Accents

[lolama]

Are there any state schools in London that produce kids speaking a posh Queen's English or do only public / private school kids get that?
I really prefer it although I know it's not popular with many people. I'm an American mum in London .... apologies in advance if this offends!

Some people are better than others at imitating accents and switching between them. My brother could speak like a local at school, and speak like our parents at home. I didn't have this gift, so was teased a bit at school.

Our DD went to French classes from an early age and her French accent is very convincing. I hope she develops the ability to adapt her accent to suit the audience!

Children do their own thing with their accents, honestly, OP. I could give you numerous contrasting examples from my own extended family, of different children adopting the local accent when they move, or clinging stubbornly to their own, from an early age. To my ears, even expensively-educated youngsters these days often have undertones of estuary English in their speech.

First generation kids from Bangladesh do not have their parents accent if they go to school in London
Wouldn't it be that they speak Bengali at home and English in school.

My DC were born and raised near Cardiff and don't have any accent (ie not quite 'posh' but well spoken) because I made sure they didn't pick up the local accent which was very strong 45 years ago.
The majority of the children I know have the same accent as their parents.
It's down to you OP to make sure your DC has the accent you want them to have.

Gosh, what a shallow thread. Giving you my first biscuit @lolama

Get your child elocution lessons if you're so worried about your child's accent.

I'd think that most parents with an RP 'accent' are more likely to send their children to private schools. Any state school in London is going to give you a mix of accents.

If your DH is posh then she'll probably pick up his accent anyway, but have another at school. Emma Thompson can reproduce a Scottish accent exactly - she was born and educated in London but her mother is Scottish.

John Barrowman does an amazing Scottish accent because his parents have them.
My dc don't sound Scottish, I do. I think the area you live in and the school both have a massive impact.
If you want to know what your dc will sound like listen to the dc at the school gates.

John Barrowman does an amazing Scottish accent because his parents have them

Indeed he does, if you ever see him around his siblings or even people like David Tennent he'll start speaking in a scottish accent without thinking.

He used to actally have to think about "putting on" the american accent on doctor who because he was acting oppisite David who had to think about the RP accent.

Depends on her friends group a state school will have a class of 30 pupils so even in a posh area there will be a mix of backgrounds and accents and cultural differences. Because of the nature of the state schools admissions criteria for example looked after children having a priority or by distance, and the fact that there a number of council houses /estates in most "posh areas there will be posh speaking kids in her class and others not so much. If you want to make sure the majority come from a middle/upper class background maybe have a look at religious schools with different admissions criteria for example attendance of a certain central London church for years before admission etc. Also generally speaking you will be looking at a predominantly white Birtish intake as best described by their posh "queens English" accents so you will get a whole class of such kids only in a Private school in London. Hope this helps!

This is such a strange thread - OP there really is nothing less attractive than sounding like princess Anne - you’d be doing her a disservice explicitly hunting for a school that produces a posh plum accent. Not all Londoners have cockney accents either.

OP you’re basically are looking for Jacob Rees-Mogg accent

I think the OP is getting a hard time. I would say that, yes, some schools do tend to have children with more “neutral” accents - they tend to be the ones favoured by the middle classes (so cut off distances of mere metres and, perhaps, a requirement to hit a certain number of religious points if it is a CoE or Catholic school).

Schools don’t focus on accents but I do have a friend who teaches in a primary school and who does correct the children. Not for their accents but more for when they speak in a dialect that people outside the area (challenging area in east London) won’t understand.

I can imagine that the secondary school favoured by many MPs (Grey Coat Hospital) will tend to have girls with RP / neutral accents - but to get in, they need to have a record of regular church attendance, sit an assessment (banded admissions) and live close to the school (it’s in SW1 so a pretty smart area).

Accents change at uni too, my East London patter rounded out and became blander and more neutral, to the extent that a posh friend, on meeting my grandparents, said to me 'oh I had no idea...' (that you were from working class cockney stock....). It largely happened because discussing legal terminology and philosophical theories is more difficult without the letter T. I can now switch back and forth with aplomb. I also know some very expensively educated people who make it their business to sound like they were raised on a sink hole estate, much to the despair of their parents I'd assume.

