If bright children do well wherever they go, why is everyone so desperate to get their children into the highest performing grammars/private schools?

[chuckb4ss]

I don't believe that if you put a child in a poorly performing comprehensive school that requires improvement, that they would come out with the exact same A level grades that they would if they had attended one of the top private/grammar schools. (Not saying that A levels are the be all and end all, that's a separate discussion).

I hear all the time that if your child is naturally bright, they will do well wherever they go. If that is the case, then why the competition to get children into the best performing schools?

Malyis every day child needs a school that will carry them through if those amazing supportive parents die, divorce, turn to drugs, get depression.... Etc.

Our education system shouldn't be reliant on parents.

And by "persistent bullying"

I'm aware bullying can happen in any school

I mean bullying that is linked to achievement and wanting to do well.

This is not a bullying factor in schools were achievement is a positive not a negative and success is a whole school attitude.

Bright children don’t do well wherever they go to school, what an idea! Boredom undermines them, hormones, anxiety, crap teachers, bullying, lack of direction, poverty of low expectations etc.

People want to go the higher achieving schools as they’re higher achieving for a reason. It’s aspirational.

I went to a very poor high school where I got the best results in my year, but the sort of school where top grades are incredibly rare. My results were just good enough for me to get a graduate job where many of the applicants are oxbridge privately educated etc etc. I would say there can be quite a big difference between someone like me who is actually fairly bright, and someone who is average but has been schooled to get excellent grades - soft skills may be better but very much a struggle to do a job that requires a fair amount of intellect. For this reason I wouldn't put my children in private school to boost their results - I can only imagine a lifetime of feeling out of their depth academically and essentially faking it.

IN a sense I wanted to buy a peer group of people who were the top 20% by IQ, from stable homes, reasonably well off and who were committed to working hard and where 100% of the class would go to good universities as lots of teenagers just copy their peers at that stage, not do what their parents say.

I went to a school like this and hated it. I didn't get to meet the other 80% of society and didn't know about what options were open to me. Being academic and getting a 1st from a RG uni doesn't mean you will enjoy a high-flying well-paid corporate job - I have had more breakdowns than a Fiat 500 because it turns out I hate everything about office jobs. What if your kids don't want to go to uni but want to be a builder/plumber/tailor/tree surgeon/chef? What will you do then? Life isn't about having "senior manager" in your job title and earning 6 figures.

Although you can definitely earn 6 figures with a trade

I agree OP. I was a bright child, but went to a rubbish school (Primary was ok) I was bored and was not encouraged to learn. And (sorry if this offends) We weren’t separated by ability for years so I was in classes with 11 year olds who could not read properly.

I now live in cheap housing so mine can go private for this reason.

I’ve done ok I’m a commercial property solicitor so I earn an average to decent wage. (It’s not as well paid as people think!!)

I think that brighter kids will do proportionally better but it’s not the same. I went to a low performing comp, and was the kid who got high grades and went onto Cambridge - it was a huge deal locally. Through school I was known not just by other kids but parents as the ‘clever girl’. I taught myself the A&B grade work at A level as the teacher was focussed on getting people through with Cs. I was horrifically bullied, sometimes even by teachers but mostly by other kids, am not in touch with anyone from school and suffer from massive social anxiety now. Going to uni where people didn’t hate me for doing homework or trying, and where my identity could be based upon something other than being ‘a swot’ was a revelation.

I would like my kids to go to a comp with a percentage of children receiving higher grades, or a grammar. My DD in particular is very bright but quiet and my motivations are based upon her mental health and not going through what I did. I don’t want her to be suicidal, lonely and think everyone hates her for 7 years. Not because I care about the social class of kids, cachet or anything like that. A strong comprehensive system that meets all kids needs and allows children to develop and understanding that people are different and respectful relationships is ideal in my mind. These however are pretty rare, and I want my kid to be happy and not ostracised.

Our education system shouldn't be relying on brilliant parents.

But the children of engaged parents do well wherever they go.

Not bright children. Engaged parents.

If we follow children from KS2 in data, what can be seen is that children who go to private secondaries, and grammars? on average achieve 0.3 of a GCSE grade higher than children who went to an "average" comprehensive. If they attended one which is classified as OFSTED outstanding there is no difference. As the majority of schools ate good to outstanding rated by ofsted this proves that, on average bright children do, actually, do well.

The better the school is, the less effort parents need to make with their kids’ education and the more they can blame school when their child ‘fails’.

