Any teachers work in a deprived area primary?

[slappinthebass]

I live in an awkward area, inbetween a very middle class village with an oversubscribed outstanding school about a mile away we are not in catchment for, and we are in catchment for 2 very deprived area schools also about a mile away. Benefits of the catchment schools are that they have smaller class sizes, and presumably more funding via pupil premium?

I have two primary teacher friends I have discussed this with, one is strongly against the deprived area schools, saying in those he's worked at there have always been problems such as aggressive drug dealing parents, poorer pupil behaviour etc and he would not have his children in any of those deprived schools he has taught in. Another teacher friend claims the only difference is snobbery and the deprived area schools will likely have much better resources and smaller class sizes.

I'd like to put this question to other primary school teachers, would you send your child to your school? IS it just a matter of snobbery? This is the kind of thing that is debated a lot at babygroups but I need opinions from actual teachers.

But grammar schools, faith schools and private schools, often ‘weed out’ the types of children they don’t feel will enhance their results. It’s easy, or easier to have good results when your intake is of average or above average ability.

My experience of working in schools in deprived areas has been that they are generally more nurturing and are effective at working with children with a range of additional need.

There are schools in middle class areas, which seem to ‘coast’ because they will always get reasonable results, due to the demographic of the clientele. I’m not convinced I’d want my child to go somewhere like that, because they often aren’t very nurturing, nor are they innovative. But you probably would encounter fewer children with difficult backgrounds.

As a teacher, the school in the deprived area can be a more rewarding place to work, but sending your child there is a decision that you can make when you’ve visited the schools and made it based on what you see and the feel you get for the place.

But grammar schools, faith schools and private schools, often ‘weed out’ the types of children they don’t feel will enhance their results
And the parents who send their schools there are those that positively choose those schools too.

I was a teacher in schools in deprived areas. It meant so much more when the children achieved something as there was so much going on in their lives. Some children really needed me as I was the only stable adult in their lives. I grew up like that. Every day was different. I guess for some parents I was more of a social worker. But there was much more job satisfaction. I was also a supply teacher and the middle class/affluent areas schools were a bit dull as the children just got on with their work. If you can teach in a catchment area that has challenges you can teach anywhere. I prefer that type of school.

"@norestformrz deprivation can often lead to bad behaviour" some of the worst behaviour I've encountered in schools has been from children in very middle class areas and some of the most polite children had very deprived homes. Don't equate poverty with behaviour.

my only expirience would be at the nursery my son went to. He is not at that school now. Some children had difficult behaviour and it felt at times so much of the teachers time was taken up with this that the children who they knew wouldn't be doing anything wrong sometimes didn't get a lot of attention. My friends daughter still goes and she says it's still disruptive and lots of awards ECT go to the children with disruptive behaviour and she feels her daughter is a bit over looked at times as she's shy and quiet. At my sons school it's not in a deprived area and I havnt noticed this but obviously that's just 2 schools

I’ve taught in very deprived primaries and secondaries, and also in more comprehensive (ie a true mix of socio economic backgrounds) schools. Whilst there can be significantly more challenges in deprived schools and this can be a rewarding place to work when the kids ‘get it’ or you get to make a significant difference to their lives, I’d say that the biggest impact on a schools success is its leadership. The best school I worked in was massively deprived but had an inspirational Headteacher. He created a culture of nurture and care and aspiration that meant his school was truly outstanding. Great results, good behaviour etc. I would send my daughter to that school. Some others have had crap leaders and I’d avoid them with the proverbial barge pole.

Best advice is to visit the school and get a feel for it. Do the kids seem happy (not just quiet and compliant)? Do you like what the HT says? Does the school take pride in pupils work and achievements?

You can get crappy Heads in the most affluent schools as well as the most deprived. Go with your gut and choose the school that seems the right ‘fit’ for your child. And ignore any local naysayers

I visited an ofsted ‘good’ school when looking for my DD. I wouldn’t have touched it. The Head was flaky, they had low aspirations because the kids were middle class and generally did well regardless. The displays were tatty on open day etc etc. It was the very definition of a coasting school. Conversely, I visited a more ‘deprived’ school and was impressed by their vibe and ethos.

I currently teach in a school that has been struggling for the last few years. New sponsor has taken over, lots of changes already in place and school most definitely on the up. You can feel it when you walk in, however it’s historic reputation and current RI ofsted grade mean most people won’t touch it. I’d send my child here now, but wouldn’t have done previously.

What is your definition of deprived? What is the FSM %

I agree with the above, how are you defining deprived?

