Not going to be Oxbridge material

"I want him to be more flexible in his thinking and not to make assumptions at this very young age about what he needs to achieve to become happy. In fact he already knows that my onw undergrad. Oxbridge years were not happy at all."

phew! please hold on to this. after this hypothetical oxbridge degree he has to go into the workplace and we all know how much flexibility and adaptability is needed nowadays.

"there is Alan Milburn talking about lower offers for poor kids and other much nonsense! "

I know he is very focused on this path - do you think he can cope with the pressure at this school? If, at 11, he is already in tears at the prospect of not going to Oxbridge?

Is the school helping broaden his interests and develop his social skills? Find some other interests he can get stuck in to, to take the pressure off him a bit?

Didn't mean to bold mitigating circumstance, mistake.

Copthall surely parents don't seriously use divorce as a mitigating circumstance these days?

There's a real need for access routes for some kids, but not for run of the mill divorce, surely?

And anything which can level the playing field a bit so that privilege doesn't follow privilege quite as unerringly as it has in the past can only be a good thing!

BusyDad66 I agree with seeker, that is an astonishingly ignorant thing to say. I am an academic and I can assure you we take contextual data into account in selecting students for our course for one reason and one reason only, because it ensures we recruit the students who will do best on our course. That is proven by our experience as well as scientifically rigourous studies. We also value a diverse group of students with different life experiences, and students with different ways of thinking, such as OPs son, because it contributes to improving the quality of debate. Also it may surprise you to know that academics are reasonably savvy, some are even parents and so can distinguish between a good state school and a bad one, it is about good schools and bad ones not indie/ private. Strategically putting your DC into a good comp or switching for sixth form isn't going to get you any advantage. Unless of course you think that divorcing, subjecting your child to abuse and poverty, or perhaps putting your child into care, sending them to a poor performing inner city school is a sound strategic option for getting them to Oxbridge, or to be given a lower offer for uni, recognising the very real challenges they have faced

I really think you are overthinking this. I assume MidYIS are what were known as The Durham tests at my DDs school, since they are devised by Durham University. They take them in a lot of schools . They are to point up a childs strengths and weaknesses, gaps between attainment and ability in both verbal and non verbal reasoning and provide a baseline for value added. If there is a gap between a child's ability and attainment in either dimension of ability, then it suggests the need for tests to check there are no SLDs, and that is the main reason they are likely to have significance for a parent. One of my DDs is like your son much stronger in subjects that require verbal skills and this in all likelihood has far more to do with the fact that she scores much more highly in verbal reasoning tests than in non verbal than the fact that I have probably had what you describe as a high degree of parental input. That motivation and achievement follows ability underpins educational and occupational psychology. No school is going to place more value on NVR than VR, they are the two dimensions of ability measured, that simply isn't sound educational psychology.

Nor should any school determine how they treat a child from now on just on the basis of the Durham tests, apart from anything else they are just one snapshot on one day, my DDs have been subject to at least three more Ed Psych assessments since, and there is always some variation including one NVR score that would have had you running for the hills, she may have been bottom set Maths but still managed an A* at GCSE!! Instead they will flag up any obvious disparities for further action and then use the baseline figures as a whole to assess their valued added to feed into the schools improvement plans (since a cohorts results will be statistically valid)

They are not going to now ignore the evidence of ability that emerges in class and in his work and the talents that manifest themselves in all manner of ways and at different stages! Apart from anything else teachers aren't robots who only work on the basis of what comes out of a set of tests, hopefully your son will at some point have that inspirational teacher who spots his ability and talents and takes great satisfaction from nurturing them as did one Science teacher with DD1 and one English teacher for DD2. Its what they go into teaching for!!!

MidYIS isn't an IQ test, it's a baseline test for planning ahead and later measuring value added. It will reflect current educational achievement, not basic potential. The school is very very unlikely to be using it for assessing base ability, so it won't matter in the way you think. If they care about value added, and using MidYIS suggests they do, they'll be delighted to have a third quartile pupil reach Oxbridge standard.

"Maybe what worries me most is that I've made a mistake in enabling him to go to a v academic school and that this will 'go against him' for many reasons."

School is more than just preparing a child for the best universities. I went to an extremely academic private school and it prepared me for life rather than university. Your son will have opportunities to develop as a person, he will learn a range of topics beyond the national curriculum. He will get a tremenous education that hopefully he will enjoy and raise his confidence.

As your son matures hopefully his rigid thinking will become more managable. He will always have aspergers, but with love and supportive school he will learn coping strageries. Learning to deal with disappointment is an important lesson for us all.

