Children at private and grammar schools criticising comprehensive schools

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My DD attends the local 'good' comprehensive school, which has a great reputation and gets good results, but is a big, diverse and scruffy school. She's now in year 8, and over the past 2-3 years a few of her friends have gone the grammar and private school route.

DD knows there are many reasons why people opt for different schools, and that it's not her place to pass comment on other people's school choices, but she seems to be regularly on the receiving end of critical and nasty comments about the school she goes to e.g 'all the kids take drugs' / 'are badly behaved' / 'the teaching is terrible' (they don't, and it's not!) and even 'my parents wouldn't send me there over their dead bodies'.

DD is happy at school and is doing well academically, but at times these comments have really upset her, and on one occasion she tearfully asked me why we'd chosen to send her to such a bad school. A couple of times these comments were made in front of the parents (on lifts home from outings at the weekends), and they said nothing. 😟

I've explained to DD that her friends are likely just expressing adults' views, and to try not to take it personally, but I find it depressing that DDs friends can't see how upsetting these comments might be for DD. Speaking to some of my other friends, their children at local comps have had similar experiences.

I wonder if this is the beginning of a lifelong 'them and us' attitude for these quite privileged kids. Maybe it happens the other way around too ('why are your parents paying for private school when the local school is so good?') but it feels like even if it does, the connotations are different.

Is this all to be expected, and a case of DD just needing to 'toughen' up to the real world? Perhaps naively, I expected a bit better of 12 and 13-year-olds 🙄

I live in NI. Which still has academic selection. Your daughter is spot on- there is a stigma around comprehensives. Really not sure what can be done about it though.

You are not being unreasonable OP the other children are expressing prejudice which is just as bad as any other type of prejudice in my view.

YANBU.

shame things haven’t changed. I remember horrible attitudes from privately educated kids (I was privately educated) in the 90s.

This is sad. Children are horrible sometimes, they say things that they are too immature to really understand. I will say though, that it does happen in the other direction and I know a number of children/families who went to private prep but state secondary and were on the receiving end of equally nasty comments from peers who mocked them for being ‘posh’ or privileged.

@Janedoe82 I’m originally from NI and the grammar /comprehensive divide in NI is very different from the comprehensive /private school divide on the mainland.

OP we are on the other side. I went to a private school and learned very quickly how to avoid telling people where I went to school - we were ‘the rich bitches’ (I was on a full assisted place). DC are at an indie. DD has already left one out of school club because of the bullying she suffered simply because of the school she went to.

Sadly it’s not just isolated to the kids. One mum friend lectured me on all the wonderful facilities of the local state school and finished off the lecture with ‘I mean, it’s fabulous….why on earth would you pay?’ She knows we pay. I just find it really rude; I don’t pass comment on the 5 figure holidays she goes on or tell her that cornwall is equally beautiful.

our DC regularly get told how fortunate they are to go to the school they are at, and I’d be horrified if I learned they had been mean to other children about their school.

I’m sorry your DD has had horrible comments.

OP does your dd know that only 7% (I think?) of people go to private schools? Maybe that would put things in perspective for her. Not sure of the figure for grammar.

I went to a grammar school and it was hammered into us that we were the best. It came as a real shock when in y11 one teacher said "don't think that you're going to waltz these exams because you're at a grammar. There are bright kids in comprehensives too". It's not necessarily that comps get talked down, but talking grammars up kind of implies that the others are less good.

That isn’t nice and maybe she should avoid anyone who says things like that.
DD got called a snobby bitch by supposed old friends from Primary for being in the opposite position

I had the shot ripped out of me by my cousins for years because I went to private school. It goes both ways.

I think the reaction she got is down to the specific children she's friends with and their parents. My kids go private and I struggle to get them there and we've had to make large sacrifices for it. My kids are still friends with their old state school friends and don't belittle them. In fact they get picked on by the greater number of state school children in our local community (I witnessed this as recently as yesterday and I suggested the same when I went to a grammar school).

I'd suggest it's time for your child to accept those friendships are in the past and to move on. Fwiw and it's anecdotal, the children I have seen at private school who are unpleasant tend to be unpleasant to their "peers" too. My kids have had run ins with some of the children of the more wealthy parents ( I can't afford a jaguar SUV). I get the impression some wealthy parents just send their kids to private school as it's the done thing when "one' is wealthy and they quite often don't seem to give a toss about the kids who are often underperforming and disruptive (drinking and drugs have both been problems at my kids school). These same kids are picked up by nannies and rarely see their parents who are too busy making money - aside from when they're on holidays in the Bahamas.

So, it's not private school kids, it's those kids and their parents. They would be nasty wherever they were. I know my kids are not like that and I know mine appreciate the opportunity they have, which is why they're both top of their respective year groups.

It’s just pure snobbery. That’s it. They have to tell their kids that comprehensive kids are scum to justify their choices.

Unfortunately this insidious class prejudice carries on into to adulthood and the world of work. And here we are, an inherently biased system which favours privilege. And we wonder why the social divide grows ever wider.

OP does your dd know that only 7% (I think?) of people go to private schools? Maybe that would put things in perspective for her. Not sure of the figure for grammar
Yes, she knows that the majority of children attend comprehensive - most of her friends go to the same school as her - it's just the few friends that don't that unfortunately all seem to have the same attitude toward the local school. They're nice kids; albeit, very confident.

