Super selectives: how much value do they add?

Yes everyone there has done pretty well in VR and NVR but since about half of them have English as a foreign language would you want your child to attend?

Um, yes, I might, absolutely. In practice I might not choose this particular school but not because of EAL reasons per se.

I find it more concerning that many schools use tests which exclude bright children who don't speak English as a first language or who aren't familiar with some aspects of UK culture. E.g. my DC had an English comprehension paper with church references and some of the questions assumed familiarity with words such as pulpit and deacon.

(BTW My British children spent their primary years abroad and speak English as a third language. Their English is accentless and their academic performance is extremely high, across the board, including in essay subjects, which may explain why I particularly dislike blanket prejudice against EAL children.)

Just wonder how do unis see grammar school candidates. Are they regarded as ind or state? I know gss are state funded but many of the kids come from private primaries. Does this mean that some people just get all the advantages from both worlds?

And also of you are in the catchment of an outstanding comp then also consider that, I do agree that bright pupils in top sets can achieve as well as they would in a superselective /indie, I can't be bothered to dig them out but the stats for Coombe's high attainers are comparable to Tiffin and I am sure in time Greycourt's etc. will also be. Given the nature of the Tiffin admissions process there are lots of very bright pupils in those top sets. again it is about which school feels right for your DD.

The question arises whether the output of Tiffin (including relatively few Oxbridge places as a crude measure of aspiration and a non narrow academic focus) reflects the majority type of pupils / backgrounds who are selected by the entrance test (requiring dedicated preparation) rather than the type of schooling that Tiffin grammars offer. The obvious answer would be a combination but that might be doing the teachers there a disservice.

OP I had two DDs go through one of the independent schools you mention as superselective. it was fantastic for one, she chose it over an even more selective school that was originally her first choice because she knew it was the school for her. However that was after she had had a chance to experience the atmosphere and had had a stimulating interview with the Head who she felt was interested in her as an individual and also injected some fun into the process. She is not especially confidant and was not one of the uber competitive overconfidant girls but she made a lovely friendship group and was definitely one of the brighter ones, though we had no way of knowing that before because she applied from the equivalent of a UK state school which did not prepare you or have experience of the schools.

My other DD also not especially confidant wanted to and did follow her sister though like you I always felt it probably wasn't right for her and though bright she would be better in a school that was more mixed, both academically and in terms of gender. It didn't work out, not because she didn't belong there academically, she was somewhere in the middle, but because she found herself in a very difficult cohort with a lot of disruptive, manipulative and exclusive behaviour and just did not have the skills to deal with it. She had lovely friends but they all felt under seige, constantly vulnerable to the attention seeking behaviour. She moved to another coed for sixth form, that you probably wouldn't put in the "superselective" category though like SHS still perfectly able to enable it's brightest pupils to get strings of A*s and to top universities, the one my instincts were telling me was "right" at 11. She found, as she put it, a "normal" and very encouraging atmosphere. She made a lot of friends, was happy and did if anything better academically and has gone off to university a much more confidant girl.

Unfortunately no parent can know whether her DD will encounter a cohort like that at any school (it can happen at any school but I think the competitive parenting that is an underlying cause is more likely to be an issue at the most selective schools). However I do think that if you and your DD have an instinct about which school is right then providing it enables it's brightest pupils to achieve their potential, and we are very well served with a wide choice of schools that do that around here, then whether they generally are able to select more of the brightest pupils, have a get better overall results and get put into a "superselective" category In the local context is probably less relevent. SHS in many other parts of the country would be regarded as superselective.

And totally agree with Needmoresleep on Tiffin. I have experience of using VR/NVR tests for recruitment and you pay for them to be constantly developed with unpredictable questions so that practise beyond a very few papers (less than 10) will not improve scores, that is the test of quality, that they are genuine tests of ability. The tutoring industry that has grown up around Tiffin to achieve alleged improvements in scores over years of tutoring with zero educational benefit (suggesting that understandably with the costs of testing 1000s they can't afford decent tests ) just backs up the evidence of their results that they were not selecting the brightest, though may do better with the greater evidence they will now have. My DD also hated it when visiting, felt the atmosphere was cold and slightly brutal and the Science labs were horrible. If you can afford to pay you certainly get more resources and facilities.

So basically do not be "very worried" , relax, look around the schools, choose the four you most like including one aspirational, one achievable and one back up. Go through the admissions process and then make the choice according to rational factors, like facilities, extra curricular, school journey, and whatever else matters to you but also don't be afraid to include that irrational judgement about which feels right, where you and your DD feel she will be most happy, you are best placed to make that instinctive judgement.

