state comprehensive secondary schools stretching able pupils - opinions?

Ach, people are very loyal to their educational choices for their children, especially if they feel a bit guilty about them. If you impoverish your family to pay school fees you've got to believe your child is going to massively underachieve in the state sector - anything else would make you feel like a bit of a tit.

"For goodness sake, do whatever it takes to get your child appropriate challenges"

Is getting an A* at A level not challenge enough for most bright children?

Are you saying that state schools don't encourage high achieving children to achieve high grades?

My dd's rough old London comp (33% high achievers) seems to produce respectable numbers of children leaving with a clutch of fantastic A level results. ....

Far be from me to disagree with my colleagues, but scottishprof the reason why you are seeing more students with 'issues' is that there are more students going to university. 20 years ago the top 15% went, now it's the top 45%.

A level grades have been inflated so that doesn't make comparisons with older cohorts easy.

And all the ACTUAL evidence points to state school kids actually performing better in higher education than their privately educated counterparts.

And not all kids who aren't stretched too much become perfectionists - some do, plenty don't.

To say they're all like that is as ridiculous as saying all comprehensives fail their most able.

"Some young people take this in their stride, relish the challenge, learn the skills, do fine. Many fall apart"

My understanding is that state educated high achievers are more likely to complete their degrees than similarly able children coming from the private sector.

Amen, ScotishProf.

IMNSHO, the view that provided they get the grades to go to university all is well is wrong - catastrophically, tragically wrong, and I see the effects of it every day.

Here's what often happens to clever children who don't get stretched: they turn into perfectionists. They develop a self-image in which part of the definition of being them is that they never find academic work hard. For them the only respectable challenge available is to get 100%. And they shouldn't have to work hard to get it - other people have to work hard. For so long as they can meet that, and don't have to deal with actually finding things hard, all is well, the school regards them as a success story, parents think vaguely "s/he worries too much" and may notice the perfectionism, but don't really think it's a problem.

Then the child reaches university, and (with luck) is faced for the first time with a genuine intellectual challenge, with concepts s/he can't immediately understand, tasks s/he isn't immediately confident of being able to do to a high standard. Some young people take this in their stride, relish the challenge, learn the skills, do fine. Many fall apart. Not only do they not have the practical skills they need to deal with something that's hard for them; far more troublingly, they feel there's something terribly wrong with them and with the universe if they can't do it. They decide they're doing the wrong subject, or they're in the wrong place. Often, they stop doing any work, because that gives them a reasonable explanation for why they aren't getting high marks, and is far less threatening than having to face the risk that they might work hard and still not get high marks, because who would they be then?

People get ill, and miserable, and fail because of this effect. Lots of people.

Over the several decades I've been teaching in universities, the entry grades of the students I've worked with have risen quite dramatically. It seems to me that I see this phenomenon far more often than I used to, and I think this is why: I'm now seeing the students who've never been challenged before, instead of the ones who were pretty good but still did experience needing to struggle sometimes in their later years of school.

It makes me angry and it makes me cry, and it's why my child isn't at a state school even though as an academic it's not easy to afford fees. For goodness sake, do whatever it takes to get your child appropriate challenges, in their area of strength not just their areas of weakness (or they'll learn that they have to work in subject X but never in subject Y, and won't be much better off when they go to university to do Y), while they still have the level of individual attention that school can provide and they still have you nearby to support them emotionally. Please.

Yes, although I complain about our local comp, they do do triple science, a mfl GCSE is compulsory for all (except for a very small number of very low ability students) and there is a great deal of music and arts provision.

It's certainly not bad enough to drive me onto the "back to work" boards!!

I really don't think think you can put all comprehensive schools in the same box. Some will be good at stretching their most able, offer music, triple science and have parent evenings from year 8 focussing on universities (the distinctly mediocre comp my dc's go to do this). A few will be utterly shocking in that regard. Most however will be ok in terms of decent advice and guidance and won't damage the prospects of their students with duff advice.

