'Oustanding' school and DC acheiving well. But I'm not happy ...

[Opinionsneeded]

...am I in search of the impossible, or am I right to listen to my instincts?

DC's school is an 'Outstanding' School. It is a highly academic state primary, my dc are happy there and they have been consistantly assessed as 'above average' in all areas. So why do I want to pull them out and put them elsewhere?

The Head runs the school with a rod of iron. I don't actually think that in itself this is a bad thing, and discipline is very important to me, however, when watching how the children behave in assemblies and such like, they are like little robots. It's hard to explain.

The school isn't interested in extra-curricular activities at all, unless they're educational (quizzes etc).

They enter sports competitions but don't allow the children any time to practice, so send them off likes lambs to the slaughter. The school are fine with this ...a quick game, school get hammered, we all shake hands, now back to school for some more poetry ...

On the odd occasion where children have made it to high levels in sport, even when representing the school, it's not given more than a cursory mention in the school newsletter. I wouldn't even say that it's not encouraged - it's actively discouraged.

The very worse thing, for me, is that the children aren't treated with any sort of individuality. They are 'cohorts', not children . I think children should be treasured for who they are, not what results they can acheive to make the school look good.

I've got to the point where I hate the school and everything it stands for. I would move schools in a heartbeat but my children are happy and achieving, and I'm really torn.

Any advice would be very gratefully recieved.

go with your instincts. if you have children who are achieving well and being assessed as "above average" then there could possibly be more for them to yet gain. like you said, they are achieving, at the very most if you put them else where they may drop to average, but you may be happier. Nothing worse than a school where you as a parent doesnt feel it is the best place for your child to be. i certainly wouldnt want my kids to grow up and represent a school who doesnt appreciate when a team or individual tries their best, yet has no chance of winning due to lack of support or encouragement from those who they are representing. best of luck with this, it is a difficult decission x

If your children are both happy and achieving, I wuld leave them where they are. DOn't move them away from the friends they have made and the happy settled life they have on a whim. All this is about how YOU feel about the school, but YOU don't have to go there. Your children do, and they like it.

I totally understand your dilemma I am butting heads with the father of my boys over schools but my problems aside I do understand.
If your children are truely happy and their behaviour is that makes you happy then maybe you will have to swallow your feelings esp if the environment is condusive to their personalities as some children do learn best in schools like this.
If you cant provide sports or other aspects of learning to them outside of school and the school arent doing it then maybe discussing it with the head etc may help. If she/he will not budge but you notice your children do want to do other things like play the piano/good in drama etc etc then discuss with them how school feels for them. They may not give you a full picture esp if they are older so you may have to watch closely or liase with the school to ask what they are like socially ie they are quiet and withdrawn at school but loud at home maybe a sign that they are being manipulated and not really happy after all.
Saying that if you know your children are bright (and are in the early years of the school) then moving them may not be a problem as they can adapt quick. They will be clever where ever they are in other words.
Maybe the school has too many pupils and a more community bases school would be helpful. I am sure though all schools should provide a certain amount of physical play classes and other arts like music etc.
Hope this helps?

The dcs happy there? Do they have good friends, etc? I would look at the whole story, not just the dislike for the overly strict head.

Querty
"i certainly wouldnt want my kids to grow up and represent a school who doesnt appreciate when a team or individual tries their best, yet has no chance of winning due to lack of support or encouragement from those who they are representing"

This is exactly it!

They're happy and achieving well, but the ethos of the school just seems sooo wrong to me. Then I think again and think "But they're happy" Arggh.

I'm not going to move them on a whim Colditz, it's a decision that I'm going to sit on, and I'm not going to do anything at all about it for this academic year, I'm just weighing it all up.
You've hit the nail on the head completely, and this is why the decision is so hard, all this it is about me and how much I dislike what the school stands for. What is holding me back is that regardless of how much I hate it, they're happy. All that said, my gut instinct is very strongly telling me to take them out

fizzy
I am providing the sports and other things for them, they're not missing out and it's not that I think they're suffering. I just can't bear the way the school are any more. My dc are fortunate to be fairly bright and therefore what the school value but it still seems so wrong. This has been going on for a number of years and I was very undecided as to whether to send my youngest to the school (just in Reception) I think I should have started the oldest (8) somewhere else at the beginning of the year. But the 8 yo is settled and happy and I just told myself to get on with it.
I'm just trying to battle head over heart I think. My head says leave them, my heart says move them.

bemybaby
It's more the ethos than the Head, although of course it is led by her. I agree that I need to look at the bigger picture though ...

I think that assemblies are a particularly robotic type activity. I guess when you have that many children in one place, you need to get them all to conform, or it would be manic. Having said that I feel that at our school they do value freedom and sporting achievement too. Is there the opportunity to volunteer in the school, so you can get more of a feel for the ethos when they aren't on show? How do the other parents feel? Are they happy with the rules, or do they feel it is too strict, are they the sort of parents you want your children to be with their children, or are they all really rigid too?

