Just pay, or go for state with some reservations?

[Having3]

Just want some advice really, and maybe reassurance.Before we had kids we bought our house in a very mixed area of the city without thinking about schools.House is lovely but the local state primaries which we have a good chance of getting into have a large number of non-English speakers in reception and are about 30%FSM.Both have 1 or 2 on the latest Ofsteds but reading between the lines it seems like the non-English speakers do especially well and make lots of progress.Doesn't say much about the others.We are a well-off middle class family and from what I can see from the school gates (DC1 already has started at the nursery) most of the other families are probably not professionals and the majority are not English.Not being a snob, that's just how it is.Is there any evidence to suggest that my DCs will be held back if they are in a class full of non-English speakers, and if they are taught with children from families which may have a different approach to & expectations from education?I know it is hard to get 1 or 2 on Ofsteds, but for both the actual achievement of the children is 3.I think they got good marks for other things.I also feel slightly uncomfortable that my DCs will be in a social and ethnic minority.Am I just worrying about nothing?We could afford to go privately but we both went to state primaries(although in nice towns in different parts of England) did well and I want to be able to walk round the corner to school rather than drive across a city, and I can't help feeling that paying out for primary education, although is a safe bet, is also an unnecessary use of money.I just want my DCs to have a good start and to reach their potential at school.Any views?

I faced a slightly different decision for my now Reception age DS. I live in a very diverse SE London and had two choices. One was a local outstanding faith school with mostly white middle class intake and excellent SATS, another was a further away school with a diverse intake, good by Ofsted and very good results. My gut feeling wanted the one with a diverse intake, but I chose the faith school because it is local and convenient and ?it would be silly not to choose the best school in the area?. Only few weeks into the Reception and I wish I had taken the other option. I already hate all those snobby patronizing parents with their fake-belief fundraising for the school on every corner.

Ofsted will look at the progress of EAL children as a group, which is why they get a mention in the report. The same is true of SEN children and children on free school meals. In my experience, famlies from many ethnic communities have a much more positive approach to school and education than their English counterparts.

Having3: My DS has just finished primary with a v similliar demographic - probably higher FSM.

The most important thing is that you visit the school - a proper visit, not what you pick up from the nursery drop off- and talk to the head and teachers, and observe classes. See how you like the way the school is run.

Our experience was this: The children with ESOL were given support, but would be in a separate space with the learning mentors for part of the time, and R an all the KS1 classes had a teacher and 2 TAs, so all the children were grouped according to their needs for any particular session and helped by TAs and the teacher. It was fine. Any children who arrived with little English were fluent in no time, and as Quint says, they do very well generally because the cognitive process needed to learn more than one language increases your skill and understanding of language overall.

As in many London state primaries, everyone in DS's class was in a minority of some kind - there were Asian, Black British, first generation french-speakiing black African, polish, portuguese, white Welsh, Irish, English, Eritrean, Somalli. When everyone is a minority, no-one is a minority. It has been a wholly positive (for non-white DS) experience.

Look at what the school do, atmosphere, quality of displays, different activities, how do they support high ability / lower ability etc etc.

I do think it is worth stopping to think how it sounds to parents of working class and minority ethnic parents on MN to hear their children, and indeed their families, wondered about as possible hindrances to a child'e educational wellbeing.

No-one needs to be 're-assured' about my DS in a class.

Though Quint, I understand that you are a EAL poster - are you holding us back, here on MN?

My DD is from a white, middle class family. We have several children round to play from her London primary school this evening. One is black, one is Iraqi, one is irish, one is white. They are all bessie-mates and their parents are lovely (even though I don't think any of them have been to university ).

My DD is bright and thrives at the school. The teacher sets the work according to ability and the children are already sort-of streamed.

By the way, one of her friends is in the top set with my DD- it's the Iraqi girl- she's the daughter of two asylum-seekers, so that probably blows some of your preconceptions out of the water, no?

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that it's probably easier for children to have their potential challenged in schools with a very wide diversity in terms of SEN, EAL, FSM etc.

I think in 100% white, middle-class schools it's easier for a more cookie-cutter approach where everyone is expected to be on the same curve.

In the former, teachers are used to juggling a huge range of different abilities and needs and are more likely to treat your child as an individual and set appropriate work.

DD was very much an ethnic minority at the private nursery she attended and her best friends are Japanese and Black African.

The other mothers have all been really nice as well - I was a little paranoid that they would hear my accent and mark me down as a snob - great thing is that a lot of people from other cultures don't read things into something as minor as your accent and hence stereotype!

