Inner city primary - 'difficult' intake. WWYD?

[Shambolicaholic]

We'll be applying for primary for DC1 next time around and so are starting to seriously think about it all and planning some school visits. We have a state primary rated as 'good' by OFSTED almost at the end of the road. Common sense has always told us that this should be the right place to send our kids - they can walk there, it's on our way to/from work, everyone else there will be v v local etc etc. We don't want to go private, as we think its really important to support the state system and couldn't really afford to do so anyway, even if we wanted to (not to mention that we'd have had to put DC's name down for the local private schools pre-birth...!). Although, if we didn't holiday/buy any luxuries/eat anything other than baked beans then just maybe we could.....

We had a look around the local primary last September and liked it. The children who took us round were lovely and it seemed like a nice place - although tbh we don't really know what we're looking for. Its results are ok - not stellar, not terrible, but ok. It has 40% free school meals and 40% who don't have English as a first language. The issue that concerns most of our neighbours (who've all got their small children registered for local private schools and think we're a bit odd not doing the same) is that a big big big chunk of the intake is from a very rough housing estate nearby. When I say rough, I mean rough. 2 murders on the streets in the past 6 months, should give you the idea. Now, I know that many/most of the kids/families related to the school are not, themselves, rough - we are involved in the local community and many local families are recent immigrants who are desperate for their kids to have a good education. However, it is reasonable to assume that a significant minority of the kids in each class will have tough/chaotic homelife and parents who couldn't care less about their children's education (unauthorised absences are also relatively high). DC1 is bright, articulate and although its early to say, I think he'll be reading a bit when he gets to school. He's been at a great nursery since he was 6 months, has good social skills and loves to learn. I have no doubt that there'll be others at the primary school who are as good and better than him, regardless of their background, however I also know for sure that many children arrive at the school with little English and having had no experience of pre-school or education before that point.

There are a couple of outstanding primaries nearby - our next nearest schools - but we do not have a hope in hell of getting our DCs into those as the catchments are miniscule. Only other local options are faith, and we don't do religion. So, our options are 1) this school 2) kill ourselves financially to do independent, but I'm not sure we'd get a place anywhere even if we could find the money for 2 DCs, 3) move house out of London which we are dead set against. My definite preference is 1 but I'm worried that we're going for the easiest option for us and not the best option for the DCs. This is not a school with a chunk of middle class parents sticking by it and I'm - very frankly - a bit worried that our DCs might stick out a bit and suffer socially as a result. I so want it to work out, but don't want to look back in 10 years and have big regrets.

I am really interested to know what you'd do in this situation and I'm especially interested to hear any experiences from people who have their children at similar sounding schools. How has it been and is there anything I should be looking out for / asking about?

It's central-ish London btw.

I think instead of listening to your neighbours you should have some faith in your own judgement. People go so much on reputation, which can be built on ignorance, snobbishness and, frankly, in my area fear of poorer people. You list many good things about the school, based on actually visiting it, which may be more than your neighbours have managed. Perhaps this year you could also try to talk with some parents whose children attend the school to see if they are happy with it- I managed this by asking friends if they knew of anyone and also chatting to people in the local library with school age kids. I also went along to school functions like the Xmas fair, to get more of a feel for the school.

Well as an educational psychologist i have worked in a lot of schools similar to the one you are describing. If your child has a supportive family they will most likely to well anyway. But my personal opinion is steer well clear, often children in these schools who are english are teaching refugees and those who aren't english how to read. Secondly you know what goes on in these estates, the same incidents happen in the classroom but on a smaller scale, chairs through windows, fights etc. Depends on your child, but in order to succeed they need to be hardworking, driven, bright, not easily distracted etc. For us we are doing the Church Option we have 3 outstanding church schools within 10 minutes of our home. They are small nurturing, middle class, lovely children, these are characteristics we liked about the private schools we looked at. But with 3 children it would be such a stretch for 3 sets of london school fees so we are hoping that Matilda will be offered a place at our first choice church school for september 2012. We in the west Hampstead area by the way are you more central or further out than us.

