Tonight:
8°c
Secondary-school transfer from our Islington primary beckons. "Oh God," says a Labour friend who has ended up with two boys at the south London haven of Alleyn's. "You'll fuss and fret about it, try everything else and still end up going over to the dark side."
She has never envisaged herself as a private-school mum. "But you know," she whispers conspiratorially, "they treat you so much better than in the state sector: they are polite and you don't have to sit on those tiny chairs on parents' night."
A great big dollop of poetic justice lurks in my own education quest. For many years I have been a supporter of the academies programme as the best game in town in terms of raising educational standards.
How much have I railed about the mentally lazy parents who don't even think of assessing their best local state schools before hurtling off to St Cake's?
Being a state school product myself, it seems normal to me to start to look there and default to other options, rather than the other way round.
Except it turns out that when we examine the local secondaries, we qualify for neither of the two academies.
The better one (St Mary Magdalen) is Church of England and we are Catholic. All those years of disapproving atheists twisting their sour secular faces about "playing the faith card" and, it turns out, we've got the wrong faith. It's a bit late to embrace the Reformation.
We don't qualify for the other one either - on the distance criterion - unless our child is in the lowest attainment band, for which there are some places. It's not something we've been working on.
The distance clause produces a surreal conversation when I bump into a lawyer friend on Upper Street.
She says we should get a pedometer and measure from the furthest extremity of the garden fence to the edge of any desired school. "It's worth appealing on absolutely everything."
Are you near enough? Is the child too bright? What's your precise relationship to the Almighty? - the full absurdity of the great middle-class schools hunt comes home.
So how did we get to this point? For a start, while living centrally in London offers many advantages, it limits options on schooling.
When we produced two boys in rapid succession, a then schools minister I met looked concerned and muttered: "not many good secondary options in your part of London". I suggested his Government might go out and create some.
So forcibly that Tony Blair, no less, promised that within two terms of a Labour government there would be a secondary we could send our offspring to without concern about standards or discipline.
If there was the remotest chance of finding him in the country these days, I'd quite like my money back on that one, Tony.
When I look back at the merry band of professional mothers I knew in Islington 10 years ago, many have moved to either the northern fringes (Muswell Hill, Crouch End) to be near good state secondaries such as Fortismere or the grammar haven of Latymer.
Our best friends shipped out to Cambridge, where they complain about the lack of restaurants and shoe shops but are in schools clover. Where I used to get house-envy, I now get school-envy on weekend visits.
An enterprising colleague tells me she even sorted out her house move by catchment area, long before she was pregnant.
This simply wouldn't have occurred to me, though it is the providential route, especially now that there are improving academies in the capital.
Mossbourne, the stellar one in Hackney, has brought a lot of parents back to the borough who would previously have moved out to get away from the schools. It can be done.
As it happened, we were near a good state primary and whatever the joy of private education for the smalls (dinky uniforms, parties in inheritance-tax band houses rather than the grotty local sports centre), I liked the feeling of a primary which had a social mix but was well ordered. This golden state comes to an end, however, when the move to secondary looms.
So we watched with sadness as first a couple of bright girls left for private day education, and another boy went off to a bilingual school.
Of course, most parents don't have a choice financially at all, so many plan to move out of London - the premier destination for grammars is Kent.
It all brings about a huge sense of reluctance in me. Some parents take to the great school hunt like ducks to water.
They become experts in catchments, scholarships and the search for enclaves of excellence in unlikely places to get what should be pretty much assured in a successful, developed country - a good standard of secondary education.
But it's fascinating how what looks like a bundle of options - the Government's commitment to "school choice" - evaporates in the real world.
So what can I do? There's one dream option: a voluntary-aided school that, being outside the borough controls of Islington, selects a proportion of its pupils by ability.
The rest come from a spread of boroughs, thus satisfying my ache for something like a representative mix of pupils, but guaranteeing high standards.
Taking specialisations seriously is the obvious area of schools reform to build on. Labour hasn't done it because it fears the charge of "selection by the back door".
Michael Gove for the Tories is more obsessed by the Swedish model that enables parents to open new schools themselves.
Gove would clinch the argument for me if he focused a bit more on what happens in the state schools that exist, rather than asking us to rely on an experiment to make more.
When I look up the nearest option to us, I find it has average results - am I really supposed to be thrilled that 80 per cent pass five GCSEs at grade C? It also offers only a bundle of applied sciences, rather than individually taught ones.
