To think my Grammar School DD 2 with an IQ of 119 should be aiming for at least Grade 7's in all her GCSE subjects.

[redange]

My DD'2 is currently in the process of choosing her GCSE options for next year year 10 and at a Girls Grammar School in Essex. However, I am seriously upset with her attitude at the moment regarding what she thinks grades she should be achieving at the end of year 11. The, schools expectations are grade 7 and above for all subjects . The, other problem is because DD is in year 9 she obviously did not do her SATS at 11 so I have no predicted pathway to convince her. DD'2 has convinced herself, she will only be capable of at best 'all' grade 5's at end of year 11 despite having a decent IQ of 119. For, the record DD 1 IQ is 122 and she is expected to get between 6- 8 GCSE's at 9 and the others at 7/8.
Am I reasonable to think she is just being lazy, or is she suffering from a little bit of confidence, due to 'impostor' syndrome and her sisters likely results. I have looked at various sources online, which suggest that with a good study ethos her grades should not be hugely dissimilar to DD 1's. There, are also a couple of 'rebels' who are friends of hers playing up at school currently, for which the school believe is year 9 blues..

I think parents can have expectations in terms of respect, behaviour and effort, but I don't think parents have any kind of contractual entitlement to require achievement.

There's a subtle difference there.

@redange

I personally think DD'2 is taking the 'Michael' as does DD'1

Have you spoken to DD2 about how she's feeling? What she wants to do? Why she feels like this? Or are you just telling her to do better while having conversations with her sister about your thoughts on her behaviour?

That's how it reads to me, you're annoyed she's not doing what you think she should be able to and that she's not happy at this "very selective" school you've sent her to. You don't seem worried about the fact she's unhappy, just about how she's doing academically.

Think there's a way to go about getting intelligent DC who have the ability to achieve their best.

OP to don't seem to be listening to any of the hundreds of posts full of advice from people who were your daughter, teachers and parents. You seem hell bent on continuing to compare your daughter to others and to hold her to standards you've decided on, rather than embracing who she is, what her worries are and how you can help her as an individual.

It sounds as if that was not a very happy experience for you.

Why inflict it upon your daughter as well?

Your unsigned (so therefore not accepted by one of the parties - your child - and therefore would be unenforceable) contract is being imposed upon her.

She did not have any agency about her abilities and inclinations, any more than you did. She cannot help having a sister who is practically perfect in every way, any more than you could. She has no responsibility for whatever circumstances led to her having a brother with SEND, any more than you were able to control having dyslexia. She is not responsible for you still feeling never quite good enough, despite your family income, despite your acclaim for political writing, despite the fact that you were able to meet the standard to go to university and had the ability to do so whilst simultaneously having SEND of your own at a time when there was less awareness and frequently less support or access arrangements, compared to your sister.

She needs to feel, like you needed to feel, that she is good enough. Not told she's taking the piss by you and her perfect sister (of course the perfect sister will tap into your insecurities - it's how they maintain being top child when they're either supremely confident or secretly wondering if you'd still love them if they weren't so perfect after all).

Concentrate on support, rather than lectures about how fortunate she is and how she owes it to you to be more like her sister. I'm sure that you heard that at the very least in your head, if not out loud, many times during your childhood. You know how hard it was for you, so don't give her that nagging little voice in her head, telling her 'You'll never be good enough' or that sigh of disappointment when she has done the best that she can.

Teacher here. You obviously want your daughter to do well, but at the moment, you are putting far too much pressure on her. She needs to enjoy the courses, or she won't thrive and she won't do well. Two hours homework a night in the first year of GCSEs is too much, as is one and a half hours now - she will start to hate learning.

Don't focus on A Levels yet. As someone said upthread, she may in the end do better at a 6th Form College than school. There are loads of options.

Make sure she knows that all you want from her is that she does her best. Allow her to do things that are not school and exam focused. Too much pressure will turn learning into an ordeal, not a pleasure. And do everything you can to stop her comparing herself unfavourably with her sister. She is herself, and presumably, you love them both and want them both to thrive. Make sure she knows that.

Is the school one that sees its exam results as central to its image? If that is the case, they may not fully have your daughter's best interests at heart and want you to push her far more than is good for her.

Exams are important, but so is your daughter's mental health.

