School friends from deprived families

[poppytin]

DS1 just started reception in September. We didn’t get our first choice of school which could be seen from our house due to oversubscription and sibling rule. DS1 now goes to second choice school which is in a more deprived area although the school has performed rather well and been improving. We’re 7th on the waiting list for first choice school which has very low turnover so chances of getting in are pretty slim. I have no issue with the school as given its circumstances ie high FSM and SEN its performance is very good. However I can’t seem to make myself like the families of the children there. At the school gate I’ve met people in their pyjamas, with cigarettes on their fingers, piercings on etc. I’ve seen people shouting/swearing at each other in the playground while waiting for their children. DS was invited to a birthday party of one of the boys in his class and it was the worst house I’ve ever set foot in. Mom was in nightie with a cig on when we arrived at mid day. DS1 appears to be academic, loves reading and writing, both DH and I have masters from redbrick units and are in professional jobs, our house is walled with books and CDs.

DS loves his school and teachers which is the main reason I’m using to calm me down. However I worry whether the environment where his friends grow in would have an impact on him and his education.

Any opinions?

I come from a deprived background, I have piercings, tattoos and am a smoker.
I am not a bad person.
I work in Childcare, have a degree and volunteer my time at 2 local charities.
Your attitude disgusts me. Your child will suffer more from your outlook on life and judgemental nature than from any of the children you are worried about him mixing with.
Blood is boiling.

The relationship between depression and socioeconomic status is hugely complex and unclear.

It's probably a fair summary that there may or may not be an increased prevalence of depression lower socioeconomic groups but only for specific subsections. Added to that, prevalence is just that. Correlation, does not equal causation so it's not necessarily true that socioeconomic status causes depression.

There are plenty of other factors that are more stongly correlated.

clay I'm sure that there are all sorts of causes. But being poor is fecking stressful. I can tell you that!

One of our local primaries (the really pretentious one) takes the children on trips to sainsburys for stuff. They have to drive past the Asda that is less than 3 minutes walk from the school (and which provides the car park for the school run) and travel 3 or so miles to get to sainsburys. I guess the parents think a trip to Asda might damage their children or something. They probably still get complaints that they didn't take them to waitrose.

It's not that the Asda doesn't cater to school groups. Our school goes on visits to the Asda to do exactly the same things (which is 10 minutes walk away). No one complains. The other local schools go to their closest supermarket too. It's just this one that needs to take the children across town to taste strawberries in a supermarket.

FSM will presumably be meaningless when all children in infant schools get them.

MumpiresRedCard.

You need to read my posts slowly and then go back and read your own posts.

I was quoting you. YOU are the one who was calling people hypocrites. YOU were the one talking about insults.

Drug use;

It's just better hidden by the more affluent

Exactly. The main problem with drug use as far as impact on communities/society goes, is not being able to afford your fix.

Affluent people/communities don't have that problem.

The kids using drugs at my DCs secondary are mainly the ones from prep school.

So the problems the poor experience are actually fictional and it's the rich with all the real woes?

I see.

Only on MN .

The rich have plenty of woes.

Only on MN it's 'the poor' that are the bad guys.

Well I've been extremely poor and I've been rich, and I can tell you which was hardest .

Surely the problem is that the poor suffer from social exclusion. This manifests itself in poorer life chances, poorer health etc and in other people doing anything to avoid their children coming into contact with them.

It is not a good thing, nor totally understandable, that the middle classes want to avoid the poor. A lot of the problems described here are caused by, or at least exacerbated by, these processes of ghettoisation. Everyone would be better off if schools and communities were more mixed.

Of course it's harder to be poor but it doesn't automatically mean you are a crap parent.

Blimey this thread made me nearly choke on my coffee.

Theres quite a few imtelligant mumsnetters who swear my fave mumsnet term is goady mfucker

Its perhaps badly worded and judgemental op but there is some truth schools repuation, predjudices and location.

D1 has done 2schools.

school 1 naiice middle class va rd primary in affluent area-not great academically, the parents very cliquey and splashy with cash.

school 2-vc coe village primary-so admissions doe on distance in affluent area but close to some areas not so posh so has more mixed intake infact some even richer and posher than school 1 but seem to be less cliquey and the middle class professionals will chat to the single mums which think is nice feels very freindly, not sure about tattoos but hubby has 7 and his income puts us middle ,class we grew up from working class households. At neither school see no pjs.
I have 3 kids and never worn my pjs out the house.

Noticed locally schools do build reputations and theres the very middle class ones as as where they brought the house gets them them schools there,s quite a few round here.

The community non faith schools seem to get much more mixed diverse co-hort.

Im actually visiting some schools locally now for dd2 and im avoiding seeing 2 naaice middle class schools as think the parents would drive me mad.

so far seen

1 community school in less affluent area distance from where we lived head seemed nice but walking round felt poorer from kids uniforms fact head kept having issues and having to talk to some pupils made me feel like wa in episode waterloo rd its not totally put me off and havent seen the parents yet will keep open mind and maybe on list.

Today looked mostly middle class infants but again like dd1s school attracts wider and diverse selection than the suburbs mc schools.

Tommorow seeing new free school.

next week seeing sink school one wants to sent their child too and heard some right horror stories but trying to keep open mind and not be judgemental.

my mum working class single parent avoided sending me and my sister to a school on the housing estate.
Only had one senior which was mixed but on whole quite rough.
Im sure i was seen as from deprived background but went onto uni.

I know lots people who live on estates who send kids further away.

My problem is dont consider myself very working class or very middle class we scrape by each month and just like to find nice normal non competative parents similar to me not met many yet.

Can people honestly say though, there aren't any reasons to be concerned about the higher rates of behavioural issues, aggression, drinking/smoking, depression and educational gaps etc, etc, etc that are, PC or not, linked to socioeconomic status?

Depends on the school and its efforts to level these factors to give the pupils opportunity and aspiration.

^^I agree.

Nothing whatsoever is exclusive to those with a lower socioeconomic status. There are just correlations that are fair to discuss (and in my view real benefits to understand so appropriate programming and supports can be allocated IYSWIM?)

Depression is not caused by being poor, no, no. However, for a whole host of reasons there are correlations between socioeconomic status and depression. I only mentioned depression as the outward manifestations of depression can have a negative effect on can put stress on the family unit and can contributing to drug/alcohol use, parenting issues, family members emotional wellbeing etc. Can being the optimal word, not "does" for everyone of course.

I don't think the OP came across well in her original post, I am just saying that her concerns are hardly hers alone and should be able to be discussed in a reasonable way. That's all really.

I didn't for a second say poor parents were crap. But a lot of problems associated with being poor make the job incredibly difficult.

And having some middle class parents pop up in your primary school doesn't help those problems one iota. They continue regardless.

I wouldn't want my child hanging out in houses where the parents smoked no matter how much money they did or didn't have

I haven't got a problem with OPs opinions.
So I'm a snob.
So what?
You do what you want, I shall do what I want.

FSM will presumably be meaningless when all children in infant schools get them.

I really hope not. It would be mean a big loss of funding to school's like DS's with a high proportion of children entitled to them. Not sure how they are going to work out pupil premiums if all children get FSM

Anyway, threads like this make me very glad that DS is going to a rough school. I'd much rather he encountered a bit of swearing at the school gate than all the close-minded snobbery that seems rampant at naice MC schools.

It's not something to be proud of,being a snob.

In fact your children will probably suffer a lot in their teenage years because of your snobbishness.

When I was growing up (one one of the worst estates in the UK) there were families my mum wouldn't let me visit.

She wasn't a snob. She just knew it wasn't safe.