to ask what the most important factors actually are in helping children do well academically

[somewherewest]

According to a poster over on the AIBU thread about grammar schools several essays suggest that "the most deciding factor of any child's academic achievement at school is the educational background of its mother and/or the number of books in the family home".

Is parental education genuinely such a decisive factor? If it is how do we go about trying to promote an educational 'level playing field' for all children?

All this discussion of talking to babies reminds me of a time when I took a train journey through a deprived part of the UK when DS1 was only a few months old.

I instinctively turned the buggy round so that DS1 could face me throughout the journey and talked to him non-stop. He wasn't even at the babbling stage, so it was obviously a very one-sided conversation, but I guess I chatted about what I could see out of the window, pulled faces at him, sang him nursery rhymes etc.

At the end of the journey an elderly gentleman came up to me and said how nice it was to see a mother talking to her baby. He took that journey regularly and said that most mothers just parked the buggy and didn't speak.

I was shocked. It wasn't a conscious decision on my part: it just wouldn't have occurred to me to ignore DS1, in the same way that I wouldn't ignore a travelling companion of my own age.

Now that the DCs are teenagers, I do sometimes wish they weren't quite so articulate as they are! Semantically they can tie me in knots.

Though in many cultures women strap babies and toddlers to their backs and there is no evidence that the lack of face to fact time makes any difference.

Hmm Greengrows set up is but a tiny percentage of the population and her ideals wouldn't work for all or even be wanted.

Plenty of people raise successful children without private education and living for careers.Plenty of people get the lives they want,which suit them,makes them happy and raise successful children.

My neighbours kids are all extremely successful- Oxbridge,excelling at sport,music etc.Lovely grounded,happy kids.State educated all the way at average local schools,sahm who has recently gone back to work for herself.Blissfully happy.She is my role model ie a happy family with goals and a life that works for them.

I hate this MN mantra from a few that unless you park your newborn into nursery and continue your highly lucrative career you and they are frankly doomed.It's horseshite.

• AmITwirly Tue 23-Sep-14 09:39:58

Thats great but I looked on train journeys as a time when my highly bouncy shall we say DD was calmer and liked to look around. I am with her 100% of the time, I would hate to think anyone judging me because for twenty mins i was not actually interacting with her.

Horseshite

I really think that the element that makes the biggest difference for future learning is the amount of time, talking, and engaged attention a child gets from 0-5.

That is why I am a SAHM - as I don't think nursery and pre-school can provide what's needed. It was a decision we made and I will go back to work after its all over!!!

No judgement for others however, that's just what I believe and what I did.

Lepetit whilst GG's views may irk you, it cannot be denied that cold hard cash has a huge impact on educational outcome.

It pays for houses in good catchment areas, tutros for grammar schools, fees for private schools, extra help where needed, extra curricular activities, undergraduate costs (loans are hard pushed to cover this), post graduate costs (very little fuinding for fees or living costs), post university qualifications and training and support during dreaded internships or piss poor starting salaries.

Parental nurturing is great. Of course it is. But it doesn't pay the bills.

Things have changed horribly in recent times. As a post industrial nation, education has become an arms race. Add the global pressure onto it (and ultimately on the job market) and we have a sellers market.

Rawls there is no evidence whatsoever, that staying at home or working has any long term impact on educational (or financial) outcomes for a child.

Being a SAHM is a nice thing to do, if one wants it of course .

Yes theWordFactor this thread has been enlightening. I was just my strong opinion when I had children though. No scientific basis WHATSOEVER!

Meant to add a as not looking to be combative at all!

I think not having a TV and other similar distractions really helps children to do well academically, because then they really focus on their studies.

Also it is partly genes. I have two siblings who are less than a year apart. One is a complete over achiever academically and one is at the bottom of the class. They were bought up exactly the same!

I think it's a mixture of things, genes from both parents, work ethic, money and time spent with a child on homework and reading.

I don't buy the need to have five hundred books in a house as we live in a digital age and kindles etc are getting very popular. Most schools have a library area, story time etc so children who don't have access to any reading material at least get some at school.

I'm a bit of a thickie but I was savvy enough to marry a super intelligent guy to provide my DC with good brains genes. It's worked out just well as all four DC are super brainy to reasonably brainy despite most other areas of schooling/ pushy parenting etc being very average.

We are quite booky, go to the theatre and watch university challenge too! Does that help???

We didn't have a TV Stepdoor as my dad was of the same opinion - it does rather set you apart in the playground, you can't join in any of the Oooh-did-you-see-thingy-last-night conversations and all the crazes and cultural reference points wizz straight past you so you do end up a bit socially isolated! I could bang on about Greek mythology for hours but no-one else knew what I was on about so it was all bit miserable!

