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

The pupil premium also suggests means testing unless related to general statistics on free school meals. But I'm not even sure how that works either as there are low wage earners who may not claim them. Would that also support those whose first language is not English? Also, do schools get money from a separate budget for special needs pupils?

63 A- C is not very good though. My daughter's school got 97% A or A* at GCSE. If he had not chosen journalism and his wife had a decent career they could afford school fees. They are failing their children by their career choice rather than the schools necessarily failing them. There will always be differences between children and schools.

'If he had not chosen journalism and his wife had a decent career they could afford school fees. They are failing their children by their career choice rather than the schools necessarily failing them.'

Sorry, what? There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't know where to start. In fact, I can't be bothered to use my evening doing so.

Isn't it true though? A set of day school fees is about £10k. Plenty of parents choose careers which enable them to buy a good school place. Others indulgently go into the media or arts because it's fun but don't realise that way they damage their children's education by their relative penury.

ah Xenia, I missed you

Oh, good. I've been busy.
Tony Benn on radio 4 today talking about how wonderful most leading trade unionists are was so amusing, although not intending to be.

MissM - I was at senior school 1989-1994 and I really enjoyed school. My home life was grim, so I looked at school as somewhere where I could have some peace and quiet.

Really enjoyed most of my lessons. I can't say I was socially very happy (used to be very self conscious and shy) but I felt safe.

I feel compelled to respond to this. This book is pertinent to me as my child is going to secondary school next September and I have actually read the book. Some background I am not a snob, not white nor would I consider myself middle class. I'm black, working class and live in a council house and I can tell you now the schools in Lambeth where I live are dire. I'm not just looking at league tables - I see what goes on in the state schools around me, the fights outside (which I help break up), the kids getting stabbed and the pregnant girls in their school uniform. This is what I see first hand not what I have read or heard from someone else.

I don't agree with faking religion. I also agree that you can't go off league tables alone and where possible should talk to staff, students and observe the behavior of current pupils. I have a niece who went to a so called failing school who did very well and is now at a good university - I have first hand evidence that she is an exception not the norm. I went to a crappy school and did well, about half of the people I went school with didn't. Last time I saw one of them he was a Herion addict. Of course some kids will still do well at bad schools but do you want to take the chance/risk? This is your child's life so feel free to take a punt on him/her bucking the trend and doing well in a poor performing school.

What we really want is a school with kids whose parents share the same values as us now how many of them do you think send their child to the local state school if it's already doing badly Another thing to consider - a child with ability can go to a bad school and go off the rails as a result so no if they are bright and go to a poor school they will not necessarily get a good grade - this I have experienced in my family so it's not just about choosing a school for the education.

Oh and to Blu I would say in response to your comment:

"And for all the much-publicised knife crime the vast majority of young pelpe are not affected by it" lucky for them, I went to 2 funerals last year and my niece lost another friend last week. I'm not playing any sort of race card but I would suggest that if you were bringing a young black male up in South London you might feel a little bit different about sending him to the local state school.

southlondondad - I second you re:"if you were bringing a young black male up in South London you might feel a little bit different about sending him to the local state school"

I have spent a term in a comp school a bit further from you, but still with an inteke of kids as far as Lambeth...

PHSE teacher told me that on an average every year one of their ex students is involved in a serious gang crime (which usually mean someone has been killed)

black boys in that school were engrossed in gang culture, busses frequented by kids from that school are a no go area for the locals

nearest big Tesco banned anyone wearing their uniform from entereing their premisses as there was so many shoplifting incidents...

every week there was at least one Child Protection issue - that usually meant abuse in the family, where a kid was removed from that environment for their safety

I can go on and on...

given a chance not many parents would want to send their children to a school like that...

So many interesting comments. Southlondondad - you make such a good point and thanks for bringing in a whole different perspective to this. All your fears and concerns are completely understandable. I think you're talking from a very different place than Andrew Penman though - your concerns are founded on a very real reality for you and your son. Penman seemed to make his decisions through a combination of hearsay and statistics. As I said above, it's parents like you, or the parents who can't make the kind of choice someone like AP can, who I would like to see write articles in the Guardian.

Lostfeelings - this might seem pedantic, but I think your last line is a bit inaccurate. It's not 'a school like that' but 'a school with children like that'. I don't think you can blame the school for the kind of things you're highlighting - for all you know the school is doing its utmost to make children 'like that' feel secure.

GetOrfMoiLand - I really appreciate what you're saying. For kids who do have a lousy home life school can be the only safe haven. I'm really glad it was for you .

I really like that we're getting so many perspectives on this thread.

