Deprived area primary school

[FreshCop]

If you had a choice would you put your child in a good/outstanding school in a deprived area?

Teachers will be excellent and do their best. However parent attitudes aren’t the best and probably a lot of chaotic home lives.

Or would you rather travel further to get your child in a school in a better area with more supportive parents interested in their child’s education?

Also if you’re a teacher it would be great to hear your perspective too.

@AltheaVestr1t oh I’m so sorry to hear this. I truly have so much respect for the teachers, I think the deprived schools I visited have wonderful and hardworking staff. This was totally evident but I also could see the struggle they were up against.

Even before getting bums on seats they’ve had to put out so many fires.

DS is in the former. School are very keen on parental involvement so we have reading hour in early years, inspire sessions, school assemblies etc. They're keen on cultural enrichment so the whole school go to the sea side every year, the panto, decent range of school trips etc.

The parents do range from disinterested tk annoyingly over keen but it's about finding your circle. None of the Mom's we chose to socialise with are likely to slag off the teacher in the kids earshot, complain that the Xmas present is a book when books are shit etc. Also a decent range of after school altho no wrap around cos few households have two working parents in the WC not MC way.

We don't live in an affluent area so no option to drop him into a MC school but, I love our school. He's doing well. They expect the kdis to do their best.

High levels of English as a second language is extremely common in London and has no bearing on the quality of learning. In fact, those children, statistically, do much better than native English speakers

I agree to a point, but I’d add a bit of nuance here: Children who have English as a second language can indeed do brilliantly well, and in many cases do outperform native English speakers. But IME it depends to some extent on whether the cultures the EAL children are originate from are literate ones that place a high value on education.

While the local school that we rejected for DD has nowhere near the same scale of issues as some that have been mentioned here, it is faced with an intake that comprises a mix of white working class children whose parents struggled with education themselves, and EAL speakers from primarily non-literate, low attaining cultures where it was difficult to engage the parents, particularly parents of girls.

My experience is much like @PuttingDownRoots experience- there are some chaotic backgrounds but in general the school is excellent. I have 3 neurodiverse kids and wanted a school with excellent pastoral care as I know my DH and I can carry them educationally-speaking, lots of extra curricula stuff etc but they need that nurturing and caring environment with unconditional acceptance. I have found parents there to be friends with in spite of our different worldviews. At least 50% of children are not first-language English (or Welsh, as we are in Wales) and there are easily 15-20 different languages spoken, none of that has been a barrier to my childrens learning and acheivements. However @FreshCop having seen your update about drugs/ dogging etc, I wouldn't go with your school choice. There are drug issues in the area around my kids school but the important thing is they aren't visible around the immediate school area, but are a couple of streets away, if they were literally on the doorstep as you describe I would not have chosen this school.

Ofsted is not the be all and end all! Go for the school further away! I am a primary school teacher! The children will all be fine at school in key stage 1 but it becomes harder for the children as they go up the school!

Many years ago I did some of my teacher training in a school in a deprived area during their Ofsted. They took the inspectors round the area to show them what it was like. They got a brilliant Ofsted.

Hell would have to freeze over before I'd ever send my child there though.

But @FreshCop its not just education it’s play dates and friendships.

In your situation is worry about your DC standing out like a sore thumb if they are from a very different background to the kids in their class. You're right to have these doubts.

I made the decision to put my youngest in a different primary school from the eldest, partly for aspirational issues. We'd been through reception-year 6 with what I wouldn't even describe as deprived families but there's a very low academic aspiration or desire to move out of our ex-mining northern town (which we're not from). As an example at their y6 leavers event they were asked to read out their goals for the future and several said they didn't think they'd go to college, they wanted to always stay in the village, nobody mentioned travel, etc. And during covid a few parents kicked off for having been asked to ensure their kids read for 30 mins a day....

We all have our reasons for picking a school, and all have our own vague hopes of what our children might go on to do with their life. Mine weren't what the community around the original school offered and all those little things chipped away, so my youngest is at the next village along, much more mixed and families from outside the area, more....let's go explore the world.

I'd go to the better area. The outstanding my eldest went to was a very good school on paper but brought down by SOME of the shitty parents.

Most of the parents were nice but it only takes a few.
Examples;

Parents fighting in the playground
Bringing big scary dogs to pick up
Had to walk through big clouds of cigarette smoke to get in the playground
Swearing, so much swearing.
Mums in dressing gowns at drop off
One dad was loudly rapping, swearing, 'N' word in front of the kids.

Unfortunately with parents like that come kids like that too. Bullying, fights and damaged belongings.

The school ended up with a 'monitor', basically a security guard.

I teach primary in a very deprived area. I could not be more proud of our school and could not love our families more.

I would absolutely be prepared to send my children to this school if it didn't mean them having to hang around the place constantly whilst I did my work.

becomes harder for the children as they go up the school!

this is what I thought. Babies are babies but as they get older their home environment starts showing.

For example just turned 3 year old in the school preschool has taken to calling others “fucking c*nt”… which is absolutely shocking.

We all have our reasons for picking a school, and all have our own vague hopes of what our children might go on to do with their life. Mine weren't what the community around the original school offered and all those little things chipped away, so my youngest is at the next village along, much more mixed and families from outside the area, more....let's go explore the world.

