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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

to feel a bit gutted that DS primary school is 80% full of chav roughneck parents....

248 replies

Boobalina · 08/10/2009 21:15

I know I am going to get shot down here but hear me out. DS is in reception at our local school walking distance from our house. Various friends of ours (who all live in nicer parts of the city) children all go to their local schools which are ofsted 'outstanding' and full of middle class parents and kids. Now this is what you get when you cant afford to live in a nicer part of the city I know... but every now and then it really guts me. DS went to a very nice nursery and pre-school close to my work which was a bit posh and DD still goes there. But we couldnt afford to send DS there for primary school. His teachers seem really lovely, and really professional - its just some of the kids and parents there.

I went to a nice village primary school and then ended up going to a rather rough comp after and it did me know harm at all. I just wanted a bit more for my kids and also its hard to make friends with some of the mums when they are screaming at their toddlers, smoking lamberts and comparing lovebites (really!)

I am really jealous of my friends....

and they have bigger houses than us....

pathetic isnt it........

OP posts:

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Original poster

Boobalina · 09/10/2009 14:02

Thanks Scarlet!

OP posts:

smee · 09/10/2009 14:03

I still think you're missing the point boobalina. Is it a good school? Forget the mix, how does the school deal with any aggression towards your son? If they don't deal with it well, then you have to move your child somehow. He is of course what matters.

scarletlily I think many were trying to say that it's not just some downtrodden who behave badly. Some middle class offspring can be just as irksome

fiercebadrabbit · 09/10/2009 14:08

Very few mums want their dcs in a perceived "rough" environment - I am always talking to parents who've avoided or want to avoid x,y and z school because of the kind of children (read parents) in its catchment. Not necessarily posh people, people from all backgrounds whom I see in my job. Nearly all parents want their dcs to mix with children who value education, aren't too violent and who don't eff and blind

Only in the mumsnet universe - the same universe where all children learn to read at two and no one's child ever misbehaves in a restaurant - is it taboo to admit such feelings

FWIW loads of people who, on appearance, are chavtastic (tattoos, fierce dogs, lovebites, chainsmoking) have told me they'd "rather die" than send their child to my dd's school because it's on a slightly dodgy estate. Many of them live on same estate and still refuse to consider it or even look round it. Snobbery is universal.

fiercebadrabbit · 09/10/2009 14:10

PS Smee is right, if your child is happy at the school then it doesn't matter what the parents are like, if my dd wasn't thriving I'd pull her out in a heartbeat. Thats all that matters

LB29 · 09/10/2009 14:15

Boobalina, I don't think it is pathetic at all.
I was a teen mum who lived in a council house on a rough estate. I hated the parents who lived in this area. When I first moved in I made an effort to speak to them and even gave one a leather sofa when we were given new ones. I didn't fit in as I wouldn't join them drinking on the street until 1am, and after a while I gave up.
I didn't want my daughter to go to the same school as the kids who played on the street, they were rude and really badly behaved. The social services were regularly involved as these children were seen eating out of bin bags or had been caught be the police doing god knows what.
When I fell pregnant with my son we needed to move to a bigger house anyway and luckily we now have a council house in a village with a brilliant primary.
I'm currently working really hard to get a degree so I can have a career. If my children don't get into a decent secondary school I would consider going private. Kids are influenced greatly by their peers and I would like them to have the opportunity to do as well as they possibly can at school.

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:16

Well said fiercebadrabbit (love the name) My dd goes to a secondary school like that. I think we might be included in the middle classes as well

scarletlilybug · 09/10/2009 14:17

Reminds me of a mum at dd's old school, saying how she would never go to Spain on holiday because it was so "chavvy" (her words, not mine). Yet, if I had to pick out one person from that school as looking like a so-called "chav" - it would have been her.

Studies have shown that parental aspirations for their child are one of the most important factors determing how successful a child will be at achool.

You can't always judge someone's attitudes and aspirations just by looking at them.

SomeGuy · 09/10/2009 14:18

Nothing wrong with being judgey. I hate people who say you shouldn't be judgey. Some sorts of behaviour you can judge.

