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

Which bit are the £200k houses in Giddy?

I agree with Muminlondon about the Guardian letting its standards slip to allow such badly researched stuff to be published. Also, the paper seems to be doing a good job of dissing state education atm.

Actually Rutlish should ask to have a feature published to right the wrongs done to its reputation. The implications are just false. As others have said, it's a very rapidly improving school in a well-off, leafy suburb. Because the council abolished all its sixth forms, the school was boycotted by many locals, and not surprisingly went downhill: students came from far afield and (if nothing else) were knackered and disaffected by the time they got there. However, it's now got its sixth form back, and local kids are going to it again. Give it a couple of years, and Guardian feature writers will be mowing local children down in their desperation to get their own kids in.

The least the Guardian can do is publish an accurate portrait of the school.

It does amount to libel, doesn't it? A really depressingly inaccurate and narrow-minded article, and there have been too many of them recently. Like others have said, more fool him for spending £40,000 to gain 2 percentage points' advantage, but why did the Guardian publish it? If the Guardian ignores this and publishes more fatuous crap in its Family section I'm going to stop buying it at the weekend. Even the Times seems more balanced!

Actually, CaptainInkheart, Rutlish has been over-subscribed for a number of years now - it's not just because there is now a 6th form.

LOL at him driving the 'old and infirm' -

"Thank you for the lift, dear,"

"Yeah, whatever Grandma. Now get out of the car, I've got a Cof E school run to do."

And double LOL at him dismissing a school on the hearsay of his mate Tim, who was confronted by a teenager saying 'what do you want?"

Yes. I can see how that would be a deal breaker....

(Said Tim, presumably a stranger in the school, having loomed unannounced at the window of a classroom. Chances are the terrified teen thought it was the Tooting murderer.)

Why didn't he just say they quite fancied moving to Surrey? Rather than stress the kids out by making them think it was their fault? All the blubsome diary entries - 'Why do we have to move house, Daddy?"
'We--ll. Mummy and I are massively STRESSED about YOUR education. It's a real problem. Oh, and we want a bit more house for our money..."

I mean, really. Is this man quite the ticket?

lolol v funny post merrylegs.

Merrylegs

He turned it Woody Allen saga, without the funny bits. Loads of people just move to Surrey don't they and not really for the pass rate.

LOL at this bit by merrylegs

"And double LOL at him dismissing a school on the hearsay of his mate Tim, who was confronted by a teenager saying 'what do you want?"

Yes. I can see how that would be a deal breaker....

(Said Tim, presumably a stranger in the school, having loomed unannounced at the window of a classroom. Chances are the terrified teen thought it was the Tooting murderer.)"

Does "Tim" actually exist?

What an appalling article. Never mind all the matters discussed about but what about his son? The poor lad has just started Y7 in big school and his of a dad has plastered him, with photo, all over a national newspaper. This is almost Julie Myerson territory.

PMSL at "Tooting has had a couple too many murders for my tastes" and Googling the school name with some unsavoury phrases. I might change my mind when my DCs reach secondary age, but from what I remember when someone got stabbed in an art lesson at my (99% white British, middle class, suburban) secondary school, it was all jolly exciting to us as 15-year-olds. It wasn't indicative of impending death and destruction for the entire school.

I know, right?

Really, nothing we can say on here is nearly as hilarious as that which Mr P has already written. Am just relieved he is now safely settled in Surrey, where they speak the Queen's English and there are no 'infirm' people. One hopes.

"Tim". . Too funny.

Actually, not so LOL is his last piece of 'advice', - 'stock up with strong alcohol and anti-depressants - you'll need them.'

He was actually pretty funny until then.

I just googled 'Tooting murders' and yes there are a few

Then I googled 'Surrey murders' and there are even more. Including chopped body in a freezer, murders in own home and a stabbing. Mean streets of suburbia, eh?

Talking of murders, I knew a boy who was at school with a boy called Dippy who massacred ten people, including his mum and dad. In fact he's the only person I know who was at school with a convicted murderer.
Dippy's full name was Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal. And the school? Eton. Bloody hell, you wouldn't want to send your school to that crime ridden crack den, would you?

Actually, I'd really like Andrew Penman to come onto this thread

It would be entertaining. Or tragic. But anyway, it would be good for everyone on MN to see where over-anxiety about schools leads one.

I wonder what 'Tim' expected the boy to say. Do you think if he'd greeted him with 'Hello good sir, and how can I help you?' they would both have changed their minds about the school?

