Hell hath no fury like a middle-class parent scorned

[UnquietDad]

Some people walking around at DD/DS's school this week with faces like slapped arses. Didn't get their choice of secondary school and lost the appeal to boot. How disastrous is this, I wonder?

They're people who aren't in the catchment, and applied for a hugely popular school, so I'm tempted to say "what the hell did you expect?"

(Sorry, I'm aware I may be creating my own virtual Butterkist-Butterkist ra-ra-ra moment here.)

UQD, why are you so pleased about the parents' disappointment?

I don't think UQD is pleased. Just not surprised.

I'm not pleased. I didn't mean to give that impression.

Okay. A misinterpretation on my part.

TBH at first we were a bit middle class parent scorned over dd's primary school allocation. We didn't agree with how the route was calculated and were up in arms, straight on the phone to the headmaster of our preferred school, appeal submitted asap, wrote to the MP etc etc

We have withdrawn our appeal though - there is no point flogging that particupar expired nag. Our grounds for appeal weren't anything that the appeal panel can rule on so why go through all the stress?

We are just going to have to live with the fact that things didn't go our way.

I see where UQD is coming from - the truth is that not everyone gets what they want - there just isn't the room in the preferred schools. You just have to live with that. You don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.

I'd probably be walking around like those parents if we hadn't upped sticks and moved out of London - nearly all of ds's former classmates failed to get into the secondary school they chose..now you've got me thinking of the Butterkist ad Unquiet

Hallgerda - yes, I suppose the cyclone idea is about right. I know several 13 yr olds making their way to the Richmond area every day.
RosaLux - you lived a stone's throw from Graveney!! Ds1 will have to sit the Wandsworth test for that. I think if you are really close by to the school, then generally (not always) you are fine, it's just that there are so few schools full stop. Our closest secondary is a Catholic Girls one, and although ds1 would look charming in the plaid kilt uniform, I'm not sure they will consider him.

Well, UQD, I looked a bit like that last year.

Because everyone else had moved house/gone private/slept with the local vicar whilst I couldn't/wouldn't. Got in to first choice eventually via waiting list. Not getting first choice was not disaster but certainly not good - especially when everyone else had got exactly what they wanted (at a price)

Can you do it by sleeping with the local vicar?
I'll have to ask ours, she's a bit lush.

Allegedly, UQD

Our (male) local vicar is, ahem, rather fit - but also extremely happily married. Doesn't stop the local mums trying on the charm though ....

I do think it's interesting that it's only our generation, and indeed only a narrowish middle-class band of our generation, who seem obsessed by the whole thing. My mum and dad, as they remind me, had no trouble getting me into the local primary school.

I suppose the sea-change has come since the introduction of "choice" and league tables, so post-1990 - Tory and Labour governments equally to blame.

But those who have money will just go private automatically, those who have no option (e.g. council estate with no transport and three other kids in tow) will go to the local sink school.

I think it is also more of a city thing uqd. We live in West Yorkshire so theoretically a metropolitan area, but we live in a smallish village with one one-class-entry primary school. We are also right on the border between Kirklees, Wakefield and Barnsley which, of course, also throws up the cross-boudnary issues. There is an extremely low chance of DS and DD going to any other secondary than the nearest one that is about 3 miles away. But that is some time away as the children are 7 and 4 and we have the middle school system here - so no secondary until 14. But middle school also pretty much mapped out.

I think you can trace the beginnings back further than that, UQD. When I was little our local primary school had a reputation for no-one ever passing their 11+, so middle-class parents used to send their kids to the next school along.

I think it just wasn't formalised in the explicit way it is now, so only reasonably clued-up parents worked out that there was a system to be played. Which worked in their favour but against everybody less devious ambitious.

Well, I'm ancient and there was a pecking order in the schools in my town. I think the difference now is that we have access to moe information that we have to weigh up. Before, you went on results and behaviour and local gossip. Now, there are league tables and contextual value added and OFSTED reports and so on....

bozza - S. Yorks here - our situation is similar to yours in some ways. We're in village on fringes of city, so one-class-entry primary school and pretty much eevryone in the village goes to the catchment secondary (but lots try to get in from outside, hence my OP). No middle schools here though.

And NO sixth-forms outside the affluent south-west of the city. BIG I've been getting more right-wing in my old age, but if there is one thing that brings out the militant shoot-the-rich tub-thumper in me......

But UQ, there is the shiny new 6th form college at Hillsborough.....I teach 6th form in one of those ...affluent schools . Some of us just grew up here before everything took off....

Pretty bog standard equipment throughout, no glossy expensive 6th form college stuff.

fizzbuzz - my point exactly. People in the NW of the city are expected to go to the college.

But why wouldn't they want to???? Why would they want to go to 6th form, when they have all that stuff available?

They have much better facilities and equipment than 6th forms. I and a colleague have had to teach 6th form and GCSE in the same room at the same time due to not enough space in the school. An interesting experience..........

Is "stuff" everything though?

I just don't like the city council's attitude - it smacks of "middle class kids go here to do A levels and if you don't like it, touch luck for not living in these postcodes"

true nkf - otherwise why do people apply to schools that they clearly have very little chance of getting into - there seems to be some kind of belief that their passionate desire that their kid goes to x school will somehow translate itself into a place. I have seen lots of people disappointed because of this lately.

oops

have just realised i answered a post by nkf from much earlier today - I see there is a whole page of posts since then.

must concentrate!

Well where I grew up there were no sixth forms at all in the borough so it was tertiary college for my a-levels.

I was a middle class moaner a few weeks ago - fortunately I won ds's appeal. I was appealing against an appalling school - nearly all 4s and notice to improve on recent Ofsted (though I know Ofsted can make mistakes), recent pepper spray incident (Y7 and a couple of parents arrested), abysmal results and most importantly for us, no support for dyslexic ds as due to his extremely hard work, he'd be going in with well above average results for the school. I went to look round as a prospective teacher - on my way in a girl swore clearly at HT who didn't pick her up on it. The school is in an area the Cat Protection League won't rehome cats in because too many of them get abused. AND it's miles and miles away from home - in our rural area we end up on the bottom of every list because the town's expanding and places are being filled. No way would my ds have gone there. Luckily he's off to a selective school.
I've worked in all sorts of challenging schools and enjoyed it. I become a little less left wing when it comes to damaging my son's chances in life.

Dunno about the generational thing UQD. My mum made a lot of effort to get me into the secondary school I went to, and certainly looked at schools before moving to the area I grew up in. That was all encompassed within the 70s.

Surely quite a lot to do with population changes? I was born in 69, so beginning of a drop in the birth rate, hence not a huge amount of pressure on school places. But AFAIK the birth rate has bumped up a lot just recently, though I don't know exactly when the rise started, plus the I word has increased numbers of children as well. Can't just magic up a school from nowhere.

choosy - I was born in the same year as you. I think the birth rate has fluctuated, to be honest. A "millennium peak" was expected and never came - in fact there was a slight drop.

At least, that's the excuse our city council are using (is using? doh, see the Pedants) for merging two secondary schools from 2011.