The proportion of parents that demand there DCs to work work work is significantly higher than in a comp. It is well known that the sports teams also suffer as a result, prepare to be generally in a struggling or losing team was the comment given to me.

Perhaps. However my concern would be the proportion and the extent to which this influences school culture, given the entry process effectively demands dedication and practice. (Though hopefully to a lesser extent now.)

But really I dont know enough. DS tried but did not get in. He was ot that far off but we had been unwilling to jump the tutoring and practice hoops. We were not particularly upset though could have done without the burden of school fees. We know two exceptionally bright DC who did earn places, neither with external tutoring. When they got there they found they were in a distinct minority, and that they were far higher up the year group than their 11+ scores would have predicted.

But that's not the school's doing needmore

There will always be parents who encourage academic achievement over everything else and discourage anything else.

That's true at every comp, let alone selective school.

My hope is that the decision to change the exam was not so much a desire to week out those with English as a second language, but to try to bring a halt to the sad process whereby hundereds of children were spending important chunks of their childhood not kicking footballs or spending time with family and friends, but practicing endless VR and non-VR.

We know the odd child who went there, and one very happy parent. However my concern would be that the school has a number of kids who have not been encouraged to explore and enquire, but who instead may think that success depends on being able to put numbers in sequence or spot triangles.

Yay someone else not convinced about Tiffin. Yes everyone there has done pretty well in VR and NVR but since about half of them have English as a foreign language would you want your child to attend? That may improve though in coming years with the change of entrance exams.

I agree with summerends. Tiffin 11+ is quite a challenge. We know kids who sent every Saturday morning for about three years being tutored in VR and non VR, and then an hour a day's practice the summer before.

They are selecting the best at their particular test. Ditto, prep schools are called prep schools for a reason. They prep for Common Entrance. However this is easier as the prep school will have a broader picture of the child's ability that the Tiffin type snapshot and will convey this to the Senior school.

I am unconvinced by Tiffin. Given its selectivity the results ought to be better. Quite a number at DDs school had tried for Tiffin with private as a fallback. (The year 7 coffee morning conversation had contributions from several unsatisfied Mrs W customers). Yet DDs school had better results and offered a broader education.

Its really a question of alternatives. If you live near a good state comp which does well by its more able pupils then you dont need to bother. If not, start the tutoring. With the numbers involved your child really needs to go into the exam room prepared to grab every mark they are capable of.

Kids at " superselective " grammars here - well 2 at uni now , one still there. Our comps are not IMHO , with rare examples good with the top academic flyers so it wasn't a choice.

Actually, I don't think they felt academically hot housed - extra curricular activities were very strong and as opposed to previously stated community service was a strong element too.

I woukd not send a child who just scraped in say at appeal or who has low self esteem but otherwise I'd go that route again

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Actually private schools like yours are superselective regardless of requirement of income because of high demand and therefore numbers of applicants from an international pool of applicants resident in the UK or not.

Suspecting what the OP's state option is, they do set - I think you'll find the majority do actually (VERY few schools stream these days - agree you should avoid those that do), and the top set at this school would all be likely get places in 'normal' selective schools, and the top half of the top set would probably get places in 'super-selective' schools.

Ah but you can't win summer.

If I say DS school has great results, I'll be told that this is not because it's all that, but because it's so selective.

If I say DS school is super selective, I'll be told I'm delusional, that the kids there are rich, rather than clever .

Ullen is right that superselective is a term misappropriated by some parents with DCs attending selective private schools. Most superselectives are state due to demand plus a handful of private predominantly in London vicinity.
Even if demand means they are taking the top 5% applying, selecting ability is a moving target dependent on the test type, a DC's maturity and parental support outside. There may therefore be actually quite a broad range of abilities (as within a top set of a large comprehensive) but probably less so by sixth form.

And to add, DDs GCSE grades were fine. She was never going to get all A*s and I dont think she would have done better at a more academic school. Indeed without the confidence she gained from being towards the top of the year, with aspirations to match, she may not have done nearly as well.

Like WF I had one in a super-selective and one in a school with a much broader range. Horses for courses. DS liked education, liked having clever friends and was not bothered when he was out shone by some exceptionally clever kids. He does agree that it was pretty miserable for those at the bottom, and a couple of mothers commented that the school worked less well for one of their two boys. It could get a bit geeky.