I guess what I am trying to say is do they feel like stepford wives, or are they saying similar things, or are they quite happy with it, but you are finding it harder. In the first two cases I would be more inclined to move. In the last case you might find that any organised education seems too structured and some home ed would suit you more. I couldn't contemplated home ed when all mine were little, but I can see that I may be more tempted once they were all of a school age. We did an egyptian project over the weekend (yr 2 + yr r); and we all really enjoyed it. I do find it hard seeing my just 5yr old conforming to all the school rules and routines, but she loves rules and routines, so not hard for her iykwim.

I wouldn't move my kids from a school where they were happy and achieving well. It's drastic to move them from their friends. Perhaps you are a natural free spirit but your kids are more conformist?

As for the extra curricular stuff I would say supplement their education with an extra activity or too. You can do sport, drama, music and the quality of teaching is likely to be higher than at school where teachers are not specialists. Also good opportunity for kids to make friends who are not school friends.

If you do approach the head you could try drawing her attention to the research showing how much exercise can improve cognitive function, so doing more practice at sport could actually improve the school's results! I realise this doesn't address the problem of the ethos of the school, though, except if that ethos is functional aimed at keeping results high rather than something the head believes in for itself.

I would be incredibly wary of removing kids from their friends for anything but the most serious reason and tbh I'm not sure you're quite there if as you say your kids are happy. The potential for introducing new and worse problems is quite high - any one of your kids could be unlucky and have a clash with a classmate or teacher in a new school that makes them really dread school - it's more by luck than by design that most kids avoid that and if you're in a position where you've avoided it so far then I'd hang on to that.

Your children are happy, settled, achieving and the school recognises them as above average academically. As you are providing them with sporting opportunities, it sounds as if between school and home you have balanced the children's needs well. I would be wary of moving them from where they are happy and have friends unless you know of a school that matches their needs to the exact letter.

I'm not sure what you'd expect the to do with a child who's achieved a high level at a sport though? I'd have thought a mention in the newsletter was pretty high aclaim at that age.

I used to play sport at a high level and never got anything more than a brief well done from the current teacher. I was thrilled to be recognised by them, and certainly didn't feel short changed.

Is it your children who are achieving at sport and you don't feel they get the recognition?

Hmmmm try being in our school which has a team sport obsessed head and only cares about winning.

My poor ds is the only kid in football club not in the team as he's not good enough I guess(parents with older kids have long been pissed off with this)no recognition for effort what so ever.He's also in the netball club but again will never do a match.He's been saying it's all pointless.

He loves cycling(and is rather good),hiking etc but obviously they're not the type of things school give a stuff about.

Every assembly the same kids troop up to be applauded for matches etc.It's so tedious and I know many parents have long since stopped attending said assemblies due to being sick of applauding the same kids year on year.

Praise for being polite,kind kids just never happens.

Interesting as the notion of disliking a school for no particular reason is, I don't think it's really relevant to the most important question which is: what's best for the children? If they're likely to get a good education and make friends then leave them to it. Nobody's asking you to attend the school.

I would say the main thing is that your children are happy and this means everything, it's hard ignoring our instincts, I've done this with ds school but if your dc are thriving and are doing well academically then I think it's best to leave it be however hard that may be.

I almost feel like this is a journo plant because OP describes what I imagine, in my no-relevant-experience prejudice, most Outstanding schools must be like, if anyone was honest.

I wouldn't move happy kids though. That''s an even bigger prejudice for me. Sounds like it would be rather difficult to have the youngest start somewhere different, too?

Sounds exactly like the catchment school where we lived when my eldest was approaching Reception age. Graded outstanding, very high achieving with most kids getting L5s but no joy or vibrancy that I could see. Assemblies were too polished which I hate too. We were paying a lot of money to live in that catchment and we still decided to go down the independent route rather than send them somewhere whose main concern was sats results. One of my 4kids is very bright and I hated the thought of her being pushed down a narrow academic alley.

Having said all that, if the kids are really happy and doing well, maybe just grin and bear it? Unless you've visited another school which seems to hit all your buttons and you feel sure they'd love it there just as much. Problem is there's probably no going back to an 'outstanding', high achieving state primary so you need to be sure of your decision.

"I almost feel like this is a journo plant because OP describes what I imagine, in my no-relevant-experience prejudice, most Outstanding schools must be like, if anyone was honest."

No - it's not like that. Outstanding schools aren't outstanding just because they produce robots with high academic achievement. Ofsted do look at overall effectiveness in terms of achievement, quality of teaching, quality of leadership, behaviour and safety of pupils but also "the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils at the school" and how all needs of pupils are met.

