to ask how do private schools produce such "confident" kids / adults and how I can do it at home?

[dragontwo]

Ok, I have my reservations about private schools, but I recognise that often they produce kids / adults with high self confidence and self assurance.

I want to know how they do this, how they drill this confidence into them, and how I can replicate any beneficial aspects of this at home into my own kid (state schooled)?

What do they say / do / teach that encourages them to be so confident and expect success?

I know there are down sides to everything but I'm just thinking about good ideas I can help my kid. NB I'm no tiger mother and do my best to encourage my kid as it is already but just looking for ideas and general thoughts on how it's done!!

Just curious!

DD went to ordinary state primary and selective independent secondary. They do make them speak up, debate, encourage plenty of extracurricular. A bit difference is the behaviour, very few problem children by comparison and the kids are quite mature. So maybe there is more confidence to be yourself.

At my school we were told both in class and during assemblies that we were the best of our age group in the country. I was very happy to believe this age 11-15 but then self-doubt did start to creep in as GCSEs approached and I knew I’d have to get straight As or be a “failure”. When we then did all get straight As it seemed as if the teachers were right!

We were also taught in small classes and everyone was encouraged to speak out and have an opinion.

Everyone had a strong work ethic so it was seen as “cool” to do well and everyone tried hard, as opposed to schools where people who study hard and answer questions in class are ridiculed and called boffin or teacher’s pet.

Also yes yes yes to the parents all being very confident - probably mostly down to money and being in positions of power in their professional lives.

The local boys grammar repeatedly tells the children they are the best 5% that the country has to offer.

They come out confident (sometimes arrogant) or wrecks!

When I ran a club, children attending basically went to two schools, one was state and one private but both high achieving. When set a task both groups did well, but the state school ones seemed to focus more on what they got wrong and seemed to be embarrassed to say what they got right or not even consider it. The private school girls would perfectly happily talk about the positives and negatives of their work. I'm wondering if private schools celebrate success a bit more?

And can you name one private school student who has no extra tuition, musical lessons etc

@CheeryMom - I can name loads!
but lets not derail this thread any longer. I can see this is going to need a thread all of its own.

Haven't RTFT yet but agree it's:

Public speaking opportunities x n
Small class sizes, so nowhere to hide
Drama
Music
Sport
Expectation of conventional social skills - formal tea parties, dinners, chapel services etc

Plus money, travel, big house, staff, and many of the things that go with privilege.

Money and being taken to just about every country there is on holiday

🤣🤣🤣 oh yes, all very rich with servants. Absolutely.

Also, thinking more about the students of a well-known private school I'm familiar with: teachers talk to the students as equals, so that the children get plenty of conversational practice with a range of adults of that particular social/economic class. And because the adults listen to them with interest, the students develop a sense of themselves as interesting, charming and worth listening to.

Not necessarily the case at all private schools, obviously.

Expectation of conventional social skills - formal tea parties, dinners, chapel services etc

Another good point. Having experience of a range of social situations makes it far easier to feel confident when faced with something new. I vaguely remember reading about reasons some state school pupils don't apply to Oxbridge and one of the issues was a belief that they wouldn't fit in because they had no idea about stuff like formal dining etiquette.

Im an HCA & i watched with envy the very confident posh young female junior doctors at work who clearly went to private or grammar schools.

Their confidence & deportment made them very attractive so I decided to copy them in certain ways - just by improving my posture & body language to be like theirs I feel more confident & more attractive.

I don't copy their accents though!

Yes being spoken to like adults as if they matter
Dd2 at private school has a one to one with a tutor every week where they discuss things - her personal life, things in the news, films they've seen etc

Manners. Formal social occasions. Church services.

I can't think of anything comparable at dd3ss state school. Yes they have a debating club but not many kids do it.

One other thing that helps is if you're part of a church. Our kids have had the experience of caring intelligent adults who are happy to speak to them as equals and to debate religiously/theological topics. They are in the church school performances etc. Surrounding your kids with people who value education is key.

I WillSurive, agree though even thinking of going to see a play or a show or even sitting at dinner, you're right though another thread, many new threads here I imagine, fascinating though. Promise to write that book when I retire though. Thanks for all posters been a great discussion.

Not sure as never been to one but dd goes to state school and they do pretty well. They focus a lot on leadership, confidence and kindness. (coveys healthy habits)

Posture been mentioned a few times. DD's school did weekly dance lessons in infants in addition to PE and games and I know a lot of private schools offer ballet. Good posture, not slouching all gives air of confidence.

