Intrigued by the 'bright child will succeed in any school'

No-one gets anywhere by the previous results of other children and doing as little as possible themselves! Each cohort is different and each child is different. The results of other children have no bearing on your child. What does make a difference though is ethos of the school, quality of teaching and value added. A school with good results may actually be coasting if the children could have done better with better teaching. Also, some schools get less progress out of children than others and some children actually go backwards. There are many schools who fail children by being unable to recruit good teachers and have supply teacher, after supply teacher, after supply teacher! If a school is struggling in this way, it is highly unlikely the children will do as well as they should have done.

I would therefore say that most children at schools where the value added score is low could definitely have done better. I think 8 points = 1 grade lower in one GCSE. So if a school is 968 value added, that is 4 grades dropped.

How do you revise for CATs tests? If you have to do this to get into the top set, then I would worry about pushing too hard.

I don't agree. My eldest is very bright. He did well at a failing primary, level 5's (they didn't enter anyone for level 6) but as he wasn't pushed he did the bare minimum.

He's now at an extremely high performing comprehensive where he's challenged for the first time and he's absolutely thriving. His intelligence and my insistence on practicing for the CAT tests got him into the top sets. His intelligence has kept him there. The teachers are constantly striving for the best and just as crucially, so are the children. He doesn't talk about if he goes to university, he talks about when he goes. He might aim for Cambridge but if not then he fancies Bristol or Nottingham. He knows that's our expectation of him but it's not something I ever discuss, that comes from having similarly minded peers who want to do well. I also keep a close eye on his behaviour log and what work he has as its all online. I'm going to send him on a revision course in the summer as he doesn't know how to revise and he has an English tutor to build his confidence. He's a 6a/7c in year 8 so still doing well but we are helping him build his confidence as it is his weakest area and his set are very strong.

I've no doubt that he would do fine anywhere and would get good GCSE's, he's that kind of child but the added value he gets from being with a likeminded cohort is much more than exam results. We chose the school for that reason but as it has an 85% A-C at GCSE with nearly 70% of those at A*-B we figured that even if he decided to do as little as possible then the chances are he will still do ok in a way he wouldn't have done if we sent him to a lesser performing school and just hoped he wanted to work.

Apologies for all those typos.

There us a type if brightness that this is true for. This child us resilient, bully proof, very bright with an exceptional work ethic As in spends hours in their room on homework without any caring necessary. I've taught a handful of these in a laugh school.
Otherwise people who make this statement are talking out of their a..... s. It's normally people who don't know what they're talking aboout or people who need to reassure themselves about the fact that their child isn't necessarily in an environment they'd have chosen if they'd had the choice.

Place marking so I can read this later

I agree with the proposition that "bright kids do well anywhere" because I am one of those and so far DD1 and DD2 are going the same way. Setting and self-selection of more academic options for GCSE on is a factor.

I think at lower levels not so bright DC can be pushed to exceed normal 11+ score or normal GCSE results, but in the long run this may lead them down a sub-optimal academic path when it comes to A levels and even more so degrees and careers. I think lack of aspiration and being shown options are more of an issue for bright DC than lack of educational resource.

I also agree academics are not enough but it is also about attitude and application and ability to work with other people - especially people who are different from you.

I am a parent with the time and resources to supplement the school but I deliberately don't do it as it is very easy to undermine self-confidence and confidence in the school and the teachers. I do support the school by making sure homework is done etc.

It's rubbish.

Lots of 'bright' pupils don't do particularly well.

I disagree with this too. I was top of the year at 'O' level (old) in my not brilliant bog standard Comp then went to a leafy naice school for 6th form. There were quite a few people from the naice school with better 'O' level results than me in the 6th form who couldn't match my 'A' level performance. It was clear that the naice school had enabled the pupils to reach their potential or close to it and the bog standard comp hadn't.

Bright, well supported children will be less disadvantaged by a poor school than those with less academic potential, SEN, social disadvantages or unsupportive backgrounds but the reality is that the school will probably let them all down to some extent.

