How snobby were you with school applications?

[mollysmum82]

We have two very different schools on our list so far:

School A is described by Ofsted as serving a disadvantaged area (21% free school meals) and has 44% pupils with English as an additional language. It achieved an outstanding Ofsted recently and has scored 90% + in key stage 2 sats (level 4) for the last few years. I visited this school and the staff seemed really warm and friendly, both to me and DD. The Head seems to be a good leader and have her head screwed on.

School B serves an "advantaged" area (3% free school meals) and has 3% EAL pupils. It got a good Ofsted and its Sat results range from 70-80% Ks2 level 4 over the past few years. I haven't visited this school yet.

Now obviously I need to visit School B but on the face of it I much prefer A. I think it says a lot that the school can achieve so well considering the catchment it serves. I don't view the high percentage of EAL pupils as a disadvantage as I have friends of many cultures myself and hope DD will too.

However DH is the polar opposite. He worries school A will be rough and that DD would be bullied there. He's heard School B has a great reputation and wants her to go there. He freely admits he's a snob. He too has friends of many cultures but he does worry the teachers will have to spend longer helping the EAL pupils (to the English as a first language pupils' detriment)

So just wanted to know really, are these the kind of factors which influenced your applications? Or did you go with your instinct following visits? Many thanks

Why on earth does your dh believe that your dd will be bullied at school A?

I would visit both schools to get a feel myself but on paper school A is clearly the better school.

Talk to other parents at both schools to get their opinions.

He thinks she'll be bullied because its in a "rough" area basically, whereas DD is middle class (and shy).

We go to school in a very middle class area but the school is fairly mixed, I would guess about 60 per cent of the children are from middle class families. Ds hasn't been bullied but I did have to report a couple of incidents of name calling to the school, the culprits were very middle class. The school dealt with my complaint promptly nipping it in the bud to try to make sure that it didn't escalate into full blown bullying.

The very middle class school down the road has a reputation of not dealing with complaints of bullying well. Again the culprits are all middle class.

I would tend to agree with you about school A on paper. I would still want to take a look at school B though, if only just to confirm your preference for school A for certain.

I really don't understand your DH's bullying comment though - FWIW the worst case of bullying I know of occurred in a super selective private school. Bullies, I'm afraid, can come from any walk of life. What would be more important to me would be how the school deals with bullying when it occurs.

Definitely go and visit school B, but don't discount school A on the bases of diversity and number of children to whom English is additional language, maybe revisit school A after you and your DH visited the school B together, only then you can make the informed decision.
We have a seventeen year old DS who went to a very similar school to your school A, never experienced bullying in any shape or form, school at the time had zero tolerance on bullying, his education certainly didn't suffer, he passed his 11+ and ended up at grammar school, now at the sixth form doing very well and rest is history.
During DS's years at the school Ofsted inspected the school if I remember right three times and every time they commented how well children were behaved, kind and respectful to each other, the whole place had a very warm and accepting feel to it, it was diverse.
School also had a very high intake of children to whom English was a second language, large proportion of children were of Asian and Chinese origin, they were almost perfectly behaved and considered, not the mention high achievers majority of them, IME very positively charged environment.
Snobbery has no place when considering your child education, wanting your child to be surrounded only by white British in these times can only be counter productive and sometimes turn to be a very bad decision.
Good luck, keep us posted.

dd (and soon ds) go to our very middle class village school. Any bullying is delt with quickly and well by the school but in every case I know of, (interestingly all involving girls aged 9+) the bully is the more wealthy, privileged child. In one incident that I found really quite shocking a group of girls refused to share any of their shampoo while on a residential trip with a child who had forgotten to bring any, the child who had forgotten is from a much less well off family then the other girls, something these girls seem to like to rub in with a 'we are so much richer then you' attitude, not that it is at all important or even relevant but the girl is not living on the poverty line, she is an average middle class girl who's parents don't happen to have a high an income as theirs!
The point I am trying to make (in my wonderfully long winded way) is that there is bullying in every school (run a mile from a school that say they never have any in their school), middle class children can be bullies, going to a middle class school will not prevent your child from being bullied! If you feel your dd is shy and could be a target then when you visit each school ask them about their policy on bullying so you can get a handle on how well each school would manage it if it should ever come up (be your child the victim or bully).
School A on paper is the best school and if you were impressed with the over all feel of the school then it would seem to be a very good choice but go into school B with an open mind, don't look around thinking about percentages of FSM or EAL, look round thinking about who your dd is and what she needs from a school.

You seem to have written off school B without even looking at it, are you prejudging the school and a bit of reserve snobbery creeping in ?

of course you need to visit both.

But I am having a little LOL at 21% FSM indicating a disadvantaged area. I'm guessing you don't live in an inner-ish part of London?

DS's Outstanding school, with 31 or 33% FSM, is not 'rough', and by the end of reception children with EAL actually means bi or multi-lingual children. Much evidence to show that bi-lingual children do very welll academically because the ability to speak more than one language gives them an experience of what language is and how it functions.