I think you need to aim for a combination of internal self-belief, and external polish, because they feed each other.

For self-belief then as PP have mentioned, and teachers I know say, find something the child is good at, whatever that may be. That leads to increased confidence generally, and greater engagement in other areas of school life when they realise that to do the thing they are best at, they will also need some additional skills. Obviously you have to throw as many opportunities at them as possible, to find the right one.

I'm highly academic, but had a really enlightening experience at school, when we were forced to do a course in a practical subject for which I have no aptitude at all. It was purgatory for me (and the staff, I suspect). Then I realised that for some of the less academic kids in my class, nearly all classes at school felt like that to them. No wonder they didn't have any motivation to study. To try and try and still not understand/be any good is utterly grim. But everyone is good at something, you've just got to find it. Some of those same less academic kids really excelled in this particular practical class, and this raised their confidence and engagement. It also meant that with a career in mind, they understood that it was worth working at some additional skills - maths, writing etc - to help them in their future business. Having a future in mind, whether it's as a doctor or a plumber, also provides huge motivation and self-worth in itself.

Then there's the external polish. The disadvantaged kids I volunteer with, and occasional junior colleagues, are really worried that they don't know how to behave at smart restaurants, flagging down taxis, travelling nationally and internationally, checking in at hotels, greeting people of rank, manners at conference dinners, dress codes, networking skills etc. And if they don't meet expectations there will always be unkind people around who will treat them differently, and that makes everything worse. If you can give your child this external polish by challenging them to be independent, taking them places, exposing them to all the above, then it takes away a huge amount of fear, and boosts their confidence that they 'will know what to do'.

(Of course, this is not always possible, financially, or if the parents themselves are uncomfortable in such environments. I think there's still a lot you could do for free though. I just wish I could condense a childhood like that and instil it in my disadvantaged students in the 9 months I have to boost their esteem before sending them out into the world.)

If we had like buttons, Pollaidh, I'd like your two posts many times over.

Everybody I know who goes to our local private, has extra external tutoring too, kumon, and great parental support.

No one in my private school did outside tutoring, because the whole point was that you were paying school fees for tuition! If a pupil was struggling then teachers would do 1:1 sessions at lunchtime, why would anyone need to get external tutoring?

Parental support - yes absolutely

So, it's absolutely bleeding obvious the alevel results are going to be top notch, and I'm frankly staggered that anyone attributes these results to the superior quality teaching. I think they saw you coming.

The A-level results are the easy bit - in an incredibly selective school then the pupils are going to get high grades unless they really fuck up

In my private school, the teachers covered the syllabus as quickly as possible - the aim was to do the stuff that was needed for exams, to make room for lesson time on stuff that would academically stretch us. The aim was to be covering material far outside the core syllabus - at GCSE in many subjects we were covering A-level stuff, and at A-level it was very much about university preparation for critical thinking, and widening our horizons. Because everyone was very able the teachers weren't having to teach to the lowest common denominator, and weren't having to worry about OFSTED. It was about challenging us and for them it was far more intellectually stimulating to be having lessons run like Oxford tutorials rather than drilling us in A-level prep.

The single biggest factor on how a child will turn out is their up bringing i am afraid these schools are not Magic half the work is done before they arrive
They are told they will be primemister one day their parents see no shame in achievement and encourage competition

There are a high number of kids at independent schools with significant anxiety problems, eating disorders or self-harm
This simply is not true. Of course this exists, but nowhere near the percentage that is often quoted on mumsnet.

It is true, I work with the school counsellors who are dealing with it.
I never claimed any percentage, I'm not suggesting the percentage is higher than the state sector, but it's definitely not lower either. Considering all the advantages the private school kids have and the work that goes into them, these problems should be much lower than the state, and it isn't.

The pressure for good grades is significantly higher in the independent sector.

No one in my private school did outside tutoring
The majority of pupils in private schools that I have worked in (I have worked in many) have had outside tuition. Almost all in the year before entry exams.

I'm not claiming that independent schools are bad, they have a lot going for them and there are some amazing opportunities provided in them, but they are not some kind of holy grail of schooling. They are disastrous for many kids.

I went to a private school (definitely not rich at all) I'm not confident at all, very few school mates are confident, many are very insecure, a few fake it very well and the ones who are confident just seem to naturally shine, they are beautiful people on the inside and I expect they would be like that whatever school they went to.

Prosperity,sense of entitlement,habit and habituation,all contribute to private school ethos