Accents are definitely influenced by parents as well as peers. My accent growing up was far more like that of my mum and dad than it was like the accents of my school friends. Nobody ever believes me when I say where I'm from.😁

My dd hasn't picked up on her dad's accent much but she has definitely picked up on mine. We have lived in the Midlands since she was tiny, but she sounds like a Southerner.

Grew up in the home counties and my posh accent is super annoying.

I pick up the accents I hear, so I'm sure some people have probably thought I'm rude in the past.

For example, if I'm chatting to an Irish person I'll start mimicking their speech, I don't realise I'm doing it.

My kids both have a Welsh twang AND
a posh twang. Which is odd.

I’m 35, neither parent is English but I was born in part of the country with a strong dialect and have lived there for most of my life. I do not speak like anyone local or anyone that I went to school with. I have a neutral RP accent, unlike anyone in my town!

If you want your child to speak the “Queen’s English”, send them for
elocution lessons and insist they speak in the way they have been taught at all times. But be warned, I grew up with a girl whose mother did exactly that. Mother had a strong scouse accent and moved away from Liverpool, wanting her daughter to “not sound like she was working class”. Her daughter ended up sounding like a 1930s BBC weatherman, got bullied at her (largely working class) school and ended up rebelling against her mother in very extreme ways (illegal behaviour, teenage pregnancy, becoming obese to spite mum etc) because she hated how tightly she’d been controlled. Don’t be that mother.

I never said it was a top parenting priority or the first basis on which school I select for my child! My main priorities range from the quality of the education, teaching methodologies, atmosphere of the classrooms / campus, arts and language offerings, social culture, access to green space, surrounding neighbourhood, etc etc.

Can you really choose a state school in London taking all those criteria into account? (Campus?)

My DD definitely got her accent mostly from me and DH, not from her peers at school or her nanny who also had the local accent.

My MIL spoke with an RP accent - and spoke frequently about the elocution lessons she had as a child. She went to a state school that had it, but I doubt that would be common these days. It tends to be a taught thing as other posters have said. There are a lot of elocution tutors or lessons in London.

My kids have been born and raised in the UK - have never been to the US, I'm the only American they talk to - and they still have a twang. Nowhere near as strong as mine (especially when I'm annoyed), but everyone can hear it. Honestly, as others said, the best thing if you want her to sound like her father is to have her father talk to her. Beyond that, it's a roll of the dice. Some accents pass on more, but without conscious effort, it's more likely to be a mishmash that changes based on situation.

In West Yorkshire here, but none of my children speak the in the local northern accent. I don't either, hence I think why my children don't. I think watching bbc children's programs and reading books in generic accent (which wasn't forced) may have helped,

I haven't read the whole thread OP, however I would suggest that you enrol your child in Elocution lessons and also public speaking lessons. That will make a huge difference.

Parents have limited ability to govern how their children speak. I have a more neutral / RP accent (because my friends at school did) while my brother has more of a local accent (because his friends did).

So I lived in London until I was 5ish and within a week of starting my new school in nw England I was flattening every vowel I could and sounded like I should be on Coronation Street, much to my parents’ amusement. They still do at some local turns of phrases.

(Despite having now lived oop north for 35 years - including a stint in Yorkshire - I am regularly told I sound “posh”).

You could always watch Peppa Pig. Both dds were always “King of the Carstle”.

If your American. Your dd will pick up some of your accent mixed w British. My dc still don’t have a British accent aged 5 and 7. Although, they attend a French bilingual school so that may be why. And a lot of their teachers over the years have been anything but British! For nursery they had Italian, Chinese teachers that spoke English. Then Spanish, one British teacher, once Canadian. So basically all different nationalities teaching English curriculum!

We moved from Hertfordshire wghen the kids were 2 1/2 , 6 and 10.
My two boys ( now 19 and 27) still have their Herts accents. My daughter, on the other hand, now 22, has a broad Yorkshire accent!!! I have a ‘soft’ Yorkshire lilt occasionally! But that comes from working with children.