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!

Debating and public speaking. 100%.

Not just debating clubs/teams, but lots of lessons will be structured around a debate.

And there are so many opportunities for public speaking - my kids' school has a "speaker's corner" where every lunchtime, pupils will gather, and take it in turns to stand up and speak about an issue that is important to them.

I would encourage DC to speak with other adults from a young age, and when doing so to speak clearly rather than mumble, and to look directly at the person rather than put their heads down. Get them to speak to adults who they don't know that well eg work colleagues rather than family.
Encourage good manners.
If I had my time again, I would've sent DC to somewhere like Stagecoach to build upon the confidence factor. And would've done so from a young age when they are not quite so self conscious.

Practical suggestions for helping kids with confidence and social skills

Drama
Choir
Orchestra

Sports - cricket, rugby etc Martial arts. Running club, canoeing, scouts, guides, brownies, cubs

Opportunities to talk with people of all ages, shake hands etc

...And my kids' school is a private girls' school that is incredible at instilling confidence.

I don't recognise what a PP has said about girls' schools at all.

My daughter is at private school my son is at an academy. She is in a class of 8 in a year of 17 they all take turns to do presentations, lead debates and lead the sports teams. They do a lot of expressive art and are in all the plays and shows. It is expected that they participate in everything. He is in a class of 33 in a year of 98 and even those who want to be in shows etc have fewer chances of participating.

Think of it this way - at my old school (think Bash Street) a child entering a poetry competition would have had their lives made merry hell.

I took my foot off the gas study-wise as swots and know it all were bullied. It was easier to blend into the background and not draw attention to on to yourself.

Better opportunities. And higher expectations of the kids.

When I went to my shit school, awful behaviour, terrible results, it was seen as geeky and embarrassing to be interested in learning. Reading books made you a wanker.

Just watching a tv show atm on BBC2 about grammar schools (admittedly not the same as a private school but a step up from a regular school), the low achieving kids are told they’re entering into mandatory early morning extra revision sessions to get them up to scratch. A bunch of kids went to the office to be told this and remarked ‘I was going to go anyway’ when told it was compulsory. Another group were disappointed to learn they weren’t allowed to attend as they were just above the threshold!

It’s a whole different ethos. Kids aren’t allowed to fall behind and when they do there are resources in place to help. They attract the best teachers because they can afford to pay more and teachers will choose private schools where they can focus on teaching not behaviour management if they’re able to, who wouldn’t? They have more money to invest in more engaging teaching practices, better actual resources. Is a child going to be more engaged in a science lesson where they have access to laboratory grade apparatus, or a music lesson where they all have their own keyboard to play on, smaller class sizes, or in lessons where there are huge class sizes, no apparatus so the kids who learn from doing are stuck only listening to a teacher talk or reading books?

There are so, so many reasons and differences.

At my school I promise you it was impossible to learn, because the behaviour was so bad you couldn’t focus. From a very young age I remember thinking ‘what a waste of time, what’s the point in being at school if you can’t learn’. Kids in private school tend to have more engaged educated parents, they know their parents are paying for their education so perhaps value it more and face bigger consequences at home for squandering the opportunity.

My son is 15 and has always been at private school. He's very confident and so are his friends. Obviously I have no way of knowing what they would be like, had they been to state school.

I think it's down to lots of things:

1. Normally very educated parents who are confident themselves
2. Public speaking from a very early age
3. Elocution lessons
4. Regular trips to the theatre, opera, etc, with the school and with the family
5. Traveling: seeing the world from an early age gives you a sort of confidence which is quite unique
6. Debate classes where children have to come up with arguments for and against different topics
7. A definite sense of entitlement, but also pride of the school they belong to. Especially when representing the school while playing against another school.

That's just a few ideas. I grew up in a very different environment and I can see how my own son is much more confident than I was at his age.

Stopped too soon. Thats why I think they are more confident.

Spot on AsAProfessionalFekko. Very discouraging as a primary aged kid who loved reading to be called a geek and bullied for reading a book during reading time.

Agree with pp that if you want to help a kid with confidence get them enrolled in a drama class.

Extra curricular activities. Get them extra tutoring, so they do very well educationally. Extra sporting clubs, holiday sporting 'camps', perhaps some theatre training, drama lessons or singing to help with presentation and voice projection.

It's exhausting because you will have to do it all yourself though, which means dragging them from pillar to post.

I remember the girls all desperate to look older (must've been about 14) and buying cheap costume jewellery as fake engagement rings. I just wanted to go to galleries and read books at that age!

