state comprehensive secondary schools stretching able pupils - opinions?

not, if you look upthread you will see that I linked to the Royal Institution Masterclasses which are specifically aimed at able KS3 students and suggested that the OP look to see if any university near her offered them. She said no.

You then leapt into that conversation, that you hadn't read properly, with an irrelevant comment about grammar schools offering Olympiads.

They do exist in Birmingham and elsewhere noble. They may not exist in huge numbers for 11 year olds (OP's daughter is in y7).

Nothing snide about the grammar school comment. They do offer enrichment, stretching or whatever you choose to call it; as does the comprehensive school my child attends.

The rest of your last post I do not understand.

Is OP's DD in yr7? To be honest I have completely lost track of what this thread is supposed to be about (other than slagging off state schools). I was only commenting on what Unis can offer to secondary age wanting extension and tasters. There aren't a huge number of offerings even in the masterclass programme for yr7. Will involve travel. Leicester is closest on that map for OP, I think.

But ragged, the OP's DD is in KS3 so taster days aimed at Y11 aren't appropriate yet.

I stand corrected, taster days are advertised online.

Oh look, special residential summer schools in Birmingham for more able pupils from less affluent backgrounds.

The description of this masterclass is less than our taster days offer.

These Masterclasses are closer to what NG described. Make sure you know what the partic Uni means.

The masterclasses aren't uni demos or taster sessions, they are a course of activities, usually over 6 weekends designed to challenge very able KS3 students.

It's extremely likely that Brum Unis offer visitor/demo/recruitment days to yr11 & older. Phone them up and ask. Don't have to be called "Masterclass" or whatever.

The Uni where I work offers whole taster days to yr11 & older in many courses, but they are not advertised online. Just organised thru local schools. Phone and ask, especially individual depts you are interested in.

I didn't say that you couldn't comment, I said that you'd taken a comment which was addressed to me and specifically about Birmingham universities not offering masterclasses (which they apparently don't) and responded with a snide comment about how the grammar schools offer enrichment. Well they can't offer masterclasses at a Birmingham university because they don't exist. Which was entirely what the bolded comment you were replying to was about. So you took a remark to me out of context to apparently put the boot in on some wider agenda. I think it is fair to object to that.

"...and you will note that the comment which you quoted was addressed to me"*

Yes addressed to you on a public forum not in a private bloody chat. You don't decide who can and cannot comment.

No, not, I mentioned masterclasses, which are put on by universities, and you will note that the comment which you quoted was addressed to me and mentioned universities and so was clearly about those in particular and not a sweeping generalisation about Birmingham schools at all.

I mentioned enrichment opportunities in school. I did not mention Uni master classes. Many of Birmingham's KS3's participate in the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge, for example.

Past's sweeping generalisations about the perceived failures of Birmingham schools are not always correct!

It's not the schools that offer the masterclasses, it's the universities, and pass would appear to be correct from looking at the map that no Birmingham university offers them. The closest would be Warwick.

Notably noblegiraffe Birmingham (which boasts several universities) doesn't appear to be offering these for their pupils. Shame really.

Of course Birmingham schools offer these enrichment opportunities to their students. Perhaps it is just yours that doesn't.

The King Edward grammars certainly do

PastSellByDate Sat 14-Mar-15 07:32:32

Thanks for the life story! Someone get me a violin. Do you really think I am going to read all that?

PS. You are absolutely correct. I used to go by the moniker RaisinBoys but as I am now no longer raising just boys, it is no longer fitting. Bit creepy incidentally that you have so much time to monitor historic usernames!

The Sutton trust run summer schools aimed mostly at students in year 12 who would be the first in their family to go to uni. Applications closed for this year but check for next year. summerschools.suttontrust.com/

I'm very happy with my dd getting a gcse early - tick - then she can focus on things that are more tricky for her such as drama and languages - both of which will help her share her brains w the world ;)

If we are talking about really stretching the able, in terms of grades, we need to be talking about A not A/A.
Achieving an A is not a sign of great achievement these days. Many schools will require an A grade in any subject just to continue to A Level, and in order to gain the top grades at A Level, an A* is usually the background GCSE result.

Top universities and highly competitive courses will be looking for candidates to have a good number of A in reality and As alone will not cut it. In reality, for competitive courses such as History at Durham, the typical candidate profile who receives an offer will be far in excess the lowest offer and if you looked at their GCSE profile most would have in excess of 6 A. So this is what schools need to achieve for their brightest students, not just a handful of As achieved by taking maths early. Taking maths early is only worth it if the candidate gets an a. If they get an A at the end of year 10 and then stick with it, they may have got an a a year later, so have been done a disservice.

So when looking at schools and how they serve the able, I would focus pretty heavily on A at GCSE. When schools only publish a cumulative result of a/a I would be asking for a more detailed break down! too see if most of those are a or a*.

It is for me Atia !! I struggle to sew in a button. But I'm very good with algebra.

Being able to make a skirt is definitely stretching!

It might be worth checking out whether a university close to you offers masterclasses.

www.rigb.org/education/masterclasses/our-networks