“Brilliant club”

[NotinToTintin]

Dc has not been selected for school’s ’brilliant club’ which identifies the bright kids and puts them “on a university pathway” (apparently). All dc’s friends have and they get to go on special trips to oxbridge and are told to aim for the highest.

There was nothing like this when I was at school but I guess I would have been one of the ‘high achievers’. Dc isn’t motivated by school work (does what’s required but nothing more) and I don’t know if I admire their attitude to protecting their time or if I am letting them down by not pushing harder.

also, I can’t help but feel they’re being written off by the school as unlikely to go to university. They’re only year 7.

please talk me down - am I being ridiculous?

My worries exactly

wonder if there are any examples of kids who weren’t identified as ‘special’ but still ended up doing ok?

Of course there are, this is the majority of people. I went to private school and you really had to be amazing in sport or music or extremely academic to be seen as gifted and have a scholarship. Back then they did have a bursary type scholarship for all round ability which I got - being all round is great and makes for well rounded character imho. In terms of personal ambition , it would be remiss not to point out that its networks and connection and being around high achieving people that drives ambition and success. Not to say you can't have it otherwise, but you have to have a clear goal I think to be successful, and social skills which are as important as academic achievement.

I’ve just looked at The Brilliant Club website. They seem to have a very narrow view of who or what can motivate young people to succeed, limiting their tutors to people with a PhD. From decades of experience as a teacher I know very well that while possess up n if a doctorate doesn’t make you a bad teacher her it also doesn’t automatically make you a good and inspiring teacher. People with passion inspire. I don’t think an organisation with such a narrow view of excellence/passion/whatever is anything to aspire to, to be honest.

No, I don't think that a bright kid who does his homework and engages with school is doomed. The options aren't 'Oxbridge or destitution'.

Plenty of children of that sort of age aren’t ‘motivated’ by school work. Some or many will only start to put more effort in once GCSEs are looming. I certainly know of such types who went on to do perfectly well, including degrees from RG universities.

The Brilliant Club at my DCs school was partly for high achievers but I also know of kids that were pretty average being selected. At the point my DS did it he wasn’t getting standout results. However, he has always worked really hard and I think they just pick kids that will engage with it and learn something that will help or motivate them going forward. No one knows when a kid is in year 7 what they are capable of so I don’t think anyone is writing them off.

Not at all. Only about half of DD's class were in an office. Physio, dentist, supermarket, couple on a building site, restaurant etc. Each child gives a short talk the following day to the class. The idea is to expose them to the idea of different jobs, what they're working for, why they go to school.

I can only say it had a positive effect on my DS. He wouldn't listen to me and DH that he needs maths but he listened to the people where he did work experience and now does his homework.

I also have a masters and DH a phd so it was a shock that we had a DC who refused to engage at all at school and clearly will not want to go to uni. We are looking into apprenticeships and he is talking about running his own company. Our new neighbour runs his own plumbing company, he earns far more than DH ever will.

Perhaps they partly chose children whose parents have not had access to university, so they might not be able to give their kids much information about what university is like? Since you have a PhD (amazing achievement! I admire you) perhaps they thought you’d be able to support your kid yourself? Maybe the wrong call but they have to filter kids somehow I suppose!

Very good.

I don't know why you put motivated in ' ' marks like that... I was using the OP's description of her son, not labeling him.

My daughters is taking part in Brilliant Club. At her school is all pupil premium children on the course and def not necessarily the high achievers

Ugh. The idea that school is just about working for a job, particularly at primary age but all through really, is totally horrible. What happened to education, broadening your mind, the joy of learning?

I have two children- one who has done brilliant club annually since year 7. The other was never selected. The non “brilliant club” child is going to a Russell group university in a stem subject in 2026 (if the a levels go as they are predicted to- and I have no reason to think they won’t)

Brilliant club is a charity and a means to encourage children to access the highest level of education where they may not have thought that an avenue for them. It’s run by phd students who are hit and miss in what the topics/ research subject is about and how much they actually care about the whole thing (other than the inclusion of it on their CV) also varies. Last year every kid in dds group got a first- having read them all myself (I volunteer in the school so have access) the differences in spelling, grammar, independent research, analysis and evaluation between the final essays, and their comparative marks, betrayed the fact that the assessor hadn’t paid any attention to the actual work and had simply chucked a 70- 74 mark on all of them. Whereas the year before the assessor really cared and engaged with the kids and committed to helping develop their study skills.

In my experience it’s a nice to do thing, but certainly doesn’t make the difference between a child who has academic ability and a child who doesn’t.

