Ending Educational Hypocrisy on Mumsnet

[zanzibarmum]

Do you think we might end educational hypocrisy on these threads by having to declare what type of school our DC go to - you know the sort of thing the mumsnetter who wants to abolish faith schools on the grounds of fairness while sending own DC to private schools or the mum whose children are in high-performing postcode protected state schools and wanting to abolish GS.

Or is the apparent inherent hypocrisy ('do as I say not as I do') so favoured by politicians and some MNs part of the fun.

Fivecandles - I get it now. You are in favour of integrated education for children of all faiths, social classes and ethnic groups but not for your children in a socially and academically private schools.

I have no problem with parents making the right decisions for their children (what else can we do) but I do think there is hypocrisy by those who want to limit the choice of others (abolish faith schools) or be opposed to selection but then send their child to a private or GS (like Harriet Harman)

5candles - I have just re-read
your posting above and it rreally is outrageous!

You are saying you'd like your kids to go to integrated local schools with DC of all faiths, social and ethnic groups (and presumably abilities). But because your local schools are not fully and perfectly integrated (damn those faith schools) you claim some moral ground for sending DC to socially and acasemically selective private school.

Who are you kidding? You are doing what you think is right for you DC. End of.... so don't blame faith schools.

Fircone - I loved your post about grammer schools...sick

I went to comprehensive with a very diverse social mix. It was a weak school despite the reasonably high level of middle class children. The middle class parents certainly made their presence felt. Ensuring their dcs were in the top sets and did the best subjects at O'level (o.k I'm ancient). This resulted in the middle class children (including me) getting the best teachers and resources. Not that this did us much good. Less than 5% of pupils in my year went on to higher education.

I'm not claiming my school was typical, but my experience has made me sceptical of those (often privately educated) advocates of comprehensive education who seem to believe that the secret to improving a comp is to con draft in the middle classes!

I don't think that the secret to improving a school is to draft in the middle classes, but the fact is that with the middle classes in there, with motivated parents and education going on at home, results will improve. Thus it appears that the school has improved if you look at the league tables.

Zanzi, you really, really don't get it. I'm not claiming any moral ground. I am saying that my kids are excluded from my local state schools which are faith schools and I therefore send them to a private school.

I also find it incredibly offensive that you should dismiss my wish that my children should be educated with children from many faiths and many ethnicities as somehow selfish. For me this happens to be hugely important especially as I live in an area recently ravaged by race riots.

Race riots which numerous enquiries have found to be largely fuelled by the almost complete segregation of ethnicities and faiths in the area in which I live. I want no part of this. I want my kids to be friends with people of all sorts of faiths and ethnicities (ironically only possible in private school whcih they attend), I find the segregation operating in state schools abhorrent and therefore I opt out of it.

5candles - you say in your earlier post:

"in my area which have led to schools being segregated by faith and with that by ethnicity and by social class is a very important reason for me to feel that it is less moral to have any part of that than to opt out of it completely"

Others can assess whether you do claim some form of moral superiority.

But, I have said several times, zanzi that everybody has their own personal moral code. My moral code does not allow me to send my kids to a faith school (not that they'd get in anyway) which takes taxpayers money but actively excludes those without a faith. My moral code does not allow me to join the white flight to a leafy suburb in order to take up a place at an oversubscribed school thus potentially taking up a place that could be used by more needy children than mine. My moral code does not allow me to move to an area with grammar schools for similar reasons. My moral code, given the area where I live, does allow me to send my kids to a private school which I acknowledge is a privileged position but at least does not involve using public money to educate my already privileged kids.

In education, as in many other things, given the current divisions and inequalities no individual's decision is necessarily more or less moral than anyone else's. The system is the Govt's responsibility and the Govt actively encourages choice. So individuals cannot be blamed for using this choice.

