Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Sixth-form girl living alone

523 replies

BoboChic · 16/03/2017 10:13

Do you think that a private mixed sixth form should admit a new pupil who will be living alone in a small rented apartment during the week, returning home to her parents at the weekend?

OP posts:
CountryCaterpillar · 16/03/2017 18:33

Exactly Francis. Seems groupthink/scapegoating to me!!

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 18:34

The parents of the kids had a responsibility to parent their own children. Which they did not do.

And they can talk all about ecosystems and dissimulation and all the other flannel of the day but the buck stops with them.

CountryCaterpillar · 16/03/2017 18:35

Of course it wasn't their /their childs fault...

FrancisCrawford · 16/03/2017 18:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 18:38

How on earth did the words "what time of night do you call this to come home" and "what the fuck sort of state was that to be coming in here on a school night" not cross those parents' lips?

Why wasn't there a deal of "right, I've had enough of this crap you need to knuckle down and get on with the job here. Catch a grip"?

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 18:39

And even

"Don't try to kid a kidder sunshine. Been there done that I was 17 once too. I know you're not heading to Tracey's to study every night so stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes."

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 18:41

God help that those weans (that cohort) when they get out into the big bad world of work.

Every teacher under the sun knows the first words out of a youngster's mouth when they're caught on are "it wasn't me it was his fault" and that's what those kids have done and the parents have bought the bullshit.

fourcorneredcircle · 16/03/2017 18:55

Good grief.

I'd have called troll by page halfway down page one if only I didn't recognise the OPs name.

Really OP? Really? Have you nothing better to do than continue to flog push your point? After 15 pages of people saying "yeah, this one's on the parents of the teenage "delinquents", not the school"? Really?

I'm increasingly glad that you live in France and I will never have to teach your children, because, I'm afraid you are "that" parent.

Especially since you are getting your culottes in a twist over the grades of children that aren't yours, at a school they didn't attend (Just so you know, it would be no more redeeming if your children did attend this school and this situation was ongoing), in a country you don't live in, based on the gossip of one other person who is basing their opinions on the gossip of others - many of whom are guilty parties (the teenagers themselves AND their parents) and therefore will say what suits their version!

midcenturymodern · 16/03/2017 18:58

My school had 'party houses' back in the olden days. I'm sure everyones did. If you are 16-18, studying for your A levels, and you are dependent on the parents of another pupil to tell you to go home and do some work then you possibly deserve to do not so well.

titchy · 16/03/2017 19:10

Schools don't do parenting. Parents do parenting. Sixth formers have parties, official and unofficial. They have sex, they drink to excess, they smoke weed, some do stronger drugs, they try to blag their way into pubs and clubs. Every single school in the UK, state and private has sixth formers who will be doing all that this weekend. IT IS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SCHOOL.

Notwhatiexpected · 16/03/2017 19:16

Just a clarification, my children, for a number of reasons attend a public school. The chat from the OP in no way reflects the sort from the other parents I know. Maybe they do unleash their inner snobbish vile chat under the secrecy of the internet, but I doubt it, they are all really, really boringly right on.

This drip drip, overtly steriotypical, divisive, and incredible nonsense, sound to me like a parody of what someone might think a yaya snob might say.

CountryCaterpillar · 16/03/2017 19:26

Well i was completely flummoxed when (Loaded london person in tiny flat can't remember name) didn't turn out to be telling the whole story...

ImsorryTommy · 16/03/2017 19:31

I went to a very naice fee paying girls school. In sixth form (mid 90s) a friend lived with her Dad but he worked abroad for weeks at a time and was rarely there. The school knew.

She went to school every day. We did have parties but she was extremely well off and had a monthly allowance which is more than my monthly disposable income now so she employed a bouncer in case people we didn't know turned up.

There was never any trouble. Yes there was some shagging and drinking and some drug taking but we were all 16-18 in those couple of years so not really unexpected. No A level results suffered and everyone in that friendship group went to Uni and did well.