My children go to a school in a deprived area, but with some more affluent pockets, what has been described hasn't been my experience.

I'm a Deputy Head at a school in one of the most deprived areas in England - and I would definitely send my children here. We have a very high number of children with English as an additional language- and most of them actually have excellent English!! We do have children who are very vulnerable and therefore challenging - but we also have a large pastoral team who can support them as well as supporting any other child in difficulty. Which means that the quiet child at the back with low self esteem can also benefit from our Lego Therapy. The Head of a school in a very middle class area in our city told me that they also have challenging children - but no pastoral team to support. Or TAs, due to their bigger funding crisis. That school does raise 35 grand at their summer fair, so they have more iPads than us, but we still manage to deliver a varied and exciting curriculum with lots of trips and visitors. In fact, we do more trips because we know many of our children won't get those chances otherwise.
Our KS2 results are above the national average. Our parents are, in general, very supportive of the school- they desperately want their children to succeed and have more options than they did.
Our nearest neighbour school, on the other hand, has rubbish results and a poor curriculum and it is the same area as us.
Basically, it is the school itself that matters- go and visit, chat to the kids, talk to parents if you can and get a real feel for it.
But please, please try not to stereotype the children and parents of schools as being trouble, badly behaved and not caring about education - we do have some children who fit that but there are also many many children in my school who are the brightest, kindest, most motivated children I've ever taught - and I've taught at some very different schools in my time. In the same way, it wouldn't be fair to stereotype middle class schools of having all entitled children and tiger parents who sue the school if their child isn't in the netball team...! I did meet a few like that in my time at a middle class school, but definitely not all..
I'm sure you will pick the right school for your child - look beyond the ipads and think about the feel of the school.
I hope you find a choice that suits you and your child - best wishes to you both for starting in Reception.

If you are talking about baby group chat, I’m assuming you are not looking for a school right now.

It doesn’t make sense to stereotype schools. I am a governor and worked in education for years. The major difference in schools is the Heads and leadership. They may all have changed when your DC starts. The Head is totally the driving force in a good school and that school can be anywhere!

However you have to evaluate what means more to you. What is key will also be the quality of teaching. Heads drive this and a good Head will demand “quality first” teaching and ensure standards are high and are maintained. The Governors will be proactive in setting goals and ensuring the school is moving forwards and not coasting. That’s something all Governors must do in all schools so look for signs of that. Not having good displays around the school is a symptom of coasting. However, other issues would be more worrying!

Schools in deprived areas are not the same as each other. The good one with grammar school success (do they actually publish this? Where I live they don’t) might have everything in place as I described above and might attract brighter children away from the other local schools in the deprived area. So yes, that might be a great school. The others might be excellent but they might not. Check progress results - plus everything else!

Whatever the data shows, there will be a different ethos in a deprived area school. School trips tend to be few and far between. Many cannot afford them, and those that can might not want to. Parents often cannot raise much. PP is a source of extra money but it must not be accurately directed to the children for whom it is intended. Otherwise there is no extra money and lots of SEN children does stretch budgets. Having said that, MC SEN children often can be found in a few schools where they drain their budgets so be careful about that too! Sorry if that’s a bit blunt, but with finance as it is, smaller schools can be financially overwhelmed because of this.

Lastly, if you have grammar school thoughts for your DC, think if there will be many like minded children to work with in the schools. Where I was a governor, if 1 child got a grammar school place, it was a good year. Parents had no money for tutoring and schools don’t do it. So although teaching might be good, DC can be in a very small group regarding grammar school aspiration and ability. These stats, as I said, in my area are not published. Heads might not even tell you. Whatever you do, be honest about your feelings and think where is best fit for your child. If there is no forest school, find a local wood! My DC never missed out because there was no forest school. We did our own!

I'm not a teacher and this is slightly off topic but as well as their education you also have to consider your DC's potential friendship groups. We are in the middle of two mediocre schools but one is in an areas with a slightly higher socio-demographic. Whilst it doesn't matter so much in infant school, once they are slightly older, and going on more home based play dates, kids do start to realise differences in the size of houses, number and type of toys etc that their friends have / don't have. It's a tiny consideration, and possibly a long way off for your own DC's but in which area would you want your kids out trick-or-treating at Halloween?

Nor sure what your driving at Jammakingwannabe
I would definately rather have my kids trick or treating on my "deprived" estate than anywhere else.
People really go to town with the decorations and treats.
In working class communities you often find people will go all out to make things special for the kids.
There's exceptions obviously. I grew up on an estate and my street was dominated by jehovas witnesses. Apparently they don't like people knocking on their doors

I have taught in both-neither had small class sizes, I have to say. That’s one thing that I do think is massively important and nobody ever seems to do any significant research into-presumably because the government wouldn’t like it if the outcome was ‘classes of 22 have significantly better outcomes for the pupils and reduce staff workload whilst increasing teacher wellbeing!’