Obviously, they've heard their parents talk about the local school and, of course, we all have a tendency to come up with reasons why or why not we send our DC to specific schools. It's just bewildering to me that their parents don't challenge their DC for making such insensitive comments.

Interesting to hear the other side too i.e. being criticised for opting for private education.

School choices sometimes feel like a subject we should steer clear of in my friendship group - with perhaps one side feeling the other doesn't think the local school is 'good enough' for their precious DC (because they're paying for private education), and the other being overly defensive about their decision to send their DC to the local school (and, in some cases, completely puzzled why parents would choose to spend a fortune for their DC to travel an hour each way on a bus when there's a good or outstanding school on the doorstep). Judgment on both sides, I guess 😏

It just stings a bit when comments are made about how terrible the school is 😑.

FenghuangHoyan - So, it's not private school kids, it's those kids and their parents. They would be nasty wherever they were.

Yes, this is probably true.

Hoppinggreen
DD got called a snobby bitch by supposed old friends from Primary for being in the opposite position

Sorry to hear this, and to others whose DC have had similar experiences. That's just awful.

I would encourage dd to speak up. Tell them her school is very good and she's doing well there.

Not picking on your response at all, but being told how fortunate they are all the time is exactly why kids at private/grammar end up telling kids at comps that their schools are shit and full of druggies.

Because when you constantly hear that your school is amazing and you are so lucky it's not a big jump to other schools are not amazing.

OP - advise your kid to tell the others that they might not meant it that way, but what they're saying is hurtful.

@UWhatNow They have to tell their kids that comprehensive kids are scum to justify their choices

im not sure comments like this help. I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad experience.

We live in a grammar area, my DDs go to the local state comprehensive while my step children go to the grammar. Personally I’m very opposed to the grammar school system, though I would bet say that in front of my DSC.

Any inkling of ‘my school is better than your school’ we shut down immediately. I agree the children are just parroting things they have been told by adults. When DSS was in Y7 he was telling me about his RE lessons and I was making all the right noises about how interesting it sounded. He said “well that’s the benefit of a grammar school education, you get to study everything” 🙄 I had to explain to him that state schools did all the same subjects! He didn’t actually realise that everyone sits the same GCSE exams no matter which school!

I made sure I explained very clearly to my DDs that there are different types of school and every parent makes their own choice, but that I thought it was important for them to go to the school up the road so they could walk to school and have local friends, and I didn’t want them to take an exam to get into a school. Most importantly I make it clear that they are just as clever as the kids who go to grammar school (who are tutored to an inch of their life for months).

Luckily as they’ve got older they don’t tend to talk about school much at all.

OP, if you have an inkling which parents it is, I would maybe have a word?

This is presumably the flip side of what my DD was at the receiving end of at Year 6 primary when her friends (and their parents) found out she was going to independent secondary. Suddenly she was 'stuck up', was going to suffer from bullying in a single sex school with all those bitchy girls (no self awareness there) and obviously we as a family think we're better than them. Pretty sure this came from the parents really but horrible at the time.

The parents aren't challenging the comments because they agree with them or are the ones who originally said that comment.

Very common for different sectors to have an opinion on the others. I've seen it on here too - comments like bad behaviour in comprehensives or snobby attitudes in private school kids.

My dd went from comprehensive to RG uni and is baffled by the fact that there are famous schools (she's heard of Eton but that's it) or when people express surprise that she didn't attend a grammar or private school. She was in the top sets with plenty of kids who got 7-9s and As / A* s.

Ours have had the same names called. It's doubly upsetting that as we're not wealthy, they also get picked on at school by the children who think their parents bank balance makes them better than my kids.

Fortunately private schools tend to have a pretty decent discipline / pastoral setup (though I've seen bias towards Lady Tompkins children and the little darlings attitudes after a large "donation" to the school), so my kids don't suffer anything like I can remember doing. It really does annoy me though that we're going without so we can give our kids what we hope is the best start we can and they still get picked on and come home in tears. You can really only do so much and I think this all helps out children for that moment when they are finally independent... As painful as it all is.

I saw that Lady Tompkins (made up name) little darling is bottom of the class academically even if she is the leader of the "cool kids" and I know they've already been in trouble for drinking and smoking. I also know Lady Tompkins is a vacuous pilluck who inherited all her "class".

And parents whose kids go to comprehensive school have to tell their kids that Private Kids are snobs to justify their lack of money presumably??????

The whole concept of private education is awful, I definitely judge people who send their children to them

My children (who are at an independent) have also been subject to unkind and untrue comments. “Private school spoon feeds, their teachers aren’t qualified (they are) they know children who went to private school who are drop outs etc”

Parents make a variety of choices (if they are lucky enough to have choice) for many reasons, other’s choices shouldn’t matter a jot to you or those making the comments.

I’d encourage her to push back against these comments (that’s not true at all! Why on earth do you think that?!’) or similar. Or to be honest, if they said something like that in earshot of me I’d say something myself - not aggressively of course, but calmly and assertively challenging their prejudices and making it clear that I thought they were being rather silly. They’re getting that from the adults around them, no doubt about it.