This is a long way short of the grounding I had at comprehensive in the countryside more than two decades ago, where I also took two modern languages and Latin. Try and find that in a London state school now.
The next option: we could join the long-haul parents and apply to a couple of west London faith schools that are very good - but very distant.
By now I have arrived at the point where the music school in Watford seems like a blissful option - except you have to have children who are the Labeque sisters of the future - and it is halfway up the M1.
A whole industry has sprung up to capitalise on these anxieties.
The Schools Show, held in Battersea at the end of the month (www.schools-show.co.uk, 30-31 October), is the place where parents headed for the independent sector huddle at seminars titled "Co-ed or single sex?" and "How to turn your child into a Superstar".
At the other end of the spectrum there are parents who choose not to make such heavy weather of it all.
Matthew Taylor, a former Blair policy chief and now head of the Royal Society of Arts, thinks some of us make far too much fuss.
"My children have been educated in what you might call a 'bog standard comprehensive'.
"They haven't had the same education as they'd get at, say, Dulwich College. But education is also about preparing you to live in the wider society.
"Just being among privileged and able children isn't really representative of what you have to encounter later."
He adds: "I meet a lot of kids of my friends from the private sector and they have just as many issues wth drugs or other worries. You do miss out on a part of normal life if you go down the private route."
Much as I admire his calm, it does seem to put the offspring at the mercy of a parental sang froid.
But then so does just about everything else we do in the great education game. It will never be easy. It just shouldn't be quite this hard.
AMONG THE LEADING SCHOOLS IN LONDON
State comprehensives
Sacred Heart, Hammersmith
Girls' Catholic school where this summer 59 per cent of exams were awarded A* and A grades.
Cardinal Vaughan Memorial RC School, Holland Park
High-flying Catholic boys' school where 58 per cent of the GCSEs taken this year were A*s or As.
Seven Kings High School, Ilford
Boys and girls achieve impressive results — 83 per cent scored five GCSEs at A*-C grades last year.
Fortismere School, Muswell Hill
Last year 70 per cent of girls and boys achieved at least five A*-C grades.
Waldegrave School for Girls, Twickenham
Ofsted rates the school “outstanding”. More than three-quarters passed at least five GCSEs at grades A*-C.
State grammars
The Latymer School, Edmonton
Vastly oversubscribed grammar. This year 92 per cent of GCSE exams were graded A* or A.
Henrietta Barnett School, Hampstead Garden Suburb
This girls' grammar is regularly at or near the top of the league tables.
Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet
Outstanding boys' school and winner of an Evening Standard Academic Excellence award this year.
Wilson's School, Wallington
This year nine out of 10 GCSEs taken by boys were awarded A* or A grades.
Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston
Tough to get into, with about nine applications for every place. Results are predictably brilliant.
Independent schools
King's College School, Wimbledon
Fees: £5,300 per term
The school is ditching A-levels for the international baccalaureate but remains one of the most successful.
Westminster School, Westminster
Fees: £6,542 per term
Famous boys' school with girls in the sixth form. Almost every GCSE exam this year was awarded the top grades.
North London Collegiate, Edgware
Fees: £4,308 per term
Outstanding girls' school at the top
of national league tables.
St Paul's School, Barnes
Fees: £5,796 per term
Uncompromisingly academic boys' school with impressive sports record.
City of London School for Girls, Barbican
Fees: £4,311 per term
Excellent record: 98 per cent of
A-level exams this year were awarded A or B grades.
Reader views (10)
"The main thing to remember is that they all end up at the same universities. Speaking as an employer it's interesting that I actually take on very few privately schooled applicants as in my experience they don't seem to have the right communication skills, have very little "passion" for the job and poor creativity."
The first point is not true, the second point is just your experience. I guess there might not be many tough inner city state schools in Islington, but maybe look at areas like Lambeth and Hackney.
- Richard, London
"am I really supposed to be thrilled that 80 per cent pass five GCSEs at grade C?"
Come to Lambeth!! 80% of C and higher isn't it? I would be in Heaven (catholic or C of E!), how is that average?
I liked this article because it expressed the worry, doubt and general vacillation I feel about schooling. Lambeth is further hampered by the fact it has enough secondary places for roughly 40% of the borough's kids - yes I know they're building more. We have no religious schools, one 'boys only' and a couple of mixed schools. The middle classes of Clapham/Brixton generally send their kids to the privates in Dulwich leaving a decidedly 'uncomprehensive' mix of children. We talk about moving to be near Wilson's School but I get panic palpitations at the thought of the suburbs!