I’m not sure I know many arrogant people who went private. Well, I do know one absolute knob, but I think he’d have been that way whatever

I do know quite a few self possessed people who went to private school. And the same quality in students from state school, although on balance, I think I know fewer from the latter.

However the confident ones are all ok with putting themselves into uncomfortable situations. So maybe it’s forcing yourself to do stuff no matter on.

I went to private school and am not massively confident - neither am I successful in my career. I'm pretty average really. Lots of my state school friends are very confident, articulate and successful. That came more from their upbringing and genes than the school they went to.

Constant encouragement
Rewarding success of any kind
Confident parents
Range of life experiences
Told they can achieve anything
Pride in themselves and their school
A feeling that they are “the elite”

I agree with confident parents and also confident teachers who are likely to be well qualified and have high expectations. I think that it's also the friendships made with equally bright children. Competition and peer encouragement in learning.

This is a really interesting topic. I'm very interested in the replies, as someone that would love to privately educate my children, but realistically probably won't be able to afford to with fees being what they are these days.

I have a theory here. I went to a state school, one that was quite mixed. It was in a fairly well to do village but also had intake from other areas nearby with a very different demographic. In my experience, the lowest common denominator always dictated the pace. Classes were designed around the least intelligent, not the brightest. Discipline was quite lax, one or two disruptive pupils had the power to completely derail the lesson. Ignorance was celebrated among the pupils, or definitely wasn't seen as cool to be intelligent at all. Thankfully I had a good group of friends and we ignored all that. But that was circumstance. I can't help but wonder what more I or any of my friends might have been able to achieve in a different culture where we were pushed a bit more and achievement was celebrated. I do worry about my children having similar experiences, hopefully we will make up for any of that at home and they'll be wise enough not to fall in with the wrong people. We can't afford private fees I don't think although I will look into it when the time comes. We have paid extortionate amounts to buy a house in the catchment area for some top rated state schools and hopefully that will be enough.

Reading this with interest. It’s not money or a sense of entitlement ffs!
Obviously it depends greatly on individual schools private and state.
Confident, successful parents could help but could as easily be some kids downfall.
If the school has a motto/philosophy of instilling guts and balls to go out and face the world while remaining kind and empathetic with a good moral compass, then great.
If the school is trying to install these qualities but is battling daily against bad behaviour, disinterest and worse then it’s going to be a damn sight harder to achieve.

Following on from what others say - the no where to hide thing stuck out. You arw used to being exposed and dealing with it - means in normal life you are used to talking your way out of things.

Also what people say about small dinner parties. Da eats on a table of 6 with a teacher and says grace every day. He eats at a “dinner party” with his peers once a year minimum (he’s 6, this social commitment increases each year)

Lastly, for me - being at boarding school, I had to deal with things myself. My parents weren’t around for me to have them sort my problems out for me. Obviously this isn’t always great, but I have always said boarding school kids will always be able to talk themselves out of crap situations - because they had to. There was no one else to bail them out!

Kids on this tv programme are saying that they feel at their regular state secondary there’s less competition, whereas at the grammar sixth form it’s a competitive environment so the kids drive each other to do better and better.

And you can see the difference between parents. There’s a mum on who is clearly educated encouraging her child to take a challenging A Level and telling her she can do it, contrast that with parents who don’t give a toss about their child’s education and encourage them to defy their teachers at every turn. I think there are parents who are and aren’t supportive of education at regular state schools, but at private schools that balance is weighted much much more towards parents caring very deeply because they’re likely to have had an education themselves (to have careers to afford private fees) and refuse to see their kids wasting an expensive education.

There are some good ideas here, thanks everyone for your food for thought, I think most are correct. All these experiences in debating clubs and with public speaking surely are important skills for confident children.

Children at some private schools all develop plummy accents as well. They get this from each other and also their teachers, if they do not have exposure to this at home.
I think that this goes with their arrogance for some too. Not just the accent, but the delivery. I also think that this can be more of a southern thing too.

Good manners NEVER go amiss though for anyone, OP.

I met a teacher from a private school that gave a number of bursaries to kids from pretty deprived backgrounds. The teacher, who had previously been in the army, said part of his job was to teach these bursary kids the army officers handbook as this gave them all the knowledge they needed to cope with the full range of social situations.

Parenting

I don't think it's a private/state thing, I think it's more to do with the size of the school. (In which case, private schools do tend to be smaller so I can see where you're coming from).

Schools with a better student - teacher ratio are naturally more nurturing in a sense that everyone knows each other and that provides more security.