You should be able to find a copy of the Ofsted report easily enough online - would be interesting to see what it says about the non-academic stuff, which did feature in earlier Ofsted frameworks as well. And you haven't really said what the alternatives are - do you have in mind an available school that would do all the extra-curricular stuff? Your OP sort of reads that you've taken a strong dislike to the Head (fair enough) but have allowed this to mutate into a dislike of the whole school when the reality is that your kids are happy and doing OK - unless the alternative is great, I'd leave them where they are. Or you could talk to the Governors?

Are they happy because they're truly happy, or is it because they don't know any different?

Would they be just as happy elsewhere?

Or would you be moving them to tick your boxes rather than theirs?

It's a hard one, and IMO it's all about the right school for your child/ren rather than The Right School. My DDs 2 and 3 go to a wonderful school in a deprived area that 'only' rated Good at it's recent Ofsted inspection.

I chose it over the Outstanding one for some of the reasons you mention; the more desirable school seemed, to me, to value children that contributed highly to it's SATS results, and that conformed nicely to their little boxes. In Reception the children had painted pictures and they all looked the same, and only the best ones were on display.

I think some Outstanding schools tend to coast on the back of their Outstanding status.

3duracellbunnies
The children are like any other children really. Mostly lovely, with the odd tearaway and the odd Shirley Temple. The same with the parents - most lovely, with the odd pushy 'alpha' mum.

I do know parents who feel the same way as me, equally I know parents who love the fact that the school is results driven as that's exactly what they signed up for, so to speak.

I couldn't home ed as I work. I don't think I would be very good at it either though to be honest.

Ghoul
Funnily enough, I'm really quite conformist myself - it's not rules, per se, that bother me. I'm a great believer in rules and discipline ...t's the type of rules and the over-emphasis of academic acheivement above all else that really bothers me. These traits wouldn't bother me in a secondary school, I just think that a primary should be about producing well-rounded children, not trying to make all children fit into a neat round hole. I'm not sure I'm making any sense?

My children do activities outside of school, so I know that they're getting a balance. The schools lack of interest in anything other than academics just bothers me as it seems like such tunnel vision. My children aren't suffering because of it, it's just that it bugs me (my problem, I know)

roastveg
I can't approach the head because I'm a big soft shit she has made it clear that it's her way or not at all. You join the school, you sign up to her rules. I actually quite admire her for that.
That's really interesting to know that sport could improve cognitive function though. I love sport for a variety of reasons particularly working as a team and being able to excel at something even if you're not particularly acadamic. I think all children should have the opportunity to shine.

I agree with rest of what you say too and I am very wary of moving them for the reasons you say. It's very difficult.

sue52
Hmm, what you're saying makes a lot of sense, and is actually what I hear when I listen to my head and not my heart.

DeWe
The children were not encouraged to take part when they'd reached a high level (representing the school) as the school thought it would negatively impact on acadamic results. I find this quite heartbreaking for those children.
What I expect is encouragment and a bit of "good luck guys" rather than warnings of doom that it could impact negatively on results.

MrsHeffley
That's all very wrong. Your poor ds

learnandsay
Did I say that I disliked the school for no particular reason? What I meant to say is that I dislike the ethos of the school and the fact that it is so result-driven with very little given to the individual child.

I agree that I need to go with what is in my children's best interest, which is why I'm mulling over the decision - a decision that I will not take likely and that I'm seeking advice on.

I'm aware that nobody is asking me to attend the school. Thank you though.

lookinggoodingravy
I think I'm leaning towards that way ...and yes, I agree, it's very hard to ignore instincts

If they are happy and achieving, and have friends, then I would leave well alone. Just do the rest out of school.

ragged
I'm not a journo plant unfortunately
I have no idea if other schools are like my dc's.

The more thought I'm giving to it, the more I think that I would be being very unreasonable to move them. They're happy. The problem is mine to deal with, I think.

lovingthecoast
Yes, they do sound very similar. My dc are bright, but not extremely so. They have lots of other lovely qualities though
Unfortunately independant isn't an option for us. Thank you for your input, what you're saying re not being able to go back makes perfect sense ...and isn't something that I'd thought about.

Hassled
I'll take a look at the Ofsted report. I've not looked at it since before my eldest started there
Hmm, I don't strongly dislike the Head. I don't particularly dislike her at all tbh. What I dislike is what the school stands for. The lack of breadth, if that makes sense? The Head is the leader, obviously, but I have no personal feelings against her.
You're right though, the reality is that the kids are happy and doing well. I do have an alternative in mind. The alternative (if dc's could get in) is a good school (I have neices and nephews there). It doesn't perform quite as well academically but really values the children as individuals. What I don't know, and what would be the risk, is whether the children would settle.

sidge
That's a great question, and I really don't know the answer

I suspect that if I can find the answers, I'll be able to answer my own question, although I do suspect I'm trying to tick my boxes the more I think about it ...

Go with your instinct.

exoticfruits
Yes, I think that's what I'm leaning towards. Thank you.

I just don't know MySunshine. I keep thinking "but they're happy"