Choosing a secondary school...

Quality

Whats your opinions on choosing a secondary school for your children.

When I was young I was told what secondary school I was going to. No choice in the matter at all. I was the only person from my primary school to attend the school.

Do you think that kids should have an input into what secondary school they want to go to?

Is the all girls/all boys route best to take?

What is the general opinion on this?

Toots

I was the same as you in that my secondary school was picked for me. However, I think my name was down there since I was about 8 or something so wouldn't really have had any insight into what secondary school I'd have liked then.

When the time came for me to go, I wanted to go to a different school cos a lot of my friends were going there, and for the first year in my school I hated it, I begged my parents to let me change schools but they insisted I stick it out for the first year at least. By my second year I'd made some really good friends and really enjoyed school. It was a good school, the facilities weren't great, but the teachers were fantastic and I feel I got a really good education.

If I could turn back the clock I wouldn't change a thing. It turned out that the school I had wanted to go to was really crap, a bit rough and by all accounts the teachers just couldn't control the classes. I'd say out of all my friends who went there, two thirds of them ended up repeating the LC in places like the institute, cos the results they got were so bad. A lot of them failed subjects like maths, irish and english, because they weren't allowed to drop to ordinary level, and just weren't able for higher level. There was also a load of 'scumbags' in that school and there was a huge problem with vandalism and theft. Lockers were constantly getting broken into, and one of my friends transferred out in 5th year cos his parents were so fed up of having to fork out for new books for him when his locker was broken into.

I think when I have kids, I'll probably choose their secondary school for them. I'd probably do what my parents did, if my kids really hated their school in the first year I'd ask them to see it through and if they still really hated it then I'd try and get them a transfer. They'd have input into the school, but it'd have to be a good one and I'd still have the final say on whether or not they got to go.

Saggitarius

This is a very good question. I hope we choiced right -asked the kids before- and is a new for me and my family the Irish school system.

Moonbeam

I think the kids should have a say but not the final decision.
Sometimes they might actually have a good reason to go to a certain school that they have choosen.
I don't think friends going there count as a good reason tbh.
Personally I think mixed schools are a lot better for preparing them for reality too.

littlebitdull

In some parts of the country, its all down to where you live. In my area where exactly you live is how you pick your secondary school. (assuming your going the non private school route).

With my two teenagers it was all down to where we could get them in ... not where we chose.

I am hoping that by the time it comes down to my third - and much younger child - having to go to second level things will have improved to the point where we have options.

Or I could perhaps win the lotto....

missmatty

I could have had a say, as there were two schools right beside each other, but it was taken for granted that I would go to one, and I did, and I don't regret it at all.

+1 for mixed schools. I even managed to get an excellent LC while being very pleasantly distracted :pac: But it really helps in that you view the opposite sex as nothing out of the ordinary from early on.

marti101

I think it really depends on the child what school they go to.I let my ds choose and he picked a good school but the ds2 missed out on the same but hes goint to an equally good school.I suppose it wont do them any harm to go to different schools as they were only a year away in age and the younger fella was always getting compared to the eldest fella.Whereas in the new school he will be judged only by his srandards and not constantly compared to his brother.

Toots

I think it depends on the mixed school TBH, I was at an all girls school, but most of my friends outside school were guys so I suppose that evened things out. One mixed school in our area (it's the one I mentioned in my above post) was definitely not a good idea. I think the fact that it was a crap school in general made it worse from the outset, but some of my friends who went there said that there was a lot of 'funny stuff' going on between some of the students. Legend had it that two sixth years were caught doing it in one of the bathrooms, although that could have been something else (ie kissing or something) and then rumours started that spiralled out of control.

I do know that in the park opposite my parents house there were many instances of kids from that school getting up to no good in bushes etc after school. I witnessed some of this myself while cutting through the park on my way home in the afternoons. There were definitely a lot of complaints put into the school by local residents, but AFAIK nothing was ever followed up on. That said, some of my other friends went to another mixed school in the area and from what I've seen it was no different to my school except that there were two sets of toilets and changing rooms for PE. Also they had a bigger range of optional subjects. We had Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), Art, Business Studies (Accounting & Economics), Music and Home Ec. They had all of these plus the likes of Tech Graphics, Woodwork, Construction Studies. Also when they were putting on their school play, they had actual boys to play the male roles. We just had girls with mascara beards.