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.

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?

Agree.

I get the impression that OP would have had zero issues with this had her DD decided to apply and been successful. The hothouse pressured atmosphere has now become a problem because they didn't get the result that they wanted.

Both my DD's wanted to go to the school that they did both were encouraged to take the (optional) 11+ exam by their Primary school.
Although i helped them with tutoring DD 2 much more than i did for number 1 i was not choosing the school for a hothouse approach .

I choose the school for four reasons: 1st they wanted to go there 2nd they passed the exam 3rd i prefer single sex education and 4th i believe in selective education.

Selective education does not need to mean an approach from a school that causes mental and eating disorder. It should just mean an environment of like minded girls/boys in an atmosphere away from schools that might have time taken up by non academic issues.

So they’re struggling to appreciate what they have, have achieved, and with perspective.

Recommend the Happiness Project podcast (Yale Professor) episode on silver medal winners’ psychological challenges - Michelle Kwan episode and the one after I think. It has a whole segment on university entry!

Nothing you can do about the school/peer group. LOTS you can do to help your DC to do and think about things in ways that are more likely to help them, now and in future.

Warwick in particular is a really nice place

I have to disagree, it's in Coventry. OK I'm totally missing the point of the thread.

OP, you are fixated on the culture of the school and completely ignoring everyone who is trying to tell you that this is first and foremost a parenting issue.

OP, the school is not enforcing wildly unrealistic expectations though is it? As you say, 90% don’t get to Oxbridge. Your DD is in that 90%, so she is the norm in her school She didn’t even want to apply anyway.

No school can force grades out of DC that they’re not capable of getting. Nobody sits the exams for them. So the results are not wildly unrealistic; they’re just realistic for that cohort.

I always said to my DC that they don’t need to be “top” in this kind of school and they shouldn’t expect to be. As long as they’re broadly keeping up and in the “average bulk”, then they’re on for top grades and it’s not worth stressing any further.

There were ten maths sets in my DS school and he was in one of the bottom ones for years. But he didn’t let it worry him because as he said, “ I have other strengths.” He still got a 9, as most did. A pupil in one of the top sets got the highest mark in the UK for maths GCSE, so this is what they were up against. But they just have to realise they’re in a bubble and it is what it is. At least they don’t get complacent, because nobody is telling them how very clever they are all the time.

However, since being from about 12 she DDs three best friends and her were told by the school that Oxbridge was an achievable goal.

DS went to a super-selective grammar and some of his cohort who everyone would have said were Oxbridge dead certs didn't get offers.

I would say that there is more to a an enriching super-selective grammar school education than just acing all exams too.

I have to disagree, it's in Coventry

?? It’s like 10 miles from Coventry.

It's not ten miles from Coventry, it's on the edge of Coventry. And the campus has amazing faculties. I am biased though because I did my first degree at Warwick.

The uni is on the edge of Coventry. Warwick itself is ‘is ‘a really nice place’ as the poster said. It’s about 10 miles from Coventry.

Selective education does not need to mean an approach from a school that causes mental and eating disorder. It should just mean an environment of like minded girls/boys in an atmosphere away from schools that might have time taken up by non academic issues.

But the whole ethos of selective education is on talent - usually academic, sometimes sporting. It's painfully obvious that having achieved a place at a selective school, your child would have to work to keep up with the standard unless they are a genius.

You want it both ways - a nice selective school where your kids don't have to study with the 'lesser' students who might need more attention, but a school which isn't so selective that it puts your child under pressure.

You are now complaining because the selective process has been counter-productive for your child, but you were happy enough to support it and sign up for it in the first place. You chose the school and you have kept your children in it, so you can't have it both ways. If the pressure was such a concern for you, why haven't you withdrawn them before now and sent them somewhere else?

It’s a bit of distorted picture of selective schools.

There’s no reason for a selective school not to value its pupils at all levels.

They take everyone who passes the exam from x% upwards + interview. There’s no particular reason to think that the students who were just over the pass mark will suddenly turn top of the class overnight, although it can happen.

The students at the lower end need work to maintain their level just as much as the ones at the top.

