h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

B

That is what we'll do B, if we don't go down the private route.

I keep hoping I'll get made redundant and I can use the pay-off to fund a pgce...

I should look into GTP a bit more actually, I'm just finding it hard to think about jumping otu of a well-paid part time job to one that has longer hours for less money and that (for the time being) would mean spending less time with the boys.

Also, can't really assume I'd get a job in the school I want. What if I didn't?

*sigh*

*arrgh*

*sigh*

I think you'd need forget about the money side of it and consider your reasons for wanting to be a teacher, such as the difference you want to make to the lives of your pupils. For example, if I was interviewing you, you'd need to convince me that you had imagined yourself in the role.

The irony being, of course, that you will spend all the succeeding time imagining what it would be like if you weren't a teacher.

B

I've been talking about it for a while now, trying to decide, making up my mind then being put off by listening to people who actually do the job say how awful it is (hence my recent thread about it on Ask).

Doesn't help that I can't decide if I'd want to teach primary or secondary. I know I like teaching adults, I think secondary would be more interesting and varied and satisfying, but I think primary might be more pleasurable although this might wear off once my own kids are past the primary stage - I can see myself wanting to keep up with the level they are at.

*really* can't be doing with setting up a 'free school' - I want *some* time to spend with my kids!

Maybe you need to arrange work experience in a school somehow? Should be easy enough once the children are at school, parents always seemed to be around as classroom assistants etc.

Would you rather be a teacher than a dietician? I seem to be remember you thinking about that in the past..

Teacher would be more practical in terms of fitting in with the boys.

Dietician appeals largely due to the imparting of information to help the other person - I think I see it as teaching in a different form, on a one-to-one basis with adults rather than children. All my teaching experience to date is with adults so I don't know how comparable they are. It also appeals because I feel I have a lot of experience in part of the subject area and want to make use of that.

When t'Boy goes to school I am going to change my part time hours to be mon-thurs school times so I still have fridays with t'Other and am there for all the pick-up drop offs. I have already suggested to husband that once t'Other goes to school I could maintain the part-time hours I'll have then and get some classroom experience on a friday for a year to help with all this decision-making. If I do it in the school they go to then that should be ok with pick up and drop off on those days - if I did it in another school (eg the private one and hope that they would put me forward for GTP and qualify for discounts sooner) I'd have to consider breakfast clubs and afterschool clubs for the boys - but it would only be one day a week so that is doable.

It's not just about the boys in isolation, though, it's abotu the boys in three interlocking systems: the boys in the family, the boys in the school, and the boys in the world.

I say send 'em to state schools, and use the money you save to spend time with them; you can effectively home educate them in the evenings and at weekends.

One thing they will get from state schools is street smarts. Private eductation can instill a very odd mix of entitlement and fear - just the thing for breeding arrogant little Tory bleepers, but not plesant to be around or to feel.

You can manage to provide the high-expectations high-praise environment at home, and round out their education with the stuff they won't get at school. Get on the board of governers, get stuck in and help.

£400k is a LOT of money to spend topping up a free education and lifestyle - it would enable them to go debt-free through Uni for a start, and be a deposit on a house. To spend £400k and for them to end up being the poor kids who never go abroad would be tough. Children are feral.

So I say send them to the state school, and reconsider at 8 (for prep) 11 (for secondary) at 13 (for private) and 16 (for college). It's not a once-in-a-lifetime choice.

Oh, and the fact that there's no obvious right choice means there's no obvious wrong one either. So keep the money in reserve (you can only spend it once) and go for the free option.

Ben

If you don't mind dealing with paperwork and pushy parents, be a primary school teacher.

If you don't mind dealing with stroppy kids and pushy senior management, be a secondary school teacher.

Part of my problem is that I am fine dealing with kids and their parents, but loathe paperwork and senior management. Particularly when the two are brought into conjunction.

B

When I was a young woman my family pressured me to become a teacher. Fortunately I was self-aware enough to realize that I don't have the temperament for it. I consider it a lucky escape both for myself and the students I would have had.

Did you reach a decision, kelli?

Mol

Thanks for thinking of us - I still need to fill in the form but have decided what I am putting on it:
First Choice: The out of catchment church school (3 from my list above), which we *might* get into and might not. If we don't and my neighbour who is slightly closer does I will appeal on the grounds of shared childcare arrangements as it would make our lives *far* easier if our kids go to school together.

