Is it hard being minority posh kid at inner London school?

[saucypan]

I'm not someone who wants my kids to go to a middle class socially cleansed school in London - I want them to have a proper mix that represents the community they live in. But what do the wise women of MN have to say about schools - good, vibrant, successful, but in very deprived areas. Is it hard to be the only white middle class kid in the class - or one of very few?

I have been sneered at and ignored by MC women. I dont base my opinons on MC women on those unpleasant examples.

Perhaps the point is, a genuinely diverse school doesn't have minorities in it?

I couldn't bloody win, I was too poor for the posh school I started in, then too posh for the council estate we moved to and then too scruffy and poor and being brought up my a single father - target stamped on my forehead -for the next school I went to.
I think as long as you don't lord it over people you'll be fine, if you act like a stuck up twat people will pick up on that.

Blu I think it's the other way around actually. A school where there are so many differences that those differences are accepted as being totally normal would be my ideal.

But the unpleasant examples of middle class women exist, OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere. And they often seek each other out and live near each other.

But nooka, the point is that nowadays most London primaries have a huge diversity of kids in them. Most are not like your school was. Our nearest catholic primary in Brixton has polish, black african, black british, irish, s american, portugese, spanish, wealthy and poor children in it.

nooka - cross posted with your last post - yes, we agree! And the OP is talking about a London primary, now.

night night!

Oh, and to even it up, dh got a scholarship to a posh private school and had significant issues there due to his WC accent. Obviously nether experience scarred us for life as presumably we wouldn't have fallen for each other. I'd still rather my children didn't feel like outsiders during their schooling.

You're are right Blu, my old primary school (in Lee Green) is much more mixed now.

I don't think my old primary school is any more mixed. I'm not sure where MrsDeVere got the idea that people were thinking or saying that bullying could only happen in a deprived area, either. I spelt out very clearly on more than one occasion that bullying can happen in any school - all you need to be is in a minority to be at risk of it. But she didn't choose to read that, for some reason. Maybe it didn't fit with her sense of outrage.

dd's school is like this. In an area of "very high social deprivation", well over 50% with English as a second language (tip: if you remember to think of them as bilingual it will instantly stop you worrying about it) and very high level of SENs. As others have said, everyone's a minority so it's probably less hard being a middle class kid in this sort of environment than it might be in a less diverse school. If you're defining your child as white middle class and looking for other children like him/her you might well find that there are very few, but families with middle class values are not always white, or English. Can't quite believe I felt the need to spell that out, but it does (rather shockingly) tend to get forgotten in these discussions.

There's no avoiding the accent though, but I do a lot of cracking down on South London grammar at home

Believe me, children do notice things like accent at a very young age.

When I was about 9 years old, my parents let my 7 year old sister and I go to the cinema on our own for the first time. After the film had finished we waited outside for them to come and pick us up. A group of about 6 kids who must have been about 11 or 12 were walking past and one of them asked me what the time was.

I told them what the time was and next thing they were practically rolling around on the ground laughing and mimicking my accent and asking if I had tea with the Queen, where my pony was and if mummy and daddy drove a roller...

I was mortified - what on earth does a 9 year-old do confronted with a group of slightly older children who think that the way they talk is to be mocked. They had just asked the time, they weren't looking for a way to interact for whatever reason, but my accent had provoked the response it did.

My father was a rural GP and we sent to the local Brownies group - we were pretty much ostracised because we went to a private school and didn't speak the same way. After 12 weeks I was so unhappy that I begged my mother not to send me anymore. My father was shocked as he knew all the families and that they were lovely people.

I got to know some of the girls from Brownies years later when we were all working in a local restaurant - and they were very nice, and a couple said they felt bad about being so horrible back when we were children. One of them is a very good friend of mine today.

I'm not nearly so worried about DD going to a London primary school - she's at a very un-posh local nursery that I love and she is very happy at. The children are Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Black African, Black Carribean, Portugese, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian etc - such a mix that no-one is really different because everyone is. Plus 'class' is such a terribly British obsession at all levels along with a reluctance to celebrate success and achievement unless it takes place on x-factor or the football pitch...

Anyone who doesn't get the OP's point has obviously been extremely lucky to not have been bullied at school for being different.

I also think responses might have been very different if the OP had said that she was worried about sending her non-RP speaking child from a working-class background to a private school and whether he/she would be picked on for speaking in a different way.

we're at a lovely mixed school at the moment, all colours and creeds but with a 30-40% mc intake which, honestly, makes me feel very comfortable and at home. It's the perfect mix for me. Most of my kids friends are otehr mc kids but not all. We're looking at moving to an area it would be affordable to get a house and the local school is quite buzzy, v creative curriculum and very nice, but v different mix - my kids would be in a marked minority, possibly one of two or three or even only one in some classes. My pref is our current school but where we live is no longer working, so it's balancing it all out...

So how I read it is that the OP is happy with the mix in the current London school and worried about moving house and the less diverse new primary where her DCs would be a marked minority. Just to say "all London primaries are very diverse so you must be a bit up yourself to even ask about this" [disclaimer: I am merging several comments here, not quoting anyone directly] is not really answering her (imo quite reasonable) concerns about her DC. For all we know the OP may be moving out of London anyway! That sort of finger pointing is what this thread seemed to start saying this evening, and is a little bit like the attitude the OP wants to avoid in the new school, ironically enough.

