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'm happy to join you in taking flack, because I feel this thread has been hijacked by a type of person that feels they need to justify their ways

Ha ha ha! Oh no, you've got me! I'm posting here because I wear PJs for the school run, fag in hand and call my kids cunty shitbags across the playground.

Objecting to the OPs attitude obviously means I'm like the people she is writing about.

Thing is though, it is hard to swim against the tide, no matter how wonderfully you're parented ^rolls eyes at self back slapping^.

That was my education in school. I had a hard time until I learned to hide my ambitions. I did okay but it was a shit experience, like holding my breath for years.

Going to university and living among like-minded people was amazing. Unbelievable.

Why is it wrong to want that for your kids?

Plenty of WC kids and let's face it that's who people are talking about go to university.

Times have changed,WC kids want some of that now.

But I'm not so sure some MC parents like that so much.

Of course plenty of working class kids want to go to uni and probably will go (if the fees don't keep rising and put them off altogether).

But in some areas and some schools the rates of unemployment are so high and social issues so endemic, we're not even close to the trad working classes.

gollum. Lidl is presumably the litmus test. Or Iceland? If they refuse to go to Ixeland with you they've been irredeemably tainted.

Beer I agree with that. But a. primary years go past like lightening. and b. it's still hard to be that parent swimming against the tide.

My Mum describes those years as guerilla warfare .

Of course there are lovely children in every school and great steadfast hard working lower income families. Of course there are. 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?

I'm intrigued now. I can see how you can spin an argument for behavioural issues, aggression, drinking/smoking and low aspirations as having a negative affect on your child but you've got me with depression. What on earth has the rate of depression in classmates/classmates parents got to do with anything?

Yah, I was thinking how to link schools to the nearest Waitrose as somebody upthread said. I wonder how one factors in the width of the street and the number of trees. And, of course, duel carriageways outside houses don't count. (But I don't think one finds Waitroses near duel carriageways, does one?)

clay the rates of depression in some areas is incredbly high and closely associated with poor health, substance abuse etc.

am I the only person here who'd pay good money to read the deleted posts here

Can somebody link up to depression stats? You've got me interested now.

Substance abuse is not exclusive to the 'lower classes' neither is depression.

Amberleaf what?? how did I insult you? I did not.

This is so ridiculous.

My children went to the nearest school, it happens to be a good one. I consider that a stroke of luck. I am not a hypocrite or a snob. I'm lucky. My children are luckier than some. I acknowledge that.

Good luck to you all, no matter what schools your children are at. I mean that.

I don't know, I don't live anywhere near a dual carriageway

I realised I said 'Ixeland'. Shit, I must be illiterate (And I swore, so I DEFINITELY am).

Being a WC kid and going to a school with fag-wielding pj-modelling parents, and fag-wielding, knife-flashing peers who had no ambition, has obviously scarred and held me back more than I'd realised.

Yes, but it's not catching. How exactly is it going to have an impact on your child to the point that you'd want to remove them from one school to a more MC one?

usual absolutely no one said they were exclusive.

But the incidence of both is higher amongst the poor.

The biggest stoners I know are nice MC boys.

They led my DS astray for a while.

I disagree, I don't think that substance abuse is higher amongst the poor.

It's just better hidden by the more affluent.

usual you seem very attached to the idea that there are no particular problems attached to being poor.

And that your own experience is pretty much replicated everywhere.

Smoking shows health concerns.

I'm still trying to get my head round that sentence.

I never said that 'the poor' have no problems.I do think there are problems for some families.

And your experience of swimming against the tide is not the same for everyone either.