So, YANBU to think your DH is being snobby, or perhaps just lacking the facts, but of course you should look at all schools that would be a possibility.

tricky, but I think the clincher has to be "if my daughter had a problem, do I feel that this head would come through for us and support her?". So go see the other head.

The 44% culture - If I had a daughter, I'd want to feel that this was a culture where girls are expected to achieve as much as boys.

agree with everyone else about the bullying thing.

What Heswall said

Looks like reverse snobbery to me. You have not even considered school B

What's 44% culture?

We were really snobby. Determined to avoid the one school in this area which has mostly economically disadvantaged students that have below average attainment on entry. Only 422 on roll - less than half its capacity. We were really worried about behaviour.

Of course it bit me on the bum as this was the school we were offered!

Sorry - just saw this was in primary - I was talking about secondary.

I would probably chose school A, but that is because my my DC would have counted as part of the 44% when they first went to school here and do not have a white British background themselves. At their school (quite large, inner city, with 3 class intake/year) there are more than 50% EAL and more than 30% FSM. It is a very supportive school and I have not heard of much bullying, and Ofsted always commented on the good behaviour and helpfulness of the children. I think bullying issues depend more on the headteacher, teachers and ethos of the school rather than on the pupil intake.

You really should visit the other school and keep an open mind - we visited all the schools we were considering and followed our gut feeling about which school felt right for us. The facts on paper just don't tell the whole story.

Also, if you worry that your DD could be shy, then ask the schools, if you can, about their policies for dealing with children who are shy/socially awkward/feel excluded. A lot of schools will have buddy systems in place and other techniques to help shy children (find-a-friend places to go in the playground if you feel nobody wants to play with you, that sort of thing), if they don't then maybe they are not the right place for your DD.

Which school of the 2 is your nearest school as this is the factor that will have the most affect on whether (or not) you will be allocated a place ?
Schools cannot get an outstanding grade at OFSTED without good behaviour management and anti-bullying policies so this is unlikely to be a problem.
You mention FSM and EAL but the other reason for the difference in results could be due to SEN. A higher no. of children with SEN at school B may affect their results.
Both you and your DH need to look round both schools to help you decide. HTH

If my choice was between an academically good school in a poor area and a failing school in an affluent area then I would choose the first school. To me, academic excellence trumps everything else.

But that doesn't seem to be the case here. As another poster has said, reverse snobbery seem to be in play here.

OP - look at the Value Added scores of each school - that is where you can best see the impact of the teaching as it gives the levels achieved against the base level on joining the school.

Visit the schools - my DDs school is by far the best in the area (everyone knows this - we were lucky she got a place). It didn't have the best ofsted report though.

I think if i lived in an area though where different nationalities lived together i would consider there to be an advantage to send my child to the mixed nationality school. Id be worried if it were rough though, i dont think thats snobby (NB just because mixed nationality doesnt = rough but op said that school a might be a bit rough thats all)

I shared your view, OP, for my DC's primary school, but having seen what goes on there (I now work there) I'm afraid I have been really quite snobby for their secondary school.

The school has high SEN & FSM and getting that great OFSTED is about ticking boxes and meeting the needs of the (large) minority.

The children from good less disadvantaged homes get pretty much ignored IME. It's obviously great that disadvantaged children get the help they need, but when choosing a school for my DC I have come to realise I need to think about their needs. This has come as a huge disappointment to me as I always thought I was a better person than that.

I pick schools that have excellent added value scores and a top drawer head teacher, where the children's bikes are not likely to get nicked.

Nothing else really matters IMO.

I went to a school which served a working class area. There was bullying and racism, not to mention serious fighting in the playground. I use to think of my sister at her high school with her MC friends and I remember thinking that SHE got the shit end of the stick..... Nah. A couple of decades on and I still can't convince myself of that :o

I had a miserable time there. We were poor but not as poor as some of the other kids so that made me 'posh'. I liked to study so that made me a 'swot'. I wasn't into Crossroads (showing my age) so that made me a 'snob'.

I was never into this Diversity Is Good school of thought and I can't for the life of me understand parents who are

I otoh suddenly realised halfway through my dcs' primary school career that they were part of the cohort of SN children and that aspects of pastoral care that I never thought would be relevant to my children were suddenly the thing that mattered most to us.

It has totally changed my perception of these things: if I had my life again I would play safe and go for the school most likely to support my children should they ever need it- and I would judge that by how they supported other vulnerable children.

I went for a beautifully presented CofE primary, greenbelt, small, churchy intake ... and my DS left after 11 days because of bullying, atrocious uncaring staff and very unkind, unchecked children. 16 of the 34 in the group left before the end of Y6. Went instead to average community school, lots of free meals, refugees, 2 form entry, 11 languages spoken, lots of children with physical problems. It wasn't brilliant academically but children so happy, confident and cared for and all have done well from it.

1. Visit both, and go with your gut
2. Check the admissions criteria to see how likely you are to get a place at either school.
3. Ask around your friends. Schools can change alarmingly quickly, for different reasons, and you don't want to choose on past reputation if a school is on a downward trend.
4. Look at other factors - clubs and activities,wrap-around care etc, uniform,how happy and polite the children are etc etc. There's a lot more to a school than Ofsted.