Ok- here go my radical views!
Children (and adults) have different learning styles right?
I believe the education available should use these learning styles turning education on it's head!
In my ideal world I would have large primary schools offering all the facilities that secondaries currently get allowing pupils to find out for themselves what they are good at.
I would then offer very small, very selective secondary schools in which pupils could specialise using their skills. In these, I would include grammar (for the highly academic), performing arts & sports, specialist language schools & hands on/practical skills.
Then all pupils would get the chance to
a) find out what they are good at/what their learning style prefers
b) spend time perfecting the skills they have natural flair for.

In the absence of this type of education, I have spent 3 years trying to create it with extra-curricular activities (driving myself mad) before finding myself a job to pay for DD to attend a private school which offers a very broad curriculum so that she can find her strengths before we need to choose a secondary.
I experienced a poor comprehensive but managed to use specialist skills to get to university, DH went to a good grammar school. I wish his specialist education to be available to everyone!

5candles - why didn't your moral code allow you to send DC to a community school?

Why can't you just say the private school was the one for my DC rather than wrap yourself in some moral superiority for not moving house or going to GS. No one would be at all bothered.

Worst case of hypocrisy I have heard of is at the neighbouring state primary to ours - outstanding, leafy suburb, massive houses, no free school meals, you get the idea - a newly appointed parent governor is very vociferously talking up the local sink secondary to get local parents to send their kids there. She is constantly telling them that an influx of local children will push up standards and bigging up state education. Her elder DC is in Y5, and she recently set up a vist, in school time, to bus the Y5s to the sink secondary for a selling session, where they got to do lots of exciting things and went home telling their parents what a great school it is and how they want to to go there. So far, so good, you might think.
EXCEPT, that not only has she entered her dc for private school exams she has used her influence as a governor to get her child onto an evening master class at the nearby highly selective private school she is applying to for her dc! This scheme was not publicised to parents - it was offered to the primary governors by the school as part of their comunity program to assist deprived children... As this particular child lives in a million + house, dad buys pricy classic cars from time to time, family flies away to exotic climes every hol and dc have been tutored for years, not sure that child is the intended target for the scheme
Unbelievable hypocrisy.

zanzi, I'm sorry but where did I say that there WAS a community school??

Oh, that's right, I didn't.

As I said ALL of my local schools are almost entirely segregated by faith and ethnicity.

I want my kids to go to a school which reflects the ethnic and religious diversity of the area in which they live.

You know nothing of my life or local schools and I really think you need to accept my reasons for choosing private school for my kids as genuine. In fact, I find it incredibly offensive that you are suggesting that I am somehow lying about my motivation and dismissing its validity as a reason for my choice.

And once again I am not saying that I am morally superior not that my choice is. I am saying we all make our own way through the ethical minefield that is choosing a school for our kids according to our own moral code and moral priorities. For me it is more important that my kids go to a school which is ethnically mixed and accepts kids from all faiths than that they go to a state school which actively excludes certain faiths or does this by default. Others have different moral codes and priorities. But, once again, where the system allows for and encourages choice individuals can hardly be blamed for making those choices in ways that suit them.

I don't think you can evaluate comprehensive education whilst private, faith and selective schools exist.

What we have in this country is not a comprehensive education system.

What on earth do you mean tethersend?
I really cannot see how a comprehensive system can ever work! No secondary school (unless privately funded) will ever be able to afford specialist quality equipment and teaching in every subject.
This is why I agree with grammar and specialist schools. Primaries are the place to find out what you enjoy and teaching doesn't have to be quite such a high level of specialism. The most successful schools in the country are either private, grammar, specialist arts, sports and business colleges!
Take away these schools and we end up with boring comprehensive schools with no focus and no chance for children to shine.

pugsandseals Sat 07-Nov-09 11:46:13

I really cannot see how a comprehensive system can ever work! No secondary school (unless privately funded) will ever be able to afford specialist quality equipment and teaching in every subject.

Complete nonsene, I teach in a true comprehensive school, a non faith one which has specialist staff and specialist quality equipment. In fact we are such a good school with such a high quality calibre of staff that very often local independant and grammar schools only have to have a whiff of where we work before job offers come flying in.

I would choose the comprehensive I teach in over the local grammar and independant options any day.