I'm not judging anyone I'm just sad that we could very easily make the wrong choice for MY son. I'm also very aware that there is an inbalance of power in this country where roughly 80% of the most powerful/influential people were privately educated. It's seems not to be about standards but making networking opportunities. So don't quote my comment, you don't know me nor my life experiences.
- Paula, South London
"All those years of disapproving atheists twisting their sour secular faces about "playing the faith card"
Nothing twists my "sour secular" face more than watching parents force their children to believe bronze age stories and superstitions, or seeing friends suddenly find God when they realise they need the signature of the local vicar to get into the best school.
It's a crime that children can gain entry to a school based on which magical wonderland his or her parents believe they'll be transported to when they die. Faith schools segregate and pigeonhole children before they've even had a chance.
- Paul, London
Nothing in this story explains to me what is bothering the author about Secondary Schools. I have a simpler standard: If a School is good at getting children entitled to free School Meals or from workless homes into higher education, its probably good at most things.
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON. UK
What a ridiculous article, I live in Islington and both my children are being educated in the state sector, there are perfectly good schools available in the borough and neighbouring boroughs that you can find for your sons.As for Nigel he obviously hasn't ever been in to a "tough inner city state school" as I honestly don't think they exisit, he is probably one of those people who comdemns all our young people as yobs - he's clueless. The main thing to remember is that they all end up at the same universities. Speaking as an employer it's interesting that I actually take on very few privately schooled applicants as in my experience they don't seem to have the right communication skills, have very little "passion" for the job and poor creativity. The last Etonian I took on had a drink problem and did not pass his probation.
- Verity Good, Islington
There are two aspects that are beginning to get particularly tiring about the Independent v State school debate.
1. The assumption that all parents that send their children to public school are of the affluent, blue blooded elite.
2. The guilt ridden whining of the secretly aspirational left as they try and post rationalise sending little Harriet to the North London Independent as opposed to the local state secondary.
The truth is that most decent,hard working parents will do whatever they can to give their children a better start than they had. This for the mass of the middle class involves sacrifice and financial hard ship. Why is this rarely mentioned?
Likewise many Primrose Hill liberals wish the same for their offspring and have finally given up their moral battle and admitted that the needs of their children are more important and more real than some flawed philosophy supported by devastating social engineering.
The most depressing thing is this debate would be redundant if we had the state education system we deserve and have, let's be honest, paid for.
This all boils down to enough good schools filled with enough good teachers. Why on earth spend upwards of 10k a year on educating your child when you have a superb school around the corner which you've helped pay for as well?
What amazes me is that the likes of Ed Balls haven't realised yet that a truly, world class state system would starve the Independant system within a generation.
- Dave, Sanderstead
"am I really supposed to be thrilled that 80 per cent pass five GCSEs at grade C?"
Remember you can do anything with statistics. The school with 100 per cent pass at GCSE might simply have chosen not to exclude 20 of the pupils! The school you cite might be the one with the holistic approach, the one which aims to give every child a chance.
- Paul Fripp, Liverpool
Well said Nigel: I was forced into a comprehensive because they closed down all the London grammars, and all the right-on sandal-wearing leftist teachers who loved the comprehensive system sent their own children to private schools.
- Neil, London, London UK
Virtually all the labour party supporters I know in Islington, including my Guardian journalist neighbour, send their children to fee-paying schools.
Sending a child from a comfortable middle class background to a tough inner city state school "to prepare them to live in the wider society" is like a Victorian parent packing their child off to a cruel boarding school to shape them into a future empire builder.
The needs of the child should come before parental prejudice. If you can afford to give your child a happy and fulfilling education you should do the decent thing for them and pay up.
- Nigel, Islington, London
If you don't qualify for Mary Mags it's not because you're Catholic (and I think you know that but it doesn't make such a good story), it's because you live too far away for the reduced catchment area or are not currently in a church school and therefore don't qualify for the wider catchment area. If a child is currently in Christian church primary school (and must therefore be Christian) you stand a better chance of getting in than a CofE child who lives the same distance but is not currently in a church school. Complicated? Too right. Either way it is discrimination against those of us who have no or a different religion and something that would not be allowed on the basis of colour now or sexual preference later in life. It's about time our education system became secular and not more and more based on religious discrimination as it has become under Labour - Tony's key educational legacy.
- Rachel L, North London
