Not very PC but I'm worried about my first impression of DD's Primary School

[MJandherdog]

Thank you for taking the time to read this...I'm not really sure if I'm after a bit of advice or just want to get some very un PC things off my chest...

My DD started reception class at our local primary school on Monday and thus far is having a lovely time. My concern (here's the un PC bit) is that it's a large school with a large catchment area and with the exception of a few (less than 5) there are no 'people like us'. The vast majority appear to be Jeremy Kyle types and I'm a bit concerned (read a lot concerned) about the sort of influence these parents/ children will have on my daughter. Without going into loads of detail, they are the sort who walk to school at 0830 with a can of coke, haven't brushed their hair, look v.dirty before school has even started etc.

I know this makes me sound very snobby. I'm not, I just want my DD to be surrounded by decent, hard-working types. I don't get that vibe at the moment...

Should I follow my heart and look elsewhere? The school has a fairly good reputation but nothing that would be worth clinging on for...

Any thoughts/ opinions greatly appreciated...

PS before anyone really gets the wrong impression about me, this is not about level of income/ perecieved wealth.

exactly niceweather, low expectations and aspirations is the issue. Why would anyone want their DC to attend a school where valuable teaching time is spent helping the DC of parents who have neither academic aspirations nor expectations?

"Why would anyone want their DC to attend a school where valuable teaching time is spent helping the DC of parents who have neither academic aspirations nor expectations? "

Seriously?! Yeah, why bother teaching kids if their parents don't brush their hair. Let's dedicate all time and resources on naice children with naice parents and fuck the rest of them.

I'm really pleased that my son's going to a school on a council estate so he doesn't have to mix with people like the snobs on this thread.

My cousin's kids go to a London private primary school where the head wrote in her newsletter something like "this year's nominated charity is ", and she goes on to mention how generous people have been in previous years. This confirmed to me, if I was in any doubt that we are doing the right thing sending our kids to the local state primary.

"Why would anyone want their DC to attend a school where valuable teaching time is spent helping the DC of parents who have neither academic aspirations nor expectations? "

Because, in my experience as a parent and as a teacher, those are the schools where a huge effort is made to get the best out of absolutely everyone, to treat every child as an individual, to have an attitude of 'no barrier is too high for us to get over together', to have high aspirations of every child and their future. All of these attitudes help EVERY child to excel, so able children - whether from nice backgrounds or challenging ones - will do extremely well.

On the other hand, schools where much less effort is needed because parents can be relied upon to fill in the gaps are, sometimes, very much lazier in their approach and don't have that 'go the extra mile' attitude towards enabling every child to excel.

(Also, by way of personal example, one of the most able children in my new class comes from a background with no academic aspirations or expectations. The other children don't 'lose out' by having her in the class - they are inspired by her motivation, her obvious love of learning, the way she battles against all kinds of odds with a smile on her face. What does it matter what the expectation of the parent is - what matters is the child. The other children aren't in a class with the parent, they are in the class with the child. I don't teach the parents, I teach the child. The benefit of the values and attitudes and work ethic that the children pick up from being in a class of others from all kinds of different backgrounds is HUGE.)

Can I just say also that just because a person may come from a more disadvantaged area does not mean they have low expectations for their children's education. I know many people who are on very low income and living in council houses, they may not have the best clothes or keep up with the latest fashions. They may even drink coke in the morning. Or drop their 't's when they talk but they push their children to do their best and help them anyway they can. (and also brag about every achievement their child has on face book)
The parents who work against the school are really in the minority.

"valuable teaching time is spent helping the DC of parents who have neither academic aspirations"

It's a harsh reality, but any teacher can find themselves spending disproportionate amounts of time on a small number of pupils. This may be because little Jonny couldn't cope with the fact that he had to come in through the side door this morning and has thrown chairs around the room, or lovely Isobel is short-sighted and mummy insists that all her worksheets are copied onto 'off-white' paper.

Believe me, schools in disadvantaged areas do not have any monopoly on 'challenging' circumstances that take up a huge amount of teaching/LSA resources that could be better used elsewhere.

I have a middle class friend with a very middle class life style who refuses to pay for private schooling but jumped through many hoops to send her children to the local middle class all white primary (she moved literally next door to the school until kids got in than moved out), all because she didn't want her children to mix with the jeremy kyle kind of people. The other day she was telling me that all the children ignored each other unless they were with their cliques and wouldn't even reply a hello or good morning to her or her daughter, just ignore and carry on walking...and the parents would pretend there was nothing wrong with that. Guess what, her daughter did exactly the same to mine. They have been friends since 8 months old but mine went to the 'rough' school because the only place we can afford to live is around the council state. After not seeing each other for the whole summer holiday we met and my daughter runned to her daughter to give her a hug and she turned her back...luckily my friend made her say hello. Also later on in the day my daughter hurt herself and she was pointing and laughing at her. Very cruel.

I think the moral of this story is that there are nice people and vile people wherever you go. No school is immune. If you really want to escape from unpleasant people, buy a house on Taransay.

There was a massive fight between two Mums outside the nearest school to my house last year. Screetching, swearing, threats... all in front of the children. It's a private school where every little darling is driven in a fuck-off top of the range 4x4 that has never seen a speck of mud.

Made me feel quite smug as I walk past to go to ds's state school, where adults have never been known to scrap in the playground....

I would be dying to know all the ins and outs of this fight lol.

It just HAD to be about a parking space. IME all scraps outside this sort of school are about parking spaces. It would be far more exciting to think that Mummy 1's husband was 'having it off' with Mummy 2's au pair.

apparently it was about bullying - mad woman screetching like a banshee was accusing the other woman's daughter of bullying her kid. So I am told.

