Another wanky Guardian article - the 'anguish' of finding a good school ....

[disgustedbythehypocricy]

This is the most BOAK-inducing thing i've read in a while.. it's so bad i honestly don't know where to start!

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/04/andrew-penman-schools-education

MissM - you are right, school does the best they can considering the intake they get and also the fact, that they are undersubscribed - hence less money. So parents do vote with their choice after all.

I think that parents should be invited to school to see how they kids behave, but tbh they can't be bothered to come to parent's evenings, would they come for any other reason?

is not only the bad parenting, but also the fact that top some extend kids are anonymous outside of school, long gone are times when a stranger would try to confront they behaviour.

I went to a home counties comp where the idea of a child taking an exam to go to Oxford was a likely as a child suddenly sprouting wings. It never, ever happened. Even going to university was something you pretty much had to organise yourself. It was a bloody awful school. Yes, some girls did well, but that was down to us, not our teachers. It did not help at all that the town had semi-selective grammars (odd system that persists to this day) so the old posh grammar/sink secondary modern divide persisted. But today, as someone who lives in a less leafy parts of London things have changed a lot, and aspirations for pupils tend to be higher. I have plenty of schools around me whose 5 A-C GCSE percentages are higher than at the White and Middle Class school that Mr Penman scurried off too. I know from experience the importance of teh right, good, ambitious school but he is an idiot.

Xenia, your children's school is, I assume, selective? Don't you think that might have just a teensy influence on the results? Even the best teachers and the most verdant grounds can't always take children with lower intelligence (and a difficult background) and get them all A*s.

And what is interesting at the end of the book- having moved to get his children into a better school, the secondary school his son is going to had an Ofsted visit in March.
And came out with a level 4.
There were serious safeguarding issues.

League tables and the whole % of A-Cs are a crock of .... anyway. I work at a school which prides itself on its inclusion policy. Our SEN department acheived an outstanding from OFSED, but the whole school only got satisfactory. Why? Because we take on all students regardless of ability, social background, etc... and we give each one a change to acheive to the best of their ability. We have kids with moderate learning difficulties who have taken GCSEs, when all the other schools in the area refuse to enter them for GCSEs. Why? Because they won´t get ´good´ grades. The only let them take vocational courses. For example, one such student (downs syndrome) got a ´G´ at GCSE, and OFSED penalised the school for this, not taking into account that this was an amazing outcome for this student.

The whole system is rubbish. If you have supportive parents and good staff the kids will do well within. The overall position of a school on the league table is not a good indicator of the quality of the teaching.

Only seen this now. What a hideous article! I was particularly (it's so hard to choose though ...) put out by the fact that he didn't want to send his son to a school where there were 71 home languages. What the hell?!

deaddei - where did they end up? does it say?

Hullygully if you read the whole thread you'll see that people here do have kids at the schools mentioned. And none of them speak disparagingly about them.

Haven't read the book but what deaddei says above about his moaning about the primary school is poetic justice I think. He lied to get in there, then found it not to his liking. Although if I'd been a parent who hadn't got in there as a result of AP's child getting the place I'd be pretty peed off at his complaining.

Chandellina - I don't think the OP was scoffing at all at people's 'anguish'. Like others on this thread, she was despairing at the twatishness of this particular parent's means of making his choice, as Blu says.

if you want a good school then you can pay for that and generally if your child is bright they are better ni a selective school as my daughters' schools both were (North London Collegiate and Habs - they have both left so I can name them). Tath is where this Guardian man is failing his children by sending them to state schools when if he just did a bit more extra work he could if his chidlren are clever get them into schools where they will do really well not just slightly well.

Ha - that's probably exactly what he's doing by writing this godawful book: trying to raise enough cash to send them all to private school.

Slightly off at an angle, and sorry if it's been done, but thought it was hilarious that he wouldn't have minded sending his dc to G., but didn't want to make the "final sacrifice" of actually living in Tooting.

Reminds me of the charming article I once read in the Spectator, which contained the lovely line: "Why are all the good schools in London in such minging areas?" Bizarrely, it was a restaurant review, structured around a school-search.

Clearly, the author is uniquely talented at finding something to offend everyone. It's a gift, really.

I think he's trying to raise private school fees, too. Perhaps he could jazz it up a bit, turn it into a novel, (John O'Farrell-style) and sell the film rights. Perhaps Simon Pegg could play him?

More seriously, schools in London have improved a great deal over the last decade. Something which is probably not unconnected to the fact that they have been invested in, as opposed to starved of cash. Just saying ... .

It was Winston Churchill in Woking.

Blu I didn't mean to sound patronising if I did I apologise. I think we are both reading from the same page. I just wanted to add an additional dimension to the discussion; that for some children the choice of school could literally end up being a life and death decision (without trying to scaremonger). That said I also don't want to contribute a jaded view of state schools in South London or for anyone to take from my post that if their child goes to a school in South London they are going to have to wear a stab proof vest to school. :)

But one important observation I have noticed - children seem to get to an age when their friends have more influence over them than their parents. It as that age you want their friends (who many will be from their school) to be a positive influence as opposed to a negative.

Hully - DS1 went to Rutlish and DS2 is there now.

Both doing/did well. And we have had no problems with the school, either academically, socially or behaviourally.

Thing is though sldad, it's unlikely to be a life or death decision for AP is it.

Xenia - money can, no doubt, buy a better education (although it's not always guaranteed). But for many/most families, a private education is simply out of the question and beyond reach financially. So, (and beliefs about private/state to one side,) it is hugely patronising to say that if people just worked harder they could afford a private education.

