Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

SingleSue

LydiaJ wrote: »

Yes, the schools might change in quality, but in reality that's not very common. The sad fact is that despite all efforts to change things, kids' socioeconomic background is still the most powerful predictor of their educational achievement. Related to this is the equally sad fact that a good head and/or good teachers can make some difference, but the biggest difference your choice of school will make to your kids' education is the peer group with which they will spend so much time rather than the adults who will teach them. If you want your kids to spend their school hours surrounded by other kids whose parents value education and have taught them (by the time they start primary school) to speak in sentences, do their shoes up, sit still and listen when necessary, and share nicely, then your options are to live in a catchment where the parents are like that, or to pay school fees. I wish it were not so, but it is.

Crikey! The parent's would have been running to the hills if they had seen youngest and middle at school....

Youngest was non verbal when he started school, could not cope with circle time (or carpet time whichever they wanted to call it), so didn't sit still and didn't want to be with anyone let alone share. Middle son was able to talk in sentences but most was at a shout (partially deaf) and was a mini tearaway hence the unteachable label he was given in year 3. I think even if I had seen him from the eyes of another parent, I would have been scared away, he was a blooming nightmare!

Amazing to think the unteachable one recently got 10 A-C GCSEs including English and maths, is seen as a perfect gentleman, a gentle giant and one of the politest students in the school.

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

Close to station in St Albans:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40448521.html

This is probably within catchment of a good primary but only a good rather than excellent secondary but it is also too far from the 'main' station, probably 15 minutes walk.

SingleSue wrote: »

Last year there was the farce of the 6th formers being given Ipads to use at school, only to find pretty much all the resources they needed for study blocked on the school internet!

This annoys me really - I perfectly good andoid tablet can probably be sourced for one fifth the price of an ipad and will give exactly the same internet experience (or better) and will leave 100s of k for the school to spend on other resources.

SingleSue

It annoys youngest son too Michaels, especially when the computers for the other years are so old and clunky, they don't work very well.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

We are now thinking that the walk isn't really that bad and maybe we should put an offer in. However, having done a bit of research on school catchment areas it appears that this house would be in the catchment area for some godawful primary school in chessington rather than the good one in claygate which is a bit of a problem. Not that we have kids but we want them and it seems a bit stupid to buy a house with extra space we don't need unless we have kids which we would then need to sell again if we did have kids (and also whose value may be damaged by the rubbish school). Might as well just buy a flat and stay where we are until any offspring we might have are close to school age if we're going to have to move again anyway.

Is this sensible thinking, or the rantings of an irrational idiot? I suppose a lot could change in 5+ years time, the schools could reverse in quality or a new one could be built. Admission policy could be varied, or we could just have no kids, but it seems sensible to me to just assume that the situation is most likely to remain materially the same.

That's one of the reasons I was pushing the area I was talking about before. There's good schools there.

Oddly enough as you move further out you find areas where parents rely on expensive private schools so the state schools may not be under quite so much parent pressure.

We lived in a nice house in a not-so-good school area then moved to a less nice house in a better school area. Felt better about the kids which was what counted at the time

LydiaJ

SingleSue wrote: »

Crikey! The parent's would have been running to the hills if they had seen youngest and middle at school....

Youngest was non verbal when he started school, could not cope with circle time (or carpet time whichever they wanted to call it), so didn't sit still and didn't want to be with anyone let alone share. Middle son was able to talk in sentences but most was at a shout (partially deaf) and was a mini tearaway hence the unteachable label he was given in year 3. I think even if I had seen him from the eyes of another parent, I would have been scared away, he was a blooming nightmare!

Amazing to think the unteachable one recently got 10 A-C GCSEs including English and maths, is seen as a perfect gentleman, a gentle giant and one of the politest students in the school.

Your kids have specific problems that are not anybody's fault. They are not merely the product of inadequate parenting - in fact the reason they are turning out so much better than anyone might have expected is because the quality of parenting they are receiving is consistently excellent.

michaels wrote: »

This is probably within catchment of a good primary but only a good rather than excellent secondary but it is also too far from the 'main' station, probably 15 minutes walk.

