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?

The OP mentioned swearing shouting and smoking at the gates. It is not the environment that I would want my young child to grow up in even if the school had an outstanding ofsted rating.

Or shall I put it as : there are:

1.deprived: as in coming from low socio economic class but value education and bringing up their kids as good as they could
2.chavs : can be either rich or poor but they are classed as chavs. School for these people is a day care centre no more.

When I pointed out that schools in deprived areas are outstanding it was to the poster who thinks that schools in the uk in deprived areas are all substandard.

I also don't think the OP is a snob. She is far from being snobbish.

Any parent who would want the best for their child would be worried about the environment that their child is raised in and spends most of their day at. Education is one of the best thing that you can give to your child to help build their future. Why mess with it?

Good schools are more important than all the materialistic things and holidays ,fags ,booze ,cars , xmas , sky tv, & xmas presents etc that many people get obsessed with these days.

Just because all of us are hiding behind a screen doesnt give us a green card to Be nasty to others like the OP.

Hiding behind a screen doesn't give some people a green card to spout crap about 'violent dog types' either.

Actually, I think Rihanna is (completely unintentionally) right when she say that being behind a screen doesn't give a 'green card to be nasty to others like the OP'. The OP is nasty to/about others that she deems of lesser class status than her and it's not ok.

Threads like this bring out the confessional worst in people and suddenly it becomes ok to say things like 'well, no right thinking person would want their children to go to school with nasty poor people's children' or 'well of course everyone judges you on what you name your child/how you dress/your accent/whatever else proxy for class you want to use; it's only natural'. Decent people would reflect on the fact they had been a judgemental arse and tell themselves not to in future, but threads like this seem to be where other people can gather and reinforce/make excuses for their prejudices.

MrsDeVere is exactly right that people who clutch their handbag because they see a young not-white man pass them in the street, or who avoid a school because it has a high level of children who get FSM do so because they are prejudiced not because of the dangerousness or inferiority of the people they're judging.

This same mother slapped her child across the face in the classroom and nothing was done

When I phoned they said the family was " known" to them. I don't have much faith in ss tbh

If this actually happened then ss have broken at least one rule that is taken very seriously, you need to report it and what was said to you, somehow I don't think that's going to happen because its classic ham it up a bit material

When you think about it schools with very high % of kids on FSM get more funding than the ones that don't the learning support tends to be better as does behaviour management (due to having more support staff).

If I was looking into state schools I would be much more inclined to pick one of those.

All schools no matter what type they are or who they attract always have a few nightmare kids and parents purely because so many people are arse holes,being an arse hole does not prevent reproduction

Rhianna...you say no person would want their child around this all day. Absolutely not. The op described the people outside the gate. The parents behaviour. That is not the same as the school and the pupils being like that.

I'm just waiting for somebody to say they don't want to be in a school with to many 'ethnic minorities'...done people on here might as well go the whole hog.

I'm not trollist but...

Elf :)

Totes.

People like to fudge around the racism by complaining about too much English as an additional language because, of course that will impact upon their child's education so it's completely reasonable, natural even. In the same way that they talk about SEN (or ASN in Scotland) as an indirect way of complaining about children with disabilities.

I've seen posts complaining about too many children with EAL, too many Polish children and too many children with SEN on these boards as well as high levels of FSM.

It's a sort of thinly disguised racism/xenophobia/disablism. All of course done in the best interests of their children who are too academic to mix with these children and will be held back.

Wow, it was me who made the " violent dog type" comment. Sorry. And yes my grammar was pretty bad! I meant smallish, fierce aggressive looking dogs. I am not sure of the exact breeds. I do know one of them was involved in dog fights because the father used to take bets at the gate!

Mamadiggin - schools in deprived areas can be ofsted outstanding, but that doesn't mean the social side is any better. Do you want your 4-7yo going into homes where children are regularly sworn at? (And there is a big difference between a child hearing "oh shit" or whatever and actually being sworn at.) Where a casual slap on the way to school is normal? And if you don't want that then your child doesn't have friends that they see outside school? No playdates/parties etc? (The children in my dc's class never even had parties though)

I think peer pressure becomes more important as they get older (hence me moving my dc). In early years most children are innocent but as they become 8/9/10yo they aren't, and to have left my child where he was would have meant he became far more "streetwise" and really lost a bit of his childhood which is short enough as it is these days. As it was I had to explain far more to him than I really would have liked.

mrsdever- by "people like us" I just meant people who dont swear at their children, who's every second word was not "fuck", who care about their child's education and don't slag off teachers at every chance they get. ( How are children going to respect their teachers if it's clear their parents don't?).

I agree with merrimarigold re the "deprived" and "deprived". There is a huge difference between immigrant (and non immigrant) children whos parents work and I suppose what is termed the "underclass" although that's an awful word. The difference is in the aspiration the parents have for their children. The actual income isn't really the issue. You can have a really low income and still provide a really good life for your children. At my dc's old school there was a large muslim population who were lovely but they mostly didn't speak English and they wouldn't let their children socialise outside school. So it's hard.

It doesn't matter how affluent a school catchment it, people like to find out what other parents are like before sending their 4 year old round for tea. You get abusive parents of all incomes. The problem is that people generalise bad behaviour in low income families but see it as an isolated case in families with bigger bank balances. It's faulty and dangerous reasoning.

You could equally argue that it's better to stay in a school where it's more obvious which houses you wouldn't want you children visiting than one where the abuse and general arseholery is better hidden! There are some lovely families in every single school in the land.

There are people on this site who live in deprived areas,who send their children to schools in deprived areas.
Who actually care about their children's education.
Is it any wonder people get the arse when other people don't want their children to mix with ours?

And I don't believe for one minute that every parent at Winters school was as bad as she says.

I mean it wouldn't be fair for me to say that every parent at her nice new MC school is a stuck up snob.

I don't believe that every parent in the school doesn't swear at/in front of children either. I bet some of them do, and you can't tell which ones based on whether they go to work in a suit every day or do the school run in a onesie.

When my DS was a teenager his nice MC mates were all bloody stoners.

One of them was in rehsb by the time he was 19.

Clearly that's because their parents didn't insulate them from your son's dreadful influence, usual! If only they had been insulated from people who rented their house...