there are only 3 white boys in my ds' state nursery

[iamnotstressed]

This is a lovely inner city state nursery attached to a generally well regarded school, 3 minutes from our flat. Dh wants us to change him next year for reception and move him to another state primary that is a little bit more mixed, but 25 minutes on foot, would probably have to cycle to make it bearable. My instinct is to leave him where he is, he is very happy where he is, though I think he would be happy anywhere where there are lots of kids running around.
Does being in a minority matter? The priority for me is having a very local school. Anyone in the same situation?

If your priority is getting kids over to play and party invitations then you might find that the distance to the more mixed school becomes a barrier. Especially as he becomes older and he wants to walk to his friends houses by himself. Do the children who don't speak english as a first language all speak the same foreign language? If he is managing to communicate with the kids in nursery then he will probably manage fine in reception. It seems a shame to move him if its a good school right on your doorstep. There are 2 other kids of his race in his class already, I would be thrilled if there were 2 kids of my dcs race in the school.

my dd was the only white child in nursery last year, she loved it she had first day at reception today and so far she is the only one again but only seen half the class but looking at names list there are no traditional english names not concerned as good mix of boy and girls last year was 7 girls and 19 boys school across road so really easy

I think you need to think about what exactly the minority is: is it that apart from 3 white boys, the rest of the class is made up entirely of non-English speaking Bengali girls, or is it a class of 30 diverse little individuals? I would personally have more of a problem if the dcs were in a significant minority based on their gender or their language, but actually their race shouldn't come into it.

There are only 3 white boys in ds2's private school reception class. And there are no girls at all. Personally I'm not bothered as there is a huge mix of ethnic backgrounds rather than a single majority, and frankly having already been selective in terms of gender and implicitly parental income, I'd be putting the dcs into a class of total clones if I were to be fussed. Which would be a little scarey.

The kid in ds' class are a real mix, mainly on low income I think, but then so are we at the moment.
Dh just told me that I should be thinking why there aren't any middle class white kids in ds' class, why are these families willing to walk 20/25 mins to send their kids to another school.
Playdates and parties are an importnat part of school life, as important as academic stuff, it wouldn't be an issue if we moved ds, as plenty of families from the other school live near us.
I also checked the grades of the other school and they are all in the 100% for level 4 and the 90% for level 5! Ds'school grades are a lot lower than that.,... Not sure if that is an issue either. Ds doesn't strike me as the academic type though...
I find this subject exhausting, in my country kids go to their nearest school and that's that.

Our DS was in a class with more asian and black children than white, and we did notice cultural differences. Asian kids to don't seem to do birthday parties and the parents of one racial / religious group were less likely to mix with the parents of another, so there didn't seem to be many playdates after school either. Unsurprisingly, none of the kids really noticed that they were different from each other. So what does that say about where the problem lies?

i'd keep him where he is. the only time i think things like this are an issue is if it makes the child feel uncomfortable and then you have to wonder how they've been brought up.

i once went for a trial day at an inner city private school. i came home and said i didn't want to go "cos of all the brown people." i was 7, had previously gone to a rural infants school with only white children and had been brought up in a slightly racist household. now at 19 i shudder at any racist comments and if i hear someone speaking in a racist way including my family i tell them exactly what i think.

i only wish that at the age of 7 i could have felt the same way.

KerryMum, in many schools in London, some pupils are white (a category including both White British and people from various European countries including Poland, others are from various islands in the Caribbean (and may speak different languages from one another), others from various parts of Africa (e.g. Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia), others from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, various parts of China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc etc (I could go on and on...) There isn't a "majority" in either culture or language, and everyone's therefore in some kind of minority. The non-white population (for want of a better term) don't form a homogeneous group, any more than the white population. And, if the school's well run, there won't be divisions among the children along ethnic or cultural lines.

Your DH's question about the results may not be an unreasonable one, but could it be because the richer parents at the other school are paying for tutoring, rather than because the other school is better. Then again, there can be problems of low expectations at inner-city state primary schools. You may want to probe more deeply on that.

What about the teachers? I know I'm going to get shouted at for this, but might not some black teachers relate better to black children? One black (African)teacher at a school near us had such a heavy accent I found it a struggle to understand him, and I suppose that if black kids had been brought up with this accent, so could understand it easily, he might feel closer to them? And kids who found his accent hard would struggle?

Just a thought

Yes. I think teachers with heavy accents should be banned from teaching. Some cities would find it a little difficult at first. Glasgow might find itself struggling with this regime. Birmingham too. Nothing that can't be overcome with perseverence and elocution lessons.

Quite right too.

However, if you're brought up in say, Glasgow, the heavy accent of your teachers isn't likely to be a problem

Isn't being able to understand teachers a valid point in schools? (I remember writing about the Urilay tract in biology because that's what he seemed to be saying...)

Anyway, to heave us back to the thread, if iamnotstressed is happy that her ds will be taught well, that's a big plus point in favour of not moving him.

thank you for all your thoughts. my instinct is to keep ds where he is, at least see how he gets on this year making friends, etc. I have decided not to overworry about the grades, he will do as well as he can, i am more interested in the social aspect of school. Ds is an only child, so the social aspect is very important. Thank you!