DD would have struggled. She was bright enough but dyslexic. A broader range allowed her to be towards to top of the year group in maths and towards the bottom in English. And, importantly, there were others with her at the bottom. Also though bright she was less studious. Certainly never tempted to read round subjects, indeed rarely tempted to read. She was also quite competitive, and had had her academic self confidence pretty well trashed by her prep school. It took a while for her to get into her stride but as concepts in maths and chemistry became more complicated, she starting overtaking those who were super-selective material at 11.

My son loved his education but it was quite sheltered. Good in that he has gone to University thinking it is cool to learn and with a habit of independent learning. But perhaps with fewer practical skills. DD in contrast was expected to support weaker classmates in maths, and is more aware that academic sucess is not everything. The "girls most likely to suceed" were rarely the top set girls but those with strong inter-personal skills and resiliance. The two are likely to pursue quite different careers so both approaches worked.

Well, as TheWordFactory says, it's in your nature as to whether or not you find an environment stressful. You know your dd. If she sets her own high standards, rather than assessing the work required on the back of what everyone else is bothering to do, and is made anxious by pushy, competitive environments, then choose the school accordingly. Not everyone needs external pressure and intense competition to do well - in fact, for an anxious perfectionist whose main problem is setting internal standards that are already too high, external pressure and competition could become toxic. After all, a perfectionist NEVER sits easily on top of the pile, because they always have a nagging internal voice telling them that they could do better and that they aren't good enough. They don't need external voices agreeing with them!

Some state schools set. Not all.
My three local comps; one sets, one streams, one doesn't do either until year 9.

And a top set at a mixed ability school will still have a range with very few of the most able. To get anything like a concentration of those kids you have to select from a wide(ish) area.

Just to bust another myth - yes state school kids will be at school with the whole of the ability range - but they won't be TAUGHT with them. Pretty much all state school set for each subject, so your child will be taught with kids of a similar ability. And trust me once they've settled in they don't tend to mix with kids from the other sets simply because they don't see much of them.

And no, universities don't make offers based simply on state/private. A few schools are flagged as very low achieving and they may well yield a one grade lower offer, but state schools in general don't.

All state schools will have a value added score. This is available on the government's website and you can compare all the schools you are considering. Often value added can be harder to attain when everyone is super clever and starts out that way. Sometimes more nurturing schools add more value. I would look at where your DD will fit in! A happy child will achieve well. If the school has negative value, perhaps don't consider them because results can be less than the capability of the child.

Also - at least some universities give lower offers to those from state schools compared to those from private schools.

They don't. They give lower offers to those from low-achieving state schools, in areas where few students attend universities. Adjusted offers are made on the basis of HEFCE's polar data, in particular. So you don't get a lower offer just because you attended your high achieving local comprehensive or grammar rather than a private school. The number of students applying for top courses who are eligible for lower offers on the basis of polar data is small in my experience. The grade reduction offered is also typically quite small e.g. AAB rather than A*AA.

And once you've been to uni, A level grades are more or less irrelevant anyway.

Also not true - some graduate employers filter on the basis of A level grades and subjects. Not having A level maths is apparently a disadvantage for accountancy, for example.

In my experience "superselectives" are not always that much more selective than other selective schools, particularly when they are private. The differences in league table scores are probably caused by the average being brought down by less able students' scores in the "non-superselective" schools, rather than by top achievers doing any differently. I was actually quite surprised at how easy it was for my DC to get into superselective (private) schools, despite speaking English as a third language and spending most of their primary school years abroad.

Word is right. Too many people without kids in these schools say stuff about them which is just not true. My kids come in a range of different sizes and temperaments (no geeks though tbf ) but they all went to the same school and they all fitted in. I've never seen that much homework either at least up until GCSEs (quite a bit at AS and A2 but I think that's the norm). Also, none have shunned decent unis so far on the grounds of fatigue I think they just find it easier to manage once they're there.

Depends on the DC and depends on the school. We have experienced two superselectives in which our DCs are expected to achieve academically rather than driven to do so. Both schools focus very much on extra activities and the pupils manage to fit in a lot in and out of school because they are not having work piled on them and are generally very able so cover a lot more in less time. Not all the pupils have a work ethic or are organised but certainly that is more likely to be the norm by the GCSE year and the teachers are there to help.
I agree with WF about the stimulation the pupils derive from each other's eclectic interests and talents. Also about not having an overinflated view of their own abilities.
There are some selectives I hear where the benefits of having a bright cohort are n't enhanced by the type of teaching and the focus is narrow with little academic (or other) pastoral care for the less organised, motivated DCs.