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 know being poor is stressful and hard. But it doesn't necessarily translate into depression. If you take other risk factors out of the equation and compare like with like the link between the two is weak if it exists at all. High levels of depression are not uncommon in all levels of society.

Anyway, it still doesn't answer my question of why high levels of depression in other people would affect a child's schooling in any way.

So why didn't OP come back?

Probably worried that she might have to mix with some rough folk on MN.

I assume that the government will need to use another measure for allocating extra school funding, when everyone in R to Y2 gets them automatically. Although I bet the Tories would love to stop providing additional funding for poorer children.

Give her time. She's taking off her nightie.

I used to have good freind growing up between 16-18 used to go round her flat was just her and her mum. she used to drink heavily, frequently go into rants, chain smoker and throw red label fags at me. she was nice enough person but scary and im sure my mum wouldent have approved.

Another freinds mum was middle class arty career woman money no problem was horrible person patronising hows your mums little ironing job, does she still clean at the pub she also had 2 failed marriages and drug problem and was really shitty parent.

I do think schools need to be more mixed but due to faith/catchcment yes lets build executive housing estate with less tha half a mile catchment then either end of schools become ghettos and reputation heres more damaging than any ofsted report.

When dd1 was tiny on way nursery used to pass a estate school was new build with some parents smoking at school gate but they have in recent years build more high end houses nearby and intakes become more mixed and its no longer blacklisted by the middle classes its rep is on the up but still see kids there in sumemr uniforms in winter, no acoat, we oping to move and its bit large for my liking but slowly the more mixed its become its improved if thats improved the poor im not sure.

I felt like pauper at dd1s school as they considered people dident have as much money to spend as they did dont miss the gazebos and patio furniture the sports days or the long line of tripods and fancy video cameras at nativity or teh huge numbee of 4 by 4s trying mow me down.

re know people who look at fsm. although threshold for thats quite high still at 16k. plus on postoive school get more pupil premium with fsm and the more deprived scools have loads of free or cheap extra curricular cativities the 1st mc school had none.

Having more MC kids in their schools might not make an immediate difference on an individual level. Being poor is hard whoever sits next to you in maths. But it would make a difference over time and on a large scale if the poor were treated less like lepers and more like members of society. There would, for example, be no pockets of no aspiration if all schools had a good socioeconomic mix of pupils.

Some of the posts on here are really pathetic.
People are entitled to their opinion.
If you don't agree, that's fine, but hurling insults is petty and says more about you than OP.

Nah, the OP says a lot about the OP.

Gosh, I'm sure I've read bloody loads of posts on MN about how children at private schools aren't insulated against sadness and misery and parents getting divorced or losing their jobs, or Substance/alcohol abuse,.. Which is, as I recall, the reason why it's no answer to say that private school teachers have an easier job, because just being rich doesn't make you immune to the real world etc.

Or perhaps I've been reading wrongly?

Being rich doesn't insulate from everything. As we see from what's been going on in Nigella's life.

But it helps. Of course it does.

It takes out a whole layer of worry and stress.

As for whether the teachers have an easier job? I guess you'd have to ask teachers who've been through both systems.

I'd have thought teraching in the private sector was easier in some regards and harder in others.

Well, yes, that is what I would have thought, but I'm fairly sure I've been contradicted on that one a few times.

The good thing about being rich is that you can do loads of bad stuff to people and then pay them to forget about it. Just look at Michael Jackson. Only thing I would advise is that you get private health insurance, though. You can't trust these company doctors.

Well, to be more specific, the idea that a state secondary modern where you go if you fail has no real reason not to produce excellent results because expensive private schools without entrance exams can do it!

Welll nit I guess it depends on where people are coming from.

If you asked Nigella tpday if her life was protected from stress I'm pretty sure she'd laugh at you.

Money can't protect you from tragedy. Not the sort of life crushing stuff that is uncontrollable. We all have to face that.

But it makes your day to day life much easier. It makes the small stuff stay small. The stuff that looms very large indeed if you're poor and can knock you right off balance.

Only the leafy ones, rollo. The rest positively welcome such behaviour.

Because the expensive schools can afford higher staff/pupil levels. The kids who are truly rubbish at school still leave with no exams, though. Pity the parents can't get a refund!

I wouldn't ask Nigella if she felt she was protected from stress! I agree money protects to a certain level and not beyond: incontrovertible really!

It's funny, when WC people have these problems, it is down to choices they make and because they are...you know, scummy but when MC people have such problems, it is because it happens to them, bad luck or things just going wrong.

Truth is, shit can happen to anybody.

Only WC people are treated like they are infectious though.

If you've got enough money to put food on the table and pay the bills, the rest isn't about how much you've got but what you do with it. If you've got a lot but it all goes up your nose you're not much better off, really, are you.

I always think my wealth will not protect me or my DC from all manner of things.

But it can cushion us from a hell of a lot of stuff.

Amber I don't think most people find the poor scummy. I think they just don't want to deal with the problems poverty brings with it.

My Mum for example, hasn't a snobbish bone in her body, but as soon as I was rich enough to get her off the estate where I grew up, she snatched my hand off. She didn't blame the people around her or judge them, but she was keen not to live there if she could help it.