Kerre Woodham: Teach children by example and play by the rules

We all want the best for our kids - well, 99 per cent of us want the best for our kids.

And given that so much emphasis is placed on what sort of qualifications you have these days, one of the major dilemmas for parents is where to send their kids to school.

Given that zoning applies to all state schools, you'd think the decision would be easy: either fork out vast sums to go private, or send your kids to the local college. But it's not that simple.

Parents have always been willing to break the rules to get their children into the best school possible, and now a group of them have been found out.

Auckland Grammar principal John Morris has announced that about 50 boys will be expelled because, as he put it, the parents lied and cheated by making false declarations about their living arrangements.

He says he understands why, given that Auckland Grammar is the only single-sex boys school on the isthmus (and a principal who can use the word isthmus in a sentence is an indication of how good the school is) but rules are rules, and because parents have broken them, the boys will pay the price.

I can understand parents wanting to send their kids to single-sex schools, but the perception of what makes a good school is interesting.

It's a crude measure, but I looked through the top student list for 2004 and 2003, and a lot of them come from schools I'd never heard of: Burnside High in Christchurch; Macleans College in Auckland and the top biology student for 2005 was a girl from Western Springs, formerly Seddon Tech. There'll be a whole generation of typists who'll be ever so proud.

Bright kids will do well anywhere, but it's natural to want to extend your children or nurture their gifts. At the same time, school is not the be all and end all. Many kids really come into their own only when they're able to make their own decisions about what is important and where they should channel their energies.

And surely, teaching your child to play by the rules and not cheat to get what you want is a more important lesson to learn than anything taught by Auckland Grammar.