Headmistress attacks parents in national press

[UpsetofWestLondon]

Done first ever name change for this as don't want to be identifiable!

I am really, really pissed off. The High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School, where I am a parent, has been widely quoted in the national press this weekend criticising parents at SPGS. I fully realise she may have been quoted out of context, but the quotes seem to apply to all parents at her school and the one that cuts to the quick is where she accuses parents of "affluent neglect" by not paying enough attention to their daughters in the evening.

I should say my DD is very happy at the school, does lots of things well and lots of things not very well but enjoys them so that's great. I adore spending time with her and the only reason I don't spend as much as I would like in the evenings is because of the extraordinary volume of homework she gets set by the school (and obviously the time she needs to spend on Facebook etc!).

I am glad Ms Farr is pro-children, and this is not the first time she has criticised the parent body, but at some point, if you continuously publicly criticise your paying customers surely you have to understand you will upset them? I feel personally attacked and concerned I will be judged by others negatively for being part if this vile parent body she describes. I am cross.

I almost want to post this in AIBU...but am I?

Come off it MN164

OP here - sorry to have started a thread which looks like it has sparked really interesting debate and then disappeared. My MIL had a fall so that took precedence over everything. She is now all fine to our great relief and I can catch up and comment. Back soon!

EG
No.

My guess is your daughter is lucky whatever school she goes to as I think you're doing a fine job as parent. Maybe that's a nicer way of making the same point.

Fayrazzled I would have been absolutely delighted to have returned to Yorkshire and bought up my children up there, attending the excellent local schools. But that isn't how my life worked out, in fact it can't be how all our lives work out, can it?

I would also have been delighted to have sent my daughters to the excellent outstanding local comps but in common with thousands of other local parents we were a road or two too far away. Our borough has for decades operated a very successful deterrent school place strategy, don't even try to provide enough good school places for all the children in the borough because when placed on very long waiting lists they can be relied on to move or go private to secure a school place for their child. So 30% of primary and over 50% of secondary children are privately educated, and a lot of those parents are not very affluent, and the decision is a difficult one both socially and financially.

Still more parents in private schools come from immigrant / ethnic minorities who are overrepresented in private schools, compared to the Comps but regard education as the first financial priority.

Even at SPGS there are pupils whose parents would have happily sent their child to a good comprehensive or just devote all their financial resources to their child's education.

MN164 You are quite right of course that the pupils with the problems highlighted as occurring at SPGS are a segment of the pupil population. in my older DDs year they were around 5-10% which did not give them much leverage over the general mores within the year which remained consistent with what you would expect from the ethos of the school, which as well as academically successful does try and instil respect for others and an awareness that with privilege comes responsibility. However in my younger DDs year they were nearer 20%, with some truly terrible home environments and levels of parental self indulgence . That meant that they did manipulate the school mores and sucked a lot of other girls into creating an exclusive cliquey environment, with disruption in lessons and outrageous behaviour outside, drugs, binge drinking, an emphasis on being size zero, sex tapes on you tube etc. all designed to generate attention for themselves and feed their self esteem And long queues outside the pastoral Heads and Counsellors Office, absence to spend time in the Priory etc. and a school left struggling to deliver on what most parents had expected. When my younger DD moved to another school for sixth she was amazed to find such different and inclusive values prevailing. I am quite sure 2% is underestimating the scale of the problem by some margin. I don't get the impression that the situation is much different at SPGS, some of those girls had sisters there.....

Which is why I welcome the Heads trying to put a marker in the sand that highlights that this parental culture is damaging their pupils, and not just the ones whose parents behave in this way.

Poisonwoodlife

Your post also illustrates how much is down to luck, rather than the school - the older daughter's peer group being somewhat different to the younger's.

Did you find that the 20% factor in your daughter's year/peer group sucked her into the "undesirable" activity? If not, then that is surely down to your parenting first and foremost, with the school supporting (as best it could with those issues so dominant.

