Guardian piece on school applications

[grabot]

Wow this is an offensive url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/04/andrew-penman-schools-education]piece[/url].

Does it reflect the attitudes of people in East Dulwich? Or is this man on a limb. What do people think?

"Hypocritical is how some people have described my behaviour. I don't know why that's the word that's so often used; I've never criticised anyone for doing what I did, so hypocrisy doesn't come into it.

I'm just concerned and pragmatic. I care deeply about my children's education and am prepared to make sacrifices to ensure that they get the best I can manage. If that means mumbling "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty ... " when I believe nothing of the kind, then so be it."

Liar, cheat? Writing for a paper that promotes honesty and social justice; hypocrisy by proxy?

"Up the road was Southfields Community College where pupils spoke 71 first languages so ? guess what? ? its results were rubbish."

Nice. What is he trying to say? Being multilingual is a sign of stupidity?

[buggie]

Don't think he was implying stupidity - more that if there were 71 different languages within the school, the chances were that there was quite a range of understood/spoken english within the school/within classes which puts additional stress and strain on the teachers as to where to pitch classes.

Thus if your child had english as a first language/spoke understood english well they may not get as much out of classes because of the needs of the other children with language difficulties were needing to be accommodated - and the author was saying that he had problems with the idea of knowingly putting his child into that situation.

Was an interesting piece of research out the other week which said that when broken down by ethniticy, white children from the lowest socio-economic groups did worse at school. Those in the same socio-economic groups from Africa/Asia etc out performed them and had a much higher sense of needing to work hard/try as hard as possible at school.

The issue of "turning" to religion for schooling isn't just a London thing. We had to go out to the home counties for a christening yesterday so that in another year or so an application to their C of E primary school of choice would be looked upon favourably.

[grabot]

I have met a large number of children, even very young ones, who display fluency in multiple languages. What is defined as the "first language" is a somewhat arbitrary distinction in many cases. It cannot necessarily be implied that this will put a strain on schools. Indeed it can be result enhancing. By default the children will gain language qualifications.

[womanofdulwich]

If your school intake has a large proportion immigrants - for example polish, czech,somali or some time ago serbo croat and the children do not speak english, and their paretns only sparingly, they will take longer to teach, and therefore almost aways take more of the teachers time. This is especaily so for younger children. They are so tired at the end of the day they come home and speak their native language with their paretns, their parents will find reading isntructions and reading stories in english difficult . it is true that children learn quickly but of course they take up extra resources which schools are not properly funded for.

yes we know parents that are from different esp european countries that raise their children as tri-lingual - but they both spoke english themselves and their children obtained fantastic language qualifications. They were highly educated which also assists.

[grabot]

So, the point needs to be nuanced. Yes, children who do not speak English may need additional help, representing a drain on resources. That is different to the assertion that having a first language, other than English, represents a drag on performance. My general impression from this piece is that certain people want their children to be part of a highly cohesive group, hence the church nonsense etc. That's fine as cohesive groups generally get better results within narrowly defined short term parameters. However, in the long term this is not a great strategy. The group is resistant to change and ultimately obsolete. And it can produce a certain narrowness of mind...

[Fuschia]

Well, you can't convert belatedly to Catholicism and expect to get into a catholic school anyway, I think most Catholic schools expect the childen to have been baptised Catholic at birth.

Silly man.

[Fuschia]

Interesting contrasting view: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-517762/So-neednt-convert-Catholicism-all.html

[grabot]

Good article Fuschia.

I would like to add that although the child described in the Daily Mail article may ultimately join a like minded clique, that is their choice and not one made on their behalf by their parents. Isn't this the role of the parent? To prepare children for adulthood with a framework for making informed decisions. Moving house or faking religion seems to preclude that to me; stripping them of some self determination.

[chantelle]

grabot, you have to look at the facts and data show that schools with a high proportion of non-native speakers perform worse. It's not to do with anyone's personal view.

Out of interest, what do you think parents living near rubbish schools should do? Shouldn't parents do whatever they reasonably can to give their child the best education?

[grabot]

Moving is certainly a relatively reasonable option. However, the febrile and I think somewhat gloating tone of the article got my goat. The problem with moving as a solution to a problem, in my opinion, is that it is a not especially surgical solution to a problem. We are told that we live in a multi-cultural society and that we should celebrate it. And yet the minute we see a league table for the local inner-city school that is not great we panic and flee to Sevenoaks. This ignores the relatively rich [in experience] life that can be enjoyed in London and substitutes it for a life of paucity in the sticks. It also engenders a belief, in my opinion, that all of life's problems can be solved by exiting to a platonic ideal place: Australia I believe is one such utopia. I think that the energy and expense involved in running away is often misplaced. A good education is one that teaches a person to triumph over adversity.

[chantelle]

i read the story on saturday and felt it hit a nerve. London parents are caught between a rock and a hard place. we may treasure our quasi-urban lives and commutes but the reality is many of our local schools are falling short.

unfortunately no clear solution to the issue has emerged after years of effort both within the state education system and externally. Parents are still forced to pretend they have embraced a faith, if only for a few years.

triumphing over adversity is great, but tends to be the preserve of the few not many.

[grabot]

Is a school that is low in the league tables necessarily a bad school or all of the pupils hopeless? Matt Le Tissier played for Southampton. Eric Djemba Djemba played for Manchester United.

[nunheadmum]

A school with low results isn't necessarily a bad school. A bad school is one where a negative influence - be it disruptive pupils, non-english speakers placing an exceptional stress on resources, a poor teaching staff, etc - means that children who want to achieve (in whichever field be that academic, vocational, sport, music etc) find that they can't make the progress they should, due to that negative influence.

Can you blame parents doing what they can to try and ensure that their kids have the opportunity to develop whatever skills they have in a supportive environment? I'd love to think I wouldn't go down that route and would support my local school. But having taken that option at primary, I'm not so sure my convictions would be so strong come secondary.