Honestly op, there are too many variables here. You can’t generalise-all ‘deprived’ schools aren’t the same and neither are the ‘good’ ones. A lot depends on the head who can leave ;or be replaced!) in the blink of an eye.

Jammaking where I live sits in between a 'posh' area and deprived area. We never go to the 'posh' area for trick or treating. It is not as much fun.

@tanpestryfirescreen and @moonrises the Ofsted reports all say 'pupils eligible for pupil premium are much higher than the national average'. Also there are zero affluent areas in this specific catchment. I'm not sure how to find the exact percentage? My eldest went to a deprived area school that was also in catchment for a wealthier area so although had a high percentage of FSM eligibility it was more mixed than this area.

slap you can find the exact percentage on the compare-school-data.gov.uk website.

There are (at least) 3 primaries in our LA that will move our pupils with any kind of issue -behaviour, dyslexia etc. They are all VA C of E schools in very affluent areas. They are popular schools with waiting lists. Many of their pupils will be tutored to pass private entrance exams. Their KS2 SATS are not surprisingly, very good, but I don’t think they are a true reflection of the teaching quality in that school - one of them doesn’t have a single pupil premium or ESL pupil, and they’ve gotten rid of all the challenges by Y3. Would I send my child there? No, I don’t think I would.

There are other schools with absolutely inspirational leadership but different intakes who have, on paper worse results, but I think are much better schools. I think the middle of the road schools will struggle under the new funding formula whereby large primaries serving deprived cohorts will get at least some extra money. We’re seeing more behavioural problems from families which tick the normal, naice, middle class boxes but we sure as shit aren’t getting any extra funding to deal with it.

Thanks all, some really interesting answers.

Coasting in Outstanding schools is something I'm very wary of. I've experienced it, and I've heard from other parents the good reputation school fails children with SEN. My older children both have SEN, as do I, so my youngest I am considering primary for is high risk. Currently he has a speech delay, but at 2.5 it's too early to tell if this will be ongoing or not. Obviously way too early to determine if I should be ruling out grammar or not. Someone who said I might be thinking too early, I should already have put name down for preschools but haven't decided yet. Will probably keep in current Montessori and skip preschool altogether. We need to make a decision on schools if we plan to move catchment areas.

PTA raising capabilities is a good point to raise too that I hadn't considered much. My older children's PTA raised funds for new book schemes, playground apparatus, funded extra curricular activities etc so I imagine that makes up for the lack
of PP funding.

Those of you that sound the most knowledgable have mentioned how important the head and leadership team are. Do you have any advice on how I can try and determine this? Are there any questions I can ask when visiting?

In terms of leadership - look for staff turnover. Any school worth it's salt will do some kind of parent survey and results should be available - that will tell you a reasonable amount. Otherwise, check Parentview on the Ofsted site but it may be out of date.

If you can visit the school, ask if you can be taken around by the Head or a member of the SLT. That will give you a good idea as to what kind of person they are - are they talking to the children as you go round? do they know their names? Are they in the playground in the morning?

Check the school's website. There's a statutory list of documents that schools must provide on their website - Pupil Premium report, information on governance etc. If that is up to date and looking decent then someone knows what they are doing.

Read the minutes of the governing body - these must be available by law. More difficult if it's an academy as I don't think they have to make local governing committee minutes available. Is there challenge? Is it just rubber stamping SLT actions? What does the data look like? Are governors engaged and asking questions?

Thanks @jaffa I have used that website actually, very useful. The deprived area schools are 62.2 and 67.2 percent FSM and the middle class area school is 7.2 percent.

It is lack of SEN support that concerns me most about middle class area schools. I've had first hand experience of this sort of thing already. I have high school age children with ADHD, ASD and Dyspraxia.

I think it's important when discussing deprivation to consider the demographic. Others have already mentioned higher percentages of DC who arrive unable to speak English, for example; but I believe it has been demonstrated that certainly many Asian communities value education highly, thus are supportive of the school and teachers, expect their DC to achieve and to behave, whereas a similarly deprived white working class community do not have those aspirations.

