private, public, state

[lobelia321]

I realise that I've forgotten to keep people up-to-date on the secondary school question. You may remember that I have been angsting and obsessing about this for the last six months. I went to six Open Evenings and then, for the past two months, t'h has been systematically training t'son in maths, English and things called verbal and non-verbal reasoning in preparation for the entrance exams to the private school down the road. You may also remember my rantings about class ideology and the British education system. Well, t'son passed his exams. So now the ball's in our court again. I am, of course, tremendously pleased and proud for him, and also somewhat shamefaced at having doubted that he was capable of it. Three of the four boys in his school who sat for this exam also got in. He is now tremendously keen to go. The psychology is clear: that which one has struggled for seems more precious, rightly or wrongly, than that which one is just handed for free.

Next week we find out which of the state schools he got into it. Our local catchment school is beyond the pale so we will be on a waiting list for anything else. If we get the local dump, then the decision has been made for us. Ten thousand pounds per annum!!! I am torn, torn, torn. And worried. And t'h is worried. And t'son dare not say what he really feels because he can sense we're worried. But I can tell he would really, really like to go to this private school.

Anyhow. That's the update. We have to decide by March 7.

However, on a cheerier note. Taking FlyLady's financial advice to heart (and having bought, on Flythingie's rec, a Suze Orman financial self-help book while in Atlanta), I decided to write down my current bank balance on all my accounts and look my dreadful debts square in the eye. (Thinking all the while, 'omg, 10,000 pounds'.) So, yes, my debts to bank and credit card was, unfortunately, 1,000 pounds more than I had been admitting to myself. But stashed away in savings accounts that I had not been looking at for over two years was enough money to cover my debts almost completely!!! I was amazed!!! The StepfordBabe does it again! First you shine your sink, then you do cleaning-missions on your car and find (under a pile of gooey jurassic sweets and twigs and leaves and gunk) t'h's penknife wot u gave him for xmas and t'son's wrist watch which was given him for his communion by his grandparents three years ago and has been lost ever since! And the next thing you know you're finding untold funds in your bank!

Anyway, these funds are sort of tied up, and a thousand is needed to pay off the builders. But it makes me feel so much better just knowing I had this money there and that if I chose to, I could pay off my debts. So I'm choosing not to do that and instead pay the debt off bit by bit but I've got a nest egg!!! *squees like a robin who's found a cuckoo in his nest*

I also saved money by a) returning a faulty toy bought for Christmas and getting mulah back, and b) resisting the temptation to buy Perez-Reverte's Fencing Master (recced by you lot) in Waterstone's yesterday and then being rewarded by finding a library notification in my email: I had forgotten that I had reserved that book and it had now arrived!

I'm reading it now and I really, really like it so far. Whenever I deviate from my world literature list, I have been sadly disappointed of late: David Lodge's Author,Author: laboured and I'm not past page 20; Alexander McCall Smith's 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom: knowing and cloying and cold.

Okay, so how many 'rules of LJ comment-soliciting have I broken??' *pokes out tongue at purveyors of LJ recipes for 'success' which remind me of nothing so much as those dating queens of New York who tell women to let the guy ring them and make him wait and polish their fingernails in order to land a man*

Comments

[msilverstar]

Good news about the money and all. I'm going to try the Fencing Master, I need to read some actual books and world literature sounds good.

About the school thing: I strongly recommend that you talk to your son honestly, with some details about the money. My parents started doing that when I was a teenager and it clarified things in a good way, also helpful later in life.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Okay, how do you mean honestly? What sort of thing did your parents say? My parents never talked about money, except when saying in a panicked way 'we haven't got any!' Yet I could see that this was blatantly untrue as we periodically bought a new car or a new hi-fi and went on holiday and so forth. T'h thinks we need to tell the son that he has to pull his weight and work hard.

Any advice??

[msilverstar]

More details than that! Why the local school is unacceptable, what the alternatives cost, what the implications are. And leaving some pauses so he can ask questions and not laughing at the innocence of some of them...

[giglet.livejournal.com]

*squees like a robin who's found a cuckoo in his nest*

Uh... considering what happens to the robin's own eggs after the cuckoo's egg hatches, is this really the simile you want?

But congrats on having a bright and hardworking son!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know, the simile is weird. But I thought of it this way: I was the robin who had already lost her eggs. But then I found another shiny one in my nest.

Hey, I'm re-validating the much-maligned cuckoo here!!

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I have missed the class ideology discussion, so maybe I am going to say a whole load of things that you have already heard.

I went to a good state comprehensive school in a nice area. The education I received was absolutely appalling. It was better than the state education most people receive, but it was still terrible. The children not want to learn and the teachers could not keep control. The teachers did not know what they were talking about; many of them were simply incompetent. I had a biology teacher who did not understand evolution and most of my English teachers could not spell. My RE teacher didn't know what am aumbry was. I could go on and on about this.

At University I quickly realised that most of the students from Private Schools were better educated than me and this had made them more intelligent. I may have been as good at my subject but I had no broad knowledge base in other subjects. A degree does not replace seven lost years of secondary education.

I hear many people claim that they have done well from comprehensive education. There are some people that this is true for, but they are the lucky ones. Most people who claim that their state education was adequate are simply behaving like the fox that lost its tail.

There is a grammar school where I live. If my children don't get in I will do everything I can to get them into a private school. I will make every sacrifice I can.

A decent education is the only thing you can buy your child that can never be taken away from them. Education is a gift for life.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't persevere with the Lodge, which is clunkier than a flat tyre throughout. If you're inclined towards matters Jamesian, try Colm Toibin's The Master, which is a far superior affair, although - to be honest - I have no idea how well it would stand up as a novel to a reader who had no previous knowledge of, or interest in James... These novels-that-lean-against-biography are a bit problematic to me...

Or just progress down your World Lit. list to Le Grand Meaulnes, with which I spent my late teens profoundly in love. (And where, pray, is Ireland on the list?)

Sympathies re school dilemma. I've seen every UK-based friend go through it, apart from the ones who reinvented themselves as v religious around the time of conception, so that the Wee One could go to the local Anglican/Catholic school.

Or, of course, the ones who had the poor waif's name down for Shrewsbury or Winchester the second it was revealed to have a penis.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Considering he's your son, I'm not the least bit surprised he did well on his exams. My parents never had any money at all, and education was very important to them, so from the time I was twelve, we had pretty open discussions on what was and wasn't do-able. They managed to put me through one year of private school, but then I had to make do with the local public high school for four years. They knew it wasn't adequate, but did a lot to supplement my education themselves. When the time came for university, I knew they couldn't contribute (bankrupt farm- three children still at home), so I applied for and won several academic scholarships that paid for everything.

Are there any scholarships available for secondary schools over there? I wouldn't be shy though, about discussing the financial aspects with your son. Even if he ends up getting to go where he wants, it won't hurt for him to know that his parents are making some sacrifices for him. (but don't be a martyr, hee!)

And yay on your hidden nest egg! Maybe I'll get Suze Orman's book as well, although I doubt there is anything she can do for me right now. :-)