I think it is really not so straightforward as saying bright = does well anywhere. Does that mean fails to do well = not bright? I don't think so. In my (certainly limited) experience, bright + the right personality will do well anywhere, and I know children like that among family and friends. I also have a highly intelligent child who has done well but not reached their potential in a good state comprehensive. The school offers quite a lot to support students, but the students must take it up. This child had a couple of hours homework over the week when his friend at a local top private school had more than this per evening, and it was checked whether it was done, and marked and parents contacted if it wasn't up to scratch. Comprehensive school child's parents would only find out about homework in school reports. So, yes, some children did very well in the comprehensive school and it would have been unnecessary to send them to private school. But the other child, had they been sent to the private crammer, had the potential to do so much better. And both children are very bright.

I have a friend who teaches in a rough school. Drugs, knives, sexually active 13 year olds. Parents have been banned from school premises for punching teachers.

It’s heartbreaking to hear about young lives wasted like this, but I would not want my child to go to that school.

Of course bright children do better at academic schools than non academic schools. Obviously.

I was a ‘bright child’, did my GCSEs at a failing school, since closed. My maths teacher told me “I’m only teaching up to grade C, if you want higher then sit in the corner, here’s the textbook.” Obviously I did not get a A in maths, and I’m very proud of the B I got, which was self-taught. Got a string of Bs at that school. Changed schools, got a string of As at A-level. Would have loved to have been at a grammar/private.

And it’s bloody lonely being the only naturally academic kid in the class.

Eldest dd came out of local comp (requires improvement) with 7s and 8s. Sure if she’d gone to grammar an hour away she would have got 8s and 9s - she’s now at the grammar for 6th form, as she felt she’d now be able to handle the journey. (No 6th form at comp).

She had a fab time at the local comp, lovely peer group, lots of after school activities. Don’t regret our decision at all.

So she did well enough

@Sallysaved @Mummy0ftwo12, thank you, yes, she is an incredible human being, despite the lot that life has thrown at her, but I just wanted to emphasise the point that Grammar schools can still be the saving of poor, working class children, despite the gaming by the wealthy middle classes. I consider that my DD has every right to attend the school which best suits her needs (the pastoral care is superb) and her intellectual capability.

I dont think it's to do with grades. Bright, motivated kids will get the grade wherever. It's the school environment. If you have a class of clever, motivated kids you're more likely to have debates. They will get used to competition and that can be good for their confidence and prepare them for certain careers.
Also, schools churning out Oxbridge and medical school applicants year on year are more likely to provide support for the process, partly because parents expect it. In schools with just the odd applicant support is less rigorous (of course lots of great comprehensives do do this, I'm just generalising).

Drugs and sexual activity aren't just for rough comps.

As anyone who has taught at a grammar or private will tell you.

Well, they're less likely to get regular kickings for being a brainiac/neek/geek/whatever the latest pejorative noun for intelligence is.

They're less likely to wonder when they're ever going to get some work done because the class is in disarray over yet another fight.

They're less likely to get stabbed in the middle of a lesson by somebody who thinks it funny to see if they can make a 'clever kid' bleed.

They're likely to have teachers who have the time to see the work people are doing, rather than firefighting the fights, stabbings and throwing chairs around because they've been asked to write some words on paper.

They're expected and supported to do well.

The school is more likely to have facilities under 48 years old.

The kids from families with no interest in education, can't or won't support further education and barely manage to feed them tend to be noticed and encouraged/supported to use education to get out of that life.

I went to a sink school. I tried to carry on studying, but it was refused and nobody thought it was worth helping me, because I was just another 'could have done so well if she wasn't from that background' kid.

So the parents you are talking about put the effort in because they actually give a shit about their children.

Malyis what about general happiness, finding their tribes? Like minded people? Getting the most happy wonderful childhood with brilliant friends?

It doesn't all come down to grade crunching does it?

See what you are describing there is not your average comprehensive, in essence trying to make it out like its utterly terrible schools in dire straits or private or grammar. In fact what you are describing is somewhere that would be shut down.

This isn't the case for the vast,vast majority of parents. However, lots of parents like to pretend it is.

There is nothing wrong with wanting the best for your children, but making horror stories about state schools to justify private or big pushes flr grammar is not the way to go about it.

@Sallysaved why do you think children won't find like minded people and make good friends?

I see purple never came back to clarify whether the disdain comment was a typo.