I don't really get all the 'they are just wrong, not different, why are you looking down on the poor?' type posts. My DW is very judgey, and she grew up (overseas) in worse poverty than anything you get in England. Yet she's liable to come across more middle class than me. She's free of the baggage of British snobbery/inverse-snobbery and so she doesn't feel she should make allowances for certain behaviours (swearing at children, etc.). Being middle class is a state of mind more than a statement of affluence IMO.

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:20

Do you mean "they are not wrong, just different "

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:24

Nobody said that swearing at children is OK SomeGuy. It is the assumption that a particular group of people is more likely to do that based on how they look that people think is wrong.

HolyBumoley · 09/10/2009 14:33

I don't think the OP is judging by appearances, Minty. I think she has heard the swearing for herself!

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:35

Oh fair enough I thought it was a look she has a totoo must be a nasty cow sort of a thing.

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:36

tatoo Making a mental note to read and spell more carefully

MoreCrackThanHarlem · 09/10/2009 14:38

Agree with SomeGuy, or rather SomeGuy's DW

This happens on so many threads, excuses are made for shit parenting in the name of non judgementalism.
You are bloody allowed to say that someone is rough/a shit parent/smokes fags in playground if you have seen evidence of those things.

No one said these people are poor/teenage or single mums/working class. This thread was not about class or poverty, it was about the type of parents that you all know exist, but are too scared to admit for fear of being flamed as a snob.

SomeGuy · 09/10/2009 14:40

oh yes "they are not wrong, just different".

btw: tattoo

MintyCane · 09/10/2009 14:45

thanks Someguy I went to a comp you know

Miggsie · 09/10/2009 14:47

I sort of get this complaint...we live in a nice middle classa area BUT there are some social housing elements and the parents now stick out like a sore thumb at the school...they are generally screaming at their kids, man handling dogs at the school gates etc etc.

My DD turned to me once and said "she doesn't seem like a very nice mummy, she's all shouty"...in response to the mum yelling "just get in there you c*unt" to her 7 year old at full volume in the street.

In an ideal world I wouldn't want DD hearing this, but it was a lesson to her that people are all different, not everyone is like her mummy, some people are not very nice etc etc.

charis · 09/10/2009 14:54

I don't think anyone minds the working class. The swearing, smoking, violent contingent are more likely to be the underclass. Nobody likes them. Not even their mums.

SomeGuy · 09/10/2009 14:55

I went to a comp too, that's why I'm sending my DCs private

Blu · 09/10/2009 14:56

MoreCrack - the OP EXACTLY equates behaviour with class in her title and OP. She refers to 'chav roughnecks'
"screaming at their toddlers, smoking lamberts and comparing lovebites (really!)"

Chav is a class term. (and it doesn't mean working class, either, afaics).

lemonmuffin · 09/10/2009 15:25

Forget about class, she's talking about their behaviour

southeastastra · 09/10/2009 15:33

chav roughnecks keeps making me picture cletus from the simpsons

Blu · 09/10/2009 15:54

References to 'posh' at the old pre-school are about behaviour?

She is talking about behaviour, and had she kept it to that, it might have been a differnt discussion. But she refers to class a lot. And it is important because often people do decry a school, or individuals in it, on the basis of class or race or refugees, rather than actually looking at what goes on in hearts, minds and classrooms.

lemonmuffin · 09/10/2009 15:57

Posh can be about behaviour, yes. And the impression i get from the op is that she is overwhelmingly concerned with the behaviour of the people involved, the class issue is a red herring imo and an excuse for people to condemn her as judgy.

fiercebadrabbit · 09/10/2009 16:08

Agree, the OP didn't word it brilliantly so everything kicked off. But behaviour is more her concern than class and that's a valid concern

I am always hearing people who'd be embarrassed to write off a school on class grounds as telling me they didn't send their dc there as "so many children have English as a second language." For some reason, that seems to be a permissible get-out excuse (or people think I will buy it )

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