To ask was it all worth it for DD 1 to attend a super selective grammar school when she is so down on herself because she won't be going to Oxbridge like her three best friends.e

[mainstreet]

DD 1 YR 13 is hoping to get offers from Warwick , Bath or Surrey Universities. However, despite potentially having the choice of three great Uni's is feeling extremely low this evening, unbelievable i know but with three of her closet friends likely to get offers from Cambridge and Oxford is feeling 'stupid!

Do these extra selective girls schools create the idea for normally very bright girls that if you are not Oxford/Cambridge bound you are mediocre .
Out of sympathy DD 2 year 10 who is at the same Essex Grammar school as now informed me she intends leaving the school next year and will not go to University.

DD 2 won't be leaving education until the end of YR 13 or 18 and half !

OP, in the nicest possible way, I think you all need to give your head a wobble.

Firstly, your younger DD is only in Year 10 and predicted grades are not even accurate.

Your elder daughter chose not to apply to Oxbridge so, it is what it is. Why all the recriminations now?

My son is in a school that achieves about 90-95% grades 7-9 at GCSE every year. Has he at times struggled with feeling very average at best? Yes he has.

But you know what, if the competition doesn’t hit them at school, it sure will In later life. At least they’re less likely to be phased by a competitive job application process, for instance, or job rejections. Resilience is part of education. I’ve often had to have the talk with my son that “comparison is the thief of joy,” etc etc and nobody else’s grades matter. But actually, the truth is, that I do credit DS’ friends with his GCSE results - more than the teachers This is because he was so worried about being the only one to get 6s, that he ended up achieving 10 grade 9s and he couldn’t believe it. More than anything, it’s been a useful lesson in life, that hard work pays off in the end.

So now he has friends going on and in about Harvard applications etc (which is a whole other ballpark)! and sometimes it does get on his nerves. He can get overwhelmed at times. But he knows he’s fortunate to have the education he’s having and there’s no point blaming the school. If he gets the predicted grades after Easter, he’ll have a shot at Oxbridge, but he’s not comparing himself to other friends who are applying because nobody else is applying for his subject so it’s irrelevant. He’ll choose 5 unis and there will be pros and cons to all of them. Cambridge doesn’t offer a year abroad, while the others do. You can’t tag on a language at Cambridge, while you can elsewhere. This is the way we’re going into it and wherever he ends up will be right for him. I keep telling him that my coming to London to study was a complete fluke, but this was where I met his dad, so maybe it was meant to be

Your DD has great offers and once she’s there she won’t look back, I’m sure. Go and visit them again maybe?

My son gets wound up but he also gets a reality check because his school get them doing community work as part of the A-level programme, so he’s doing tutoring to kids who will be lucky if they get 4s/5s at GCSE. This is the national average and they’ll be fine too. Maybe show your daughter some national data? She’s doing really well and has nothing to worry about.

Another ex CCHS who can confirm this is exactly the message they pass on! I'm sorry it hasn't changed in a couple of decades...

And what about the ones who do extremely well in the local comp and in top 5% and go to uni to find they are among hundreds of other AAA or AAA.
.. either way...your child needs resiliency!!

Look at the bigger picture

For instance the girls are extremely well turned out, super polite very respectful and helpful to those they can help.

Having two children on the whole year WhatsApp group for both Kegs and CCHS I can assure you that they are no more respectful or polite than any other child. (To be clear, they really are not).

Warwick and Bath are amazing!

She needs some perspective. Some kids never have the choice to go to uni never mind a choice of 3.

Her friends might be expecting offers from Oxford but it doesn't mean they will get them.

She needs to get over it. 1st world problems and all that. Time for some tough love I reckon. Stop pandering to her.

My eldest |DD went to a selective private school and gained the impression that she was worthless because she was not in the NYO, NYC, did not have grade 8 in at least 2 instruments - she was and is of course highly intelligent and talented but the pressures of the school taught her otherwise. We had to do a bit of a mopping up job - but she thrived at the local 6th form college.

Some of these private schools have have a very distorted view on life and can be very dangerous.

You have to bear in mind that there are plenty of people, by far the majority ime, who go to selective schools - both private and state - who are absolutely fine, enjoy the experience and get a lot out of it.

I’d say academic pressures are over-egged. Personally I’m more concerned with the pressures that social media and the media in general place on all young people.

Just because someone was the most intelligent person at 11 doesn’t mean they will be at 18.

And just because someone was the best applicant for Oxford at 18 doesn’t mean they will be the best postgraduate or job candidate at 21.

You can’t expect to always be the one selected just because you were at 11.

The point of going to a super selective is that it is an amazing educational opportunity for seven years. It doesn’t mean that you are therefore going to be the best at any other point in your life. The same is true of going to Bath.

If you take the attitude that you deserve more just because you got something at 11 or 18 or 25 or 40, you are looking at a life of being unhappy and unpopular.

i am a supporter of selective education. My problem is that a school should not be selective to a point where projected grades in old money of 2 A and 7 As for a year 10 girl are deemed average.*

Isn't that a contradiction? Your saying you wanted a super selective education for your DD but you didn't want the school to treat her like its a super selective education.