That's a hideous name for the club. When I was in INFANT school (6/7) there was a group of around 4 kids who got taken on extra trips, represented the school at outside events etc. Thankfully, they weren't called the gifted club or anything similar. Out of the group, my bf did go to Oxford but the other 3 just had normal lives as far as I know and certainly weren't gifted in later school years. I can remember feeling a bit left out when they went off for special treats and trips and questioning it in my mind. However, as my mum said, you would have thought that they would have taken kids with less opportunities/from more deprived backgrounds. As I remember, the group in question mostly had parents who were teachers, lecturers etc. A g&t programme should be called something like "Additional education programme", nothing that sounds clubby, fun or appears to be openly favouring specific pupils whilst excluding others.

Why is university the only possible way forward? You make it sound as though it's either Oxbridge or a life of misery and penury (and presumably embarrassment for you). There are plenty of other very well paid and fulfilling opportunities. He might become a plumber, a baker, an electrician, a web designer, an air traffic controller or a commercial pilot amongst a host of other options! You should be identifying his strengths and interests and working on those instead being so one track minded.

My kids school has the Seren project which is a similar thing. DS1 was part of this from year 7 and is now in year 13.
DD is in year 12 and and the school still does UCAS fair, and other university prep.

What happened to education, broadening your mind, the joy of learning?

Do you seriously believe that's the effect school has on most children?

And don't delude yourself. Developing an effective workforce is the point of school.

about 50% of students go to
university. So on that basis do
you thinK he will go to uni?

these sorts of schemes are often based on both teacher recommendation and for those who are bright or very bright but do not have family experience of university or are pupil premium.

we ran the brilliant club maths programme for a while and one of the conditions of funding was that it had at least 50% pupil premium which meant the opportunity was offered to children who wouldn’t necessarily have got it just from how well they are doing in class.

as others have said it is a national scheme.

I was in teaching for many years. There are some kids who are super enthusiastic about academics and learning and soak up everything you give them. They ask for more work and ask lots of questions and do so much reading and watching tv on the topics they are interested in. Most schools will have some kind of programme to support these kids in exploring further into their interests.

it doesn’t sound like your child is like that. From what you have said, he is bright, but not obsessively interested in eg languages or music or ancient civilisations. So there isn’t a need there to be met. He’s not interested.

I’m a retired teacher of decades experience so I know it can have that effect. Making it more and more transactional and more and more about training not education is reducing the possibility though (which is one reason I retired early).
I don’t like being told I’m deluding myself much. I think if we educate people and move on to training much later we’ll get a much more effective workforce.

@NotinToTintin it's a programme for children on free school meals and/or disadvantaged children, because studies show they are much less likely to progress to higher education. It's about aspiration for that specific group (that's where the funding comes from) absolutely nothing to do with your son.

Apologies if this has been said already, haven't rtft.

There is more than one strand to the 'Brilliant Club' (or was, when I came across it) - one part is targeted at people with potential, but struggling to succeed (for whatever reason); the other part is for those picked out by teachers (in Year 7) as being academically superior to their peers. My DD's school ran the second part - and she wasn't picked either.

It was a lazy move on the part of a lazy, complacent school. They 'identified' the high-flyers (12 in each year - no more, no less), then handed over to the BC to manage, thereby ticking their box for 'G&T provision'. But in doing so, they managed to give the distinct impression that only those picked for the scheme were likely to do well academically, or to go to university at all. Given that it is currently possible to go to university with extremely low A-level grades (or alternatives), that seemed bizarre, and out of date.

Many years down the line now, did the people her school chose go on to do much better academically than the others? No.

Did it lower expectations amongst the other students and lead to bad feeling amongst the parents? Yes.

My DS did brilliant club in year 7. He is not pupil premium, both parents are uni educated but he was chosen to bring him out of his shell a bit. He got to go on trips to universities but there was also a work element to it. He had to produce an essay which followed a series of lessons run by someone from a university. He is now at university himself, but I don’t think doing brilliant club had any impact on this decision.

I would say that a child who does the bare minimum and nothing more is probably the brightest of the lot. He’s scamming the system to get through it as easily as possible. Leave the nerds to it, as long as he keeps reading and being curious your son will do fine. Universities on the whole are not that picky.

There shouldn't be a club. Picking 11 year olds as being for university or not at that age and making exclusive clubs for them is bizarre and offensive

Our comp offered stuff like this but it was more fluid and didn’t have a name like brilliant club.

Top third had a trip to Oxford and Cambridge the middle and lower third had other trips that the school thought might interest them. One of my kids was top third and went to uni while two of mine didn’t go to uni and are doing well. One of them is at college and really flying there. School careers advice is more tailored for those going into A-levels and uni where as college has advice for specific industries and jobs that are relevant to him and he’s taught by staff who have worked in the industry that he’s aiming for. You can definitely have a happy and successful life without going to uni but it sometimes takes time to find an interest and passion and year 7 is very young for that.

If he changes as he’s gets older and decides that uni is for him, it’s not like the school will write that he wasn’t in brilliant club in year 7 on his application. I’d be curious what the others did while brilliant club went on their trip and if there was some other trip planned for the others but don’t take it seriously if there’s not. There’s plenty more years of secondary left