You've helped me distill this some more. In my opinion, the order of importance of pastoral care is:

1. parenting and home life
2. luck
3. peer group
4. school choice

OP
Perhaps this is aligned with Clarissa's speech?

MN164 My DD didn't have much choice, for various reasons she was defined as different /to be excluded, which actually was not an entirely bad thing, though hurtful and damaging to self esteem, since she and her different friends (many of them from different cultures) soon developed a confidence in their different identities. You would hope that that would happen anyway by sixth form but sadly not, the alpha clique were still hissing "snake" at anyone who dared sit in their seats in the sixth form common room.....

I think you do have to throw nature into the mix, sometimes pupils have problems in spite of the parenting. And I have one DD who would have been sucked into undesirable activity (though not ever I hope exclusive behaviour that was not respectful of others and difference) if we had not held tight to the boundaries. Wasn't that another of Clarissa Farr's rants, about parents who didn't set boundaries? www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8844580/6000-a-term-St-Pauls-offers-parenting-classes.html

Some of those issues of teenage behaviour have been around for years, and regardless of type of school. Rachel Johnson, Boris's sister wrote about being excluded by the alpha clique at SPGS. I think the issue of parental behaviour contributing to it to the extent it does is a new one though, and that is why teachers are speaking out. In my experience the teachers at these school have strong moral values themselves and are genuinely appalled by some of this behaviour and the effect it has on the young people they teach.

OP I can't help thinking that taking offence at this stage is rather shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Both Clarissa Farr and the GSA have been adopting a role of lecturing advising parents on parenting for years. the GSA had a whole website, which seems to have disappeared, "My Daughter" which did just that.

I think CF treads a dangerous path. She risks alienating parents and also being accused of making any failing on her part the fault of parents. Ultimately, I think she is trying to do good though.

There is a lot to read and all very thought provoking and helpful in helping me distil my thoughts and feelings. Since I disappeared I wanted to comment on a few posts.

I am sorry I didnt paste a link - I read it on the Times which is behind a paywall. www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11262228/Top-head-attacks-pushy-snowplough-parents.html is the Telegraph version though I think everyone has read it now.

Fannyfifer I assume the job title goes back to the foundation of St Paul's School over 500 years ago and is a translation from what I would imagine was originally a Latin title. You're welcome to think it's bollocks, but at least it's 500 year old bollocks and I guess they just never felt the need to change it.

Hollyisalovelyname thanks for your nice comment...clearly I don't believe that I am the type of parent she is describing though my DM might differ as I know she thinks I do too much for my DC. But I celebrate their D team places and go and watch them just as much as when they are in the B team (note my DC dont make the As and that's fine!). I do of course recognise some elements of what she is describing amongst parents I know but am sure everyone thinks she is describing someone else, not them!

I think the debate focuses on a couple of angles. Many of you are discussing whether she is right about the way parents behave, why that is, how bad it is in different sorts of schools and places, and what impact that has on the children. That's a great and valuable discussion, but I was coming at this from a different angle - which is how should a parent react when their school head makes critical comments about the parent body?

Just as Ms Farr has criticised her parents for basically trying too hard and being too pushy, I could imagine a head elsewhere criticising parents for being not involved enough, and I think the parental reaction would be the same, but am sure the debate on here would have been different if I posting from that situation.

I dont want a sycophantic or kowtowing head - in fact I do agree with posters like Poisonwoodlife and rabbitstew but think there is a big difference between saying 'I'd like to encourage parents to do more of this and less of this' and saying 'my parents do too little of this and too much of this'. I think I'm trained from MN to be keenly focussed on the difference between a justified comment and a personal attack. From the quotes given, Ms Farr has strayed into what I view as personal attack, and I think that makes for great difficulty in continuing a respectful partnership between her and the parent body. So to use the language from the LEH quoted by poisonwoodlife - she can lecture me about what she thinks I need to know, but it's not her job to tell me off. And certainly not to do that in such a way that it makes the front pages.

