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

[jollygumbear]

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

Sounds rubbish foxy.

Did it have a real pyramid? OUrs had a pyramid in the middle of the racecourse.

We used to take tours of the grounds in our bentleys at lunch break.

At midnight every night we had a feast of caviare and unicorn. We would take it in turns to order it up from fortnums.

And every xmas we would have a rousing end of term assembly hosted by the queen.

Those were the days

I read somewhere once of a woman who turned to prostitution to pay the school fees. Not sure if she ever told the kids but I guess the head was a client

In fact, I don't move in circles where people ask each other where they went to school at all, with or without glances. I know where my college friends went to school, because it was the sort of question people asked there, along with what A-levels you'd done and other exciting Freshers' Week conversations, but I don't think I've ever been in a situation where grown adults have had that kind of conversation.

Oh, except once at the opera, where the couple next to us asked DH as an early conversational gambit (but they didn't seem interested in where I'd been to school so a good job my parents saved their money, and they appeared convinced that DH's state school was actually private so good that his parents saved their money, if avoiding that awful stigma had been their prime concern).

lolololol at midnight feasting on unicorn

must go to bed. read feasting on caviare and unicorn and never batted an eyelid till ZD lolled.

A friend met a woman the other week and she was grilling him on what schools his friends went to apparently (and he wasn't happy with that) but I suppose it can be shorthand for are you successful enough and clever enough to have made any money, do you have the right class, are you just new money or all that stuff.. not that I'm posh etc. but it's fun to observe

Xenia I do think that you have a point about relecting on what you want from a job and then going for it.

For me money was, and never had been a motivator so I did not look for that. I went into teaching not having a clue what I would earn. I don't connect what I do with my paypacket. But I can think of people who are motivated by money and I do sometimes wonder why they do the job they do, as it cannot provide them with a lifestyle they want. These are all intelligent people who did well at school and had choices open to them.

I know when I talk to my students that for some of them money is a motivating factor and that is how I encourage them to work hard, for others it is just wanting to be the best, for others they just love learning.

The state school in which I teach has delicious school meals in our beautiful cafeteria overlooking our terrace and landscaped gardems. If you peer hard you can see our pond! We also have strict rules, an enforced uniform and in your words small classes for thick kids. We also take our students sailing.

Many state schools have moved on from the days of Grange Hill.

Oxford were more than happy to offer me a place despite the fact the closest my bog standard comp came to a Lake was a bus trip to Blackpool beach.

Well you can certainly 'buy' results (along with accent, floppy hair, lakes, lacrosse etc), there is no question about that, but you can't 'buy' being naturally clever.

What is so dispiriting is very average/mediocre students at private schools getting top marks(and thus places at top universities) whereas those equivalent students in some state schools not fulfilling their potential.

You would like to think that a naturally clever child would have the same chances in the long run regardless of their parental income. Sadly, it is not so.

The current system for allocating school places is intrinsically immoral/unfair/biased/prejudiced, in so far as the better schools are nearly always in the more affluent areas where house prices are more exensive. The more you earn, the greater your chance and opportunity to secure your child a place in a good school.

That said, I don't think the lottery system works either, schools should be local and easy to travel to. Plus (and this view won't be popular i know!) you can easily stir up more problems for all by 'forcing' different socio economic groups together. Some children (from both ends of the socio economic spectrum) could really struggle fitting in, in circumstances where their peers have been raised very differently. For example, rich kid upsetting others with flaunting of expensive personal goods/clothes etc.

So, to return to the original question. I am not at all surprised that people rent in better areas to 'play' the school place allocation system. This does seem unfair. But - we are all 'playing' the system to some degree. We use our wealth and means to buy a house in the 'best' area we can afford in order to secure the best place we can and to deny this is to be naive.

I should also add that I am as guilty as the next person re willfully using my resources to get the best school place i can. Of course we could have got more for our money in an area where the schools were average or poor. As it was though, we bought our house knowing fully well that it was in catchment for excellent local schools.

Xenia, are you my mother in law?

We had a lake with a real actual hippotomus living in it.

Beat that.

Our school must have bucked the trend, rough state school that only did Lacrosse!

I agree with Unquietdad and Guyfawkes, if the most interesting thing a grown adult had to ask was what school did I attend I wouldn't wait for their response, I would be off(preferably on horse back galloping towards the lake with my lacross stick in hand shouting "Jolly hockey sticks.")

at real live hippopotamus. Brilliant.

