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.

I'm really shocked at the vitriol of quite a few of the comments, especially from you, CactusAnnie!! What the hell's wrong with you??!!

Sounds like you have a lot of anger and bitterness inside you especially when you get going on this "racist" thing. By the way, before you start jumping down my throat, I'm not white either!

AllPizzas, Rafa - the use of the word Asian shouldn't be puzzling. Whether they originate from North India, South India, Bangladesh etc - the word Asian is still used.

Yes, but Asian also applies to Chinese and Japanese people, presumably they are not the type of Asians you have a problem with?

OP I understand your comments. I don't know about the bullying but there are many private schools in N London which are at least 90% Asian. Please PM and I can give you some suggestions of more culturally diverse private schools.

I read this as:

You're emotional about what's happening to your DD - understandable

You've written your OP in such a way that may be offensive to some because of how you're feeling - understandable

It's not working out in the school your DD is in because she is in the minority and there's something of a cultural gulf - understandable

I hope you manage to find her a new school. Whilst this isn't the experience in many schools, it is in some (whatever your race) and it's not fair on your child. You are right to want to move her.

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.
^this

She is certainly right that there are a good few N London schools which are 90% Asian. I have never sat there doing the sums but my sons' school is 90% non white and yes there is the occasional Chinese boy in there but most of them are either Hindu or Pakistani origin (of coruse they are also English boys and as different as any class of white English boys is). That is not a problem for me otherwise I would not have picked the school. It can be a problem for some parents as they are trying to buy a broad English education. A friend had a daughter at boarding schools where at weekends only the Chinese girls from China (about 40% of the pupils) left were there and they did not speak English to his daughter. He had to come every weekend to take her out. They are interesting issues.

I never had a bullied child however in any mix of private school and if I can generalise newish immigrant parents who are paying a fortune for a school place tend to produce very hard working sons who are polite and want to get on and are a great group to put a child within as the class is not out getting drunk every night (I don't drink and my sons don't and I work very hard so I often find a lot more in common with Asian parents. None of us date until university age etc etc so that's a real advantage being within a group of teenage boys who on the whole are similar to that ethic).

1. She is being bullied - that can happen by children of any race, to children of any race. I bet there are some Asian kids in the school who are also being bullied, and some Asian mums who feel as you do in your post. You could move her to any other school, but she might be bullied anywhere.

1. You don't get along with the parents who seem cliquey. I am Asian - my child goes to a state primary with lots of cultural diversity. The mums don't talk to me. I feel invisible at school drop-offs and pick-ups. The white mums seem to ignore me; I could say they're racist. But it's the same with the Asian mums, and eastern European mums, and others ... it's not their race, it's them (or more likely me).

1. If you are concerned about how 'mixed' the school is for your child, consider sending her to a faith school. Where I live in north-east London, there are plenty of private and state CoE or Catholic schools, where the majority of children are white. But don't think all your problems will be solved just because the race is different.

1. I don't think you are racist, but I think you are making some wrong assumptions and associations about the reasons for your child's unhappiness. I didn't want my child to go to a school where the majority of kids were Asian - I want her to grow up learning about other cultures and to learn to get on with people from all backgrounds.

Good luck with your search, I hope you find what you are looking for, and above all, I hope your child gets settled in soon.

I agree with jesstar my daughters primary school was very mixed and there were cliques. I'm white but didn't fit with the other white cliques (polish, portugese, white working class- but all knew each other from the estates they lived on or white Middle class -some I got on with most not)
The Mums I got on best with were a Nigerian and 2 Algerians. I am Atheist and they were Muslim and Christin with very strong belief systems. So I don't think its necessarily race or culture but those with the values, beliefs and lifestyles that you click with. With those Mums some of our life's were very different (Alcohol?, religeon etc) but we had the same values about our children's upbringing and education and a respect for each other.

jesstar and jordan have hit the nail on the head.
There can be cliques and bullying in any school, for any number of reasons.

OP: you're right to try to address the bullying - that must be awful for your daughter.
But you also need to address your views and language. Your daughter will pick up on this and it may negatively influence her behaviour towards people of other races. That is a Bad Thing.

My parents are hopeless racists (and Asian). Its a very negative influence on a child.

I am struggling to have any sympathy with you OP because of the way you have expressed yourself.
I hope you are serious about re-examining your attitudes.
It is certainly possible to be racist and have a mixed race child. I think you are ably demonstrating that.
You are making a whole slew of negative assumptions about all these different families and their children based on at the most 2 weeks worth of contact at drop off and pick up. They are not individuals to you they are all just 'Asians'. How is that anything except racism?

Charitably I can see that your DD is having a hard time starting school (as a lot of children do) and you are struggling with that and blaming yourself for making a bad choice. You are making it all about race/ culture when it may not be.

You would be far better off trying to work with the school to deal with any bullying towards DD and trying to talk to some of the parents and get to know them as individuals rather than just seeing them as a mass of scary 'other'. Invite some of the other DC for a play date or one of the mums for a coffee.