Ultimately, it worked out alright for me but I am sure there were others who have never really recovered from a poor start.

We are in an area which has only one large secondary school (about 1800 mixed sex ) and a faith school which is strict on the entry criteria. We chose to send our 2 ds's to a nearby town, where there is a boys school. The encouragement, the pastoral care and of course the teaching are way ahead (IMO) of similar available at the local mixed comp. A good, happy, well disciplined school does lead to better results and a more rounded child. To summarise, I disagree that bright kids can do well in any school .

I was in the bright but incredibly lazy camp, I did well at my bog standard school and did sweet FA.

Did quite well career wise and was the only person in my department without a degree and most had post graduate qualifications. I was the go to woman when people needed help working stuff out as my mind works at speed.

I just really loathe formal education and become very restless if being talked at. I'm older and you wouldn't even get your foot in the door without a degree in my old job these days.

When we were sent for training I would sit thinking about other stuff while the x hour presentation was given. I would then just read the hand out and do it. I always thought the training dept was an area where sweeping cuts were needed as found some of the stuff they peddled ridiculous.

As an adult I actually think I have some kind of SEN but I'm not sure what, very probably ASD. Taught myself to read before I went to school.

My late Dad was a teacher, and he believed that a school needed a third of children to be motivated to make it work. Didn't really matter about overall results.

If you are a bright child, but without peer support, then you will struggle, either academically or emotionally. If you have a group of like minded peers, then you will find it okay.

I was a very bright child from a working class family, none of who had done well at school.

I went to an average secondary school that rapidly went down hill and was closed down shortly after I left. We had numerous supply teachers in most GCSE subjects (and one where we didn't even have one as the teacher disappeared and they forgot to send a replacement for a whole half term). Behaviour was awful, fires in classrooms, chairs out of windows, ceiling tiles being ripped out and thrown around. There weren't enough of us at higher level maths, so we studied the basic stuff in lessons and had to attend in our own time with one of the few dedicated teachers to learn the more complicated things... Until someone burnt his house down and he was off for a long time. The well respected science teacher started teaching us really weird, untrue facts and we questioned it but were ignored - until he was diagnosed with a severe illness that had affected his brain and had to quit. It sounds unbelievable but that's not even the beginning. It made it hard to learn much during lessons.

I managed to get all A-C grades but I probably could have done much better than that in a good school, particularly in maths and science which were the subjects I found most difficult; I did become quite lazy because I wasn't really learning much in school and lost interest. Two pupils in my year managed to achieve all A grades, one was exceptionally brilliant and one had really good support at home. The GCSE pass rate when I left was 21%.

And in average or poor schools, kids learn to coast, not to push themselves, bad habits and often never learn how to learn.

I don't agree bright kids do well anywhere. My parents put me into private school when I was in primary. It was at the time when secondary moderns were becoming comprehensive. I don't think I would have done so well there. Middle of the road kid but needed pushing

Dd passed her eleven plus but goes to one of the crappest comps ever and is floundering. No way will she do as well as she would have done at a better school.

Total crap spouted on MN. Never heard it anywhere in the real world else.

What about bright but lazy?
Bright but bullied?
Bright but gets in with the wrong crowd?
Bright but becomes a bully?
Bright but with mental health issues?
Bright but with family issues?

Never understood it.

I really don't agree with Agonybeetle at all.Yes ,really clever kids with motivated parents do well in average schools.Especially children who's parents are teachers for some reason.The middle of the road bright kids are capable of far more in a really good school .I know because my eldest is one of them.I transferred her in year 9 to a selective school.She was shocked to find how hard she was expected to work..Her bright friends have done nowhere near as well as her in the state system.She has obtained top grades which she will need to pursue a medical career.She does say however the pupils from ex-state schools are the ones who are most driven .Long term they seem to do better than the rather more cossetted Prep school pupils.

My oldest three are now post-GCSE, so I've seen a lot of kids go through secondary school, first and second-hand.

