Aibu to think that the most successful kids in schools are the ones with money pumped into extracurriculars & camps?

[Imarealwoman]

In the dc's school the dc in the top sets are the ones who do expensive extracurriculars outside school eg piano, dancing, horse riding, swimming lessons, Spanish etc..
They stay after school for the baking or yoga clubs. It's Easter & the top set kids all seem to be doing expensive camps next week & some gone skiing this week.
Aibu to think one needs to have the money to pump into your child in order to have a high performer?

This.

Why haven't they? Literally nothing? No sports or drama etc?

It's more likely correllation.

Parents who are invested emotionally in their children, read with them, talk to them etc are also more likely to take the time to find out about extra curricular opportunities if they have the funds, and feel happy that that money is well spent. There are also plenty of free or low cost options.

Parents who are not that interested, never hear their kids read, sit them on screens from morning til night are also not going to be interested on spending a morning on the side of a rugby pitch or paying money to piano lessons.

I think intelligence is innate. I think it's more about genes than anything else.

YABU to think a child needs to be away from the home more to be intelligent. Unless you're depriving your child of a chance to learn at school, then I think they'll be who they are.

Thing is you don’t necessarily need a lot of money to do ECAs. Club Team sports are relatively cheap for example- my daughter’s football is 20 quid a month ( sponsor provides kit), Rugby is 150 for the season ( sponsor provides shirt). I know that’s not free but it’s also not a huge amount for what they get out of it.

Football is cheap and cheerful as are the free kids art classes near us. Swimming wasn't very expensive either years ago.

Agree with the pps that it's not the camps that help them - the kids who go to camps will disproportionately have parents who are both in comfortably paid jobs, with education at a level to get this, and who are focussed on 'enrichment' activities for their kids.

I was a scholarship kid at a school full of these kids, I had far fewer clubs but did better, thanks in huge part to my parents who despite my dad's long hours and my mum's serious health issues which meant a lot of weekend and holiday time spent with my siblings and I just hanging around at home, also spent the time to take us to the library to load up with books as often as we wanted, encouraged interests whether it was letting my machine-mad brother put up the hood of the car to identify everything and sort the oil or me to write things for the local neighbourhood newsletter, told us how great uni could be, showed interest in things we'd learned and worked on, helped us with homework when they could, and took it very seriously if they heard we had been messing around at school.

That matters more than any skiing trip, you clearly care a lot for them and that's the most important thing too.

I work in a private school with children who for the most part have quite privileged lives.

While ECAs help with confidence and social skills I would say the children I see thriving and reaching their full academic potential (wherever that is on the scale of achievement) are the ones who have present and emotionally invested family who support them.

Too many variables to generalise. And some correlations (or hypotheses) are likely to offend people. But ...

1. Smarter parents are likely to have smarter kids. Smarter parents are also likely to have better-paying jobs. Smarter kids are therefore more likely to be in wealthier families that can afford more activities.
2. Smarter kids tend to like activities thought of by adults as 'high-brow' (music, reading, languages etc.). Therefore smarter kids chose, value, and stick with, more 'high-brow' pursuits.
3. Ambitious parents have obvious and visible traits, such as prioritising educational activities. They are also likely to have less obvious and visible traits, such as spending hours and hours with their children practicing reading, or tying shoelaces, or doing art, or cooking from scratch. These skills translate into the behaviours valued at school, and their kids end up in the top sets.
4. (This one is linked to 1 above) 'Posh' activities are exclusive and expensive. To succeed in a posh activity is much easier than to succeed in one that is cheap and freely available to the masses, because the competition is so limited. (e.g. Some gymkhanas have categories with only 2 competitors at county level - so even the person finishing last gets a silver medal.) So children who do these activities seem like they are exceptional, when in reality they aren't. The kid who wins a county cross-country championship is far less likely to have rich parents than the kid who wins the county fencing championship.

But the common thread is that correlation doesn't equate to causation. It's not that being rich enough to ski this Easter causes a kid that would otherwise be in bottom set to catapult to top set ... it's just that the same factors that lead to descriptions of 'high performance' are correlated with high income.

I completely agree with this 100% & mine have little to no screen time except if homework related.

