If it's so offensive to suggest you don't want your children to go to school with "rough" kids, why are schools in "good" areas always oversubscribed?

[lisbey]

It seems to me that the main difference in the results a school achieves is the "quality" (sorry know that's not the right word, but can't think of another one) of their intake and the parents of those children.

However, whenever someone on here suggests that they'd prefer their kids not to mix with the sportswear clad council house kids, they are universally flamed.

Who then is fuelling the increased demand for houses close to schools that are well away from those children?

BTW I live in a private house, close to a council estate and my DCs go to a school where 40% have free school meals. I have been delighted with the school and it gets decent OFSTEAD reports, but does badly in league tables, which is why there are very few families living in the privately owned "family homes" on this estate and why they are c. 25% cheaper than a similar house in the next town.

Now- that may be soemthing that varies as here in Wales I know of kids on IEPs becuase of not speaking English; so I won't comment on that for that reason.

I was planning to go into teaching before I ahd to become a carer and was actively looking for a 'rough' school: others follwing same route either thought I was mad or had exactly same plans, Igues sit's down to personality? When I help out over the school it's the truggling ones I really adore working with.

Sancti - I am shocked at the parents who made their daughters hold your son's TA's hand, saying that they were entitield to as much attention as he.

What a nightmare that must have been for you both. Poor boy

Yes but at least he understood very little; a blessing really.

Friends with kids still there still getting teh problems, sadly, and I just cannot understand it. DS1 was the first ASD kid to manage the whole school though so I do think there's a sense of it being a school for 'people like them'. The amusing thing is that Vicar gets a final call over Goernors and it was him that insisted they ahd to ofer a aplce to ds3, after they tried to hmm and hah for so long the school woudl have been full (a technique they often use for people who ahve upset them too) but luckily as Vicar was a my uni lectutrer we got tlaking and it was magically all sorted.

So as a faiths chool it very much wants to be forr people like the wider 'us'- whoever lives here. Parents want it otherwise though.

Have noticed changes though; more SN kids, a few with limited English, so I guess theya re catching up

Giddy is right about lack of support for non-English speakers. Our local primary school has two-thirds non-English speaking intake and reception classes with 40 kids in. That's the main reason we won't send DD there.

It's funny to believe that the couple of months it will take for the kids to catch up with English will put your child at disadvantage. Most countries don't start formal education before seven anyway. And she could actually learn a thing or two by being in a multicultural group.

In London where pockets of mc housing are cheeck by jowl with inner-city overcrowding there are very few schools, I suspect, which have a homogenous catchment.

DS (child of mc uni educated parents - me) is at a school with a very high level of refugees, children with ESOL, and children from the high density council estate opposite.

Undoubtedy there are a few children in his class who are disruptive and have parents who are not constructive in supporting their education. At least one of these is from a white mc family. The parents who are organised in pushing their children to succeed (Kumon, tutoring, home-study regimes) are mostly refugee families, ESOL families and mothers who are first generation immigrants from the Caribbean, determined that their children will make something of themselves. Only one pushy mother from the mc leafy roads that make up a smaller part of the catchment.

And the children who jpined school speaking v little English seemed to have picked it up almost instantly just by being in class. Although i think our borough provides funding - which can be used in a variety of support ways by the SENCOs.

Not all children do pick it up easily though, particularly if englihs is not spoken at all athome or in the child's extended community.
And a parent who cannot speak any englihs will find it very hard to support a child with school work.
Nor will the children from other cultures always mix well.
It is not always a happy multi-culti party that enriches all concerned.

our over subscribed primary is in a poor area lol

Jacinda wherever she goes to school round here she will be in a multi cultural group. That is one of the advantages of living where we do. She is already learning bits of Polish from our nanny and cleaner, and learning all about Caribbean culture from the family across the road.

But sadly our nearest school is not reflective of that balanced mix. I do not want her at a school where two-thirds of the intake don't speak English and nor do their families.

It's not as simple as them all catching up in a couple of months - children tend to join the school at all sorts of random times of the year - they don't all just conveniently arrive in the UK in time to start in yr 1 in September .

of COURSE i dont want my children to go to school with children whoa re disrputive, lazy and annoying

NOt all of them are working class though!

my ds went to school with loads of esol kids ..most of them got better grades at english gcse then he did ...all of them are doing A levels ...and I'm offended by this thread yet again [council estate dweller]

DH & I come from a Grammar school catchment in London. We moved to the country & were totally fed up with the local village school after 2 years. DD spent her time on insultingly easy work & didn't progress at all!(also no social mix) She is now at a prep 10 miles away where the teachers care, class sizes are small, she is challenged & sees a much greater range of children from all parts of the world.

Our choice was a simple one, find a prep where she was happy & challenged, or move back to the Grammar system (& spend our £100k on housing instead of schooling). The country prep wins everytime.

However, I would also say as a teacher that I much prefer the 'sink estate' type of schools as the reward is far greater!

Crazycatlady Wed 07-Jul-10 16:11:47

But sadly our nearest school is not reflective of that balanced mix. I do not want her at a school where two-thirds of the intake don't speak English and nor do their families.

Agree with that and we looked carefully at schools before we moved last as the one by where we last lived was exactly like that in terms of mix. I can't help but feel that in having to cope with such a mix, teachers aren't going to be able to spend much time supporting children who are averagely bright, do speak English fluently and whose parents read to them etc.

I think that's right Axis,

When I spoke to a teacher at the school she said, very honestly, they are so focused on delivering to the needs of the many non-English speakers (twice weekly English lessons for the parents, Somali parents groups etc) which they have to do, to try and ensure they reach the minimum standards set by OFSTED, that fluent English speaking children and, especially those who are particularly academically gifted, are not actively taught or coached as much as they could be as the teachers just don't have time or resource.

That's not really what I had in mind for my daughter's schooling!

Civil, when you say some kids have escaped from South Gloucestershire, what schools are rated rough there then?
My DD1 goes to secondary school in a couple of years..gulp!

I'm so glad there are no grammar schools where I live ...I would move to avoid them and lol at learning polish from your cleaner .oh how the other half lives ..and in my experience all cultures do mix well especially at secondary level

i agree multicultural classes are good, we do all have to live with each other as adults don't we? and most of the nicest people i know now are from europe.

the english ones are the closet racists with brooms stuck up their arses

i am now looking at primary schools for my dd

i want her to go to a school with a culture where learning is valued, not one where doing well gets you beaten up or bullied, where she is pushed to reach her potential, whatever that might be

i want her to be in classes that are not chaotic, where the teacher's primary concern is teaching and learning, not crowd control

i want the other parents to not be in an adversarial relationship with the school, or obstructive, or hostile

i am beginning to think i am pollyanna fucking sunshine and i want the moon on a string

because no one on a council estate gives a fuck about their kids education do they? < hides thread >

o grow up i grew up on the equivalent of a council estate

YOU were the one who assumed that what i was referring to were people who live on council estates who's the prejudiced one?

it ain't me

i don't give a toss who my dd is in school with if:

lessons are not chaotic
parents are not hostile
culture is one that promotes learning and achievement

what is controversial about that?

i am dismayed at how much variation there can be between schools in this country, and how outcomes for children must then be so different too

it is a far cry from where i grew up, no school was the 'bad' or sink school that you would move to avoid, they were all much of a muchness and you went to the closest one to you

this probably didn't/doesn't hold for more urban areas, but i now live in a UK town of a similar size and demographic (if anything, more affluent) to my foreign hometown, and it is shocking the difference in school quality

i have no idea how this gets fixed