Hill House rated unsatisfactory

[jeanne16]

I was shocked to read this. Any parents from Hill House available to comment?

Oh yah, the totally best thing about my ds's school is that it's got Foreigns in it - and not a refugee in sight! I can totally show them off at parties. They all speak English and have pots of money and have the right stamp in their passport, and really it just shows how global I am, yah, and culturally rich, Pip-Pip!

Having your child's school labelled as inadequate is a horrible experience for any parent. My daughter attends an OFSTED inadequate school, so I feel a lot of sympathy with any parent in that situation.

The definition of a good school is subjective. A lot depends on who is in power and what they see as important. OFSTED are focussed on progress in the 3Rs and many experiences private schools provide are deemed frills. It has to be remember that private schools provide a disportionately high number of people in top jobs. Maybe these very wealthy parents can help shape government policy on how a good school is defined.

Just a very small chip on your shoulder there then, Cruikshank?

Not quite sure how you've managed to miss the huge school place crisis that some areas of London do have. You know, the one that's left some boroughs with 100+ children left to place after they've filled all their reception places and added over 10 bulge classes.

Cruikshank's just taking the piss in a gentle way.

Oops just re read Cruik's posts and they're not so gentle in fact! Still funny...

The year DS started at the local sw London primary (400m away), 200 children were told they had no school place at all. This was after all the places had been offered in other boroughs, and every single school place had been filled, and children had been given places a couple of bus rides away.

So those 200 children are now without an education?

It was actually another poster upthread who said she didn't want her kids to go to school with refugees, so sorry I lumped her in with you. But my main point still stands - putting your children in a social situation where they only mix with other upper-middle class children, whichever countries those children come from, does not a good social mix make. It's like all those tedious bores who go on and on about how we're living in a global society and how that means everyone's equal - well, no, we're not. For starters, many people in the world don't have a passport, and even if they did they couldn't get any further than their own country's borders with it. The world has always been fairly boundary-less the higher up the social scale you go, so you are, while your choices are understandable because they make you feel comfortable, hardly treading any new path by choosing a school that other members of the elite send their children to.

Cruikshank makes very valid points. 14.40 was a great post. I think it's sad that lots of people don't support community schools with challenges. They are often good schools with very dedicated teachers who would love to have the support of the very people who opt out.

What nonsense to say that cruikshank is being racist. Of course she's not. In amongst the children of a successful builder and other affluent people, are there children of cleaners, postal workers, health care assistants, supermarket workers etc? Not many, I'll hazard a guess.

Of course, it does work both ways (devil's advocate here). There are state schools with a very poor social mix. I believe that children need role models. If they don't have them in their own family, it's helpful to have friends at school whose families can open a window on a different world for the poor, bright, hard-working child. My daughter briefly attended a state primary school which had hardly any middle class children so she stood out like sore thumb. Things improved massively when she transferred to the school down the road with a much more diverse group of children (socially - the ethnic mix was pretty similar).

I love mumsnet sometimes. Only on here could you get a barrister (a fucking barrister ffs) who sends her kids to a private school (a shite one as far as I can make out, but nonetheless one that 94% of this country and probably close to 97% of people in other countries couldn't get anywhere near) grandstanding about how inclusive she is.

So no one's particularly interested in child safety and welfare and standards of teaching and teacher satisfaction. Just class war. Yawn. Might start another thread.

I haven't mentioned your race or religion at all. Your social class, yes, because you are in the 6% of the population who utilise private education and therefore are part of an elite. You, however, have repeatedly (and erroneously) jawed on about my race and religion and, in your most recent post, about my class (again erroneously). I'm not talking about me. You know nothing about me. And the only reason I am talking about you is because you are daft enough to try and persuade me and others on this thread that people who pay for their children's education do so for reasons of inclusivity. An inclusivity that comes at thousands of pounds a term. And yet you see no contradiction in that. It's like travellers in a club class lounge talking about how small the world is. Yes, sure, at the top it's small.

I think Hill House is the latest in a long line of schools, both private and state, where the parents have no idea what is actually going on and have no idea what a brilliant school looks like because their children don't go to one!

Poor Ofsted inspections seem to come as a thunderbolt to parents but if you have never seen the safeguarding policy, talked about how work is set for you child based on prior attainment, or been aware your child's teacher needed more subject training or that the school had not complied with the findings of an emergency inspection because the school had not explained to you how it was going to comply and what compliance would look like, then it is likely that this inspection is a total surprise. If parents don't ask the right questions, or don't ask questions at all, then they cannot be surprised at the findings of Ofsted who are doing it for them. It's about time the parents woke up and formed a PTA!

HillHouse kids are probably missing out because the standard of education in London states in that area is very high. But that's ok because I've seen loads of kids in Battersea and Clapham, even as far as Brixton in the uniforms of Chelsea's state schools. So someone's benefiting!

Eh? Plenty of state schools in Clapham and Brixton that would seem to offer a better standard of education.

There is some very funny shuddering on the MNLocal site about HH's destination list not being all that because it features so many schools South of the river. And another poster who is unperturbed about the safety concerns because at last her child is not at the local state school ('outstanding' though it is).

But mostly I think I need to hear more about the communal swimming trunks.

So those 200 children are now without an education?

No. Some of them went private. The rest of them were squeezed into classrooms for a term while the council wrangled with schools and parents over where they should go. It has taken many years of lobbying and arguing to get a secondary school to meet the need for increased places. Every year there has been building work and parents being told that actually the playground didn't need to be very big after all.

Of course many children are fine - but the whole thing has taken up huge amounts of teacher time. If your child has sn, for instance, it is not reassuring to learn that next year things will be different and there might be more resources. (Well it is the first time - less so after a couple of years). How do you think a 4 year old child with ASD copes when they don't know who will be teaching them from one day to the next?

If parents are able to send their children to private schools to side step all this, it makes them lucky, not snobs.