Second Choice: Catchment school (1 from list). We will get in here. Not as good as the other village school, I have just seen their league table results and would love to know why they are so much worse than the other two schools in the village given the fact that although the other two draw from mostly millionaires their catchment kids are still from decent areas.

Not putting a third choice, no point as we meet the criteria for the above so they won't look any further. I LOVED school 5 from my list but don't think the negatives of the school being further and all their friends coming from villages the same distance on the opposite side outweighed the downsides of going to second choice school with his friends from here in the village.

We have put his name down for the mixed private school, expecting a place to come up in two or three year's time and will take the place if he doesn't get on well wherever he ends up in the state system. If he is doing ok we won't move him.

I had more thoughts on this but I'm shattered and NEED to go to bed ...

OK well your catchment school is in there which is what I'm looking for - people often don't put it and then are horrified when they're allocated a place on the other side of the county.

If your neighbour gets in to the out-of-catchment school ... do you know what the intake number is? Because it almost certainly isn't worth the hassle of an appeal if the class already has 30 - the appeal panel can't take account of your personal circumstances for an infant class size appeal (ie where there are 30 in the class), they will *only* be checking that there wasn't a mistake in the admission arrangements. to be gloomy. But check the home-school distance measurements if you don't get a place and they do; mistakes do sometimes happen.

Keep us posted, anyway. What's the date for allocation day? It's usually April sometime for reception intake.

Mol

Well, we didn't get any of our choices, not even our ctchment school. I find it hard to believe there are thirty in-ctchment kids between us and the school but apparently there are. We have been allocted a sink school 3 miles away. Am devestated.

Dad having an op this morning and am in bits over that, could have done without this swtress.

Going to appeal, and appeal and appeal and if all else fails I will home school him and apply in year.

You would be an awesome home-schooler, Kelli. Z was home-schooled, too.

for your dad.....

B

That's awful. Definitely appeal. And I agree with Ben - I think you'd be an great home-schooler (if you wanted to go down that route).

*More s*

I agree about home schooling, it's a great education if you're reasonably bright. My parents didn't believe in exams, and free schooled us, so kept us at home until we got annoyed and went to school.

I did that at 7 and did ok educationally. You were thinking of giving up work and becoming a teacher anyway.

My sister rebelled against it when she was 12 and she got 5 As at A Level but then did a stupid degree (Art or something) and then got a 2.1. She's now a student counsellor in Brighton.

My brother rebelled he was 16 and got 6 As at A level, a first class degree, a PhD and is now a Post Doc. He started off in a stupid subject as well (psychology) but fortunately changed to neuroscience for his post doc.

My other brother never rebelled and is at home looking after my alcoholic father and increasingly nervously mother. That's a bit of a downside to the story.

</ snobbery>

Having just opened mini tab satistically software I can say that in this small sample (N=4) the years of home education is weakly correlated with 'education outcome score,(A measure I've just invented now, As in A level + no of degrees) but the p Value is only 0.85. I suggest a larger study.

Damn, Kelli! You do not need this, not now and not before...
Your boys are both bright, so if you home-school, it will only benefit them.

And for your Dad. You and your family really deserve a good break, and I'm thinking of you all.

Thanks all, this has been a supremely stressful day. Apparently there has been a baby boom in the village, 30 other kids all living less than 0.3 miles from our catchment school. We are 0.5 miles from there. We're resigned to not being a part of our own community now, which is very upsetting.

We have registered t'Boy at school 4) on my list, the private all-boys one. I don't really want them in a single sex school but feel this is our only option, I am nervous about home schooling as I worry about missing out on the social interaction with other children, plus I am not sure how I would be able to sit down with t'Boy whilst under-3 t'Other marauds around the place - I think other people's kids are easier to deal with than your own so teaching mine seems frightening and stressful. I know I do a lot now but I worry I would feel like I need a break from their full-on-ness. Mind you, if I get made redundant we couldn't afford school 4 so might have to rethink then.

This definitely puts paid to my constant hope that J might agree to baby #3.

I agree about the social interaction, for us it was worse because my parents were socially nervous and avoided other parents, so I really got no social interaction at all other than my three siblings. I don't know if it's better if you take them to groups etc.

I'm not sure how my parents managed with two at once. I think that we all did school like activities at the same time. So one of us might be reading outloud whilst the other one was doing drawing etc etc etc.. I have mixed feelings about it. As a kid I hated it. As an adult I recognise the educational value of it.
But my parents felt that they had no other option, they didn't like the state school locally and they couldn't afford to go private, and when they started they realised that we made much better progress at home.