I don't know about city schools but I have just finished a placement in a satisfactory primary where there is 50% FSM - it doesn't have a good reputation locally. However, it was very well resourced, some of the teaching was excellent and it seems to be on the way up ... in short, I didn't see any evidence that what you might call the more middle class pupils were in any way disadvantaged by mixing with the hoi polloi. Children polite and enthusiastic. I think you need to judge with your own eyes especially as things change so quickly (for the better with a dynamic HT in place)

Those unauthorised absences could be the difference between a 'good' and an 'outstanding' - look at the actual report and what it says about the teaching.

How well will YOUR DC do? Do you see them being exposed to ESOL children as a negative or a positive? It can be both..

How many classes are in the intake?

I've always been very happy with my son's small school, but have suddenly realised that one issue with a single-class intake is that there is no chance for the teachers to spread the children with more disruptive behaviour across the classes - they really are all in it together!

When i came to live with dh I was pregnant (city area but not London). It struck me that nobody I talked to seemed to be sending their older children to the local school. I went and joined the governing body as a clerk to find out more about it. I would thoroughly recommend doing something similar. The only problem being that you can become passionately involved in the school and stop seeing it objectively.

I think if you liked the school when you saw it, you should stick with your instinct and send your children there.

I am in a similar position - our nearest primary is in the middle of a big estate and we didn't much like the look of it from the outside. My DH describes is as Alcatraz. However, we kept an open mind and went to visit. We hated it. It had no feeling or atmosphere of nurturing, the children looked like automatons, it is massive with an intake of up to 80 pupils per year, and they had failed to write down our appointment time so nobody was expecting us when we arrived despite me taking the afternoon off work especially, so we got a very rushed and harassed tour by an office lady. No teaching staff or children talked to us.

We were perfectly prepared to overlook our middle class prejudices and use this school, but we really didn't like it at all. I wish we were in your position of having an ordinary, mixed background local school that we liked on inspection. I feel like the worst kind of snob for avoiding our local school on our school application.

Give it a go I think. There is a lot to be said for gut reaction. You were impressed with your visit to the school. It does sound like it is a 'good' school.
Go with your more informed opinion rather than the 'oh my God' gasps of the gossip mongers.

A couple of things to consider:

a) if the estate is really "rough" (whatever you mean by that), is it also the sort of place that new arrivals to the country are sent to, but which they leave as soon as they possibly can? What does that mean for churn in every year group in the school?

b) do you have any friends on that estate already, and does your DC? From library, local groups etc? If not, are there any particular reasons why not? How far do they apply to the likely socialising that goes with school for DC and for you.

Have a look at the 'value added' scores. They will tell you much more than the sats results. They look at the levels child come in on and how much they improve. Good va scores mean that ALL children do well, whether they start as readers in reception or not knowing what a book looks like.
Personally, I have worked in svhools with difficult intakes and would have happily sent my dcs there as I knew the teaching was great and there were some fantastic kids there. Tbh, some of the local'good' schools are really cruising and getting away with some really average teaching.

Not all schools with difficult intake have out of control classrooms- that is quite an accusation by a previos poster.

Whatever school you send your children to, there will always be some of their peers that you would rather they weren't friends with, just for different reasons.

tildandarchiesmummy, let's hope you leave your prejudices outside your office door, yes?

firstly ignore tildaandarchiesmummy.

A good ofsted is ..good! if the intake is so 'rough' and with such difficult children and they still got a good rating then the teaching must be good.

My children have been to schools that were outstanding, good and a satisfactory [we moved home a lot previously!] the worst was the outstanding one and the best was the good rated one. there is so much more to a school that sats scores etc anyway, if they have good pastoral care and encourage parent participation/involvement that makes a big difference.

Is your son on the waiting list for Beavers, op? If not, get him on it fast!

Oh, and I second asking the question about the "churn". And the VA. And read between the lines of the OFSTED about the behaviour.

1. If this school has high mobility ( a lot of kids moving in and out), then the statistics won't tell you anything. It's no good knowing that a child who arrived half way through Y6 didn't do very well.

2.If you liked it when you looked round, that counts for a lot.

1. The opinion of your friends who are justifying their decision to spend £100,000 on private education is not relevant.

1. All classes in all state schools have a wide range of abilities and other factors. This is what teachers deal with. In England teachers don't teach the whole class the same thing. They differentiate, and teach each group whatever they need to know next.

I think the only thing that matters is the behaviour in school / in the classroom. If you looked round and behaviour was fine, then the school should be fine.

