Do you think it’s true that ‘bright children do well anywhere’?

[Angelsandchanges]

I’m not sure it is. I read this a lot on here.

I think bright children may do ‘OK’, in the sense they may pass their GCSEs but I don’t think they necessarily have the optimum school experience and I don’t think they always reach their potential.

I think gifted children do, but there’s a world of difference between gifted and bright. What do others think? I’m asking because I’m wondering whether to opt for private or state.

Individual private schools are selective but the private system as a whole isn't.

It has many more selective places %wise than the state sector though. It’s more useful to look at value added scores rather than absolute exam scores for this reason. Grammar school data suffers in the same way.

I think it depends very much on the child and the issues they are dealing with. A child that's bring bullied is unlikely to thrive - bullying can happen in private school too. A child with mental health problems might react badly to the pressure placed on children in some grammar and private schools.

Another factor fo consider is that in state schools, teachers are crying out about lack of funding.
Teachers have to buy a lot of resources themselves. Can a school struggling to get enough glue sticks really provide an environment where bright children flourish? I should think it's a struggle for the 'average child to continue 'average' attainment. My niece goes to a small primary school in a middle class area, she was massively falling behind, Year 2 working at Reception level, the teachers didn't have the time to help her, so further and further behind she fell and completely overwhelmed by the pace it was moving at. They were talking about how they suspect various learning difficulties. She got a tutor and within 2 months of a weekly tutor entirely on track. If they hadn't been able to afford a tutor, it would have been excused as SEN, meaning they'd massively lower expectations and have that label, lower their own aspirations as much isn't expected. She needs to rebuild the confidence of being good enough after struggling for so long. The vast majority need money to make education work, even at state school, as unjust as it is I do believe it to be the reality.

Yes you don't need a teaching qualification to teach at independent school, but do you really need one? Most tutors don't have one. Independent schools have the freedom to find teachers based on knowledge, passion and teaching ability. State schools are restricted to those with a teaching qualification, perhaps those whose backup was teaching if they didn't get the grades they wanted or didn't quite know what to do. Of course this isn't the case for all state teachers but it certainly is for some.

The school system is entirely broken, probably by design.

I think it is true but the child also needs to have drive and determination and good support at home.

I went to state school and was super driven and ambitious and didn't care about my peers teasing once I got to around age 14 or 15.
None of my family had gone to university before but I really wanted to and worked part time before and during university.

My home life was very supportive but parent were never pushy at all. If anything encouraged me to have a good balance of study and social life and not burn out.

So yes I think if you are bright and motivated you will do well unless of course your school is truly terrible. But most decent state schools produce a lot of successful well rounded people.

@TuftyMarmoset

Individual private schools are selective but the private system as a whole isn't.

It has many more selective places %wise than the state sector though. It’s more useful to look at value added scores rather than absolute exam scores for this reason. Grammar school data suffers in the same way.

If you honestly, honestly believe that this explains that this explains why children at private school are three times more likely to get grade 7 or above than those at comprehensive schools then I'm impressed at your capacity for self-delusion.

I know people really want to believe it's true, but it's glaringly, unbelievably obvious that being given different opportunities affects what children achieve and I find it actually quite hard to take people pretending this isn't true.

@Angelsandchanges

That’s interesting *@HardbackWriter* and my answer is yes and no.

To send your child to private school you have to be earning a pretty decent amount.

To be earning a pretty decent amount, you possibly are well educated and intelligent yourself, and those traits are passed on.

But those stats are still pretty stark.

Depends on the private school. Some are a lot more expensive than others. Close to us, we have a private school that concentrates on "problem" pupils which is actually quite reasonably priced and affordable. I've known a couple of tradespersons, one a plasterer and the other a decorator, who sent their respective sons to the school to try to turn them around, and it worked for both. Neither were "rich" nor higher earners, but sacrificed holidays and new cars for a few years to pay for the private school, a sacrifice they thought was worth it.

Gifted children can do OK anywhere, but they often do not hit their full educational potential. I passed my 11+ and went to Grammar school, a great environment for academic children, I did A levels, a degree, a masters and then a PhD. My brother hated school, didn't pass his 11+ because he didn't want to go to a different school to his friends, went to a comp and did exceptionally at GCSEs (8 A*, A and an F in French), but as he found school boring and not engaging he left education at 16 and went to work in a restaurant. The thing is my bother is the brightest person I know, I say that as someone with a PhD, who worked with many other people with PhDs, my brother took an IQ test years ago as part of an aptitude test for a job and scored their highest ever score, he can be very academic when he wants to be. He has done very well for himself, he set up his own company, after years of working for others, is well respected in his sector and earns £400-500k pa, but I know he sometimes wonders what he might have achieved if he was more engaged at school.

Bright children do better being educated with other bright children.

It really really depends on the schools in your area! Who knows what I could have achieved if I'd been to the schools I've managed to send my children to

Obviously it’s not true. Every year there are 1000s of bright kids who get As or Bs for their A-Level exams at state school who would have been straight A or A+ students had they attended a top school. Of course there are exceptions.

