Schools in Lambeth discussion thread

[Gramsci]

There have been a lot of posts on the thread about professionals putting rents up about schools. So at suggestion thought I would start a schools thread. I do not have kids but the posts were interesting and there is a lot about schools in Lambeth I didn't know. Like the social apartheid. So feel free to post up.

 

[cuppa tee]

this could be interesting hopefully t won't turn into one of those mumsnet type threads where the discussion focuses on how to get places in schools where ones Ds's and Dd's [sic] don't have to mix with "the wrong sort".

 

[leanderman]

Basically, the wealthy and the cunning (like me) will stop at nothing to get their kids into the catchment of the 'right' school.

Which leads to social segregation. And to the statistical discrepancies I have highlighted elsewhere on this site.

You get segregation within schools too.

 

[Glitter]

this could be interesting hopefully t won't turn into one of those mumsnet type threads where the discussion focuses on how to get places in schools where ones Ds's and Dd's [sic] don't have to mix with "the wrong sort".

That DS, DD and DH thing proper gets on my tits. It's awful.

 

[boohoo]

That DS, DD and DH thing proper gets on my tits. It's awful.

what about LOs and OHs?

 

[Glitter]

what about LOs and OHs?

That's bad but at least it stands for something you might actually say.

Dear husband ffs :spew:

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Can we institute FD and FS here?

 

[Plumdaff]

What is this Dd shit? Does it stand for darling? If so, how dfucking twee.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Yes, and yes.

 

[MillwallShoes]

you'd be surprised how many "liberal" parents i know who have said they wouldn't even think about sending their kids to any school in lambeth and are making daily preparations to get out as soon as their little uns get beyond toddler age. this "moving out" is why london is such a sad place in regards education, imo. where some of my mates live in the sticks, the kids are all sent pretty much to the nearest school - why can't this happen in london; why the great waves of flight and moving around of people, often with their kids "future" being the deciding point? annoys me. the amount of yummy mummies in crystal palace is truly incredible, posh prams, nice houses in gypsy hill etc, but i bet you at least 70% of them won't even consider their kids to the local state schools at secondary level.

my main fear about raising a kid in lambeth is not so much the schools, but gangs and crime. i would, no matter how hard i try to prove myself wrong, be worried about letting them out. it's a fear that's not strong enough for me to move away though - i'm here for the long haul and we already have a secondary school sorted in croydon where my wife teaches.

 

[Winot]

To recycle my comment from another thread:

It's definitely the case ime that middle class parents (of which I am one) avoid schools they don't see as being 'right' for their children, and partly being 'right' means a decent proportion of 'people like us'.

Our kids' school is about 5% white British (mainly black African/Afro-Carribean) and is shunned by the white middle class (and no, it wasn't our first choice but has turned out to be great). But it might well also be shunned if it were full of white working class.

 

[nagapie]

I think the only way to make schools right it to choose a reasonable distance and make all the schools take the same amount of students by race, gender, class and SEN. Probably sounds like an exercise in control for too many people but the alternative is basically white or black schools/working class or middle class schools, which with a couple of exceptions is what we've got now.

 

[MillwallShoes]

To recycle my comment from another thread:

for sure, it's a class thing. but i have also heard a few "i wouldn't want them to be in a minority" sort of comments too. which is got fuck all to do with the kid, but the parents' silly prejudices.

 

[Winot]

I think the only way to make schools right it to choose a reasonable distance and make all the schools take the same amount of students by race, gender, class and SEN. Probably sounds like an exercise in control for too many people but the alternative is basically white or black schools/working class or middle class schools, which with a couple of exceptions is what we've got now.

Whilst I don't disagree with your broader point, aren't you being a bit pessimistic here? Even the much-feted Sudbourne has 30% free school meals and a decent racial mix afaik.

 

[MillwallShoes]

I think the only way to make schools right it to choose a reasonable distance and make all the schools take the same amount of students by race, gender, class and SEN. Probably sounds like an exercise in control for too many people but the alternative is basically white or black schools/working class or middle class schools, which with a couple of exceptions is what we've got now.

yep.

it's wrong and it is the one thing about this city that really gets my goat.

"choice", i suppose. but why should kids be part of a silly game of "choice", when there has to be a loser?- and it's not choice, is it, but who can afford to move, or live in a posh area.

just another symptom of free market economics, but it's so wrong it's stomach churning.

grrr

 

[nagapie]

Whilst I don't disagree with your broader point, aren't you being a bit pessimistic here? Even the much-feted Sudbourne has 30% free school meals and a decent racial mix afaik.