I agree that having a good HT is vital but it has been my experience via 2 different primary schools that in the first, a quite socially mixed tho 'white' primary with quite a few problem families, when our excellent HT moved on, the school dive bombed within a year, further exacerbated by the involved, supportive families withdrawing their DC; and the second, leafy, MC with quite a few Asian DC with professional parents, the HT moving on had little impact on the school or its results.

We were lucky in the first primary, under that HT, the school felt dynamic and innovative (plus some year group amalgamation allowed Y5 and 6 to have 22 DC per class); the second was a bit more pedestrian, possibly 'coasting'? But the education was solid, and its performance as good as you might expect from such a leafy primary!

So I'd choose the MC school over the deprived one every time.

I also think leadership is very important. My children went to primary school in a deprived area. You can find pupil premium numbers on the government website - my kids’ former school is 54%.

I agree with comments about lack of opportunities/extra-curricular. There were no sports clubs at our school, no music lessons except for a series of drumming lessons with an external provider, no swimming and I can only remember about 3 trips in our time there. No year 6 residential either. There was a very strong focus on Maths and English.

On the plus side, the Maths and English teaching was very good! My dd got into a super selective grammar and a top independent with a bursary, with no tutoring and just a few practice papers. School did a great job with the basics.

Yes, she only had a small group of academic ‘peers’ and they weren’t from professional/educated families. But they were really nurtured, taken out for extra work etc and that top table group had a great bond - and a healthy sense of competition. Dd’s Self esteem was high and she really enjoyed primary.

Socially, there were some issues in years 5 and 6 - she was exposed to language and other stuff that I’d have preferred her not to be. But she’s very accepting and compassionate now and she can get on with all types of people.

On the down side, the head was ousted in dd’s year 5. He had been great with discipline - he really understood the demographic. The new head didn’t. The school went downhill, lost lots of teachers and became an unhappy place within a year. My dd was leaving anyway but we had to pull my son out as hed experiences bullying and the new head just wasn’t dealing with it. It illustrated to me how important the leadership is.

So all in all, go for the school that appears to be well led and stable! Which ours was until
It failed its ofsted (unjustly we felt) and everything was thrown into confusion.

My DD went to a deprived school (admittedly she left primary 10yrs ago, mix of those on benefits, those on low income and a few that were probably comfortable (but not affluent). I was a sole parent making ends meets so DD was in the same boat as many other children. Which is a big factor of me choosing that school, I did not want her to go to school with middle class dc with nuclear families that were judgey (sorry but that's my experience from looking / hearing at the oversubscribed school)

It wasn't awful, yeah teacher time was taken up often behavioural issues, however that also occurs in oversubscribed school, all trips were free (art galleries and museums etc), that suited me as I couldn't afford expensive trips either! and there was some anti-social behaviour.

BUT my DD actually did get some good SEN support for her dyslexia and on the whole all dc were treated fairly and her teachers were fantastic. There certainly was no snobbery by anyone. She got a decent education and still has friends from primary even at 21.

I know people with kids in amazing very deprived area schools. Others are in mediocre deprived schools. I know of teachers in very very deprived area schools where much of the day is dealing with safeguard8ng and behaviour issues. Go visit and and assess each on own merits.
Lots of affluent area schools are also very Ave

“I think it's important when discussing deprivation to consider the demographic. Others have already mentioned higher percentages of DC who arrive unable to speak English, for example; but I believe it has been demonstrated that certainly many Asian communities value education highly, thus are supportive of the school and teachers, expect their DC to achieve and to behave, whereas a similarly deprived white working class community do not have those aspirations.”

This is absolutely the most important factor. The culture of the parents. Not the ethnic background per se but how much they value education, how parents view authority and also their parenting skills to be honest

I work in a secondary in an affluent area but a lot of our intake come from outside the area as the academic reputation isn’t as good as it once was so the more invested parents send their kids further away. I think many of the parents at my school just choose it as the nearest single sex school for their faith (although many are not very involved in that faith anymore) and they remember its reputation from years ago.

Attitudes towards school rules are very lax shall we say so you’ll get parents who come up to school being verbally abusive to -all staff, even senior staff. Then you’ll see them get in their car effing and blinding at their kid and verbally abusing them and then you realise why the kid is acting up in school.

This may have not been so much of an issue years ago when school funding was adequate and you could look after these kids properly in school and model nurturing behaviour and language for them etc

But these days, we don’t have the support in place to deal properly with kids who come from chaotic families, some with violent or criminal parents, and all the social problems they bring into school.

So I would actually go to a school at pick up time and hang around looking at the parents who pick up and how they interact with their kids to be honest.

I think a lot can be “hidden” during an official visit too. Better to be incognito and be around the school watching how the kids behave on the way home.