And that wasn't really the issue here was it? AP wanted a state school.

The really dreadful thing, IMO, is the naming of the school based on hearsay, as well as not reflecting the current performance of what is a rapidly improving and better-than-average state school.

The staff and head at Rutlish, (and he's now the third head involved in turning around a failing school - the 'fight back' started about 10 years ago,) have worked incredibly hard to turn it into a great, local school and it's so dispiriting to see their work - as well as that of the students - being dismissed in such a cavalier fashion, by someone who is clearly such a crushing snob.

BIWI- if AP had lived in Kingston he would be slagging off the local boys school- like Rutlish, it was a failing school, but with a new head for the past 5 years, has turned around so much.
My ds has gone there this year, and I am so proud- it was our choice, and although we can afford private, it was not even a consideration.
Many parents at his primary had the same views as AP, and I was given sympathetic looks and even told it was such a shame we couldn't afford private education.
I wonder what the parents and staff at Holy Trinity think of him.

Just going back to what Blu said above, I also think shame on AP for lieing to get into the primary school and then boasting about his lies. Yes, it is theft of a kind, but also, how could he square his lying with his conscience and who he really is?

My DD has just started at a CofE school - being a christened Christian is one of the priorities for entry so I knew we'd not be in with much of a chance (I'm Jewish, husband Sikh). But when it came to the bit of the application form that asked about religious affiliation I couldn't even contemplate making it up or going to church to be able to fill it in positively. If I'd done that I would be the archest hypocrite and would have found it impossible to look any other parent at the school in the eye.

As it is, a place came up at the school so we accepted it - not because of its religious affiliations but because of all the primary schools we saw we liked that one best (and it's the closest and within walking distance). But if a place hadn't come up that would have been fine - and I wouldn't have lied to obtain one.

Grr, this man is just getting to me more and more! I hope he's reading this thread and is feeling utterly ashamed (although sadly he is probably so ego-fuelled that he'll think we're all a bunch of losers).

Well, Xenia, what you're really saying is that those of us (many of whom are immaculately well educated, may I point out - yes, even those of us who headed to Oxford from comprehensives) should ignore any wish to work in a job we find interesting or fulfilling or of wider benefit to those around us, if it doesn't pay enough to send our children to private school. The point of which is to get them into jobs where they will be able to pay for their children to go to private school. In a self-perpetuating spiral of privilege but with no purpose, it seems, than to send the next generation to private school. And when you've finished paying school fees, and university fees - this being part of the point of this much-lauded private school education - you errr are left in a job you didn't actually like in the first place, but hey that's not the point, is it...

Some of us live our lives differently. Not simply in querying the holy grain of this spiral, but in wanting work that is interesting and fulfilling, even if it's not incredibly well paid.

That's a fair point Mother.

But then those who have chosen less well paid work, shouldn't bleat when they can't afford what they want.

If I had a quid for every privately educated person who went into writing/journalism and now can't afford to send their own kids private, I'd be as rich as Xenia.

You makes you choices and takes your chances etc.

Did you hear MI bleating about not being able to afford private school? The point was that she's made her choice and is happy with it, and resents the implication that by making her choice she's somehow neglecting to provide for her children's wellbeing.

It's not that hard, people. I think the biggest gift you can give your dc is the confidence in their own ability to achieve what they want to without needing to pay their way out of the society that everyone else inhabits.

Who's bleating, the guardian guy (who is an utter wanker, I think we're all pretty agreed on that)? Noone on this thread that I can see anyway.

Like MI I'm one of those comp-Oxbridge-Russell Group people, and am going to send my children to the local mediocre comp. It's not for lack of money, we could have rustled up private school feels if we'd really wanted to and worked properly at our careers. But I do totally believe that my children can get a proper decent education via even a comp with a low GCSE pass rate, and I am sure that if any of my dds has the urge and ability to get into top universities and courses, they'll be able to do it via a bog standard comp. You don't need 97% pass rates at GCSE, you just need to know that your dc will be able to fulfil their own academic potential, and be happy too.

The likelihood of that doesn't have a direct correlation with the gcse pass rate.

Thanks, SLD - I had bridled at the 'if only you knew what you were talking about' in your last para!

If i lived on certain estates in certain catchement areas of the borough, I would be suffereung anguish. Because the combination of 'territory' can make young people very vulnerable, and / or give parents a harder job keeping the family true to their values.. And as I said further down the thread, I would probably do my best to move. But I wouldn't slag off named schools and the young people in it, based on lazy out of date hearsay.

It makes me laugh, anyway. Do you remember a few years ago a TV journalist tried to demonstrate the danger on the streets of Brixto by walking around late at night attempting to get mugged? Expensive laptop insecurely slung on his shoulder, wallet sticking out of his pocket, cruising the most notorious 'bad reputation' places - in the end, by about 4am he had to more or less give his laptop away! And another journalist went into Lillian Baylis school after a government minister had said they would chop off their arm before sending a child there. The report, from the guy working undercover in lessons, was of a calm atmosphere, good teaching, interested students. The achieveent in that school is still low in league tables - the school's rep must be implicated in that.

There are problems, they need solving, but I don't see AP playing any meaningful role or contributing anything, exept a sort of misery-lit wail of a tedious dinner party conversation!

I am a journalist (I've written for that same page, dammit). I went to state school. And Oxford. I don't want to send my kids privately.

I bleat, frequently, but mainly about such things as the photographer who made me look six months pregnant on the Family page of the Guardian.