I broadly agreed with a comment following the article from Lune13, who said:

"This guy represents the thought process of the vast majority of middle-class parents for better or worse.
In the bulk they are the Collective - resistance is futile. Millions of manic parents are not easily assuaged.
Rather than getting up tight about it, you need to think about how you would change this behaviour without resort to force - that will fail in a democracy."

I guess it depends where you live - but church attendance and moving house are reasonably common school admissions behaviours, in my experience, in SW London.

The fact that this article is in the Guardian is interesting - until recently they have been manic supporters of state education. But I read it as an 'opinion piece' rather than any change in editorial direction.

LOL at Merrylegs - and good point, I think we needed to see a photo of Tim to fully understand the level of panic his experience instilled in his friend.

And Chandellina - that would impact on an individual English-as-First-language child how, exactly? Statistics about overall performance of large groups or schools cannot be turned round to represent the individual experience of any one child, or of other large groups within a school. So a school with 'rubbish' results and a high level of ESOL speakers could well have very high results fo other groups within that school. This is EXACTLY where Mr penman is so ignorant and un-analytical. And where so many parents just use it as an excuse to avoid 'forriners'.

'I guess it depends where you live - but church attendance and moving house are reasonably common school admissions behaviours, in my experience, in SW London.'

You're probably generally right Jackstarbright, but even if people do these things, the article was so badly written and presented that any serious point (such as the difficulty of getting a 'good' secondary school in certain areas as others on here have said) was totally missed. Also, someone like Andrew Penman has the luxury of being able to spend 40K on moving and then whinge about it in a national newspaper (getting paid for the privilege). The vast majority of parents whose children are served by the schools he mentions don't have that choice. I'd be much more interested in an article by one of them describing their experiences.

Interesting link to Mr Penman's Mirror page here - plus the comment after.
He just keeps on giving....

About 'a bright, motivated child with supportive parents will do well anywhere' - no, obviously there's no guarantee that any particular child at any school will definitely do well, but what I mean is such a child should have an equally good chance of doing regardless of whether they go to an ordinary comp or a posh school that the parents can 'namedrop' at dinner parties. The ordinary school might even be a better preparation for university and work, because the kids have to be a bit more organised and self-sufficient instead of being spoonfed and crammed and 'taught to the test' for exams.

The church attendance thing may be common, but I thought it was really horrible how he complained about the 'misery' of giving lifts to the elderly people and having to have coffee with the other churchgoers after Mass - presumably they were friendly and welcoming to the new couple, with no idea they would be used and sneered at like this in a national newspaper. If someone finds my company causes them misery, I'd rather they just didn't spend time with me, would be very upset if they forced themselves to get some advantage for themselves then made fun of me to other people afterwards.

I think the school thing became an obsession that got out of hand and ended up with really irrational behaviour (2% difference between the two schools!) and trampling over basic human feeling and politeness. It's an ugly sight. But he should be ashamed of his behaviour, not trying to justify it.

MissM,

"The vast majority of parents whose children are served by the schools he mentions don't have that choice. I'd be much more interested in an article by one of them describing their experiences."

I agree that would be interesting.

A friend was telling me recently how she avoided going into the playground for most of her dc's year 5 and 6, because she found it too stressful to hear parents planning how to avoid their local comprehensive. The school was her dc's only real option. Although initially she was very happy with it, she found their comments were undermining her confidence..

I hate the fact that everything and all results boil down to the school. What about parental responsibility? Education comes from parents too and the childs attitude towards learning is important.

It is odd that he moved for a mere 20% that isnt even that great - 63% hardly worth £40k.

jackstarbright, that's exactly why I find this article so offensive - not just because using Rutlish as an example of the type of school to avoid was so inappropriate, since it's clearly had a brilliant turnaround, but because parents' confidence in schools can be so fragile. A bad reputation lingers like a bad smell putting off prospective parents even when a school has improved immeasurably and it is not deserved. Prejuduce is often based on unrealistic expectations or comparisons - of course a London comprehensive can seem like a poor option when you have been to a selective private or grammar school yourself (no info in his article about that). In Penman's case, his grounds for judging the school were just wrong and obsessive but ill-informed.

I've heard similar prejudice about local schools, but always based on hearsay not experience, and it seems to come from people with preschool age children who aren't even from the local area who feel more secure in their options of private or faith schools, or moving away, etc. People are free to make those choices and I respect them, but not if they destroy the confidence of those who do use the schools.