhand dishonest way and seek schools which are middle class for brighter children. As a tax payer who doesn't get anything out of state schools I think those using them should just go in a lottery and abolish all faith schools but also because children work better when with those of the same IQ in the class ensure you get enough setting even aged 5 which in effect you buy when you get a place for a clever child in the private sector at age 5 or enough total segregation by IQ in grammar, technical colleges or whatever.

Anyway, all good fun and if as a woman you give yourself the money and power to have choice in these matters you benefit your chidlren and yes you do benefit a child by earning lots of money as a woman. you can see the chidlren more because you pay a cleaner, you have power and influence and you determine your working day. this is what money buys you. I recommend it. Go forth and earn it and thereby benefit your children. And now I'm off to put children to bed because I do like to spend reasonable amounts of time with them even in year 25 as a mother and hopefully when the twins stop having a bed time I might by then have a grandchild.

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 20:47

I have missed your posts xenia

ABetaDad · 05/11/2009 21:04

Xenia - one of the reasons I joined MN instead of just lurking was because reading your posts always made me feel 'reasonable' and 'liberal'.

Judy1234 · 05/11/2009 21:55

Jolly good.
I sometimes think if parents put as much thought into earning more than into how to get a child into a particular state school they would find life a lot easier and could buy houses in cheaper areas rather than near expensive state schools which are still anyway all "state" schools with that stigma, so their child when they're asked in 10 years where did you go to school as people still do will have to say XYZ comp or ABC state grammar and people will exchange glances.

All good fun. Much more seriously of course it's not as important as people think. Ask anyone over 70 for advice and they always say the things you think are important in your teens to 40s rarely really are in the end as I was advising my oldest in an email recently. We all know the only two certainties ( death and taxes). People need to be happier with their choices, more content with themselves and not have all this silly parental angst. Instead realise you're actually doing terribly well. Well done you.

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 22:00

Gosh that made me feel all warm and fuzzy! How unexpected

alysonpeaches · 05/11/2009 22:17

Whats all this lake business?

Quattrofangs · 05/11/2009 22:19

There are no schools with lakes within a 20 mile radius. Should I move to get closer to one?

alysonpeaches · 05/11/2009 22:26

Hoping the kids will fall in?

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 22:27

Don't be silly quattro.

Simply buy a helicopter, and then you can easily reach many more schools, including plenty replete with the all important body of water.

Also remember to check that lacrosse paraphernalia is required. (Unless DC is a boy. Then check that polo is on the curriculum).

Lonicera · 05/11/2009 22:31

I played lacrosse at school , but I can honestly say I've never needed/wanted to play since I left school.

Kittyblueit · 05/11/2009 22:33

Surely the real issue is why parents are being put in this position in the first place! Shouldn't every child have the right to a decent education at every school not just a select few? This issue just gives the government a smoke screen to covers up the fact that the level of education provided at some schools just is not good enough.

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 22:36

When I first got my lacrosse stick I was practicing with a hacky sac (sp) while sitting on the sofa at home. My dad came in and I said "look what i can do" and threw the hacky sac towards him with the lacrosse stick. The hacky sac hit him quite hard, square in the testicles.

Just a little anecdote for you all there.

ZephirineDrouhin · 05/11/2009 22:43

That is why it is usually only played at boarding schools

ImSoNotTelling · 05/11/2009 23:03

No testicles at boarding schools, eh?

UnquietDad · 05/11/2009 23:05

I think if I ever move in the circles where people ask each other where they went to school and subsequently "exchange glances", I would probably want to kill myself. There is a book to be written about Planet Xenia.

foxytocin · 05/11/2009 23:12

the school i attended had the caribbean sea as one of its boundaries.