I probably should not care so much about this since I am not Asian and don't live in London but in fact you could be describing one of my best friends. He is Asian and his son just started primary in N. London at a 90% Asian school. My (white) DS and his had a whale of a time at the beach together this summer. They were just two little boys who like superheroes and robots they had no idea that skin colour or religion comes into it. I wish adults would not perpetuate this stuff onto children.

Go back to state education - mixed and free and generally brilliant

There are a few schools in NW London that fit the description of 90% Asian and my friend, herself British but ethnically Asian, found that hard to deal with as they'd never mixed in exclusively Asian circles before.

Schools to consider: Belmont, St Martins, Manor Lodge, etc etc. All great schools, with a very mixed background.

Go back to state education - mixed and free and generally brilliant

sometimes brilliant
sometimes rubbish
sometimes in between

bit of a sweeping statement to say it's generally brilliant!

Generally brilliant overall. Yes good and bad bits. Every school has that. We are lucky to have decent schools for the vast majority of children. Most of us can't afford to pay and thus wonder why people would pay for something they are not happy with?

My DS started school at a CofE state primary in Stanmore. I have nothing but praise for it. We lived near 2 other outstanding schools, but I have to say that we partly opted for the CofE school because we thought there was a better mix of ethnicities. In one of the others he might have been the only white child in the class.

Have you thought about state schools?

OP, sorry to hear your daughter is being bullied and socially excluded. The school should definitely do something to improve this and I think if the situation doesn't improve you should look for another school. Blanket statements about schools with a high proportion of Asian students not being suitable on the grounds that your non-Asian DC will be excluded are unfair. There are many schools with a high proportion of Asian students which function harmoniously, and the fact that yours doesn't may be due to factors such as poor management of the school.

My friend is an asian and his daughter goes to a well known independent school in Surrey. He got the complete opposite experience to what you are talking here. Every single white children in the class room hate his child. None of them talk to his child and the child doesn't have single friend. Over the last seven years, his child wasn't invited to one single birthday party or play date. These clearly shows where we stand in terms of integration and multiculturalism. Sad reality.

Hope you get it sorted soon OP, must be so isolating for your dd. No advice sorry but best of luck.

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2015

Appreciate this is now a zombie thread but for anyone reading I wanted to share my experience. I am Asian and was the only Asian in my year at school. I was called Paki and abused almost every day - there was always a bunch of kids who would say stuff at break time. My younger brother was beaten up on many occasions (he developed into a very tall, broad teenager so that soon put a stop to it!) In those days it didn't even occur to me to tell my parents, let alone the school but that's another subject.

It wouldn't have occurred to my parents or me or to consider these people 'white bullies' even though they were overtly racist. They were just stupid kids doing what they do. I think the issue with the OP is the repeated references to race. Unsurprisingly, my best friends were also white and my DH is white. We have a mixed race son who was regularly beaten by a group of boys when he was 4. He is one of only 2 non-white kids in his class and all the boys who picked on him were white. They were also FOUR-YEARS-OLD. I had a word with the school and tbh they weren't great but the violence stopped, although my ds was still excluded by this group of boys and spent break times playing by himself for all of reception year. A few years on and the 'leader' of the boys moved away and the boys who had previously picked on ds consider him one of their best friends. So much so that we are looking at 11+ choices and one of the 'bullies' (I witnessed him kicking ds in the head at a birthday party) is desperate to go to the same school as ds as he considers him his best friend. At no point was ds's race or that of the perpetrators an issue. OP wrongly took her frustration against the school out on an entire and diverse race. 'The Asian's' covers an awful lot of people.

The truth is that when big groups of people are together - whether all white or all brown - there can be insensitivity to those that are different and perhaps OP feels excluded by the other mums for that reason. Not saying that the other mums are not as dull as OP says, but I doubt it's because of their race.

I understand it is a hard message to take in but the OP described the problem that her child is facing. I don't think she was being racist. Recently (back in Nov) I overheard some parents discussing this issue of a lack of diversity in some of the private schools where I live. I never thought about this as a problem but I can see why this lack of diversity is not attractive. Presumably it is better to strike the right balance with diversity. 90% of one ethnic group doesn't sound like the right balance.

If a school in London is 90% white British, I am fairly confident that there would be pressure on it to change this lack of diversity.

I can only read with disbelief the way this unfortunate lady is being treated by this group. She is clearly in distress about the disgraceful way her daughter's school has been treating the family, but much of the response here has been little short of victim blaming. Rather than allow the school to persist in its blatantly racist treatment of the family, she would be best advised to take immediate legal action against the school by way of injunction forcing them to protect her daughter by excluding the offending pupils. When a few of the asians have been removed and the remainder properly censured, then the bullying will stop as if by magic. There is no reason why any family should have to suffer treatment like this when there are excruciatingly painful, embarrassing and VERY expensive (to the school!) remedies to be applied, - and they are surprisingly easy to use!

Its quite disgraceful that so many contributors to the thread are "racialising" an issue which is simply one of negligence on the part of the school. We are all in favour of cultural diversity and every child having a proper education, - the problem here is the school is not ensuring this for a child who is white! This school needs to get its act together in ensuring it does its job for ALL the kids who attend. If it does not, immediate remedies should and MUST be applied!

I wonder how it all panned out two years later...