secondary education - not privates school choices

[dementedma]

Ok, so where can I find threads about secondary education that isn't an angst ridden should ds/dd go to this private school or that private school?
Ds attends local state school. Does anyone else on MN do this or is it just me?

Wow a person goes to give some lectures at one of the best universities and look what she misses ...

I thought I smelt the fragrant whiff of worthiness in their air...

martorana did you put your appeal against the secondary modern in on the way to buying your bell?

I'm not 'scornful of parents trying decide' (though don't tell me they're all only after private in extremis because every state school is full!). As I say, this thread has largely been about the crap that gets spouted about state schools on mn.

My 3 choices were all catchment schools and DD didn't get into any of them. We were offered a place at another catchment school, but she got an out of catchment offer, which we happily took and although she has a 10 mile bus ride, she has got to yr 10 and still loves it there.

nit though this is a humerous thread, it has gone further than you say.

There are posters trying to show that they are just so cool with their state schools (unlike those private school uptight yummy mummies)...who in fact went out of their way to avoid it or other local schools...drive past 'em in fact ...

So ya know, the self congratulatory back slapping is one of the funniest things here !!!

HSM shhhhhhhh....

you have to pretend you were offered and took your nearest comp on this thread...

What on earth does that mean? Whom do you suspect of pretending their children go to the nearest comprehensive school?

And who is going out of her way to avoid private schools? I think we are mainly saying not that we're 'cool' or more laidback than 'yummy mummies' (have no idea of the yumminess of any poster, other than when it is self-professed) - just really that it turns out our local schools are not failing our children.

And we can't all live in the same leafy suburb!

I think there is a level of insincerity that grates.

Yeah , I could be all cool and laid back about sending MY kids to the nearest comp. and urge others to do the same, regardless of where they live.

But the truth is we bought our house specifically to be in catchment of 2 very good comps. So easy for me to be laid back and scornful ... But I'll resist.

nit FWIW I think you are pretty cool.

You've always struck me as highly measured about education. You send your DC to a non leafy comprehensive, because it's where you live and you're happy with it. You admit it aint perfect (what school is? Certainly none that I know of) but are pragmatic...

You don't wear the whole thing like a badge of honour.

You have issues with independent schools whioch I fully respect and can understand.

But some of the other usual suspects are just hilarious...I cannot take them seriously. And I don't buy the faux ennui with the private school threads...cos they always pile up on them ...

Quite a lot of us do/did send our children to the nearest comp. And not just because we were in rural areas where there was only one anyway.

Slack mummy who couldn't be bothered to drive her children to the next town for the currently fashionable comprehensive, and let them walk/cycle instead to the local ones.

Wordfactory - do I get an exemption, because our nearest comp, within walking distance, was closed and all the other catchment schools are a bus ride anyway?

and I'm not bitter about the fact the the nearest comp has now reopened. Not at all

Then I full respect that lavolcan.

And you know, I do think the angst around education is funny and delciously absurd. This thread made me laugh !

HSM I think you do! But I would advise having a badge made to thast effect. It's important that everyone knows you would have gone there, if you could ...

I'm sorry if anyone feels got at. But I do think it's important to remember that all the things that state school parents are having a little giggle at on this thread have actually been said to us in all seriousness. And there have been worse, less funny things as well which I have to assume are very minority viewpoints and therefore I don 't repeat. But the wilder inaccuracies are fair game, surely?
For the record, I drive a battered Subaru Forrester- usually with a bale of hay, a bridle and a terrier in the boot........

I don't feel remotely got at .

I mean I probably am a yummy mummy ^ checks highlights ^ and I've never even applied for a state school for my DC, let alone appealed or turned one down or chosen one oabove another (though to be fair I bet I've visited more state schools recently than anyone else on this thread)...

But I suppose those parents who weren't able to drive past yob central to a good school, or weren't given a state school within a fifteen mile radius, or couldn't find SEN provision within their state sector just might feel unfairly got at and pilloried by this thread.

But maybe their feelings don't count .

Well word I do have highlights, and I have had a boob job (just don't mention that it was the removal of one) and my DDs walked over me into a private school (because they weren't prepared to wait for the outcome of the late application we were only allowed to make when we actually moved back into the house we had owned for a decade or travel via several buses to the state school we were eventually offered a place at, must have been past at least ten other nearer state schools, including three within a mile, the private school was considerably more local)

Do I get to be a yummy mummy?