Ah well there is much research into the effect of screen time on educational attainment.

Suffice it to say that lots of very high level achievers in STEM spend and awful lot of time on line .

That said, apparently Steve Jobs would not allow his DC access to technology. Not even the odd fiddle on an iPad .

I did v well academically (not a boast, sorry, I am an academic so I was always academically minded I guess). I also grew up in Asia where academic success is highly valued. I had a house full of books. My parents were both academics. We were not rich as academics are not well paid. My parents were strict- the only things I could ask for and get whenever I wanted were books and music. There was no pressure to learn and to do well, but there was discipline- ie finish your homework etc. Any interest I had was fostered- I went through a space/planets phase so I got taken to a planetarium, I remember they bought me lots of books on space. They read to me in multiple languages for a long time (I speak/read/write 4 languages), well into my teens. They indulged my fondness for sport- I swam and played badminton. We talked a lot about current affairs etc. Also my parents (both professors of English Lit) would occasionally talk about their work and research to me even at an age I understood nothing. I remember my father teaching me how to 'read' poetry, about metre and rhyme etc. Interestingly, they weren't mathematically minded and I was never as good at maths and science. Also they took an interest in my school work, often read the essays I wrote. In my country, engineers and doctors are worshipped, and people were horrified I went on to study History. Horrified. But it was my parents' attitude curiosity, encouragement and also a general insistence that while one needn't be excellent at everything, I still had to take pride in my academic work that made the difference. Anecdote is not data but in general I have tried to replicate this with DS.

Oh on the SAHM thing- my mother worked from when I was 3 months old and is far more successful professionally than my father. They both took an equal interest in my work though and often scheduled lectures and classes so that someone was always home when I came back from school etc.

There was a great programme on Radio 4 the other day which completely blew the theory that intelligence is down to genrs right out of the water! The link is entirely attitude/expectation. If teachers believe that the children in their class with well educated parents will do better, then they do. This is as true in the UK as it is for schools in America, China or India.

The single thing to help a child succeed is encouragement. They also need access to accurate information and a community of people to discuss things with.

Children already have brains, they just need adults to stop withdrawing permission from them to use them!

*genes, not genrs.

I think its a mix of genes, parent engagement and situation enabling.
I come from a super brainy family, cousins had much more parental engagement and their situation enabled learning much more then mine, yet I'd say we started off on a level pegging. So although I had the potential it wasn't supported or funded (Uni was a no go financially). Cousins did uni, masters etc.
I should have fought harder for it, but if your not given the basic building blocks and supports its harder

I had a positive attitude to school (although I didn't like secondary much myself) - never let DCs off unless doc apt or similar. Never criticized teachers (except once).
Encouraged them to be sociable as I'm quite shy.
Always had books in the house and read the newspaper, read to DCs but they didn't read a great deal until secondary school.

DC3 was slow to read, I took a less strict attitude assuming she wouldn't be academic, but in the end she went to uni too and did v well.

Neither of us DPs went to uni so although I don't remember flogging it there was prob always an underlying assumption that DC1 and 2 would go. 1DC did v well at uni, 1 did well, and one scraped through!

Children already have brains, they just need adults to stop withdrawing permission from them to use them!

Good line!

I really don't think you can pinpoint individual factors such as income in determining a child's outcome in life. It's much more collective than that imo.
On paper my son won't do well in life. Single parent household, relatively low income etc. My own parents left school at 14 with no qualifications, however they are intelligent and I vividly remember my mum being very hands on with homework. They did well in their careers and are comfortably retired in their mortgage free house.
My interest in academia and the world at large started after I left school and was sparked by the people I mixed with. I am now a mature student at uni.
As a LP of an only I spend a lot of time with ds just chatting, listening, reading and answering his many many questions. He's a very inquisitive insightful child and is doing well at school.
It's studies like these that spur me on to prove success can be achieved in the face of adversity.

I think the income thing might be a bit of a statistical red herring in that high earners in general tend to be well educated and will put more effort into doing the same for their children as it has worked out well for them so you have a double whammy of nature and nurture ... It's not so much the actual cash, rather the genes and the prioratising of academic achievement that get the results.

Most private schools tend to get such great results not because their teaching is vastly better but because they generally select for intellegence on admission and then ruthlessly cull the less able of those for sixth form entrance so they're left with only the really, really bright ones doing the A levels!

Given that children from immigrant families have been shown to do well alongside particular cultures I think the income thing is baloney too.

Poor children in China outstrip rich children in this country on league tables.