It depends if they think that secondary catchment is as important to consider before the children have even been conceived. It might be better to go for primary catchment, and then if necessary move before the oldest one gets to the stage of applying for secondary schools. Of course, if they can find what they want at a price they can afford in an excellent secondary catchment, that would be lovely, but they may not be able to.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I was growing up there was none of this school stuff. You went to the nearest/local school..... there was no other school to go to.

Me to. Where my sister lives that is still the case.

Sadly, in London and I expect a lot of major cities, that is no longer the case.

The negative effect of choice. Give people a choice and they choose. They choose to congregate with others who choose; leaving those that don't choose to stay behind and sink. The process becomes self perpetuating.

Incidentally, we chose reasonable and decent at primary level and only became totally obsessed in choosing the best for each son individually at secondary level. I think that primary choice is less important provided there is a reasonable number of decent families supporting the school and the standard of education reached is enough for the children, with parent support and/ or tutoring, to get into the secondary school of choice.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I was growing up there was none of this school stuff. You went to the nearest/local school..... there was no other school to go to.

silvercar wrote: »

Me to. Where my sister lives that is still the case.

Sadly, in London and I expect a lot of major cities, that is no longer the case.

The negative effect of choice. Give people a choice and they choose. They choose to congregate with others who choose; leaving those that don't choose to stay behind and sink. The process becomes self perpetuating.

But... if there's no choice but to go to the nearest/local school when it comes to school application time, then doesn't that make it even more the case that parents with a choice about where to live would choose to live where the nearest school was a good one? Because surely it's always been the case that some parents put effort into choosing schooling and others don't. I mean, the ones who send their kids to private schools are obviously putting effort into choosing schooling. There must always have been some parents who couldn't afford private school but could afford to choose where to live (especially those working/living in larger towns and cities) and chose with good schools in mind, mustn't there?

lostinrates

Chewy, you guys have lots on your plates right now.

Lots.

I think you need to strip back and consider some best and worst case scenarios, what would make you most fulfilled in the next few years. Commuting from somewhere that was the compromise location to afford the one dream and might be painful ( though, I think it also needs to be reminded that on that front , I don't think there need be too many panic stations just yet for the little I know and what you said) or living in a smaller place where you are with a bit of a squash and three of you while you look again?

I think, personally, its GOOD to have a wobble about it, review the choices, recon firm why they are right or decide, actually perspective might change, and breathes view again.

For example, if medical speed and private is important ( and horrifically if you gf is about the same age as 'we' roughly are it might be prudent to view it as reasonably pressing) it might be worth considering somewhere adjacent to claygate and a bit less...'Surrey' and using deposit someway else.

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Chewy, you guys have lots on your plates right now.

Lots.

I think you need to strip back and consider some best and worst case scenarios, what would make you most fulfilled in the next few years. Commuting from somewhere that was the compromise location to afford the one dream and might be painful ( though, I think it also needs to be reminded that on that front , I don't think there need be too many panic stations just yet for the little I know and what you said) or living in a smaller place where you are with a bit of a squash and three of you while you look again?

I think, personally, its GOOD to have a wobble about it, review the choices, recon firm why they are right or decide, actually perspective might change, and breathes view again.

For example, if medical speed and private is important ( and horrifically if you gf is about the same age as 'we' roughly are it might be prudent to view it as reasonably pressing) it might be worth considering somewhere adjacent to claygate and a bit less...'Surrey' and using deposit someway else.

What lir said.

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

But... if there's no choice but to go to the nearest/local school when it comes to school application time, then doesn't that make it even more the case that parents with a choice about where to live would choose to live where the nearest school was a good one? Because surely it's always been the case that some parents put effort into choosing schooling and others don't. I mean, the ones who send their kids to private schools are obviously putting effort into choosing schooling. There must always have been parents who couldn't afford private school but could afford to choose where to live and chose with good schools in mind, mustn't there?

No, because all the schools are fairly decent, they all contain a reasonable number of families that care about education. So the significance of catchment areas is not crucial to the house buying process.

In my sister's town, there is one school in central town that you would avoid. The rest (I think there about 6) may be different in terms of size, facilities etc but they all provide a very decent education. So when my sister was choosing where to live, she just needed to make sure she wasn't anywhere near the town centre. Incidentally the demand for private schools is low there probably because the schools are generally decent. In fact the two private schools are near the town centre because demand is greatest from those assigned the one bad school and (they would claim) to be accessible to all locations.