"But maybe their feelings don't count" Of course they do. But people saying that because of those circumstances they had "no choice" but to go private might be just a tad upsetting for the majority in the same position who do not have that option, no? Even if they stop smoking ?

Martorana if you have the money and are faced with no school place, or one that is inaccessible, or doesn't meet your child's needs then you will feel you have no choice. It's a brave parent who stands by their principals and inflicts that experience on their child when they have the means to not do so. It doesn't stop you having empathy for those who don't have the means, or indeed fighting to make sure that in future parents are not faced with those unacceptable experiences. But clearly you can't expect any empathy for your decision and have to accept being stereotyped as a snobbish ignorant yummy mummy ever after who in any case is not entitled to a view (you may have missed that gem) One parent just highlighted that in our Borough, if you did not embark on a project to meet the faith criteria in utero you have a 1in 5 chance of being offered none of your local school preferences (or even a place at the 6 nearest schools) for a first born child. The parents posting about private school choices live in that environment.

martorana that's a bloody daft analogy. Choice is a multi faceted idea.

For choice to be meaningful it has to have viable alternatives for the chooser. Just because someone else has even fewer choices doen't mean your situation isn't difficult or that it feels any freer. Or that you're not allowed to mention it.

And it doesn't excuse endlessly depicting parents as all having the same reasons and views... which is what you do ad infinitum...

By the way Martorana I will admit I am jealous, what I wouldn't give for a hay bale and bridal in the back of my car (though I prefer my Collie to a terrier, because obviously being a private school parent I have to have the most intelligent dog ) but that's another choice I don't have......

What a lot of different people there are on mumsnet. Different backgrounds, opinions, opportunities, choices (or lack of them). Isn't that kind of the point of mumsnet? I love parodies and can't get by without having a laugh. I was just pointing out that the mums on the threads being laughed at never had a go at anyone! If "angst" was only the domain of private school mums, the original poster wouldn't be on here looking for stuff! I'm happy enough to say that worrying about my DD's current situation and needs is what brought me here. I'm sure mums have been on the receiving end of some snobby idiot's remarks about their kid's school or the area they live in, I've had it the other way round, too. One mum once sneered at me for the state primary my kids go to (our nearest, in catchment, no choice but am happy with that, er, I live there!!) because she thought that all that mattered to the families there was the number of bathrooms in everyone's houses!!!! That reminds me, must tell the cleaner not to forget the seventh bathroom in the south wing this morning. If I can find her, she might be in the gatekeeper's lodge.....;) I think if we all steer clear of labels and stereotypes this thread would have been shorter! How about we support each other instead?

I think many of us on this thread who send our children to state schools - for whatever reasons - are just tired of hearing them endlessly slated - not just here on MN, but also in the wider media. There seems to be a powerful perception out there that state education in the UK is mostly bad, and the picture just isn't that simple. It gets tiresome.

The point about not being able to access local schools because they are all faith schools is an utterly valid one, but as long as we have faith schools it will continue to exist. And that's a whole fresh can of worms right there.

Shooting Sorry to point out your accessory error but Collie is not the breed of first choice of the private school parent. It is surely the slightly dim, ball games obsessed retriever?

I don't want to completely derail this thread so I will keep my Catholic Richmond parent views about faith schools to myself.
However I totally agree that it is very easy to be blasé about school choices if you have not been directly affected. To be told on the phone by RBC that my road was a black hole and that I would not get a primary school place for my child was awful. I then asked what do you suggest and was told well we find most parents in your street tend to go private.
We didn't but we had to fight tooth and nail to get a place as I was not prepared for my child to be one of those starting after Christmas in the church hall.

I agree pointy: I am fed up with hearing statements like 'comprehensives have failed'. Far from it; in many cases they are offering a far better education to children than those children would have been offered 40 odd years ago.

It's not to say that there aren't problems in some areas or with particular schools, but let's not condemn them all out of hand - which some posters and some people in society do.

Pottiottie- did you miss my post where I pointed out that all the things state school parents are giggling at on this thread aren't stereotypical constructs- they have actually been said? And worse?

Word- what analogy ? I didn't think I had made one. The issue with saying "I had no choice but to go private" is the choice of words. I would have respect for someone who said " I did have a choice- because I am rich and I thank heaven fasting every
day that I did" . But it is very rare that anyone says that. There is always the suggestion that anyone could do the same if only they tried hard enough, talk of bursaries and scholarships which everyone knows are rarely more than a drop in the ocean....

Privileged people have more choices. Rich privileged people have even more.

Hmm- which is more intelligent- a collie or a Border? I think I'd back the border.....