Of course tutoring and parental involvement (if the parent/s is capable can make up the deficit to an extent, but not entirely. Parents don’t pay £30k + annually for private schools for shits and giggles.

I suspect I'd have had different tales to tell had I gone to a school where being smart was seen as good thing beyond 'ah, she'll be fine at GCSE'.

I doubt I'd be able to tell the one where I got stabbed in class, for a start.

I work in a school now where any kid with a similar background or ability to mine is absolutely supported and encouraged to aim higher, money being found to facilitate the things that parents won't support, such as UCAS fees and bursary applications being paid by the school, with the result that they end up going to places like Oxford or Yale, not leaving after a string of A* grades because Mum thinks they're getting ideas above their station and have to go and get a job in a shop to pay keep.

@Nevermakeit I agree with your BIL.

My state schools and college gave the extremes more help. My friends in the middle were forgotten.

This also meant one of my friends who was also an extreme did much better at our state college than at his minor public school.

Not necessarily no

A bright child that is self motivated may be OK but unless they have that they'll probably do worse. Unless they are stretched they will switch off, and in a large unruly class the teacher is unlikely to have the time for them that they need.

I think gifted children do

A lot of gifted children burn out or crack under all the pressure put on them.

Environment makes all the difference. My daughter was in an ''ok'' state primary, had some really rough years but always did well despite making next to no effort. The classes were huge, often very disruptive and the teachers focused on the children who really struggled. If you were just about getting by, they just let you get on with it. She was bullied for being a ''nerd'' as doing the work / home work was seemingly not ''in''... she was miserable the entire time.

I took a gamble at secondary.. by applying to selective independent schools. She received several offers and joined one 18 months ago. The change is stark: she is excelling & happy for the first time at school. I expected her to improve but nothing like what I've seen in the last 18 months. Had it not been for home learning, I imagine she'd be even further ahead. She's surrounded by children who mostly want to learn and want to do well, they're challenged (not excessively) and the teaching is for the most part excellent. For her it made all the difference.

To be honest I’m pretty amazed this question is still being asked. You may as well ask would Lewis Hamilton do as well in a car built in the 70s as he does in his current one. Environment - including peer group, access to top facilities, the best skills support, etc - is vital for achieving potential.

Well, the UNA Bomber was a certified genius..

Personally no because,
I was a bright student, but very shy and quiet, and in a huge rather rough comp was not noticed, took another 15 years to realise l was capable and fairly bright.

My DD was also naturally shy and quiet, so l put her in a girls Prep, where she had to debate on stage, had to take part in plays, had to learn to present work in front of the class, and boy did she learn to shine...she was never overlooked or allowed to hide.
I firmly believe it was due to the fit of that school for her,( and it doesn't have to be private either.)

It depends on how the "brightness" manifests itself.

I certainly think a bright, well-loved child with caring and motivated parents can do as well in the state system as in the private system if that's what you're driving at.

But I think there is a certain sort of "bright" child who has the tendency to become very wayward if not given proper guidance and direction.

I grew up in a place full of "bright" children who were over-indulged and under-parented by well-meaning liberal parents who didn't believe in discipline (or private school). And in many cases that was absolutely disastrous for them: a lot of them went badly off the rails and ended up without qualifications and with serious substance abuse problems.

I think bright children sometimes need more guidance and structure than less bright ones. There's a dangerous and slightly smug tendency among some parents to think that brightness will win the day and I think that's a bad road to go down.

I think bright children with a good attitude to learning will do well anywhere, but there are plenty of very bright children who are also very lazy and probably need more focused small classes to keep them on their toes. So I don't think you can generalise tbh

I was a very bright child in a shitty school. I’ve done well in the sense that I now earn loads of money if that’s the benchmark. I was absolutely fucking miserable though, bullied horribly. I have very low self esteem which I think must be linked to my school experience.

In terms of purely test results, yes, I think it's often, but not always, true that bright children can get good results almost anywhere.

However one of the issues that bright children face is that if they are never stretched and challenged (as may happen at a less good school), they never learn how to learn. They sail through every test without really having to work for it. At some point, whether it be in sixth form, or university or even later, they reach a point where their natural intelligence isn't quite enough, and they have a minor crisis because suddenly they need to learn skills that other children learnt in primary or secondary school.

Sadly not. In my school only 20% of the kids passed their GCSE’s. Was the other 80% not capable? I don’t think so.

Home life and parental involvement has a lot to do with it. Sit down with your child and share an interest in their learning.

To all the ‘bright’ people on this thread who didn’t do as well as you think you could have done, did you have the drive to do really well?

No. I went to a terrible school and whilst I'm ok (I'm a teacher) I am not doing what a should be as a direct result of my education.

To put it into context there were 330 students in my year. 13% got 5 A-C grades. About 43 people.

There were about 8 of us who got all 9 A-C. I didn't get one A and most got one or two max.