1. You can always change your mind later and move schools.

A school with rough kids wouldn't bother me. I live in a very middle class area and there have still been some rough kids in some of dd,s classes. It's how the school deals with disruptive kids that counts. Of course it may be that the kids from the rough estate aren't disruptive, they could be bright and wanting to learn. Likewise a neighbours kid from a very middle class background could be the naughtiest kid in class.

If you liked it, that's a good sign.

Sometimes people want perfection for their child's school, which is why they go private, whereas a good enough school with strong support at home can get the same academic results and a more balanced view of dealing with different people. (But less on the music, drama, sports, art, which is the flip side).

You can always apply to an out-of-catchment school and be prepared not to get it, but stay on the waiting list if you need a back-up option. Have you looked around the church schools too so you have a point of comparison?

We live in what could be considered a "rough" area in London and all 3 DCs went thru state primary education at a "good" ofsted rated school.
There were some children with behaviour problems but I think you would find that in any school. There were children from all different backgrounds, with different parenting at home, no one that I know of was bullied because of their home life.
The teachers work very hard in an inner city state school as they have more to contend with and they did an amazing job.
We would have sent them to a local state secondary as we could not afford private education for 3 but the older 2 gained places at selective schools (QE boys and DAO) and the younger will take the exam, if not successful he will go a local state primary which is rated as very good
If you looked around the school and are happy with the school and the teachers then go with your instincts on this.
You don't need to dismiss a good local school just because a percentage of students come from an estate.

and tildaandarchiesmummy, there were never any chairs through windows and as an educational psychologist, I would have thought you would have a better balanced view of the world, telling people that these schools spend their time teaching english to refugees and controlling fights is a terrible thing to be teaching people. I'm glad you have picked a "nice, middle class school" as evidently there will NEVER be any issues with those students- although knowing parents who have sent their children to these schools I would beg to differ.
Let's hope your DCs never have to mix with any "working class" people, although with what you are teaching them, they would probably never mix with these people at all. It seems a bit narrow minded to assume families like mine are beneath you, and you couldn't possibly send your DCS to school with mine.

This thread is depressing. People from deprived areas are not all 'rough' with out of control children, just as all middle class people are not predujiced against people who live in deprived areas.

OP School choice is very personal, it depends on your children, your values and the particular local situation. Try not to be influenced by other people, go with your gut feeling.

We are in a very similar situation, except that, like Bushy, we did not get a good feeling when we visited the local 'good' primary - it was absolute chaos and the head didn't seem able to cope at all. We also stood no chance of getting into a better school catchment-wise so have reluctantly gone the indie route. But if I had been impressed by that visit and had faith in the head, then I would have sent DS there happily. And been much less skint.

We were in exactly the same position as you, OP naive and idealistic with strong pro state education beliefs, and a good primary with poor intake.

Go for it!

In the end we took our DCs out at the end of year 2 and went private, but they made lovely friends (still in contact 10 years on) and had a good solid beginning without the fluffy priviliged edge private education imparts. In our experience the differences in background don't really impinge on the school experience until year 3 anyway.

Don't believe the waiting list at birth- children move around and places come up at all schools.

You liked it? Go for it. You may find that these other 'naicer' schools are actually not nearly as lovely anyway - all the indicators such as FSM, EAL, OFSTEd rating etc aren't the whole story.

op, are you in Islington by any chance?

Wherever you are, please disregard Tildaandarchiesmums comment.

I agree with everyone else that if you liked the school, and feel it would suit your children then you should go for it. It does require nerves of steel sometimes when everyone else implies that you're nuts for considering it.

We recently moved house and were looking at buying a house in the catchment area of an outstanding school, one just as TildaandArchiesMum describes actually. Small, nice middle class school. In the interests of fairness we went to see the other local school, much more mixed intake, bigger school and not as good according to OFSTED.

We LOVED the second school and actually bought a different house to ensure that we were in catchment for it. The headteacher is amazing and the school tries so hard and makes the most of every opportunity they have to engage the children. The other 'nice' school felt very dull in comparison and very much like it was coasting.

Interestingly, the Head at the school my DC are now at came from a 'middle-class' school and said that she encoutered as many social problems (alcoholism, domestic violence etc) in the home lives of the pupils in her old school as this one.