We live in an area with a large variety of different secondary options, and children from my dc's primary school went, variously, to good comps, reasonable-ish comps, super-selective state, highly-selective private, semi-selective state and not-terribly-selective private, according to the priorities and preferences of the parents. None of them went to avoid-at-all-costs sink schools, although a couple of the reasonable comps have had a rocky few years at various points, with lots of disruption and teacher turnover.

What I have observed is that all the children that I know, and know of, have come out with the GCSE grades that you would have predicted for them at age 9, based on the child's ability and personality, regardless of the school type they went to.

The dc who you would have predicted at primary would ace it and get 11A* did so, whether they went to a roughish comp or a superselective grammar school. Kids who were endlessly tutored to scrape into selective schools came out with very similar results as their primary friends of similar ability whose parents chose the comps for them.

I don't think this necessarily means that it doesn't matter what school you choose for your child (though I think the really anarchic comps of the 1980s don't exist in the same way in the era of Ofsted and academisation). But I think it probably does mean that as long as the child is happy in their environment and supported at home, the actual type of school they attend probably doesn't matter that much.

I find this quite cheering, personally.

My G.C.S.E's are, in the present day, rather average.

For my school, I was 2nd or 3rd in the year.

No parental involvement (I was removed by social services into foster care during GCSE time for reasons I don't want to detail); and undiagnosed deafness (so missing a lot of what was said).

I received university offers from everywhere I applied (think, top 5 - one teacher encouraged me to). I did much better at university, and have just finished my PhD (now looking for a post-doc).

I do think that context is everything, and some people took a chance on me. I'm not sure that would happen now. I don't think of myself as unusually intelligent, but I am diligent, and managed to study my way out of a pretty bad situation.

Also to factor in is what they do after reaching/not reaching their full potential at school. I have friends from grammar with excellent exam results who went on to mediocre small town jobs and friends from secondary modern with a handful of CSEs between them who have achieved very highly.

I agree, the phrase is bull.

I was bright, and very Middleclass . I went to a dire comprehensive/ junior borstal with bigger fish to fry than gcse results, then a mediocre sixth form. I wasn't just unsupported by my parents, I had a nightmare homelife. I put zero effort into school after y7/ early y8 and was a known troublemaker. I had a fab time socially, popular, loads of friends etc and got top grades both gcse and 5 a-levels.

It wasn't successful though. I lost all interest in education and learning. Never learnt what (mental) hard work and effort were, or that it was ever required in life. Learnt to use my intelligence to disrupt lessons, enjoy myself, and early on to foster the rep that 'posh and clever' didn't mean it was a good idea to mess with me. I learnt going to do a physical job was far more satisfying than the endless boredom of education. I learnt that nobody in my school was on my mental wavelength academically, or had any respect for the fact I did actually already understand whatever inane ramblings they thought I should pay attention to. So I learnt to have no respect for them. I learnt that same as my parents, they were eager to cash in on my positives, without ever even acknowledging them. I learnt that being the ring leader of trouble and having a bad rep gained me attention and admiration from peers. I learnt to use my intelligence to get my own way. I had the idea reinforced that my needs weren't important. I learnt to separate 'interesting' from 'education'.

'Bright kids do well whatever' is absolute rot.

What I believe is more like "the factors that make a child succeed are more independent from than dependent on quality of school" which is why very high achievers can come out of bad neighbourhoods, bad schools, sometimes even out of bad families.

I don't think the reason is usually parents intensely involved in covering bits of missing syllabus... more like native intelligence & resilliance making most of whatever opportunities are on offer.

Something like "full potential" depends mostly on emotional happiness & resiliance, which is supercomplex to predict or make happen.

I don't agree that a bright child will do well anywhere. Two DS both at a highly selective independent. Eldest DS generally now is working at an expected level for that school - underperformed with flashes of great performance occasionally most of the way through to age 12. Improved self motivation - but just needs to be with similar peers and taught by very able teachers otherwise would under achieve. I'm not saying that's a good thing - it's just how it is. We don't push - he's got to find some drive himself. DS2 would have done well anywhere. So I think it's a combination of academic ability, school and parental support AND personality of that child.