There is absolutely no way you can know whether somebody is or is not Oxbridge material at the age of 11.

Oh, and "But I do think that there is a concerted effort out there to disadvtange kids who have parents who actually care about their education. As you allude to, if someone goes to a grammar/private/otherwise successful school, they have that counted against them for university admissions. It makes me sick to be honest." is a mindbogglingly narrow minded and ignorant thing to say.

Having said that, it seems a shame if they're differentiating among very bright pupils this early. DDs GS makes the assumption that all the girls can cope with a high standard - they only set for maths, and then not till yr9. They get excellent results.

yep, agree with Lingle that for many reasons if you can encourage him to realise that getting an Oxbridge degree isn't the be all and end all that would be wise. It isn't the best for every subject by any means. And some people don't enjoy the Oxbridge experience/teaching system if they do get in.

getting back to the subject in hand, I really would read nothing into these early IQ type tests, noone mentioned the Oxbridge words to me until my first years of A Levels. I completely agree with jimjams that getting into Oxbridge is more about excelling in the relevant subjects to your degree, so if your DS is more inclined towards Arts/Social Science subjects, merely being average at his school at science rather than gifted will not be an issue at all. I have an Oxbridge degree and am absolutely useless at non-verbal intelligence tests, have v little spacial awareness, IQ wise would probably scrape about 120.

In general, I would encourage him to read widely in his areas of interest, a genuine passion for whatever subject he chooses to study will serve him well. Possibly if he is inclined towards Drama/Debating club, that sort of public speaking experience might increased his confidence in general.

Blog - I would take a bet that someone with a 'rather obsessional, conscientious personality' would do better in an academic school than in some others where sadly he might get bullied for such traits.

I wouldn't take the CATS tests too seriously. I would hope that teachers might use them as an initial guide only. There are loads of reasons why you might not do well on them. Gifted kids can over-think questions or being in a room with loads of other kids could distract you. My DS scored 27 points lower on his CATS test than he did on a proper IQ test which is far more accurate. Another friend's son was predicted E Grade GCSEs from his CATS test and ended up with A*s.

Wow so much going on here...

You seem to "know" a lot about the skills of his classmates. Do you really or are there lots of boastful Mums?!

Why are you so concerned he be marked out as a high achiever? How will the "marking out" manifest itself? What will it achieve for your D'S. or will he just work exactly the same way, achieve the same marks he was always capable of and not be any the worse off?

You need to work on the expectation management- or secretly is this what you expect of him and you are disappointed he is not top of the class? No shame in that but maybe you need to examine your own feelings here. As I said there might be an element of him thinking this is what you expect of him.

And finally you need to stop over thinking this all and comparing to his classmates- that way madness lies! Yes he may not be in the top sets but in a top selective that merely means he might get a plain A in a couple of subjects instead of A*- he will not end up on the scrap heap!!

"Maybe what worries me most is that I've made a mistake in enabling him to go to a v academic school and that this will 'go against him' for many reasons."

No it's too early to say, & why should the school write anyone off at this stage? They have a staggeringly bright intake. All in all only one point on the graph, wait and see.

Help DS2 to see that he can be happy even if he doesn't achieve one of his 'rigidly fixed' life aims (probably the most important aspect of this whole thing anyway).

too bloody right that's the most important thing ..... am a bit surprised there hasn't been more emphasis on this.

It may well be that your son would be better at one of the Ivy league universities in the US or prehaps he might want to study in Europe.

Being the bottom third in a super selective is not the same as being bottom third in a normal school. Hard work goes a long way in life.

I know a girl who ought to have been a shoe-in for Oxford. A* all the way at GCSE and A level (4 academic subjects) and both schools/colleges were not that great. Grade 8 LAMDA and on an instrument, and the most easy to talk to girl you can imagine. Loads of helping out locally with youngsters (which is how I know her). I honestly thought they would snap her up. She didn't get in.

You have to keep options open and manage his expectations even if only slowly does it.

Oxbridge entry is far from guaranteed even for those in top streams.

I can't help with most of your enquiries, but I think it would be wrong to move him from a school where you think he is thriving and will continue to thrive; just on the belief that being at another school will somehow improve his changes. I's impossible to guarantee that such a move would help one iota. And his education is as much about the journey over the coming years as it is about the end point.

Oxbridge is much more about excelling in a single (or limited range) of subjects than overall ability. I am crap at many things and still managed to get in (and didn't even consider it a possibility until after O levels).

I would encourage him to widen his goals though - even if he's a supposed dead cert he isn't guaranteed a place. Anyway there are lot of other universities out there, one of those might suit him better.