So no weak areas in your school at all then?
I cannot believe that! What parents & pupils want is choice. If a child is good at something, be it music, sport, business, engineering etc. they will want a school which specialises in that subject.
If your school offers all of this and more, it must be the only such school in the country! This is not something offered anywhere near where the majority of us live.

I am not saying that there are not state schools without cashflow problems, I left a school that could not afford to pay its staff. The inequality in the state sector makes me very very angry.

But it is wrong to say that all state schools can't offer specialist equipment and that we don't have specialist teachers. We are not the best school locally by results or OFSTED reports so we are not that unusual but certainly a very good state school. I also did not say that we don't have things we need to improve on, because of our success I would like to see another classroom in the blockI teach in, we could do with another comuputer room or set of laptops, although each department does have it own set of laptops and a dedicated ICT room so we are not doing bad.

So you have a full symphony orchestra then? And a top hockey/rugby/football team? And a fantastic academic record?
I could go on, but I think my point is made! I would much prefer all children to go to a specialist school where their preferences are catered for.
If a child is highly academic they NEED a grammar, a musician will need an outstanding music department, a sporty child a good sports team. If we don't have these things provided at school we spend all weekends and evenings trying to replace them.

Or worse still, they go without!

We have an orchestra, although not a full symphony one, we have a jazz band as well which is well regarded outside of the school. We also have recording studios, all sorts of technology I don't really understand, dedicated theatre, art studios, pottery studio I could go on but it is not my subject area. We could of course have more but so could a specialist school. We have a very good sporting record partly because we have very good sporting facilities, large grounds with a variety of sporting pitches on, a gym that the public pay to use in the evening as well as the usual sports halls etc. We also do have a very good academic record which is why we often find that children stay with us rather than go to the grammar, as I said I would much rather my own dd went to my school than the grammar. We also provide lots of trips, infact I think apsrt from certain protected parts of the calendar there is constantly a trip on somewhere and we try to do big trips to at least one different continent every year. Our school is well known for going out of our way to provide whatever our children want or need within reason.

So I don't agree that if a child is highly academic that they need a grammar, as we teach ours very well within the conmprehensive system. Of course a sporty child will need a good sports team, we have those and excellent general facilities.

I also don't see a problem to be honest with parents spending their time to do things with their children, it is not just up to a school to provide everything. Very often what we do is stimulate interest, for example we take our students sailing, many love it and go on to continue that interest outside of school at weekends and when they leave. My dd does lots of activities through her school ( which is a state) from horseriding to ballroom dancing to pottery. As her family we enjoy helping her follow these same interests and more outside of school.

Of course you can always provide more but that applies to specialist schools, independant schools and grammar schools. I don't think there are perfect state schools all over the country, I have taught in some poor schools. But there are state schools, and probably more than many MNers realise that can compete with independant and grammar schools.

I am not saying get rid of grammar schools, I don't particularly like them but respect the fact that other parents do.

I also think that schools are much better now at pooling their resources, we often have students from other schools come to use our resources, especially from the primary sector.

I think that if a school is going to provide everything in terms of top quality music, sport, ict facilities, it has to grow so huge as to lose out on real pastoral care and a family atmosphere.

I would rather go without facilities and be in a small school where people know each other and relationships are developed.

There's nothing worse than going to a parents evening and seeing the teacher with a photo printout of each class so she can check to see if she has any recollection of your DC in class. Also, for teachers in one department having know knowledge of what goes on in the rest of the school because they don't develop relationships with their own colleagues.

We have a house system which means we have kept that pastoral care, although I do agree that schools can grow too big and certainly would not want ours to expand in pupil numbers any more.

I do agree that you can become very caught up in what goes on in your own department and not realise what is going on elsewhere. I know that because of a huge marking load and a desire to spend some time with my family I do tend to come into school in the morning and not leave my department until I go home. We are an average school in terms of pupil population but quite spread out geographically which means we never get enough time to see other departments.

I also hate the photo thing, I have to use them for the first few weeks though as I only see most of my classes once a week so teach a lot of students, I am only human