To answer one of the specific questions in the OP - I suppose my DD technically ended up as the only "white middle class" kid in her class by the end of primary school.

There were one or two other white kids, but not middle class ones (hate this terminology btw but suppose it's useful shorthand), and a few other middle class kids (lived in houses, parents with professional jobs etc) but they weren't white.

She was fine - the diversity of ethnicity and background helped, she tended to have more in common with the MC kids & the nicer or brainier kids of whatever background (she was a bit geeky), but got along with most of them, & can confidently switch to & from 'Sarf London' & a naice accent that her grandparents can understand .

I think it's benefited her immensely - the fact that the school was in a relatively deprived area meant that a lot of the teaching was brilliant, and they went out of their way to offer experiences to the children that many of them would only be likely to access through school. She ended up going to a different secondary school to her friends form primary school, but has stayed friends with quite a few of them & they even visit their old school together from time to time.

This doesn't mean that every childs experience would be so positive of course, but it certainly can be.

(To add, in case it isn't clear, that majority of kids were neither white nor middle class).

And if it's relevant, I s'pose we'd be noticeably middle class, but far from brayingly posh .

Class-conciousness and money/house-size/material goods-related bullying seems to be far far worse in private schools, particularly amongst girls, I'm sorry to say. DS's last Norf London comprehensive school had kids from a huge range of backgrounds, some of his classmates had siblings at private schools and lived in £million+ homes, others were from refugee families and were so poor they came to school with no socks.

Most "posh" kids adapt their school accents very rapidly, and can shift effortlessly between the local argot and their "home" voice. There is a sort of Estuary English tinged with Raggustani which is prevalent in most London secondary schools.

Moving to the West Country as been an eye-opener however. Listening to teenagers using Ali-G-style street slang delivered in a gentle Somerset burr just cracks me up!

Thought I would wade in... I am v middle class and went to an inner london comp and secondary school. It was hard socially and I don't have any friends from secondary school comared to my DP who has lots of friends from his village comp.

However, I did have friends when I was there and though they have not lasted when I went to Manchester Uni which was quite diverse (despite some views of Russel Group unis) I was able to get on with a wide group of people who are still friends.

Bascilaly what I am trying to say is that it was hard when I was a teenager, harder than people will ever really understand, but it is ok now and I have a group of friends as an adult that I am v proud of.

"Anyone who doesn't get the OP's point has obviously been extremely lucky to not have been bullied at school for being different."

Hear, hear.

I was bullied at primary school for being posh. I went to a village school on the Surrey/Hampshire border, believe me it wasn't a deprived area. I just happened to stand out because I had been at private school and was particularly well spoken.

I now work at an inner London primary that is very diverse. We have a few white mc families and the number is increasing. I have had to deal with cases of bullying, but as yet have never had an incident of mc children being bullied for being 'posh'. The children who have been bullied at some point almost always have been ones who are have poor or awkward social skills so are either seen as easy prey by some unpleasant individuals, or their actions are misunderstood by other children who find it hard to know how to react kindly or appropriately.

Before anyone leaps on me, bullying in our school isn't that common and we do have effective procedures and strategies in place to deal with in when it does.

My point is that in my experience when you have such a diverse school bullying over class doesn't happen, but it does when the vast majority of children are from very similar backgrounds.

I reckon its down to the school. dd is a minority. She has never been bullied, never been called a name. Because the school wouold come down on it like a ton of bricks and has a zero tolerance policy on bad behaviour.
But ds1's school, despite being so-called 'outsatnding' allowed bullying of minorities and blamed the victim.
Its down to the school and Head.

I'm not sure that the way that I was treated would be considered bullying. I suspect that the school I was at would probably have been considered outstanding in Ofsted terms back then, and I certainly remember very vividly the occasion when some racist terms were used towards the only black child and how the teacher came down on it like a ton of bricks. Is refusing to be friends with someone bullying?

Interesting about accent modulation. My middle sister was very happy at our primary school and had lots of friends. She is is very good linguist, and picks up accents very fast - I remember my mother saying how she picked up a strong Herefordshire accent when she spent a week in hospital with peritonitis. I on the other hand am very bad at languages, and after three years in Canada still sound very RP English.

I think persuading others not to be friends with someone because you don't like them is bullying. Refusing to be friends with someone yourself on the basis of their accent is stupidity. And I agree with hockeyforjockeys that bullies pick on those with awkward social skills first and foremost, because they are so vulnerable in all the right ways.

Oh, and pretending to be friends with someone, getting close to them and then deliberately hurting them is a particularly nasty form of bullying.

That was my experience rabbitstew, and it knocked my confidence for six. I went from being a socially outgoing child to someone who was very wary of other people, especially if they were trying to be friendly toward me. I don't think that there was anything particularly wrong with my social skills before (had lots of friends in infants, unfortunately they were mostly boys who then decided it wasn't cool to be friends with a girl anymore) but there certainly was afterward.