It doesn’t sound like the pressure is coming from the school here. They told DD she could apply for Oxbridge, she chose not to. She’s feeling low because her friends are applying (not that they will get in). This is DD’s own idea, not the school.

There’s no reason for a selective school not to value its pupils at all levels.
But this is the core of the problem, they generally don't value all pupils. The most academically able are lauded and others are seen as lagging behind and worth less to the school. And, as several PPs have said, because teenagers have limited experience this can be devastating to self esteem.

But this is the core of the problem, they generally don't value all pupils

You can’t possibly generalise over all selective schools in the country. Every school is different.

In this case there’s nothing to suggest the school values DD less than other pupils. They don’t seem to regard her as ‘lagging behind’ anyway.

'You want it both ways - a nice selective school where your kids don't have to study with the 'lesser' students who might need more attention, but a school which isn't so selective that it puts your child under pressure'.

Actually i think there are a number of selective state schools that fulfill the purpose of offering the way you describe and my assumed preferences.

Schools such as my old school which i posted a link about up-thread.
People will argue though having easier access to selective schools, via an 11+ average of say 120 are destroyers of society.

I said 'selective' schools and didn't specify state or independent - I know that there are both.

You are focusing on semantics and avoiding the fact that your daughter's tenure at the school has been longer than the last 5 minutes. Ergo it was entirely within your gift to notice that it was very competitive, and to decide whether to withdraw her and place her somewhere less pressured.

If this is your approach - blame it all on the school - then I am not surprised that your daughter is struggling with being emotionally resilient, relying as it does on having self-awareness.

I do sympathise with op. But its a hothouse school, if it changed to be a nice caring all round comprehensive that nurtured all levels of ability then it would no longer be the hot house school that many people like op wants.

I think if you have to tutor to get into the school then its not really for you.

OP do you realise how many times you have mentioned your old school?

Why did you not send your DD there instead?

You chose the school, you have some issues with it - nothing you can do. Focus on stuff you CAN do something about!!

Selective education does not need to mean an approach from a school that causes mental and eating disorder. It should just mean an environment of like minded girls/boys in an atmosphere away from schools that might have time taken up by non academic issues.

Selective education isn't about segregating kids to give well behaved academic achievers a nice experience. I don't believe students can go from being Oxbridge material to not being due to finding the school environment excessively pressured. I'd venture that they weren't Oxbridge material in the first place. You've not gone into this with your eyes wide open OP.

A friends daughter is in her first year at Oxford studying Law. She went to a local suburban comp who during her A levels was rated as RI by Ofsted. You're either what they're looking for, or you're not.

Selective education isn't about segregating kids to give well behaved academic achievers a nice experience.

It sort of is though. Selection is to take students of comparable level - in this case academic - because it’s easier to teach groups of similar ability and interests. The same principle applies to schools that specialise in sports or music or performing arts etc.

It is rather to give the students a nice experience, surely that’s the point of any school?

The school badly messed up telling her from age 12 that Oxbridge was an “achievable goal.” The school was trying to motivate her and her friends to work harder, while knowing that they were unlikely to get in (because everyone is unlikely to! It’s a lottery with not enough places for all the ‘winning’ tickets!).

That messaging also meant that, before she was even a teenager, she’d absorbed messaging that Oxbridge should be her goal and that became part of her life expectations. Unhealthy and bad pastoral care from the school.

(Ignore the idiots trying to start a row about grammar education. They forget that you didn’t have the option of sending your kids to a lovely all-ability comprehensive. In a ‘selective’ area you have the option of a highly academic grammar, or a school with v low academic aspirations and ability. A bright child does not fit in to or thrive in the latter. But wanna scrap grammars and give us all comprehensives? Fine with me!)

Anyway, she’s dodged a bullet. Oxbridge is an even more unhealthy atmosphere than a grammar, with way too much pressure and no support. I went to Cambridge and I regret it. Crazy pressure. 2 friends attempted suicide, and even without that it was just not much fun. Wish I’d gone to a ‘normal’ uni.

I think potentially Oxbridge could be an achievable goal for most pupils at super-selectives. That doesn't mean they'll all be Oxbridge material by the time they reach sixth form stage though.