OddBoots · 16/03/2017 19:35

It reminds me of a dad I heard once say of his son when he heard his grades were slipping "Oh, he's a ~insert posh school name~ boy, they always do well, the school will sort him out" as if paying for an expensive school was all the input they needed to make in their child's development.

corythatwas · 16/03/2017 20:59

Speaking as the mother of a 16yo Sixth Fomer, if I found out that he had been somewhere he shouldn't and behaved in ways he shouldn't, then I wouldn't be the least interested in laying into anyone who wasn't there to stop him. I would want to know why he did what he did/failed to do what he didn't. 16yos have agency, do they not?

Ime the only way to keep teenagers safe is to let them know that they are accountable for their own actions. Infantilising someone who is on the cusp of starting adult life by suggesting it is other people's fault if they misbehave seems a seriously dangerous idea. Actually, I'm not sure it's a terribly good idea when dealing with 6yos either. Mine have always known that mum is not going to be the least bit interested in whose idea it was or who else was behaving even worse: as long as they are little, my job is to ensure they behave. And by the time they reach their mid-teens it is their job to make sure they behave.

corythatwas · 16/03/2017 21:26

If anyone is naïve it seems to be the person who is assuming that 16yos will be kept safe if only they don't have an unsupervised person with an unmonitored flat actually in their school- presumabl.y on the assumption that no teen ever knew anyone who was not in their own school and of their own age.

JamDonutsRule · 16/03/2017 21:28

I actually agree with you on much of this BoBo though the unnecessarily wordy explanations and drip feeding don't help.

It is the responsibility of school and parents to create an environment propitious to exam success, notwithstanding the natural inclinations and experimentations of teenagers.

^that. I think it was a massive error of judgment on the part of the parents and I'm also surprised that the school did not have a policy of DC having to live with parents in term time. I would if I ran a school.

Tarquinius didn't get into an RG and had to go to a former poly but it's not his fault, it's the fault of that Tracey off the council estate

^ definitely an element of this from the other parents.

I do think irresponsible decisions were made, but things can go wrong with DC living at home. At the school I attended the 14/15/16 year old girls would rent a cheap B&B for the night so they could shag their adult boyfriends. They all lived at home.

WateryTart · 17/03/2017 07:01

Pages and pages and still no valid reason why the school holds any responsibility for the fecklessness of the 16 year old and her irresponsible parents.

Neither is the school responsible for the other students hanging out at the flat. Parents need to parent. If the parents of those students didn't know what was going on then more fool them.

GetAHaircutCarl · 17/03/2017 07:42

I suspect every sixth form has at least one designated party house.

More usually it will be the house of a pupil who has largely absent parents. There are a couple in my DC's upper sixth who live with their (divorced) Dad, but he is commonly away with work/staying at his girlfriend's/ out with mates.

I'm not really sure what school can feasibly do about it. I'd certainly notice if my DC were spending a huge amount of time there though. And it would have to be a huge amount of time to make a measurable difference to their exam results, I think.

Original poster
BoboChic · 17/03/2017 09:28

If pupils are living at the home address of at least one of their parents the school does have a reasonable expectation that DC are, to some extent, protected from themselves and others (these are minors). Obviously that reasonable expectation can sometimes be confounded.

The potential risks associated with a pupil living alone would appear a lot greater - hence (private) schools having policies to prevent this.

OP posts:
Annesmyth123 · 17/03/2017 09:30

And your point is?

Living at a home address of a parent does not in any way shape or form guarantee effective parenting by that parent. Which is what your friends kids who all failed their a levels prove (because they were all living at a parental address)

Original poster
BoboChic · 17/03/2017 09:37

None of the DC failed their A-levels.

OP posts:
Annesmyth123 · 17/03/2017 09:40

Ok then. Failed to achieve to the expected level.

The fact that the rest of the kids were all living at home under parental supervision does not in any way shape or form guarantee effective parenting due to the evidence that those children in that cohort who were living at home under parental supervision failed to achieve to the expected level.

Original poster
BoboChic · 17/03/2017 09:42

So you think school has no responsibility for discipline?

OP posts:
Annesmyth123 · 17/03/2017 09:44

Why do you think the parents of all those children who failed to achieve don't have responsibility for disciplining their own children re their behaviour outside of school hours?

Swipe left for the next trending thread