@Sammyp235
"you say you chose to only have one child, because you wouldn’t want to go through the stress of sending a second one to comp?
I mean theses placing emphasis on how important education is, but that quite an astonishing view to hold imo and places way over and above on education"
Well, I do not think you can imagine a classroom environment in which a large number of children or sometimes a few, have such disruptive behaviour that they consistently manage to turn the class upside down such that the well behaved children learn absolutely nothing.
The disgusting behaviour of the disruptive children is something they have brought into schools from their dysfunctional backgrounds. Schools have found it next to impossible to exclude these dysfunctional children for x number of reasons.
I have been in several schools where I have quietly told one or two well behaved children in a class where their education was being severely compromised, to tell their mums to move them to another school.
When I returned to those schools and to my shock and horror the well behaved kids were still there in the same classes, I asked them why they were still there. They said they had told their mums. Some said their mums had tried to move them but could not. My heart sank ... If I had some sort of supernatural power I would I have moved those children myself immediately.
So, I have exercised the only supernatural power I have to ensure any potential child of mine will not end up in such a situation by having only one child, who went to a highly selective grammar school, however, you have found this quite astonishing.
The stress of those good children in those comprehensive schools induced massive stress in me, talk less of it were my own child in any of those situations. I would just have a heart attack.
"Regarding the concept of intelligence not being a natural aptitude but rather something that comes with practice, again I find that notion quite shocking too ...
If intelligence isn’t innate then why don’t all the kids in a class of 30 get the same marks? Why are they put in sets on ability, if ultimately they are learning the exact same thing so why are there marks not the same?"
Some parents have already enrolled their kids in age appropriate phonics classes, maths classes, and music lessons way before they start in primary. They have bought phonics and maths software for their children to playing with. They have taken their kids to the library and read to them frequently. Some children's parents are primary school teachers, or know primary school teachers. Primary school teachers are experts are developing their child's intellect pre-school.
If you start learning a musical instrument at an early age you will have a head start in maths, as you will rapidly develop many areas of the brain which will facilitate learning in the future, not least your grasp of fractions which will facilitate your learning of decimals later on, etc. Some children learn two musical instruments.
Parents who expose their children to all these things do not wait to find out if their child has "innate intelligence" before deciding to invest in the child's future or not. The child just grows up to be highly intelligent.
By the time such children start school they are already way ahead of their peers sitting in the same classroom as them.
Since all this costs money, some people then decide to have only one child, as the child is going to continue be heavily invested in throughout their educational career engaging in multiple age appropriate activities as time goes on. Another child will just lead to the division of time and reasources, of which most people except the rich have limited amounts.
Children who go to some prep schools do not at all sit in classrooms of 30 children for a start. And some children go to pre-prep ...
By the time any of the above format of child reaches secondary school the gap between them and their peers has become humongous and unbridgeable.
In my daughter's primary school, only one other child's parents were doing the same. So my daughter went to a super selective girls grammar school and the boy went to a superselective boys grammar, and that was it out of a class of 30 children.
The boy has an older sister who went to a comprehensive school. I asked their mother why the girl hadn't gone to a grammar school and she said that they were not aware of all the preparation that had to be done. By the time they realised it was too late, as a result she did not pass the eleven plus.
I do sympathise deeply with the situation regarding your daughter. Hopefully she has good comprehensive school to go to without children with dysfunctional behaviour, and is streamed to the highest sets while you await news on the grammar school front.
Don't leave anything to her "innate ability" as you have a degree yourself, which means there are certain subjects you can help her with. Keep an eagle eye on her end of term/end of year reports and respond accordingly. If she starts slacking as all children do, sit down and do the work with her until she starts doing it herself again. Don't let her lag behind one jot, and if you can, organise at least one extracurricular activity for her if you haven't done so already, it will make a massive difference ... .
The problem is this whole state grammar school business is somewhat secretive to people who have no idea they should be keeping a watching brief on procedure and timing. It has not been your fault. So relax a little!
If you do all this, then you will be like the hard headed people on this thread who's children went to comprehensives and still ended up in RGU's