The school will probably have predicted grades for your DD (although they might not have given them to you or her), and at a grammar school I imagine they’ll be aiming higher than 5s. DS is in year 9 and did CATs in year 7, as well as SATs in year 6, both of which were used to predict his GCSE grades which are refined as he gets closer to taking them.
Has she taken her options? DS hasn’t yet, but I know some schools do them in year 8 - options evenings are a good time to get a feel for what the school’s expectations are for grades.

Oh good Lord.

End this now.

NeverDropYourMooncup · Today 15:23

Although it was academically difficult to compare to my sister, I was very good at most sports including representing Kent where I was brought up at Hockey. I also managed to get to the regional UK Athletics final for the 200 Meters ! Thus, in hindsight though the school did not see me as one of the most academic there I got respect for sporting achievements from the P.E staff who had me teaching Hockey to the First and Second years (Yr'7/8).

Good for you.

What are you going to do about the fact your daughter is unhappy and you're just telling her she's not doing enough?

@redange - I think privilege is actually allowing children the safe space to self explore, both in early childhood and teens. And just providing support and unconditional love and making sure they do it in as safe as possible way (without micromanaging or helicoptering too much).

I think through negative media spin and generalised anxiety in society created as a result of that, so many people are paranoid and feel they need to lay a smooth path for their kids to shelter them. In the long run this does not work, because children need to learn to make their own choices from an early age and risk assess. Teens can have messed up risk assessment due to brain changes, which of course we do need to be aware of. Especially now with the toxicity of social media they can get themselves and their entire friendship groups into a massive doom loop. And that one is definitely something to be aware of as the internet is entirely unregulated.
The rest though is fine. If they choose to do other things rather than study but have socially & emotionally healthy friendship groups and do other stuff, that is actually very healthy.

Some of the most interesting and successful people went “off the rails” as teens according to their parents. What they actually were doing is discovering and exploring who they are, at a really fundamental level.
I think the job of a parent is simply to explain the systems we have here in our society and then let them make their own choices. So we do front load and those who study hard early on, usually reap the rewards (delayed gratification). If they choose to ignore that they will just have a longer path to get there later on potentially and it may require more work later on. But I think a 15 year old is old enough to make that choice. If that is what she is doing.

Generally speaking, social and emotional development is actually more important than early academic achievement. It can feed into a lifetime of making right friendship and relationship choices, which always are going to be more important than academic achievement. Happiness comes from that primarily.

From your posts, it is simply not clear to me if your DD is unhappy and lacking in self esteem or if she has made a conscious choice and is just more interested in being friends with the cool creative types and is more interested in exploring herself than getting high grades in her GCSEs.
I think the reason others are giving you a hard time is because with an adopted child and your own history, you are bringing some anxiety to the table and self protecting a little. You need to just see your 15 year old as a proper individual now and have more grown up conversations with her and just make sure she knows what she is doing. If the is, I would simply let her get on with it.
You are obviously a good person because you chose to adopt a child and are putting in a lot of effort there.

I'm giving my "post of the week" award to this post!

So true.

There is far, far too much anxiety around schooling for children these days - and I say that as someone profoundly in favour of education.

But I am in favour of exactly that: education - in a deep sense. Not competitive pressure to excel within a limited framework of assessment with mediocre syllabus material.

OP, DS2 is at a Grammar and we thought they would be better than a comprehensive in the sense that they would monitor him and made him and us aware of him not achieving well or facing significant problems. Others we asked thought the same. In fact, not only didn't they do this but only when DS reached Y10 did we find out that he had forgotten most of his MFL vocabulary and didn't remember indices rules in Maths and content from Y7 or Y8! His previous reports did not reflect this.

On GCSEs results day it was a nightmare trying to get him to scrape a 7 in Maths (1 mark off) so he would get admitted to the 6th form. DS1 found 4 marks he should have been awarded. When asked to confirm DS2's his maths teacher said he didn't have the mark scheme to see how it should have been solved (but neither did candidates!). I had to come on mumsnet and @noblegiraffe saw his paper and adviced that DS1 was right so we sent his paper for remark and he thankfully got the 7.

Of course they expected all students to be good because they had passed the 11+, they offered more GCSEs and everyone sat the Higher tier papers but we realised that our local comprehensive which DS3 attends offers more opportunities for sports, leadership and personal development, has personal career services which the Grammar doesn't and offers more intervention sessions where you can ask questions and improve. DS had some other serious problems which the school hadn't dealt with at Y7 either.

