Help - My child's North London school is mainly Asian and she is being bullied and excluded

[Roundtheworld]

We recently moved to north London and are having a really hard time finding a decent private school for our daughter. The school she is in, is attended by currently is over 90 percent of Asian children. This has turned out to be a horrible experience for her. The Asian children all have some sibling or relatives in the school. They play only with their siblings or relatives or with other Asian children. When my child tries to play or to speak to them, they are rude, stamping their feet, refusing to be in the least polite and just moving away - the parents don't seem to think the rudeness is anything out of the ordinary. Some of the children pull her hair and push her. The Asian parents are also quite rude and all stick together at the morning and afternoon drop-off discussing inane things (who has the best kitchen, best car, best trips to India, Sri Lanka, etc). This isn't the experience of London I want for my child. My daughter is 4 - can someone PLEASE tell me about some North London private schools that are more diverse and welcoming. I have heard that NLCS is 70% Asian, so that rules that school out for me. I would like a school with a mix of children of MANY races, where teachers and staff actively try to forge compassion, friendship and empathy between the children. The sub-standard staff at my current school are focussed on fees. I understand that this is getting to be quite a big problem in London. Some schools who care mainly about the rankings happily fill their schools with the heavily tutored and rote learned Asian children, but there MUST be some schools that more rounded approach? Sorry to make this so long - I am very disturbed by what is taking place with my daughter.

Op, again objecting to the individuals at your school is fine. But you have yet to explain why that means it's acceptable to decide all large asian cohorts behave this way. Or why you have come to the conclusion Asians are getting so many selective places as a result of hot housing. Explaining your child is mixed race, therefore you aren't racist doesn't answer the above.

Stepping away from the rhetoric to give you some practical advice.

You are going to find it very difficult to move your daughter from a selective private school at this stage in term. Most private schools will have done assessments for their reception/yr1 entries and may well have waiting lists of those pupils who did not get places. E.g. You will not get your daughter into NLCS, or Highgate or Habs or other highly selective schools.

These are the schools I am aware of (through the experience of friends) who have taken in pupils mid-year. They may not be in your area (I think you are NW London, rather than North) but could be a starting point.

Cavendish School in Camden
North Bridge House, Regents Park
Queen's College Prep, Portland Place
Channing in Highgate (very, very rarely though)
There is also a lovely Pre-Prep school in Highgate called The Avenu, but only goes up to Year 2.

Sorry should have said "... TO a selective private school.."

And another Pre-Prep is Annemount in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

I haven't ignored the fact that this shouldn't be happening to your daughter. What I disagree with is the way that you seem to have jumped straight to the conclusion that this is because the school is majority Asian. A lot of the behaviours you describe will be happening in reception classes with children of all ethnicities and nationalities, not just where the children are mostly Asian.

If you continue down the track you seem to be heading in in your OP, then you run the risk of not sending your child to a school that can deal with bullying well or sending her to a school that looks less Asian but has all the same issues the current school has.

OTOH most people would take a school that informs you of a bullying issue and is already trying to deal with it before you speak to them as a good thing.

Thank you SofiaAmes and Sqeaver.

Squeaver, your post is VERY helpful - we are in NW.

Lurkedforever, I am not here to pander to your nonsense - if you wish to use my messages on this post to gather theoretical information as to why people analyse certain information and arrive at a certain conclusion, then now is not the time. For fact finding purposes, posts on social messaging sites also cannot be regarded as reliable - so my answers, even if I wished to give them, will not be helpful. My daughter needs help, help is what I asked for. You are not being helpful. I also never said that my child is mixed race - therefore I am not racist - I openly said in one of my posts that I will look into that aspect of my personality. You seem to love to indulge in telling lies.

So basically you don't have any logical response as to why you've decided to prejudge all Asians. Ok then.

What great advice from Squeaver. By the way both my dc's were born in NW10. (I picked the neighborhood because my favorite food on the planet is curried goat.) Ds went to nursery at the local primary which was very diverse and it was fine, but it became very clear in his year there that because of various learning quirks he would not do well in England where, as an American, I was not culturally equipped to do battle for him. So we moved back to the USA. In the end he turned out to have significant learning, medical and mental health issues that greatly impact(ed) his education and I had to do far more battling than I had ever imagined. He's 14 and I'm only just getting a handle on his needs. (Funnily enough after doing the rounds of specialist private schools he is now back at our local very diverse state school and getting much of the support he needs.) This goes back to what I said earlier about trying different things out for now until your dd is older and you get a better idea of what she needs.
I have found a few places to get my curried goat here in Los Angeles, but nowhere near as good as the Harlesden High Street.

Lurked if you read the OP's post carefully you will realize that the issue isn't that they are Asians, it's that 90% of the school is of the same cultural background. It would likely be no different if the OP's dd was the only mixed race child in a school that was all white, or all black or all Chinese. If you are the only one not of a single culture that dominates a school/workplace/social club etc., that can be problematic anywhere regardless of the race, color or country.