So as long as you avoid the truly awful, I think you'll be ok.

This thread is depressing. It makes me feel so...angry.

But also reassuring. My husband and I didn't like the look of things at our local comp. others have said its all "fine." I was beginning to think we might be mad. Now I think we are awake..

We've opted for private school next year. Look for me n the "back to work" boards.

I have looked at all the secondary schools within a 20 mile radius. There are some which offer triple science and music gcse and some which offer neither. I have a musical ds who loves science but it is down to the whim of bureaucrats whether he can study the subjects he excels in or not. If the allocations go one way he'll be in sets from y7 and given a full range of gcse options allowing academic or vocational paths. At another school he'll spend y7 doing cross curricular learning packages in mixed ability groups. There is no school choir or orchestra. There are no music lessons but the children do study performing arts from y8. They all have to do pe gcse and options have to include a btec. The options blurb describes health and social care gcse as an essential for careers in the health sector. I don't mind poor league table results but this sort of limited curriculum funnels all the kids away from achieving their academic potential.

yes "The idea that all qualifications are created equal. Wrong" this.

dd has chosen 9 academic subjects for her GCSE options & an arty BTEC, but why on earth are the school making high achieving children do a BTEC? Their answer is that it improves study skills. I expect it has more to do boosting headline result percentages.

She has bright friends doing double science, no MFL, one humanity, a 'study' or two (business etc) or a couple of arts & an arty BTEC ... because that's what they enjoy. No advice or consideration about what happens at A level or afterwards, the only input from the school is whether or not they are likely to pass.

I believe the very able will do as well wherever they go, certainly in a Good school. However their priority is always results and league tables. So the middle borderline C pupils get huge input and the dead cert A* do not.

BrendaBlackhead DS went on an aspirational trip to Cambridge and when he told the head it was his ambition to go there he said pretty much it's not for the likes of you.
DS1 was always streets ahead in maths but never, in spite of my best efforts, stretched at secondary. He managed all Aat GCSE and 4 A at A level. He couldn't have got any better grades at another school, whether fee paying or grammar but he might have got off curriculum challenges.

Sil who is a MFL teacher was hauled over the coals for advising (able) pupils to take French instead of Health & Social Care. In an assembly the pupils had been told this was a good qualification for anybody wanting to be a doctor... Sil was reprimanded and told that every qualification must be portrayed as equal.

ragged too many schools are giving poor advice, which inevitably disadvanatges the high ability students.

One of the most pernicious, yet most widely accepted in schools, is the idea of equivalence.

The idea that all qualifications are created equal. Wrong.

Yes to that, Sensua.

When we wailed to the school about ds's Eng Lit GCSE result, we were rather testily told, "What are you complaining about? There are pupils who got Ds and we have to concentrate on appealing their results." Dh was madder than hell (and all this education stuff usually washes over him).

ragged DD's school ran GCSE revision classes. I asked if she could attend and was told no. They were for C/D students. DD was a comfortable B so she wasn't allowed to attend.

Now I'm the first to admit that DD wasn't a highly motivated student at that school and she might have got higher grades despite them. But it's amazing how she's flourished since, in institutions that did foster her ambition.
It's hard when everything - the school, the teachers, your peers - are only concerned with the C/D boundary. WF is right with "institutionally embedded underachievement".

I still think some mealy-mouthed "you're getting above yourself" is entrenched in some schools.

Absolutely, Brenda.

I still think some mealy-mouthed "you're getting above yourself" is entrenched in some schools. In the primary school where I was a governor I questioned the music provision. The head's head revolved a few times and she spat that most pupils couldn't access classical music and it was boring for the children. Yep, much more accessible were the teachers' naff 90s choices of Annie Lennox and Dido.

I suspect those pupils are a tiny minority, the main forces that lead to underachievement are social-emotional-physical-maturity problems.

