Schools

Hello i have been reading these boards with much interest but havn't worked out where to post my two pence worth ! Just wanted to say that my Father was in the forces and i was sent to boarding school from the age of 7. Altough i can see the reasons he had for doing this i do feel that it was not the best solution to our situation. I missed family life a lot and felt that i had been too sheltered from reality. I am currently a member of support staff in Kings School Gutersloh and i am increasingly impressed with the standard of education, facilites and the dedication and commitment to all the children shown by members of staff across the school. The resouses and lessons are deliverd very well indeed and and are delivered with a great deal of enthusiam. The children at Kings i believe are being taught by better Teachers than the majority at my Private School!
The only thing it perhaps lacks is a cross section of this community. This is a worry for me as my daughter will eventually be going to Kings and her peer group will not be very representative of society. In terms of valuing education those with parents behind them realising the importance of education are usually of higher ranks ( this is not always the case but higher ranks are usually those who have gone on to do further education themselves).When support and encouragement is given at home it is a great help to those children who want to achieve. My main worry is that my child will want to achieve but may be persuaded that succeding is not cool etc etc. It can very much depend on year groups. We all know the deverstating affects of peer pressure!! The cross section of society is not here and growing up it gives you an unreal prespective from both ends both those at SCE Schools and those at Private School. I don't see how the school can drastically do more to improve grades if they don't have the cross section of society. I see how hard the teachers work and how much differentiation, mentoring, planning, marking and encouagement they do. It is phenomenal the amount of energy they put into their role as Teachers and how much they give to the children, more so i think than my own experience of Teachers. I dont think i ever realised until i worked in a school just how much goes on, it's a very inspiring place to work. However as a parent i am concerned that the cross section of society is not there and this will certainly impact on my daughter. I found boarding school distressing; don't get me wrong but i was Games Captain, into the social scene,i achieved and i also had great experiences because of it but i dont think that it was right. All of those are possible experiences for SCE Children.
I think the question i would like to ask as an ex service child is it really necessary to move us so often?? I had 18 postings during my school years. I have heard of postings lasting as little as six weeks? Is there no other way? In terms of this affecting / impacting schools/ schooling clearly it does. At the age of 7 i still needed my parents! I probably did until i was at least 14! Did we really need to move so much?

Previous respondents have already outlined the problem of needing an address to get a place in a school. However, the problem continues because once you do have an address you find that the better schools are of course full. On our last move the only school with a place was 20 minutes drive away and with very poor Ofsted report.
Whilst recognising that civilian familes may also struggle to get their first choice of school, we feel that we will always be left with the worst schools because of our moves with the military. We are simply not prepared to allow our moves to disadvantage our children in this way so we are currently paying for private school. Something that we never intended to do at primary level. Unless the LEA's can recognise and better accommodate our needs we believe that financial assistance should be available so that our ability to have decent choices for our children is addressed.
Our next move will again fall in the summer holidays, we don't know whether we will get an address before the schools break up. We may be "lucky" in finding a place at a decent local school but meanwhile the issue remains a major concern.

Oh, how I sympathise! I have 4 children and have found myself in this situation many times. I find it very frustrating that the biggest problems seem to be caused in England. Moving to Germany and Northern Ireland were not a problem. The difficulty arose when we moved back here! DHE should issue addresses earlier (The AFF have campaigned for long enough!)and surely schools within military catchment areas must be aware of, and try to be sympathetic to the needs of our mobile population, its the LEAs that seem to be inflexible with their allocation of school places policy.

I too would like an Independent body set up who would have the responsibility for dealing with complaints and problems parents have with sce schools.

We have had constant bullying problems with both our children at a sce school,the headteacher is unapprocahble and will not see us,the teachers are very patronizing with comments, often it gets swept under the carpet.

An impartial body would help us to deal with problems that we feel the school is neither willing nor able to understand, our children are fearful, if i tell them i will go in to school and sort out the problem,they comment that it will make it worse or our letter will be read out in front of the whole class, giving the children that do bully even more of a reason to pick on our children.