Well it's a version of what we do when children come into Year 7, we try to mix the classes as much as possible to facilitate different kinds of children mixing with each other and an acceptance of difference as well as varying ability and distributing need. You quote Sudbourne, but how many other primaries would you say have a proper mix of students from all classes, and I would argue that Sudbourne is losing this too as the catchment is now tiny and very expensive.
The fact is that if you don't have a comprehensive mix, which was the ideal for secondaries when comps were created and which we have largely lost now, some schools have an unfair amount of need. This is very much the case in a lot of Lambeth schools. One of our students recently left to go to a high-achieveing girls school in the area. They contacted me straight away as they were so concerned about her need. Really she wasn't particularly stand-out in the need of my school. Another student left to go to a more needy secondary and isn't even getting much SEN input, she had a lot intervention at our school, because there is so much need the school she's gone to. Of course I forgot to say that there should be no entry tests, of course.

 

[boohoo]

When my daughter is old enough I'd like her to have a chance to get a good education. At secondary school level, I feel I was failed by my school. My primary school was good with a great headmaster who had a positive effect on many of the pupils. Secondary school was all about keeping the class under control - there wasn't much joy in learning and no reason to want to learn when the careers advisor poo pooed your aspirations and suggested a career as a nursery nurse or teacher. There wasn't talk about university or going around the world. We didn't have any great role models.

 

[leanderman]

for sure, it's a class thing. but i have also heard a few "i wouldn't want them to be in a minority" sort of comments too. which is got fuck all to do with the kid, but the parents' silly prejudices.

1) Stop faith schools selecting pupils.

2) Have some kind of multi-school catchments. Now, parents who can afford house priced ££££ get their kids into school x. If those homes could also be assigned, randomly, to nearby schools y and z it would break the intensifying cycle of clustering and segregation.

 

[Winot]

The 'distance to school' test could go (or be attenuated). Doesn't need to be so overriding when there are so many primaries in proximity.

 

[MillwallShoes]

would banning the whole idea of a catchment area work? i.e. you could send your kid to any school, anywhere? so if someone fancied a school across town, they could send them there? surely this would break up the class/race segregation problem? it would also mean that everyone is sort of on a fairly equal starting level, and not chained to the area they live in? this would give poorer folk who can't afford to move a chance to send their kids to a good school and would also mean there is more a mix for the middle class kids who go to that school?

probably gibberish.

 

[nagapie]

Then schools would select so that wouldn't solve the problem. You still wouldn't have choice unless you had resources. You need a system, just not the one we've got.

leanderman's is a bit like mine, just not as explicit

 

[MillwallShoes]

Then schools would select so that wouldn't solve the problem. You still wouldn't have choice unless you had resources. You need a system, just not the one we've got.

leanderman's is a bit like mine, just not as explicit

first come, first serve?

 

[Manter]

That DS, DD and DH thing proper gets on my tits. It's awful.

Non parent is very confused- DS, DD, DH? what are they?

 

[nagapie]

first come, first serve?

Once again those with know-how running rough-shod over those that can't nagivate the system easily. Just no.

 

[MillwallShoes]

do the school or the pupils make the school "good"? is it largely one answer or the other? or is it a perfect blend of the two?

 

[trashpony]

Non parent is very confused- DS, DD, DH? what are they?

Son, daughter, husband.

I don't know how you sort out inner city schooling. If you ditched catchments, the parents who 'care' would send their kids all over the borough. Those that don't (or who can't afford the wrap around care to allow them to choose) would go for the nearest school

 

[leanderman]

do the school or the pupils make the school "good"? is it largely one answer or the other? or is it a perfect blend of the two?

Apparently headteachers are crucial.

But there is a close correlation between performance and selection policies, whether by catchment, mortgage or by faith.

 

[Glitter]

Non parent is very confused- DS, DD, DH? what are they?

Dear son, dear daughter, dear husband.

uke:

 

[Manter]

Dear son, dear daughter, dear husband.

uke:

yes, puke

 

[MillwallShoes]

That DS, DD and DH thing proper gets on my tits. It's awful.

i'm a bloke, but i used to go on mums net a lot to read tips as i am a stay at home dad. gave up because you'd get sentences like "we are concerned becasue DT has just fallen out with DF and DG wants to enter the argument so DJ and SG and BM came round and we went to the GH."