It's not that dispiriting. If we couldn't advantage our own children to the disadvantage of others I think in a capitalist and even Darwinian survival of the fittest we'd all be a bit cheesed off. I think it suits human nature that you can do things for your children to make them better, work hard, pay for things, give them help in all kinds of ways, from reading stories to them at night to using a contact to try to get them a job or steering them to Britol rather than Middlesex poly.

The only pure non capitalist position is surely to pick the worst school there is, feed your child bad foods, never talk to it, ensure it is as disadvantaged as any other or even more so, like vicars who move to the worst London housing estates and throw their child into the local sink school.

lol Xenia. It's always all or nothing for you isn't it? Law of the jungle vs Maoism and nothing in between.

OMG I agree with Xenia. ! Well only in so far as I think it's illogical to condemn parents who pay for private education purely on the grounds that it's unfair because it's an opportunity not open to every child. I am well aware that not everyone can afford decent shoes and decent food for their kids but no one would criticize me for buying my kids Clarks shoes and healthy food even though not every kid can have them.

Yes. Xenia wasn't responding to someone who had condemned parents who chose a private education though. She was responding to someone who thought it was dispiriting that many clever state-educated children were not fulfilling their potential because of their education.

Buying quality shoes though does not create a divided society unless bunions limit your job opportunities.

No, that's an entirely different argument.

The point is, the privately educated get disproportionately more places at top universities (and thus better jobs), NOT because they are more clever but because they have received better opportunities, small classes, better teaching etc etc (all the reasons people choose to pay for education).

I have seen it with contemporaries of my DCs. It's such a shame, just because their parents can't afford to pay or don't know how to work the system to get their child into the 'best' school.

I am not jealous (my DCs at top grammar school/ universities etc). I merely think it is unfair. Arguing one shouldn't send one's own child to a decent school because it isn't fair on others is missing the point completely.

I don't think I am missing the point tbh, my dd goes to a good school and she is lucky. We looked at schools before we moved but it was not a great military option and we chose living somewhere nice over going to an outstanding school. I have faith in myself as a parent and in dd that she will do well in the school she is in.

But you can choose not to take part in something because it is unfair which is why my dd does not attend an indendant school, I don't think that by keeping her in the state system I am making a huge difference. In a similar way to I buy fairtrade, don't shop in places such a primark, on my own I don't think I am making a huge difference but I don't want to partake in an unfair system any more than I need to.

The food and shoes analogy is apt whch is why I made it. It shows how ridiculous those are who say that schooling is special, that you can advantage your child with a posh state school, lovely home, tons of tutoring, good healthy food, healthy genes, no spanking, no abuse etc etc.... BUT that's all perfectly all right yet if you pay for a better school rather than just better shoes or better tutoring or picking a state school by house price in Bucks rather than Tower Hamlets, then you're the right wing scum, the spawn of the devil. Their argument is that children like mine are so wonderful to have around that if we threw these golden 6% who are in the private sector into the local comps the UK would be fair and harmonious and the poor thick children would benefit hugely and even the poor clever ones.

I suppose my starting point is as my mother always said life isn't fair and most of us are not motiviated to help the girl in the house next door to the detriment of our own daughter when it comes down to it.

I didn't call anyone right wing scum, my own do would love to send dd to a private school and rumour has it that he is a nice person.

I also would not do tutoring either, my dd is at a good but certainly not posh state school.

I also didn;t say my dd was the saviour of others but that I thought the system was unfair so I don't wish to take part in it.

Actually I think if you threw the 'golden 6% in the private sector' into the local comps some of them would find it rather a struggle. As some of them do at the top universities.

selectivememory,

You seem to be caught up on private school students being less smart that state school students.

Obviously, when you make these statements you are generalising enormously. I'm sure you will agree.

Don't you think in general that the private sector does has smarter students in that their parents have to be smarter (in general, on average) in order to afford the fees? Also bursary students are smart despite their parents' earning levels.

I think that there is a genetic link between the parents' intelligence and educational achievement and their children's IQ and educational aspirations. I might be wrong.

But clearly there are children who are overlooked by the system. They always have been and always will be. Grey's Elegy, anyone?