Human beings are inherently optimistic ambitious learning machines. Remove obstacles and we are programmed to do those things.

ragged at the schools where pupils are not allowed to tread water, the children still grow and become their young adult selves.

It's not an either or situation.

And whilst I agree that some high ability DC will underachieve due to difficulties at home/illness/lack of motivation etc what concerns me more is institutionally embedded underachievement.

The situation where able pupils with no specific problems are prevented from achieving as well as they might due to school policy, lack of resources, poor advice etc.

I'm puzzled by the whole thread.
imho, age 11-14 is a huge upheaval socially, emotionally, in maturity and brain changes, even. I don't see a need for them to work super hard. I see a need for them to have some space to grow & change. I don't mind treading water.

ime, high achievers are the kids who push themselves and have the personality to be self-motivated.
High ability who underachieve, they underachieve for lots of reasons usually to do with their personal circumstances and emotional upheavals and sometimes just plain personality. I don't see that state schools should be expected to overcome most of these factors, or that any school really can do that much, except pastoral care. I'd like to see a lot from schools wrt pastoral support.

A/A* grades at GCSE stand at around 25%.

Thus the majority of children attaining L5 should be aiming for those grades.

Though things are changing. If the new exams come in there are proposed caps on the top grades.

I'm always puzzled by these stats correlating Level 5 with A/ A at GCSE. Since roughly 30% of pupils (I think) get Level 5 that would mean an awful lot of pupils getting As - I would think there's be a lot of talk about "grade inflation" if that were the case. Also, surely in most grammar schools wouldn't you expect most of the Level 5s to be at the higher end of the range and probably Level 6s whereas in a comp they would get the whole range of Level 5s including those who only just scraped through? My own DD is being pushed to get a 5 in SATS Maths at the moment - I certainly don't see her as a potential A in Maths!
I don't think this research has been properly thought through - I cynically suspect it's aimed more at promoting the return of secondary modern education than really addressing the issues.

My DS a?so in y7 has an assessed reading age of 16+ (assessed in Nov) as do two thirds of his c?ass. His (comprehensive school) class read whole books too and not just "passages" incidentally!

I would have thought it was obvious from context that I was referring to work in class in all subjects, not just English, they read plenty of whole books thanks
The point was that if you have an eg history class with children of all abilities, you can't present them with a passage that is only accessible to the top end, the chosen passage must be accessible to the whole class.

I have no doubt that there are very good comps. I also have no doubt that some grammars are factories that push kids hard and are focused round traditional subjects to the detriment of a broader curriculum. My ds school is not like that.

In my humble experience those good comps are not in our town. We are not a grammar area, a very few children do what my ds does and travels to the next door area to grammar. In our area the comps do have a lower expectation and standard.
To be fair though, I do think one reason they are not around us, is intake and parental expectation.

I would also say that listening to ds friends at local schools, the standard of behaviour expected at his school is way higher.

Parents worry - that's what we do, it's our profession. But am I being silly to let this kind of report concern me.

Yes!
My DC are at University now but I well remember the stresses of KS3. The main worry is that you do not know the outcome. It would be lovely if someone could wave a magic wand and say "I have seen the future. Chill. She'll get good-enough grades. All shall be well."
DD's comp wasn't very ambitious, similar to darling's. DD's GCSE grades didn't set the world alight (despiite being G&T) and I think that she would probably have done better elsewhere. BUT: she got good-enough GCSEs to get to a better sixth form; she got good-enough A Levels to get to a decent University; she got a good-enough classification to get on a post grad course.
That's all you need: enough to get to the next stage.

And remember that your DD is not a statistic. If the school gets that does not mean that your DD will get that statistic. She is an individual and can do better/the same/worse. An overall school grade does not apply to the individual.

Make sure that you keep an eye on her and ask MN for advice. This will counterbalance any shortfalls in the school.

All shall be well.