I picked up his book in the library yesterday, and finished it this morning- it's not exactly a difficult read [hmm0

What stood out for me is that he complains about his son's primary school in Merton-Holy Trinity- homework not set, lessons not planned etc but does not go into the school to discuss it with the head "because we're leaving".
He is incredibly scathing and personal about the school- especially his son's class teacher, who isn't named but obviously identifiable to those connected with the school.
I really hoped his house sale fell through (it didn't but was fraught with difficulties)

southlondondad - thanks for demonstrating that the decision really does involve "anguish" for many parents - that it's not something to scoff and belittle, as the OP did.

It seems to me that this is really a social issue rather than a school issue. We Londoners tend to pride ourselves on living side-by-side with people from every possible background, but side-by-side is by no means the same as integrated. Despite living in the same geographical space there is often no point of contact whatsoever between the relatively affluent and the disadvantaged.

It is only when the middle classes (for want of a better term) enter the state school system that they actually see who the majority of their neighbours really are, and are forced to integrate with the most deprived and chaotic families in the community, families who previously have often been invisible to them, and it comes as a shock. Hence the huge numbers who do whatever they can to avoid it whether by finding faith, moving house or whatever.

Of course faith schools (at least VA faith schools) don't help as they represent a more exclusive and therefore socially advantaged tier within the state system which often disadvantages the neighbouring community schools.

But the real issue is the disparity between the privileged and the disadvantaged which is all too easy to ignore until you find yourself having to drop your five year old child into the middle of it.

Bet none of you have dc at schools that he is averse to. I thought it was fair.

Actually I do hullygully. Apparently there are too many murders there for his liking.

I moved to avoid murders etc, but I appreciate that not everyone can. Don't blame those that do, though.

I mean I don't, not that I don't want to be.

SouthLondonDad - I am. My son is mixed race, we live in Lambeth, he goes to a Lambeth state school. I also work (on and off) in most Lambeth secondary schools and some units, including Park Campus .

I write my posts because they are about my life and my child's life, not because I am a wanky Guardian chatterer! (well, I might be that too, but I feel passionately about this because it is my life being chattered about)

I say what I say exactly because of what MissM says. And also to highlight that it is as much a social issue, and that while there ARE serious problems, and we do young people no favours by glossing over the shit lives many of them find themselves in, and the causes of that, neither does it help fo AP to make capital out of ill-researched facts that imply that all young people in S London are pactically feral.

Many black boys are indeed engrossed in gangs. It's serious, dangerous and unpleasan fo all affected. However the vast majority of black boys are NOT engrossed, or even involved, in gangs. Unfortunately the majority of black teenagers suffer the association - as much from generalised prejudice as by the second hand effects of gang activity, IMO.

Anyway, welcome to MN

And similarly, if you are in the fortunate position of being able to move, don't publicly whine about the unfairness of it all while failing utterly to examine the cause of the problem - a problem which is infinitely worse for those who you're taking such pains to get away from.

(that was to hullygully, not blu)

But his article was a personal outlook (wonders if is talking about the same one), not an examination of social inequity. I think a lot of people are genuinely shocked when they first start looking at schools in earnest (whether they should be or not is a separate point). And I too am a sarf Londoner.

Yes, but even as a personal viewpoint, it is depressingly small-minded to respond to the shock of discovering the true social make-up of your local schools with "look what horrors I've had to go through to get my children away from the poor people", which is essentially what this article seems to be saying.

If he had said 'I was freaked out because some kids come from differnt socio-economic backgrounds from us' or 'I just wanted to be in an area with a more homogenous social set-up' he might have been being more honest. The whole problem was that he has based his book on some shaky premises - a mis-understanding of stats in a truly comp school, and having been foolish enough to have admitted that his whole decision seemed to be based on an isolated incodent, reported second hanad and having occurred several years previously! THAT is what people on this thread have been objceting to, that's all!

Also, I hate him for his middle class double standards on theft.

I would not base an ideal education system on faith schools if i was starting fom scratch. But they exist, within our democratically run country. Him deciding to lie is in effect theft. It makes no difference that he has no respect for the faith-criteria admissions syste - many benefit cheats and tax evaders probably feel the same, that the syste works against them in some way, there is a quirk that makes it 'unfair' to them - that's life, and it's tougbh, it doesn't make lying and cheating, which result in a theft, OK.

I feel able to give my son strength and values and self-belief and ambition, and the backbone to act honestly and without lying and cheating. I think that will serve him better, in his Lambeth state school where the overall achievement outstrips the national average (while the intake represents a far higher index of disadvantage), than a running scared self-confessed liar of a parent, wherever he goes to school!

Sorry, I will calm down. In truth, I am cross at being patronised by SouthLondonDad. I agree with a lot of what you say, as it happens, but really...