What brilliant primary school would you love to send your dc to if money/location/faith were no object?

[SSSandy2]

OK I know money IS an obstacle, as is where you live and so on but I need some ammunition here for my argument with dh who thinks schools elsewhere will not be better than schools here in Berlin.

So I tossed the prospectus from Salisbury Cathedral School down in front of him and said well I think this one would be better for a start. There is nothing here even remotely similar to it. Now I'm not saying it is feasible for us but I am 100% sure it's better than anything I've seen here - and I think I've checked out everything there is. I also think the state school in the Ukraine my best friend is sending her ds to (specialising in maths/physics) is better too.

Soooooooo anyway:

What primary school would you ideally like to send your dc to if you could - and why do you think it is so good?

Swedish School in Barnes - cos it's in Swedish

Not sure this will help you, sorry

mine are at the school i would choose its my local one, has a good reputation (is one of the top ones ion my area)and most imporantly to me, the childrenare happy polite and want to learn

Mine would go to the school they are at now.

you're lucky to have good schools!

I'd send him gto the one he's at !!!

The one he's at. We're extremely fortunate, it's just round the corner - but I wouldn't change it even if we could. Great ethos and his teacher is lovely.

How do you know that another school will be better? I find it so difficult to know. As long as your child is happy and learning at the one they are at then how on earth do you "know" what will be better? How do we know that our 'choice' of school is a good one?

not happy and learning here
Great that your local schools are good and working well for you but really what I need are names of schools that I can throw at him and google and throw more and more information at him, if you see what I'm getting at

check out sunday times on line for the best private primary schools -there are so many great ones

haberdashers?
st albans schools
london oratory

all would be glossy and lovely

but our local state primary is fantastic

SSSandy - have emailed you re French school here in Berlin (think you gave me right adress this time)

thanks newgirl.
Thanks lilian, I've lost my voice (horrible virus I've had the past 3 weeks, it won't leave me) otherwise I'd have phoned you. I hope it is better soon. If not I'll send you an email tomorrow. Dh and I are having a lot of arguments about this whole school business at the moment.

Can you believe they have been at school since the 28th August and have not even done page 1 of their maths books yet? I don't know it worries me sick the whole thing. All dh has to say is oh, don't worry about it!

It is a worry isn't it. Maybe it's just the way they do it, very slowly and then a mad panic and rush when they get to age 12 and have to start serious studying.
Is your dd still happy though? That must be one thing less to worry about - havinga dc going happily into school rather than not wanting to go at all is a great relief.

She's happier because the teachers aren't screaming at the children and asking whether they're stupid because they don't get something. That's an improvement. She is not being bullied every day which is a huge relief. There still is unnecessary nastiness amongst the girls if you ask me. I never had that at my primary school(s) and I do find it excessive here. Maybe though it is like that everywhere, I really don't know. There is a lot of unstructured playing and I really think 8 hours ´playing about at 7 is not the way to go. She is an avid reader and learner and she wants to be stretched (not pressurised but comfortably stretched).

It worries the hell out of me and I explode at dh a lot these days. He just makes light of it and says, oh well at least she's not under stress there. Like it doesn't matter that after 6 weeks of school they've done NO reading or writing in German, next to no writing in English, no maths at all. I mean just what DO they do there 8 hours a day? I feel like the start she had will erode, it's so frustrating.

So I asked today what they did in maths, no maths today mummy, the teacher was there but we had to lie on the ground and listen to a tape story instead (sunken wreck) and use our imagination. Well, ok but this isn't kindergarten, they are 7 and they do need to keep up with the syllabus surely? ANd it's not like they don't have enough play time scheduled into the daily timetable as it is.

Spoke to my best friend here (Ukrainian) about this and she says the primary schools here are awful. She will speak to her boss about things tomorrow and has a couple of ideas I could try. Thank goodness she is so helpful and positive, dh is just totally disinterested. He said, just stop worrying about it, because you're in no frame of mind to make a good decision at the moment.

Arghhhh, your dh sounds abit like mine, he deals with our school problems the same way. I was at a parents representative meeting and they weren't at all interested in the academic side of things, they just wanted more football, dancing and music clubs. They even wanted to pay extra just to get these things for their dc. It must be a German thing, we just don't get it.

We're happy with our choice of school but for the sake of this thread I'd list the other one we looked at and would move to if we weren't happy with the current one.

Barnardiston Hall is close to us and a real action school. In pre-prep (2-7 year olds), they do lots of visits such as London, Legoland, Zoos, Coast etc. All children have to camp overnight at school during the summer - with a cooked breakfast the next morning.

By the time they are 7/8 they are going on trips to climb mountains around Ben Nevis region and in Prep school they go on holidays including to Nepal etc.

My daughther is at the only school within 85 miles that I would send her to
it's perfect and it was ofsted inspected yesterday so I hope to be able confirm that.
WE are very lucky I drive 7 miles each way 2x a day but it is worth it as dd has some minor SN

wow butkin, lots of get up and go there! Dd is a bit stolid and well physically lazy really. Bet she would want to be carried up Ben Nevis!

Admylin thanks for understanding me. I really don't know what people in the UK think when they read this stuff. Like, the schools can't be THAT bad. Yes, yes, they CAN! I don't know about the rest of Germany, there are maybe some great schools out there..

Well my friend Nadiya was telling me how she got her ds into the school of her choice in Kiev and I thought, wow I have been tame about it so far! She sat in the head's office for 2 weeks from 8-4. At first the head ignored her but in the end she succumbed and they ended up great friends. Mind you at least she knew there WAS this fantastic school there, she just had to get a place. She wore them down in the end but they didn't have a desk for her ds so she carried one from another school half way across Kiev and dumped it in the head's office. She's amazing, she really is.

And what would our dh's say to that story? Crazy mad woman probably.

I just can't understand that dh is not the least bit interested in it. He says worrying about it all the time doesn't change anything.

Neither does ignoring it or doing nothing about it though.

Maybe I'm wrong, (he thinks so) but I just believe there are plenty of schools in the UK with an ethos I would like, dd is also VERY religious (we don't quite know why but she is) and there would be schools that suit her that way, and at the same time be academically challenging in some way. I just don't think that is asking the earth really.

The lack of religion in schools here is sad. You are right that our dc are missing out on that whole part of our culture. Even for non-religeous families it's part of our history, heritage and culture. When I think how many songs and prayers my nieces know off by heart and all the church services they have (end of term, harvest festival, Easter, Christmas etc) it's a shame.

ah well. As you were saying once, when you hear about all these German families in the UK wanting to move to Germany to give their dc a better childhood, you do really start to ask yourself what the right answer is! Maybe we'll leave and be on MN all day wishing we were back in Berlin. Can you imagine it?!

I have two more things left to try here school-wise. Have been feeling so sick, I haven't tackled them yet. I have lost my voice, just have a scratchy croak at the moment. So hoping I'll be fit to speak early next week to deal with those two options. Once that's done, I'm finished with looking for a school here.

Told dh that we would be leaving then sooner rather than later and you can imagine the reaction. His answer to everything is buying this house in the back of beyond- will send you the photos. Still doesn't solve the school issue though.

another lucky one here with an excellent primary school literally next door. DS1 doing fantastically well there and I'm sure DS2 and 3 will do well too.

The one she is going to. Hopefully we'll be able to stay in this area after our landlords come home.

2 more options, not many left eh. Although don't forget that in 2 and a half years you get the Gymnasium from year 5 options added! That's the card I'm playing next if we have to stay here (for ds atleast) dd is very lucky to have a good teacher and great class, she gets so much homework every day too but it really is only a few lucky classes within the whole school.