Stress Testing

Under duress? You bet!

We received notification of DD’s secondary school allocation on Monday to the sound of jaws slapping to the floor and gasps of dismay and disbelief. Not only had she not been allocated a place at her first choice school*, but as we looked into the alternative offered, the whole thing became a tale of absolute horror.

* the school that her brother already attends, is the closest to where we live and where all her bestest friends will be going.

The initial shock at the allocation was due to the distance – they allocated her to a school IN THE NEXT TOWN. Dismay is an understatement and, once I’d had a look at the Ofsted report, the true extent of the unspeakable awfulness emerged.  They’d picked the most appalling school available, presumably because nobody else wanted to go there so they had plenty of places.  Reader, I actually wept.

The Ofsted report rated the leadership, pupil attainment and teaching ALL as “Inadequate” and the pupil behaviour section referred to a higher than national average rate of exclusion, not to mention bullying and racism. Suffice it to say that  NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS will she be going there. As a highly intelligent child, who is top of her class in most subjects, not only would I be letting her down massively by accepting this “inadequate” place, but there is a fair chance that she would be bullied for being smart and posh to boot. (We aren’t at all posh, but she mentioned only last week that one of her friends had commented on her posh accent and I strongly suspect that speaking properly in a school like that would not go down well.)

This whole disastrous situation is, of course, to some extent our own fault, as (for reasons I will not go into) DH omitted to specify a second choice when filling in the on the online form and the first choice school was not our catchment school, despite being the closest. Go figure!

Naturally, we will be appealing against the decision and will also apply for the other (also very good) local school as well, but the reality is that both are heavily oversubscribed. We have a number of private schools in the area and although we could not afford the fees and it is far too late to apply for scholarship, I understand places in the state schools will free up as private places are accepted over the next few weeks, so there is still hope. It help matters but I am not counting those particular chickens until they are in the coop and laying.

In the general panic to come up with some sort of plan, I resolved that, if we could not get her into either local school by September, I would home school her until such time as a place became available (and I will persist). I realise that home schooling would mean that I had little or no time to do anything else, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the right thing to do. DH also expressed the view that he was heartened by this suggestion as an option infinitely preferable to accepting the allocated school place. This cheered me more than you can imagine, not merely as a vote of confidence but more as confirmation that I was not overreacting and going off the deep end. In fact, by the end of the day, I had rather warmed to the idea and discussing it with DD, we both became quite enthusiastic about the fun we could have with various subject.

I am still hoping (well, mostly) that it won’t come to that, not because I doubt my ability to each her what she needs to know in Year 7 according to the National Curriculum, but simply because it would be a shame for her to miss out on the social and group interaction, not to mention the full time nature of the task for me. As for my ability, I know I’m up to the job, as little that DS has brought home since Year 7 has seemed in the least challenging to discuss with him. My only areas of weakness would be whether I have the standard required to teach languages (school French and no German or Spanish), but I have already arranged for a French friend to provide tutoring in French and Spanish.

Monday was a truly awful day, but by today things seem much brighter. I’ve downloaded all the forms that we need to fill in to appeal etc and I even ordered a book from the library about how to win such appeals. I am determined to get her into the right school even if it takes a year or more. Everyone I have spoken to and communicated with has been so helpful, supportive and encouraging that I have no doubt that one way or another we will get the desires result. Fingers crossed.

On the plus side, some photos that DS took of DD for a photography competition the school are entering, have made it to the second round 😀