I do wonder if your dd is just being bullied by other little children (which is dreadful and of course upsetting and you naturally want to help her) rather than bullied by 'Asian' little children per se.

Yes the mums sound a bit cliquey and you don't want to partake in their chat -fine but I am concerned that the ethnicity of the other families is being blamed when say, 10% of the children in any reception class might be bullying another child even if they were all from the same ethnic or cultural background.

Also, you say the other children 'play with some other Asian children' well they would, by probability if Asian children are 90% of the school.

North London is HUGE - you could be in Islington, Harrow, Barnet, and these are all very different, so please can you tell us broadly where so people can suggest schools. First though, you need to go in again and discuss this with staff without raising the issue of ethnicity and culture!

I think the OP has said they aren't all from the same cultural background, but a wide variety of 'Asian' ones hasn't she? She said she was using Asian specifically because it covered a wider group, not just one.

It's why the use of the word Asian was a bit odd in the context she originally used it.

sofia as pointed out they aren't all the same cultural background. Nor are the schools with high asian intakes all a mono culture. Op also clearly has a problem with Asians with her comments about them taking up so many selective places, as though they can't have got them on merit, just hot housing.
I've said more than once I agree the individuals at the school aren't pleasant. I just disagree with the fact op seems to think it's an Asian problem, and that the same will happen anywhere else with a high asian intake.

At 4, assuming she's in reception already, you aren't going to have any chance of getting her into a selective private school except through a rare chance vacancy, for which there will be at least 10-15 girls wanting the place. Your best bet would be to go for a pre-prep like Golders Hill or Annemount - both ethnically diverse - and then do your homework for the 7+.

Channing, SHHS, Habs and Highgate all have ethnic mixes and nothing like 90% Asian FWIW (but only SHHS and Highgate of those four have a significant 7+ intake - Channing takes none at 7 and Habs only takes 6-8 girls).

To be fair to OP I have seen how the Asian children and parents stick together at my DC ( non private, quite diverse) primary school, with some exceptions.
I can imagine that if the majority of pupils have a shared heritage, same extended families, attend the same mosque anyone else could be excluded.
Whatever the truth thus child isn't having a good experience and they need to find another school for her. I'm not in London so can't make any suggestions but some people have and hopefully some more will.

I also live in North London and my daughter has just started reception at a lovely state school with a mix of races. I don't think you are racist by the way but i do think you should consider a state school. Private schools are not all they are cracked up to be - I used to teach in one!

What OP has described is hardly unique to 'asians' - though her post could have been written as less bigoted if she wanted to.

He reality is that she's in NW London. Lots of Jewish and Indian and 'natives' as well as miscellaneous. All equally snotty, both the mums and their offspring who learn from them, all indulging in a rather pointless game of one upmanship whilst wolfing down a full fat muffin from the coffee shop before they head to the gym for their 'busy' days ahead.

It's hardly surprising she hasn't had a great experience. At many of the schools in this part of London and indeed Herts, you see lots of ethnic segregation. Many of the Jewish mums invite only other Jewish children for play dates , and look down on the rest of them , the kids learn from the parents. The same goes for a lot of other ethnicities I'm afraid, but I'd prefer to think of it as an unrealistic sense of self they have rather than anything to do with race.

Really simple solution, rather than hoping for world peace and utopia, move to another part of the city and to a school that doesn't attract this obnoxious type of parent.

Evathebeaver, what a striking generalisation and a fucking racist one at that! You've obviously got quite a chip on your shoulder and before judging anyone else as obnoxious perhaps you should take a look in the mirror.

"Evathebeaver, what a striking generalisation and a fucking racist one at that!"

^^This. There are all kinds of Jews (one here), Asians, whatever else, no need to rant like this.

Gosh you're all feisty today with all the obscenities flying around.

My point is that bad behaviour is confined not to one race. End of.

I find your entire post to be overtly racist in tone. Ido hope that you don't share any of your ignorant and generalised comments within her earshot.

Just wrong, so wrong.

Wrong that your daughter is being maltreated and that the school seems incapable of helping her.

Wrong that you would lay the blame on the ethnicity of those kids and their parents.

Wrong that you can't see people as individuals rather than as racist stereotypes.

Many of the Jewish mums invite only other Jewish children for play dates, and look down on the rest of them , the kids learn from the parents.

Not my experience at all. DS2 was invited to his friend's bar mitzvah recently, despite being an agnostic from a Christian family. The two friends whose houses he has most recently visited (he's a bit old for playdates, they 'hang out' instead) are both orthodox Jews.

This thread and the comments from some of the posters are making me cross, so hiding it now.

North London does have a large white population. Maybe you need to do some school-run stalking? Follow the white kids (I'm only half-joking.)

But of course you can't leave her somewhere she's being excluded on the basis of her skin colour, that's ridiculous.