As others have said, it is correlation rather than causation. Academic/intelligent and motivated parents are more likely to be top earners, place a greater emohasis on the value of education and thereby produce kids who are more motivated.

However it obviously isn't purely down to income, invested parents are invested parents irrespective of income. It is the time parents invest in their child that will determine the achievements of that child. High income parents just have the cash to do the additional stuff.

@Albiboba I have no idea but that's what the top set kids in dc's class are up to..

A good apprenticeship is worth far more than a poor degree, especially in a nonsensical area of study. Good luck to him, he'll be streets ahead of his friends with their degrees, a ton of debt and poor job prospects.
More youngsters should consider this career path.

I wouldn't say paying for extra curricular/other clubs and activities necessarily guarantees children will do well at school.

I think their motivation, whether they read, whether parents or other family members talk to them and encourage them counts for a lot.

I was a bright, academic child but didn't do much extra curricular wise as my parents didn't have the money. I was always in top sets and went to uni.

I teach secondary now and there's a broad range of children in the top sets. Some who are quite well off and do lots of paid for activities and some who are classed as deprived and have very little materially.

This one is linked to 1 above) 'Posh' activities are exclusive and expensive. To succeed in a posh activity is much easier than to succeed in one that is cheap and freely available to the masses, because the competition is so limited. (e.g. Some gymkhanas have categories with only 2 competitors at county level - so even the person finishing last gets a silver medal.) So children who do these activities seem like they are exceptional, when in reality they aren't

Gymkhanas? They aren't really a thing. I agree a rosette from a local show doesnt mean your kid will get to Badminton but tbh the privileged kids dont tend to do local shows unless they are very small. The kids who succeed in show jumping or eventing will undoubtedly be privileged but they will also be extremely good at what they do.

It’s not the clubs, it’s the high achieving parents and having a higher income in general. However saying that I teach in a well off suburb and there is still a huge variation in the abilities of the children I teach

I don't think that's true for everyone, not my household at least and many of my friends
All three of my teens did and are doing extremely well academically. Eldest got 9s then three A* in A levels, youngest is headed in the same direction.
The only extra curricular we did was swimming lessons before they were 9, eldest is the kind of person who just soaks up everything he sees, youngest is more interested in researching the reasons why.
Neither of my three were interested in doing clubs, I used to worry that they'll feel left out when their friends were doing football and after school clubs but they insisted they weren't interested.

I think you're right, OP. I think often these kids have a father who is a high earner and a SAHM who ferries them back and forth, or both parents work and they have a nanny. They also often have a tutor on top of private school. Privilege upon privilege....

more youngster cant consider this career path, as there are very few and very competitive - it is a misunderstanding that young people on apprenticeships do better because they are on apprenticeships - it is generally only the cream that gets onto a decent apprenticeship in the first place

Perhaps they enjoy skiing or yoga or horse riding and because of this they learn discipline and grow in confidence and mindset. Being a well-rounded person doesn't mean you need to do nothing except academics.

Parental interest, encouragement and involvement far more important than extra curricular activities.

@Mark19735 are you UK as we don't have gymkhanas here and there are 100s of entries at County level and above, not 2!!! Any child (under 18) who wins a notable XC championship is going to be about as privileged as a child who wins a fencing championship as the horse power required would be ££. So you either don't know about horses or you aren't in the UK as the scenarios you gave don't exist in UK.

You need better A levels to get on a decent apprenticeship than you do to get to an RG uni, and quite frankly we have many years to work in the rat race, why start before you have to?

The children with all those extra curricular activities may do well partly because their parents are bright and high achieving.

Equally those parents might be time poor and are basically outsourcing.

Children whose parents who put in more time than average engaging with their children will also do well.

Teacher here.
The difference is invested parents in most cases.
As a PP said: "One of the signs of high attainment is having highly educated, working parents." And that's not so much to do with said parents' capacity to chuck money at extra curricular activities, but rather a result of a buy-in to learning and engagement as valued 'states of being'.
I teach primary in an area of significant social and economic deprivation and although my pupils are almost all on free school meals and most have what might be considered multiple barriers to learning, it is very clear which children are used to engaging in conversation with an adult on topics of interest, are read to or heard to read frequently, and whose caregivers engage with them in activities, even if it is just day to day stuff in the home such as cooking or folding washing. These are the children who tend to do well.