That was a really interesting thread to read, especially as an old Paulina. Hasn't St Paul's always been rather keen on publicity-courting High Mistresses? It's part of their 'thing' I think.

Wordfactory I am liking your work on this thread. And laughing to myself because of course now all the hyper-comeptitive parents have got something else to be hyper competitive about - I can see the conversations at coffee mornings now 'Oh I let Isabella fail, it was so good for her, arent I a good parent!'.

"FayrazzledTue 02-Dec-14 13:35:47

There's much more to Yorkshire than decimated coal and steel industries. But of course, doesn't every place have its own stresses and issues? It's just I'm fairly sure 99% of Yorkshire's parents aren't fretting over what their child's HT may or may not have said to the press about the parent-body at their school, whilst simultaneously fighting tooth and nail to get their children into said school and paying handsomely for the privilege. It just all looks a bit, dare I say it, indulgent from the outside."

Fayrazzled - that did make me laugh! Thank you, you are very right. But I am still very annoyed.

A letter from Ms Farr did come yesterday basically blaming the unexpected presence of a journalist wanting to write sensationalist headlines for the incident. Like PPs earlier on the thread, I struggle to believe a savvy operator like Ms Farr was caught unexpectedly by the press, so don't believe her statement. But if it is true then that's worse as I would expect someone in her position to be prepared for the press to be there and speak accordingly whenever she speaks. So either disingenous or incompetent, methinks.

Several people have commented that if I dont like the head I should move my DD - but I think a school is much more than just the head, and my DD should choose where she goes, not me. But actually, I think if any business leader really pisses off their clients, at some point the board will and should remove them...am pondering whether this is a Gerald Ratner moment.

Ms Farr has invited us to speak to her at forthcoming school events but that is not the time or the place. I am considering whether to write, and if so, who to.

MN164 you are right about the different elements of pastoral care. The most 'deprived' child I have seen (at another school) was the one with the richest parents - actually they were just neglectful in every way, no slowploughing for them. Thanks goodness for the role that successive schools played in that child's life as caring teachers certainly filled some gaps.

And I'd generalise your list for achievements as well as pastoral care - schools like these love to promote what their children achieve, but I now see that it is generally not the private school's work that is making the child the international athlete, film star or author - it is the family and the child first and foremost. Of course some teachers, some subjects, are life-changing, but in general the home background contrrbutes most.

Hasn't St Paul's always been rather keen on publicity-courting High Mistresses? It's part of their 'thing' I think.
ROTFLMAO
That and they made one of the greatest recruitment clangers ever some years back hiring somebody without checking their references

God the angst! It's interesting how other people live and the stresses they have. Move to Scotland and then send your kids to the local school. Jobs a good 'un! No head teachers moaning about parents in the Times here!

To be fair, UpsetofWestLondon, however media savvy, in order to avoid a journalist misquoting you, you have to zip your mouth shut. Then you will be accused of uncharacteristic silence, instead! Better to say these things in a public forum and risk being misquoted than to have some journalist getting their hands on private letters you have been sending to other headteachers of other public schools, complaining about parental attitudes, which a delighted journalist could publish, instead under the heading, "What Headteachers Really Think of Private School Parents [but are too duplicitous to say]."

Actually as a fellow marketer I had heard Gerald Ratner make the same presentation at several conferences over the years, illustrating how they segmented their market and targeted their customer offer. It was usually met with interest, understanding and an appreciation of the wit (and you might well have just sat through some humourless corporate clone from Mercedes). The MD of First Direct used to deliver a similar witty rundown on their target customers and strategy for exploiting the market which their customers probably would not have wanted to hear. The difference was when Ratner's comments it made it out of the professional environment of the conference and into the very popular press that target the same market.

