Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

What lir said.

With out typos from Lydia hopefully. I have no idea what that breathes bit was about.

misskool

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.

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.

B&H city council negated this by making random selection for schools in secondary so "local" catchment areas don't exist. What you get is lots of children bussed around (sometimes up to an hour if they are opposite ends of the city) and a big surge for public schools as parents can't take the angst.

Seems like both won't work. But again, it's what you want to do. We live in a small town with an excellent Catholic primary and secondary (which comes with the attendant church going problems :rotfl:)

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

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.

I'm glad to hear that that's the case in your sister's town. I still doubt that there was ever a time (even when PN was young) when it was the case everywhere, especially in big places like Birmingham, or even fairly big places like Bristol. Unless it was back in the days before comprehensive education and the situation was that that all the grammar schools were equally good, and all the secondary moderns were equally hopeless.

lostinrates

Ok, I have a minor medical issue, nothing to with other rubbish, and I cannot get an appointment quickly, but this needs quickly. I'm on the cancellation list, but I missed the urgent list. I don't mind tring for one of the 'urgent' slots for the next few days but if I miss them I cannot wait much longer than that.

Remembering its not about the big bad stuff, but it is time sensitive would it be wholly wrong I'd I cannot get an appointment by say, Thursday, to call my doctors secretary on Thursday and explain why I need to see a doctor quickly?

Alternative plan is to go in and sit there with a book. and just try and get them to see me at the end of the appointments or if there is a no show.....


Its NOT serious, life threatening or anything like that.

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Ok, I have a minor medical issue, nothing to with other rubbish, and I cannot get an appointment quickly, but this needs quickly. I'm on the cancellation list, but I missed the urgent list. I don't mind tring for one of the 'urgent' slots for the next few days but if I miss them I cannot wait much longer than that.

Remembering its not about the big bad stuff, but it is time sensitive would it be wholly wrong I'd I cannot get an appointment by say, Thursday, to call my doctors secretary on Thursday and explain why I need to see a doctor quickly?

Alternative plan is to go in and sit there with a book. and just try and get them to see me at the end of the appointments or if there is a no show.....

Its NOT serious, life threatening or anything like that.

Not unreasonable at all. I wouldn't leave it as long as Thursday. You have enough on your plate without medical issues, however minor, adding to the rest of it.

chewmylegoff

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.

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.

As far as I can make out it is still effectively like that in Surrey. Although you can select your preferences, the schools' admission policies are that children with siblings already at the school get first priority, then children for whom that school is closest to their home (closer you are the higher your priority), then if any other places left after that they are doled out to the next closest applicants.

I doubt there is any spare capacity at any half decent school, so really you need to make sure your closest two schools are decent just in case your closest is completely oversubscribed.

lostinrates

Oh, my children's book search has taken me to scanimation books...brilliant.

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

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?

I was never aware of anybody talking about schools etc when I was growing up - or until very recent years.

My dad bought a house in a village he liked, that was close to his job.

People bought what they could afford in the places they liked. Schools weren't thought about. There was no way of knowing/measuring back then except to drive past and see if it looked rough.

chewmylegoff

I don't think we are at the stage that we need to panic and ditch our plan A yet - to put it into context this is only the fourth house we have looked at - although that is a symptom of the fact there isn't much on the market. It just happens to be the first one we liked enough to think seriously about putting an offer in. There is no real rush to move, it would just be nice to get on with it if we can. We're not going to get priced out if we don't pile in or anything like that, so we might as well wait for something better to come along. I agree with LIR's point that we probably don't want to end up compromising on everything else to find somewhere ideal for 2.4 children and then end up stuck with all the compromises whilst not having 2.4 children.

PasturesNew

Maybe chewy needs to look at the issue from a different angle.

Could he not ditch the OH and find a single woman with kids who already lives in the right house/area?