In that school her grades are average, in an average school her grades would be good. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

I’ve read over 200 posts and I’m still not entirely clear what OP’s exact AIBU is.

OP, you seem to have in mind a mythical Goldilocks grammar school which is just selective enough, and you have completely ignored the multiple posters who have gently suggested that this is a parenting issue rather than a schooling one. I don’t know what you wanted from this thread but I hope that you have got it.

You're not wrong. Kids need a thick skin and strong self-belief to succeed in selective. If they haven't got that, they might do better going to the comprehensive and getting high grades relative to others.

@mainstreet, I think you should stop worrying.

Realistically, your DD is going to be just fine. She has a lot going for her. She needs to hear that, but you can make sure she does. All sorts of thing discussed in this thread really don't matter. She doesn't need to be at Oxbridge. She doesn't need (thank goodness!) to be 'well turned out' or 'polite'. And she absolutely doesn't need to be like her big sister.

You've given them both loads of opportunities. Just stop and be proud of her now. She's done excellently, and whether or not she got an Oxbridge place is no reason she should not feel proud of herself.

Could your DD take a gap year and then apply to Oxford or Cambridge? (if she already applied to one then she could apply to the other?)

I agree with Zombie Fan. In the selective school my children went to, 69% of all GCSEs taken last year were awarded grade 9s, 88% were grade 9/8 and 97% were grades 9/8/7.

2 A* and 7 As would be below average. That's not to say of course that they are not very good results. Just below average for that school.

It's an independent school (no state grammars anywhere nearby). And for what it's worth, the girls who did not get into or apply to Oxbridge were not made to feel stupid!

I think you really need to work on your daughter´s resilience if she is upset about not getting into universities that she hasn't even applied to.

The whole point of a selective school is that their "average" is a lot higher than in a comprehensive school. You are taking the top 10%, of course the "average" amongst those will be straight As and A*s.......that's basic maths.

Her grades are still way above the national average.

And yes, her resilience will be hit a lot harder when she applies to 20+ jobs, gets 3 interviews and 1 offer.

My daughters were in schools where a good few get to Oxbridge as they are very selective private schools so the vast majority do not get to Oxbridge do not even try and know it is fine. my daughters did not bother to apply and may well not have got in anyway and both have very good careers as London lawyers.

My daugher's old school North London Collegiate got 13 Cambridge 8 Oxford for example buti f you look at the list here www.nlcs.org.uk/senior-school-sixth-form/university-destinations you can see lots of other places too. No one would say you were a loser because you went to Durham, Bristol UCL etc.

Of those on the original post Warwick is very good.

As has been pointed out the first post is wrong anyway as the friends cannot be about to get Oxbridge offers as those were out last month in January so someone is probably telling lies here like the girls sayings they are "going to get" Oxbridge offers.

My old school which seems to have the balance about right between an academic school but not one that where achieving 10 straight A grades is the expected norm.
!www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/137837/the-folkestone-school-for-girls/secondary

I have been told by my old school friends who have their girls there that the school is outstanding on pastoral and mental issues and also girls have an element of normality about them.
All in all a school where grammar school means enabling bright girls to have an appropriate and happy education not a hothouse creating pressure to attain out of this world academic attainment .

If you had to tutor your child for THREE years just to get into the school, what did you honestly expect it would be like?

A happy, supportive place where people will clap at getting grade 7's? That would be a normal comprehensive.

I'm struggling to understand why you are still hand-wringing over this.

Your daughter didn't apply, so it was hardly a surprise that she hasn't had an offer.

The school wanted her to apply, but she said no - so it's hardly their fault.

It's an intensive and pressured environment but presumably you were already aware of this when you selected the school for her, and throughout her time there? It's not as if this observation has just occurred to you in the last fortnight, surely?

You support selective education, but find it galling when the selection criteria changes - presumably because there are lots of very bright kids - and this means that your daughter is now 'average' rather than exceptional. Which is ironic really.

I know this probably sounds horribly unsympathetic, but you need to get a grip and teach your children some emotional resilience. Life isn't fair. Shit things happen to nice people who don't deserve it. That's reality and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. Your daughter has an offer from a great and well respected University - she should count her blessings and concentrate on making the best of the opportunity she's been given. There are plenty of kids out there who won't have that kind of chance.

I think it’s context as much as resilience at issue.

Adults have a wide view of society - kids only know their own schools and their own families/friends. Theoretical understanding is not the same as experience.

So I think parents need to teach their kids the wider social and academic context in which they stand - and to stress repeatedly that the majority of adults do very well without Oxbridge.

Your eldest DD needs help with confidence/moving on rather than the 'level' of uni... I understand when children feel like this at earlier stages of changing schools etc but not at her age.

Good education is priceless, but Re 2nd daughter if she doesn't want to go to uni atm then it's her decision, which BTW may well change many times before the time applications start...

All in all a school where grammar school means enabling bright girls to have an appropriate and happy education not a hothouse creating pressure to attain out of this world academic attainment

A super selective grammar is a hothouse school where children are put under pressure to attain out of this world academic attainment. Didn't you know this?