However Ratner was dependent on attracting his consumers to buy, Clarissa Farr is selecting hers from the very many who want to buy into her product, and as shown on here, many who buy into her words and want an authoritative Head leading the school. Big difference.

She wasn't misquoted. She said these things. If you don't want it reported, don't say it.

But surely when we choose a school we want them to like our child and our child to like the school NOT the Head to like us. It won't put anyone off. You are paying to educate your child not to feel loved.

Poisonwoodlife- my comment about Yorkshire was neither here nor there really. It wasn't specifically about Yorkshire. It could have been Scotland, the Midlands, Northumberland, Shropshire, East Anglia etc etc. Really, as UpsetofWestLondon appreciated, my comment was regarding the very particular angst and hand-winging that accompanies a subset of London parents desperate to get their children into a very narrow 'club' of schools.

Which isn't to say that if you move to Yorkshire (or Scotland, the MIdlands, Northumberland etc) the schools are perfect. Of course they aren't. No-one would pretend otherwise. And of course, I understand the 'market' in London for education is very different to other places too. But, despite the angst and the competition, many parents wouldn't move out of London precisely because the very particular kinds of school that St Paul's, NLCS, Westminster, Gdolphin & Latymer are, don't exist elsewhere.

I mind very much whether I like the Head and find that a productive long-term relationship with a school is immensely difficult without mutual respect for and easy communication with senior management. Which we have, fortunately.

Fayrazzled - you hit the nail on the head. There are schools that are clubs - for DC and their parents. Hence the huge stakes involved in securing a place.

I read it and thought that it was quite true. Children need time -not quality time just time and lots of it-mainly parent time. Obviously there are exceptions like OP.

And in a school like that the pressures to succeed are enormous-how dreadful to get a B when they all get As.

Poisonwoodlife, I'm interested by your comments about Gerald Ratner but SPGS isn't Clarissa Farr's own "product": it's a long established school, of which she is privileged to be the current head.

I sympathise with OP's concern about the head's relationship with the parent body. OP is entitled to make the observations she has posted here and should certainly feel able to raise them elsewhere. Ms Farr should pay attention to her relationship with parents, just as she no doubt takes care of her relationships with pupils and staff at the school.

Granola I made that exact point earlier in the thread, this is not a consumer product or service but an institution, parents are not consumers who have a right to expect to be served up "customer delight" but, albeit they are paying for it, parents of the pupils who attend a school with a particular ethos they have signed up to and that it is the responsibility of the Head to ensure is delivered. I only used the word product in the context of making a comparison with Ratner since OP had tried to argue it was a directly comparable event and should possibly result in the same outcome.

I do not agree that a Head is just the current caretaker though. Good Heads can and do transform schools, state or private, and they set the vision and strategies. Locally Latymer (previous Head) , LEH (the one before last, Miss Candy, who I gather took the school from being the very unremarkable private school attended by Lynn Barber and portrayed in "An Education" ), Godolphin (the previous Head), KGS (previous Head) have all seen what a difference a good Head can make to a school, inspiring the community, governors and pupils to take a school in new directions. I certainly noticed when my DD moved secondary school what a difference an inspiring engaged Head can make , and what an uninspiring one can do to dilute the ethos. Perhaps as one poster said up thread Clarissa Farr does want to change the nature of the parent body? Though actually I suspect she was just trying to share experience and good practise of a shared issue with fellow professionals (just as actually Ratner was doing). If you look at the agenda for the conference itself you will see that there was a lot of emphasis on the psychological well being of pupils. gsa.uk.com/annual-conference-2014-2/

And actually implicit in that agenda is that there are problems with the parenting of the pupils in those schools as well as issues with the environment they are brought up in...... So do we say all GSA Heads are guilty of undermining the relationship with their parent body? Every Head I have had experience of has returned from their conferences, be it GSA or the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference with a report on what they have learnt and just as sometimes they were criticising the government, sometimes they were actually criticising modern parenting.......