Even if it was, that right there is why I don't want my kids to go to a school where academic achievement is the only quality that is prized. Or where other pupils are looked down upon for being of a lower social class. I went to a bog standard comprehensive. I got 10 A*s at GCSE and 4 As at A level. I'm a barrister. I could not have done better academically at a selective school. What I got from my comprehensive - and what I saw time and time again was lacking in people I met at Oxford and have since met at the Bar - was experience of getting along with people from a broad range of social backgrounds. No-one was rich, but a lot of people were poor. When I got to Oxford, I saw privately educated peers chucking food at the walls of restaurants and laughing about the fact that the waiters would have to clean it up. Clearly not everyone who went to private school behaves in that way. Probably the vast majority don't. But just as some of you don't want to take the risk of lower grades, I want to minimise the risk of my kids turning into dicks.

She is still learning disdain for her less bright peers.

Lovely, @purpleartichoke 🙄

I considered this when looking at secondary schools (she didn't go to or try for any selectives or private in the end) and I realised I wanted her to go to a decent school because while she might do academically OK at a less good one, there's the issue of how good an experience it would be from her. One thing I've gathered from a lot of teachers is that in challenging schools a lot of the disruption is so boring and so repetitive - being stuck in lessons where the same kids day after days are wasting time droning 'Sir, Sir, I forgot my pen, can you lend me a pen?' 'Miss, Miss, I don't get it, I don't get it, you're not a very good teacher are you Miss?' 'Miss, Mr X said I could keep m y coat on, I shouldn't have to take my coat off'. God, it sounds tedious!

So I certainly wanted to make sure she didn't get anywhere where hours would be lost to dull time-wasting because it would be a miserable experience.

I was one of those bright kids who went to a crap school but ‘did well anyway’. In fact I’m often used as that example... “Well look at Knobbly, she went to Shitschool and she has done really well” blah blah blah. And, yes, I do have a degree and good job now as a Physio. But I honestly think I’d be a doctor if I’d gone to a better school. Not because my grades would have been better (I got 11 A’s at GCSE and 2A’s & 1B at A level at my shit school/college anyway) but because my expectations of myself would have been higher.

I went to a poorly performing secondary school. Very low on the league table in a very deprived area. My parents are working class. Nobody before my older brother in my family had gone to university. All of my aunties/uncles and cousins before us went straight to work after school into menial jobs. So no family examples of professional or even semi-professional job roles.

At least 50% of my friends at school had parents who didn’t work at all. Those who did were in factories and warehouses. Literally none of my friends parents had professional job roles. I have nothing against working class people of course but it meant that I just wasn’t ever exposed to people with experience of being professionally successful or having any real drive or ambition to be successful. That’s just how everybody was.

I was a bright kid and worked hard but was largely ignored by teachers because they were busy doing behaviour management. Thankfully it didn’t impede my progress. But I found school incredibly boring. Extra curricular activities were very basic. I wasn’t bullied by any means but my keenness to learn was kind of joked about.

Despite my grades at A Level it honestly never even occurred to me that I could consider a ‘higher’ profession such as medicine or law. (I did Biology, Chemistry and English so was geared more toward medicine) I knew I was bright and I think I realised I could apply for Oxford/Cambridge with my grades but it just seemed so utterly alien and out of reach. I didn’t even consider it. Nobody ever suggested that I could or should apply for anything other than the local Polytechnic.

As it happened I didn’t apply for uni straight away and trained to be a massage therapist. That teacher suggested I upgrade to sports therapy but when I looked into it I realised I had the grades to do physio and it was better paid and seemed like a more secure job within the NHS. It meant applying for uni so I still felt a bit out of my comfort zone and I got a few raised eyebrows from friends and family when I applied (“bit posh innit?” Etc) But it was a great decision and that’s what I’ve been doing for 20 years now. Very happy in my job.

However.... with hindsight, and having worked alongside many doctors over the years I KNOW I could have done medicine. If I had just gone to a better school, had been exposed to a wider variety of people (ie not ALL lower working class) I think it would have at least occurred to me to be an option anyway.

And this is something Im thinking about a lot nowadays. My daughter, currently in primary school will have the choice of the crappy school I went to, a much better secondary 20 mins further away, the best secondary in the county 45 mins away or 2 private schools. Of course, she has me to open her eyes to all her possibilities so maybe she would still be fine in my old school, but honestly I don’t think I could bare the thought of her going there.