Is this a reasonable question to ask a Secondary school, and should they be able to give me an answer reasonably quickly?

[seeker]

We like in an all selective area, and 23% of children go to grammar schools.

Would it be reasonable for me to ask the High School what % of their cohort are likely to start year 7 with level 5 SATS?

Me either .

You must have imagined it. Like all the people who are happy with their children's state education are imagining that it's ok...........

I'll tell you what normalised behaviour really shocked me when I volunteered for a years at my local primary - the low level disruption.

There was constant movemnet and noise. All. Day. Long. Chatting, arguing, walking around, pushing. Arguing some more. It made my brain hurt.
Completely unfiar on the DC that wanted to crack on.

Oh and the complete lack of interest by a large proportion of parents. That was completely normal.

Imagined what? They chose to eat there, no one forced them.

Wordfactory, our local state primary just does not have that low level disruption - it is a very calm and purposeful environment but then in is a junior school (YR to Y4), not sure if that makes a difference.

I suppose the point that I really want to make to you Seeker is that what you should be concerned about, above and beyond the NC levels of your son's cohort is what the school is like on a daily basis. How you do that is another question. Do you know anyone who teaches there?

I know that, thanks, pickledsiblings- just because this thread was about SATs levels doesn't mean that's all I'm thinking about!

"Imagined what? They chose to eat there, no one forced them."

So....what does this mean? Is it somehow the school's fault?

No low-level noise and disruption at our primary either.

Lack of interest or engagement from some parents - yes, but what other parents do does not affect DS. MN is full of 'normalised behaviour' that I don't like and won't adopt, I'm not sure how we can ever slot ourselves into an environment free of behaviour we don't wish to emulate, or if that is desirable. It sounds like a form of segregation.

In this case there appears to be a lack of provision for students who eat packed lunch. The majority of kids eat their lunch whilst sitting on the floor in a foyer, what provision there is can accomodate up to about 30 kids. In the Summer the sitting on the ground thing goes by the name of 'picnic'.

I do not want that for my DC. Do you not mind? I am sure many of the parents who might mind have no idea that their DC are sitting on the floor/in the loos to eat their lunch. Btw, I was working at said school full-time for 6 weeks before I became fully aware of the lack of provision.

Quite a lot of noise and disruption at my dc primary school. In my ds's class of 30 there are three children with significant sn that makes them extremely challenging to teach. Having said that, my dd in Y6 is working at level 6 maths and level 5s all round otherwise. I think that makes her far more naturally intelligent and way superior to anyone who works at that sort of level having been spoon-fed in private prep!

(One of those sentences is a joke btw).

Blu, being surrounded by behaviour that I wouldn't wish me or my DC to emulate started to feel 'toxic' to me. Maybe that says something about me that is less than desirable. I was seriously beginning to lose faith in the future of our Nation at the hands of these young people.

bibby, bring SN into the debate at this stage shows a considerable lack of breeding on your part. That sentence is a joke btw.

I guess there is a tipping point.

Oooh, my lack of breeding .

pickledsiblings I am not sure where you are going with this. Seeker and I may have different ideological views on private education but I have no doubt she is just as committed to her children as I am to mine.

She and her DS have to work with the option they have in front of them and I think it is perfectly reasonable for seeker to gather as much information as she can from the school so she can support her DS is the most effective way given choices (or lack of choices) they have.

Maybe you would do something different but not everyone has that choice so they have to make the best of a flawed system.

BTW - most young people are decent hard working nice children who aren't behaving significantly worse than many of us when we were their age despite what the Daily Mail would have us believe.

Blu the disruption I'm talking about goes way beyond what you'd expect of happy industrious kids who of course make noise. I've sat in enough primary classes (both state and private) to know that what is going on at my local primary is not fair.

As for avoiding environments and segregation - I know what you mean and I've thought about it a lot since my DC were born. What influences do I want in their lives? What do I want to avoid? On the one hand I don't feel I can or indeed should protect them from everything I don't agree with. But on the other, as an adult I do a lot of things to make my own environment as condusive as possible iyswim. I try to spend as much time as possible with people who are like minded, and as little time as possible with people I find draining or boring or annoying. I certainly would not work in an environment where I couldn't concentrate so I wouldn't expect my DC to either...difficult balance as a parent that one.

Chazs, I was thinking about that recently, and the worse thing I did when I was at school was speak French in a common French accent for the fun of it .

