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 🙄

In that case those who are opposed to private education don’t need to worry about it as if the schools which are free are so much better than those which charge fees, then soon the fee paying ones will go out of business.

It’s a terrible age.

They will get gradually less idiotic. Give your DD some simple pointers to argue back.

Don’t take it so much to heart - you DD is seeing that you are and taking it to heart more as a result. It’s just teens.

My dc go/went to a comp in a fully comp county. We don't have any friends with kids in grammar schools, but have a couple of friends with kids who went to private schools. Luckily they are tactful people so we haven't had negative comments about our school and we havent made any back!.
Im sure there are benefits to going private, but my eldest and her school friends have ended up at unis which are on the same level as the ones the private friends got into, so it's all worked out fine in the end. Hang on a few years and you might find the same!

I think ‘better’ is subjective. As a teacher I can’t argue with the benefit of smaller class sizes, it’s obvious. But there is more to school than exam results. My state-educated DC are well rounded and very grounded, they have friends from a wide variety of backgrounds, they walk to school in 10 minutes and all their friends live round the corner. They also gets to do a wide range of subjects of their choice rather than the narrow and very academic subjects offered by the girls’ grammar, where the only tech options are food tech or textiles and the only sports are netball and hockey!

Testina

I can as it's my lived experience with 4 grown up children and many friends having kids at private/grammar/state high schools.

Honestly no difference at all in careers/life chances or well being.

The ones at private school were the Least happy (not all) least sucessful too.

My kids went to red brick unis and worked their arses off where the privately educated tended to be lazy needy and far less resilient.

But just our experience.

I mean there's private as in Eton and private as in a local private school that's a joke really

I went to a good state school. We got hassled for being “posh” and “geeks” by some of the kids from the nearby shit state school, and for being “common” and “thick” by the kids from the nearby private school. Experiencing both snobbery and inverse snobbery on the same bus journey was quite an experience.

My DDs year wasn't so bad as she wasn't friendly with girls who went private. My DS year has been horrendous. Mates asking why he's at comp. Best mate telling him comps are only for those that can't get into selective private etc. relentless to the point we avoid those families now

My kids went to red brick unis and worked their arses off where the privately educated tended to be lazy needy and far less resilient.

smileladies and your kids knew every single privately educated student at these universities well enough that they could come to this conclusion.
Why not just say “I hate posh people”?

How do they know the school is terrible if they don't go there? Shows that they aren't necessarily smarter for going to them schools. The parents dont know what the school is like because their kids don't go there but you know what is like and so does your dd so therefore it's just gossip and wanting to believe what they tell themselves.

I do understand the point about ‘rising above’ and developing DDs own confidence , and we’re working on this, but she sees one of these friends almost every day (shared after school activity). It feels a bit like an abusive relationship at times, and the comments are currently relentless, so I do think it needs to be pointed out to the child how hurtful these comments are.

South!

We all hate posh people is soooooo funny as you have no idea how rich we are (or not) but as you seen to know us crack on!

Going to Eton Makes you rich and possibly posh going to your local private school is fine and good on your parents for working bloody hard to buy you a dream.

Unless it's a named public school honestly you are wasting your cash with 'networking!'

Each to own though

In that case OP, yes I think you should speak to the child and to the parent, because that is bullying.

And I'd wager a guess that child isn't too happy at school herself! Happy, secure people don't need to big themselves up putting others down.

This is terribly sad. Honestly I had friends at different schools when growing up and it honestly never came up. We never once talked about it other than I got longer holidays. Thinking about it, it is the same for my children. They are friends so they don’t care where their mates go to school. They don’t hear a comments from unconnected parents so we are obvious to other opinions. Maybe in London there are more private schools so the kids don’t care as much? Certainly something I have never come across. I can imagine in grammar school areas it creates more of a divide so maybe that creates a bit of them and us mentality but that is just speculation .

Teach her how to stand up to this by saying, "My parents didn't want me to go to a selective because they worried I'd become a snobbish bigot who looked down on people. Seems like they were right."

I'm a bit ashamed to say I have voiced very negative views of comps to DC because I went to one that was shit and have several bright friends who did too (other comps in other parts of the country.) Sadly DC's state primary reminded me of all the things I loathed about my state secondary. We were all bullied and isolated for being keen to learn and had teachers with very low expectations of achievement. I have zero tolerance for economic or class snobbishness but I also have zero tolerance for inverse snobbery about academic achievement.

This is also true. I've heard loads of these comments levelled at private schools. Everyone who sends their child there is a rampant snob who doesn't want their darlings mixing with oiks etc. Inverse snobbery and just as untrue.

@Masterofcats tbh I'd be gradually moving away from that friendship

I think parents tell kids bad stuff about state to make them work harder.
I've heard shocking comments from kids who have never stepped foot into a comp. They have come from parents. According to these parents stare schools are full of rough kids, disruption, bullying, low achievement, low expectations.
Our mixed city comp is a far cry from this. The exact opposite.
I tell my kids that at the end of the day you all sit the same exams. You can't get a higher grade than a 9 but paying for it

My kids know they are only in private school due to us been able to afford it and also it makes our lives easier with both kids in one Co Ed school. We made our choices for us. That said they also know our local school, where we moved to recently are excellent, and they will go there if circumstances change.

We're not snobs but we do pay for convenience. Also my kids don't go to a selective school due to ND so no such "top 2%" like other schools.

All private schools are not the equivalent of Eton!

This.

DP spent years wringing his hands about DD not going to a grammar (she should have got in). However, she was very very happy in her comp, made good friends, had excellent teaching on the whole and came out with 4Astars in her A Levels and a place in one of the most prestigious unis.

I had some friends that went to private school after being at a comp. They could t believe the bollocks some of their classmates came out with. They were also told a number of times to remember that they "were the elite" in the country and "would be running the country" when older. Tbf it's quite accurate for the last one unfortunately.