Is it worth trying for a place at Redland Green School?

[Brainwracked]

We are moving to the Bristol area and can't decide between Redland Green and Backwell Schools. Is it worth makig the effort to get our DD into Redland Green? We would have to pay through the nose to rent a house within 700 metres of the school and although we would love to live there, chances are we wouldn't get a place at the school anyway since we won't be moving until March or April. I think Backwell School is good for performing arts, which is DD's main interest, but we worry about becoming isolated in a small community and having to commute a lot to Bristol. Can anyone share experience of this?

If you remove all the posters with various chips on their shoulders either about race or SN you'll have a real picture. (I don't know why SN is mentioned here to be perfectly honest, it was obvious the OP was about 'rough' vs 'nice' area). Incidentally Riven's children do not go to rough or local schools, they go private so seems like she didn't like rough schools either.

Bollox, your sons are at a school which has become state, before it was private and they still attended. You can pretend all you like on here, but the truth is they do not attend the local school.....question is why? Can't be because of your principals can it?

And I was not talking about race, not for a second and noone mentioned SN but you do like to bring that up too.

I will not be accused of racism not here nor anywhere.

Riven, I think you forget that I know....your children do not go to their local school so you can pretend on here but you have not sent your children to the local school, at least be honest about it.

SN is important but you said it in a 'Oh I expect you hate SN kids too' I can hear the spiteful tone in your post. Not everyone has issues about children with SN, most people think mixing with children of different ethnic groups and abilities is vital for a good education. Perhaps the OP was worried with decreasing education budgets that schools with a very large population of a particular ethnic group (although I can 't think what) would present a different type of education, it may also be indicative of poverty as immigrants en masse do seem to live in poorer areas.

Usually 'race' issues are really about class.

You found a school that was good for asperges, whatever? If you can't be honest I can't be arsed.

Sorry, that makes no sense...neither the idea nor the sentence.

Choosing a school though is very complicated, and I think the demographic is quite important. We chose the children's primary school, partly because it is a brilliant mix of ethnicities, socio-economic groups, and we wanted them to have a wide experience of society - our other option was an excellent school, but much more unified in its demographic make-up.

For secondary though, our 'local' school is not really an option. The results are SO SO poor that we couldn't send the children there - you have to have a quorum of kids who are similar to yours, otherwise they will be desperately unhappy. When a school's results drop below 25% acheiving 5 GCSEs, and the school is in special measures, that is not going to be a good school for very able children. And I'm not prepared to compromise their education in that way. It's not a question of 'not wanting to mix with other groups'.

Fucking hell, I do wonder sometimes. Riven I was being sarcastic as my earlier post explained the reason I would choose or avoid certain schools was nothing to do with race and everything to do with crime and aspirations of the children.

So take your SN parent and Muslim convert hat off, it's not relevant in this discussion. This is about a 'nice' family not wanting to send their children to a 'rough' school, just like yours.

And the school your boys are at hasn't been an academy for five years, it changed after September 2007.

Sorry September 2008. So DS1 can't have been there for five years whilst it's been a state school.

This thread is the reason why our society can't tackle racism.

Because people see racism when someone makes poor wording choices. It doesn't sound like racism to me. It sounds like the OP wants her child to go to school in an area where there is not much crime (for example). I would doubt she cares what race/religion the children/their parents are.

There is no suggestion that non white = criminal. Actually, CRIMINAL = criminal. Simple as that - nothing to do with race/religion.

I have just chosen an area with high crime as somewhere where the OP might not want her child to go to school. Crime is just an example, I'm not focussing on it, just picked it as an example.

I grew up in Bristol and it is a fact that the poshest private school there contains children of around 40 different nationalities. I went to a primary school in a "deprived" area of Bristol where people were mainly white. My parents worried about us there because my friend's mother had committed a murder and another friend's uncle was in prison for a serious assault. All these were white people. This is the sort of thing that the OP wants to avoid - not other races/religions FFS.

Trains....at last!!