You did not hear bad language 'in the air' at my school and I sincerely hope that you won't at the Independent school my DD wil be attending.

I would rather not have to pay but for those that feel smug that they don't, I do think that perhaps there is an element of 'delusion' going on. I accept that there are others who truely don't care or find important the things that I have outlined.

I have 3DC and between them, experience of 2 Independent schools and 2 State schools at primary level. IMVHO secondary level /big school = big compromises that you may or may not be aware that you are making.

Good luck with your principles quest Seeker.

oops, it's truly isn't it?

Pickledsiblings- I bet if you spent 6 weeks in any school you'd find a lot of "normalised" behaviour you wouldn't care for. I don't care for what my dd called the "non-uniform day flick"- an appraising, judgemental sideways glance at your clothes by the "queen bees" at her grammar school. I don't care for the institutionalised "toughness" expected at my godson's prep school. And I certainly don't care for the language that I routinely hear from my ds's classmates. And from him when he doesn't realise I'm within ear shot. But none of those things make me want to condemn a sector. ( well, apart from very traditional old fashioned boys prep schools- I might make an exception for them .)

Wordfactory - I would go to great lengths to avoid sending my child to a school where their learning really was undermined. EPIC note-passing in my private school, as well as spying on the antics of the drug dealers and brothel inmates in the buildings opposite led to me failing my History O level .

As I said, there must be a tipping ppint. I learn most from people who have a different point of view to mine, and those who challenge me. I learn least from those just like me. But sometimes the security and support of those just like me is what I need.

Seeker has some points of view on some questions to ask to ensure that her boy gets the best from his school - people have added some interesting questions to ask the school.

pickledsiblings, you get to see something you don't like and decide to go elsewhere. Many other people don't because they have no choice.

I really and truly don't think there is a problem in this country with the relatively small group of people like Seeker, who could afford private education, not exercising that choice!

The group of parents who have the biggest effect of making some state schools worse than they need to be is the group that (while making reasonable, justified individual decisions with no malice aforethought) collectively skew the state schools they leave behind. That is to say - the private school users, and the parents whose children go to grammars.

Some of them feel they have no choice because of a particular local school, some feel they would never in a million years send their child to any state school even the most superselective grammar. There's the full range of reasons. But the effect is huge and should be acknowledged.

I would love to read someone say "I think you should send your child to a private school because so many people like me have not used your local state school that its character has been skewed in one direction and there's less aspiration to succeed (oh and also so few movers and shakers use state schools that they just don't need to be as high on any government's priority list)" rather than "I think you should send your child to a private school because people at state schools e.g. don't have enough aspirations" (or words to that effect). I would love to read that even though I would not want to stop anyone making the decision to go private if they really wanted to.

Those of us who have used private education for our children, or benefited from it ourselves, are not the 'goodies' with higher standards than anyone else, we really aren't. We're not evil either, and people have the right to make those choices for their children as they see fit. But we should at least acknowledge in discussions that our choices don't happen in a vacuum - that our choices have effects as well as causes (and sometimes the effects are the causes of the next generation's choices, in a vicious circle). That some of the things we reject state schools for would actually be hugely improved if fewer people did reject them, even if there's no way to make that actually happen.

Seeker - from observation (largely on MN) "very traditional old fashioned boys prep schools" seem to exist almost uniquely in London nowadays. DC's school might look like that from the outside (apart from the absence of silly blazers) but as soon as you go through the gates you realise that these are happy, loved, scruffy, muddy DC in an environment where bullying is not tolerated and the DC are treated very much as individuals - which just goes to show that in no sector can you judge by appearances or labels alone .

Do you really think that may?

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm sure there are schools where middle class flight has had an impact, bu for the two state schools I have the most experience of (as a volunteer in one and governopr of another) the difficulties don't lie there. They lie in problems of poverty and racial tensions. They lie in education being a low priority. A few middle class DC wouldn't solve that.

My grandmother lived off an alley behind the undertakers and butchers (different shops, obviously) in Cheltenham. Groups of boys from the Gentlemen's College used to congregate to drink and smoke spliffs in the alley (and their language was interesting, too).

From this I can extrapolate that all public schoolboys use drugs and drink when they should be in school.

Or perhaps it simply means that children from all walks of life misbehave.

Stealth squiggle- this one is in London. And sadly actually looks more relaxed and friendly fromnthe outside than it is inside. People are desperate to get their kids into it- I can't bear the thought of those poor little boys being "conditioned".