Most of the 6th forms I have seen which have brilliant results are super-selective i.e. they take the top of the cream so what would expect from such a cohort? People don't seem to understand this.

Ok but you’re talking about yourself again, instead of DD being front and centre. Your achievements, as good as they are, aren’t relevant to this situation. You seem unable to accept that every single person is very different, each child will walk their own path and they will be very different.

It could be autism that’s preventing the OP from seeing this clearly, but I’m (officially) autistic and i can see it clear as day.

IQ is pointless. It’s very STEM orientated when some of the most intelligent people in the world are artists, writers, philosophers etc so I just don’t buy into it as a worthy measure of intellect personally.

Year 9’s did do SATs, my DD is year 9 and she definitely did them. Have a DS in year 11 who didn’t but he did something similar in class that his teacher marked and his predicted grades and sets have largely been based off those.

That aside, my DS is also predicted 7s but all teachers think he will achieve 8 or 9 across the board. In his mocks he largely got 7s, couple of 8s and couple of 9s. He’s now working his absolute arse off to secure as many 9s as possible. He wants to go to Oxford so knows he needs to set himself apart from private school kids. It’s hard but he has a strong desire to achieve and succeed so he goes to all extra revision sessions and then still revises lots at home.

Basically, it doesn’t matter how intelligent your DD is or isn’t, she needs to put in the effort if she wants 7+. A 7 in old money is an A.

I understand OP. She is of above average intelligence. So with effort and hard work/plenty of revision, there is no reason why she can’t achieve all over grade 7. You’re right. She should be aiming for 9s, then be happy with her above 7s.

Are you looking at your daughters to be academically able AND show it to somehow make up for your own childhood/standing in the family?

”Hey look, I MADE clever kids!!”

Would anyone have condemned me if I had come on here and said, my DD' 2 is below average academic intelligence at her Comprehensive School should she be aiming for Grade 4's in all her GCSE subjects !

No what we have and always have on Mumsnet are a number of Red flags around statistics people or institutions that get posters on here 'frothing' at the mouth. Among these and institutions are IQ levels and up there along with 'Reform' or Farage comes any reference to Grammar Schools or enhanced academic expectations. Hence, on two fronts it is hardly surprising that firstly an IQ of 119 puts a child or any poster in the bottom half of the cohort interacting on this site. Secondly, posters generally want to call parents, children or anyone who went to Prep, Public or even Grammar Schools. Thus, highlighting how despite not attending any of these institutions themselves that everyone in their sphere such as family and friends are far more intelligent. This, of course is evidenced because neither them nor their offspring have/never spent more than'fifteen' minutes a night doing home work in GCSE /A Levels. These, same people are equal capable of producing a 5000 Word 'First' in about Ninety Minutes at 2.30 in the morning . The truth on here is a posting network that is less diverse and normal than 'Piston Heads' !

There are regional differences. One of our local 6th forms has a minimum of 58 points for minimum entry, 71 to do maths and science, and 78 to do 4 x Alevels. There are no grammar schools here though, that's just a state 6th form college's requirements. State schools get preferred entry over private so it's a college predominantly filled with state school kids.

I think 54 is the points requirement to do Alevels for all the state school 6th forms in the area. But you can do Btech or Applied Alevels with lower points scores if you have a Grade 5 in Maths and English.

71/78 Points is that the Cardiff Sixth Form School .

Otherwise, even with a 58 point criteria you are excluding around 95% of Pupils. Most Grammar 6th forms will let a child take 4 A levels with less than 60 points . Many require them to start with 4 A levels even around 53-54 points and than reduce if needed to three.

No its not Cardiff 6th form because that's an Independent.

Where in the country is this 101trees..

@redange I'm sure your DD will do well. Just ask her why she thinks she'll do poorly

Thank You Surgeons 13.

I think it is a kind of reverse 'bravado' she is playing. At both the Parents Evening and year 9 GCSE options night Teachers were happy with her progress intimating that she is where she needs to be !

I don't think anyone's condemning you for saying your child is bright and wanting them to do well.

You do, however, sound very determined that she's taking the piss and you have completely avoided answering whether you have asked her why she feels this way or whether she has a different path in mind for herself.

It's all about what you think and nothing about what she wants.

I'm not condemning you.

I just think that you are wrong. Because it's about your experiences, your efforts for your son, your achievements compared to your sister and how you're repeating that experience for your daughter.