This is very common here, seems people just stay in the area and move down the road from their mum. No travel, hardly any aspiration to even go and work in a professional role that doesn’t sit at the bottom of the career ladder either.

Don’t get me wrong their are a handful of mums who work in professional office jobs, one who is a florist and another a nurse. The rest aren’t up to much else.

Swearing, so much swearing - yes “f*cking this and that” is used as a casual descriptive word.
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One dad was loudly rapping, swearing, 'N' word in front of the kids - the toothless heroin addict looking father randomly turned up one day with a Mercedes (odd for him) parked it right outside the entrance blasting rap music… the car was never to be seen again 😂

@samstownsunset the feeder secondary has its own dedicated community police officer / school police officer (not sure on the exact term) but he knows all the troublesome children and the problematic parents.

he regularly goes into the school to deal with this or that anti-social issue/ crimes.

(yes I’ve been doing research for a good while)

My children are in an outstanding school in a deprived area. I moved them from a coasting school in an affluent area to this particular one in the deprived.

My children have done well academically in both schools but they were far, far happier in the deprived school. That was the main difference really between the two. Some of the parents are questionable and my children haven’t been allowed around their houses, having said that it certainly wasn’t the case for all parents. Additionally there is less of a “play date culture” in the deprived school so the issue doesn’t really present itself that often.

As an added bonus in the deprived school there are no tedious whatsapp groups and no playground cliques so I was a lot happier too 😜.

Not a bloody chance would I send my kids to a school like this. I live in a deprived area and I'm moving next year before my eldest starts school however I appreciate that not everyone has this option.

This 100%. This is what is wrong with society. I live in a 'deprived area' with an excellent school. Yet I'm actually in university myself. But I constantly get people looking down their nose at me at the school gates. And my daughter. Because I'm not dressed to the nines. Money isn't everything.

But I constantly get people looking down their nose at me at the school gates. And my daughter. Because I'm not dressed to the nines.

This is the world we live in where first impressions matter.

I too have days where I’ll wear a hoody and crocs but I’ll also have days dressed up and off to meetings. It depends what I’m up to.. and I guess people have gotten onto that.

If you always turn up in tracksuits or worn out clothes with you hair scraped back looking miserable I would avoid you also.

Dress up a little and look after yourself, it’ll get you places in your career also! And does loads for your confidence.

When I see the mum in her nurses uniform or dressed to go to the office, I smile and feel more comfortable around them for a little natter.

If you’re swearing and scruffy then obviously you’d be less desirable company.

Goodness.
I'm actually embarrassed for you, posting that.

Judgemental much?!

Fwiw my youngest goes to school in a deprived area (most of our home town is classed as deprived to be honest) and it has one of the highest rating ofsteds there is.

To travel for school would most likely be unrealistic, schools have catchment areas and some of them are very small so you may not be able to anyway

My eldest DDs went to a primary in a deprived area, because that’s where we lived post divorce. In the middle of a council estate, in one of the most deprived areas of the country.

Quite contrary to your assertions that the parents weren’t arsed or involved, half of them very much were. Of the rest, most were either single parents working full time, or were known to SS and had the chaotic life you describe - I went to school with those parents and they’re a product of their own upbringings.

The school had fantastic teaching and pastoral staff, a lot of funding, much smaller class sizes, more trips etc.

My youngest DD is at an affluent school, because we now live in one of the most affluent areas of the county,

The only differences are that the full time working mothers aren’t looked down on for not being actively involved, bigger class sizes, less trips but each one is triple the price, constant demanding of money/other donations/my time by the PTA, and endless stream of events to try and keep track of.

I'm actually embarrassed for you, posting that.

Me too. I'm actually thinking a few pit bulls in the playground wouldn't be so bad if there was less of this type of dickishness.

I had a similar choice when my ds started school, we went for the school in the deprived area and whilst it had brilliant provisions for SEN and from a pastoral point of view the teachers were more like social workers at the expense of the kids who were doing alright - it is an outstanding school with a lot of facilities due to extra funding for so many of the children but at parents evening I was told "he is doing fine, I haven't been able to spend much time with him due to having so many interventions in class so I can't tell you much more but he should hit the targets for the end of reception". Due to this and a few other factors (parents picking up kids whilst clearly on drugs, the constant swearing from parents at pick up, the general size of the school) we decided to move him to a school that is only marginally further away (within a mile from our house) but a completely different make up.

I am aware this isn't everyone's approach, probably seen as snobby and judgemental by some, and sometimes I do feel guilty and but ultimately we gave it a go and didn't feel comfortable in the environment and it wasn't what we wanted for our children, so we had to be really honest with ourselves and we are really happy with our decision.

Oh, and today at school pick up, I watched a woman yank her small child very hard, and scream in her face “FUCKING STOP IT NOW”, then drag the sobbing child behind her.

Not something I saw on the council estate school run, something I saw today, at our affluent school.

To be clear: I posted what I did in response to the OP's smug and superior response to another poster about cleaning oneself up for the school run. That's what was embarrassing. She showed her true colours and horribly self - satisfied they were too.
I work in an inner city school in a 'deprived' area. 90% of our parents are just like everyone else and want the best for their kids. A very few of our parents are struggling with various issues, some due to their own choices, some not. We don't differentiate and we do our absolute best for everyone. You'd rather not send your kid to us? You do you.