But parking is v. likely to cause a ruck, the parents at this school all drive mahoosive cars and it's just on-street parking. Up on the pavement, on the road junctions, on the zig-zag lines, three point turns* using the pavement... they are nutters who can't see small children out of their back windows.

*three points in theory, in practice it's more like 24. I have a theory that the size and value of the car is inversely proportional to the competence of the driver. It may not apply everywhere, but certainly does in the vicinity of this school!

"Very important to mix with children with different backgrounds". This for me would also include children at the other end of the scale such as the children of doctors, successful professionals, and the such like. My son has benefited enormously from mixing with children from both ends of the scale and from different backgrounds but it took a move of schools for this to be possible. The ideal school would have a equal mix from every strata.

My current class has everything: the children of successful business people, hairdressers, long term unemployed, farmers, health professionals, Travellers, the owners of the local chip van, teachers....

I agree that is ideal. However, the kind of views expressed by some people on here mitigates agaist such a mix - by refusing the entertain the idea of attending a school with e.g. Travellers or long term unemployed as parents, they make certain that everyone, including their own child, misses out on the huge benefits of a wide mix of backgrounds.

I think if you are a raging snob who knows you can't cope with a properly mixed school them you have to move or find god. You can't just turn up and start moaning about it.

I have seen screeching and shouting about parking outside the local prep too.

Agree that there's a couple of dc in each class who are a pain in the arse. There's nothing you can do about it. In dds class it's dd. Shes always tidy though with a proper breakfast inside her. HTH.

Niceweather - I think you've nailed the issue here. I was one of a group of about 10 mums at DD's preschool who knew our children were unlikely to get in at the attached primary and would have to go to our bad-SATs-and-mainly-council-estate-intake catchment school. I was a bit at how vehemently a couple of the mums objected to the catchment school but felt uncomfortable being judgmental about it because they were the least middle class of the mums (would've felt like I was being a snob about other people being snobs IYSWIM).

Makes sense now. If you are aspirational and your life doesn't provide your children with exposure to the more prosperous end of the scale then it's more important to you that their school does.

FWIW DD is now at the bad-SATs-and-mainly-council-estate-intake school and we both LOVE it. I can be seen most mornings sporting Jilly Cooper hair and an old fleece that DD has wiped her nose/breakfast on.

I haven't read any of this for but I just logged on to mumsnet to ask exactly the same question!So, regardless from what anyone has said on here you are not alone.My situation is that my son has just started the pre-school of the nearest school and although I knew about the catchment area beforehand,it was obvious on the first day that there were apparently no "families like ours" either (ie middle class professional) and more than that 1/2 the children have very little English and an extra classroom assistant employed to addresss this.We have to make primary school applications this term so I will reading these replies avidly.I am attracted to the proximity of the school, and the Sats are acceptable, but I too am wondering about the social mix and whether it matters so early on .

Beatrix, If the SATs results are good given the intake that you suggest, then that might suggest a VERY good school in which children make great progress from low starting points.

Definitely worth reading the detail of the Ofsted report and looking at the 'CVA' column in the SATs league tables to find the 'value added' by the school.

I don't think what you are saying is 'UnPc' what is so wrong with presenting oneself in public to the best of their abilities?

Beatrixpotty - You might find that come Reception there will be lots more parents like you who have been using private nurseries because it fits better with work, or have tried to avoid going to the school but have ended up with a place there anyway. Have a look at the whole catchment and at how oversubscribed the local schools are and you should get a better idea of what might happen.

I took DD to a taster session for the pre-school at our catchment school and we stuck out like a sore thumb, so I took her to pre-school elsewhere. Now she is at the school and it is absolutely lovely with a wide social mix and she and I fit in just fine.

Fatfloosie, it is you too who have nailed it. And conversely, if your life does provide your children with exposure to the more prosperous end of the scale (foreign hols, music lessons, middle class friends etc) then it's less important that their school does and mixing with a wide range of children tops off the whole educational experience very neatly.

Fatfloosie,

That is a really important point that I haven't seen articulated elsewhere -that the composition of the pre-school and the composition of the Reception class may well be very different, so it is important not to judge too early.

It is quite possible - not universal, but quite possible - that 'middle class professional' families may use full-time day nurseries elsewhere rather than part-time pre-school provision connected with the school because it fits in better with childcare needs in the years before school. The 'new in Reception, not been to the pre-school' intake may therefore have a disproportionate number of such families 'coming out of the woodwork'.

On the other hand, the opposite scenario is quite possible. Another reason for non-pre-school attendance may be families not engaged with education at all, who only send their children out of the home to an educational setting at the point where it becomes legally required - and that leds to an intake in reception which is different from the pre-school one in another direction entirely!

Whichever way round it is, it is definitely worth investigating the makeup of the school higher up rather than judging on the basis of the pre-school, as the differences can be significant.

Teacherwith2kids: thanks for your comments and advice,you have made some good points.My school in question definitely does not change much after reception.There are no middle class families appearing from private nurseries,it is just not that kind of area.However,I looked at the Sats again and it does have a value added of 101 which I believe is good and gives me more confidence in it being a viable option for my son.

Thanks ladies, especially Teacherwith2kids. You've genuinely given me food for thought and have made me reconsider my approach.

I suppose the children's undesireable parents (I'm not just talking messy haired coke drinkers, as I sit writing this in tracky bottoms and Sunday roast stained top) have no bearing inside the classroom. I will try to remember this...after I've spoken to the teacher tomorrow morning as to why my dd's coat has already gone missing from her peg !