Blu really sorry if I have offended you, don't think you are the only one and aware that on here my views seem a bit one dimensional.We live in the Northeast and there is a lot less social and racial integration than say, London(where we lived before).We, by choice, live in a particular area that a lot of people avoid as they think it is a bit rough due to the demographic.But we like it and are happy here.When my eldest was born the midwife came to visit and said "nice house but I expect you'll want to go private if you live here."And she is local.A policeman I met said he had been to break up a few fights between mums at one of the local schools we are considering.On the main road outside our house there are several drug & homeless hostels and sometimes alcoholics on our front steps.Someone else posted on here & said that they went "against local wisdom" by choosing the school that they did.It feels a bit like that, and it does feel a bit odd being in an ethnic minority myself at the local school in a city which is not ethnically diverse at all, although in London this might be quite normal.I also didn't really understand how in a class of 30 the teaching could stretch to accommodate so many different needs.I have quickly been put in my place on here though!
I'm very happy with what I have seen of the nursery so far, the school has many good points & my DC is happy and settled there and I like the diversity it offers.I don't want to come across as shunning diversity at all, but I hope this explains why I had some doubts.

Se London here as well. We opted for private but because our local primary was at the time of our applications making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Dd private prep is very ethnically diverse and feels part of the cultural melting pot you'd expect in it's location.

my DDs are in a very white middle class school in leafy SW London
i think the whole school has about 1% FSM with a couple of non white kids (max) per class though an increasing number of E Europe.
the problem you get is the school completely relies on the parents for

• fundraising (budget has been completely slashed with the new pupil premium criteria)
• homework support

sometimes it feels like we're teaching them ourselves DD1 class is fine, very middle class well educated parent intake who are keeping all the kids up. DD2's class is a different story with a group of kids (all white) with little parent support, some with behavioural issues and the teacher seems to spend ALL her time on this group. (i try to help in class 1x a week, the brightest kids do mostly "independent" work The non white kids actually are often the brightest and best, with very aspirational parents. As others have said it is the poorly educated white intake with no aspirations or discipline at home i'd want to avoid.

amida, it is almost like you are describing our school....

Having3 - I do think you should opt for private from day one.

If you can afford to you should, makes a space in an outstanding primary for a child who couldn't afford private or who is truly happy to mix with the common people.

Personally I think anyone with sufficient income should be forced into private ed, leave more elbow room for the rest of us.

Having - thanks - I wasn't actually offended, but putting objectively a pov in repsonse to a very very common set of suppositions I see on MN.

RosemaryandThyme - I don't agree with that one jot! I think it would be better of more people who could have the option to pay would happily choose state instead (where they are happy to do so, of course) and begin to change a mindset which is 'state is last resort' and a certain panic around it in some cricles.

Neither do I think anyone shoud feel obliged to give up what is their normal right, however many millions they may have!

Having3 - You can afford to go private. So give state ed a go. If it doesn't work out then you can always pull the ejector seat handle.

And I would recommend that you give it a shot. I've got a DD in the local state primary. It's fine. DD No 2 will follow. It's hard when people are advising you to take what the private sector love to market as the "safe option", but at this stage you lose nothing by trying the state sector out, no matter what the fear-mongers may be saying.

On a personal level:

• I could go private
• My political convictions mean I'd personally rather stick needles in my eyes
• Don't see how being rude to people trying to make up their own minds helps though
• Think some would rather have clear battlelines drawn than encourage middle-class involvement in the state sector
• Find this personally utterly baffling as an attitude

In my job I work with lots of children every week, partly in schools.The schools in the affluent village tend to have lots of children who are very full of themselves.precocious and pushy.It is really refreshing sometimes to go to schools in a more disadvantaged area where the children, although perhaps more challenging in some ways , are generally much more pleasant and respectful and kinder to one another.

I would look at a whole range of factors. I think people in certain parts of London have a very different view of what is a normal level of FSM and EAL. Our local primary is 50%+ FSM and over 76% EAL. The problem I had with that was not the absolute numbers but there was a large cohort of children from a particular minority / language group so I could see a risk of an us and them culture. My DS belong to that minority / language group and I was concerned that they wouldn't mix outside much outside DH's community. (The position is skewed because 3 of 5 primaries closest to us are Christian and DH's community is Muslim so there are proportionately more non-Christians in the community schools).

If you have a school that is too much of a monoculture I don't think its healthy and the prep school that the DS goes to is more diverse.

The other things that put me off the school were lack of facilities (very little outside space) and its results. Not just the 76% reaching level 4 but also the Value Added of 100.2 which suggests that the performance of the school is little better than average. I don't think this can just be due to the level of deprivation in the area because absences were around or below the national average which suggests parents were supportive of education.

So
Is the school diverse or dominated by one or two groups?
Are the facilities good enough? e.g. if you have a child that loves playing football then a lack of playing fields might be an issue.
What are the results like?
What is the value added like?
Do you like the school, its staff and atmosphere?
How close is the private school?
Do you like it?
How comfortably can you afford it?
What are secondaries like in the area and would it make more sense to spend the money on secondary education?