hot house v's not so pushy!

[Will123]

just wondering what people's views are on the so called Surrey 'hot house' schools and not so 'hot house schools' i.e the ones that call themselves 'all rounders'? Has anyone moved their children from all round schools to the so called hot house schools?

Depands entirely on the child.

My DD goes to a school which most people locally regard as a "hot house" but in reality they just work at the level the kids are at. It suits her down to the ground, she feels no pressure at all and loves it.

DS however is completely different and goes to a school seen locally as a more "all rounders" school but which has turned out to be quite pressured academically.

If your DC is bored at an "all rounder" school then I would definitely consider moving them.

People say they are hot houses when their children are too thick to get into them. Clever children like to work at a fast pace with other clever children and mine never felt pressured in their academic schools at all.

My kids have been in so-called "hot house" schools and less seletive. On the whole they are both rounded but one is slightly more selective.

What I have found is that DC's academic abilities have dropped in less academic environments. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing if overall the school has qualities not found elsewhere and both my kids are at non-selective schools. However, the problem with less selective schools is that you take a risk trying to get them into academic senior schools. With hindsight I would have left them in the more academic environments as they would have breezed the scholarship or gained entry to certain schools. That is from an academic perspective. In the long run my kids may be happier but who knows?

don't like the word thick Xenia.

I know lots of DCs that would not get into DDs school but I would never call them thick.

Do you think that anyone who is not highly academic is thick?

I don't like being called a pushy mum for sending my DD to a school that suits her and I guess the parents of her friends who do not go to this school as it does not suit them would like their Dcs being called thick.

Lets be honest here, if you look at the results produced by the "all rounder" schools in Surrey, most people in other parts of the country would assume they are all hot house schools. (I guess really thick average kids must go to Boarding school, as they wouldn't cope with the Comps either.)

you are right, mummytime, all of these schools perform well academically.

If lots of thick kids go to boarding school then it is a wonder how the boarding schools make up the majority of the top 10 league table schools and send more to Oxbridge than larger day schools.

Look at any top list of 20 schools by A level results in proper subjects and some of the boarding schools are excellent - Eton etc but even Harrow is never in the top 20. Plenty of the boarding schools are not very academic but nor are the children of the rich always that clever either.

What most parents want is a school which is suitable for their child. None of my children have ever felt pushed at schools like Haberdashers and North London. in fact it's usually just the internet temperament of the children that makes some pressured but I've yet to breed a child who isn't fairly laid back and the schools don't have to push if the children are quite bright. In fact I remember more the schools talking about taking time off, pursuing all your hobbies, having breaks from revision than any overly large pressure.

Yet parents of children who can't get in because their IQ is below the require level go on and on about how awful and pressured these schools are which theire precious little Jane or Jack couldn't have got into in a month of Sundays.

Yes I have experienced that kind of bitching, Xenia, but I would still not call their kids thick.

The parents, however, I don't have a great opinion of.

I would agree about highly academic schools putting a lot of effort into encouraging parents not to put their DCs under lots of pressure. Certainly they do at my DDs school. Unfortunately, often the parents don't listen.

The hothousing doesn't come form the schools, it is usually the parents.

The schools in the top 10, not 20 are usually:

Westminster 1/3 board
Eton
Winchester
Wycombe Abbey
Cheltenham Ladies College
Radley

the rest are usually London day schools. The proper league tables ignore the soft A'level subjects which tends to lower girls schools and other day schools further down the the tables.

Xenia, plenty of state schools are also not that academic and children of the poor are not always clever either!

In this day and age when university fees will be £9k per annum, which we and DCs will struggle to afford, all rounders would be better to give them other avenues to explore.

True re top schools. Times 2010 by A level was
1 / North London coll (girls day)`

1. Westminster boarding (mxied boys and girls)

4 . St Paul's girls (day) 6 City of London girls (day girls) 7 Magdalen Coll (I think boarding) 8 wycombe abbey (girls boarding) 9 and 10 London day schools

Habs boys 16 (day)
Habs girls 20 girls day

Cheltenahm was 25

FT list was similar Radley was 12.

There are lots of pushy parents in all kinds of schools but I do think pressure either comes from the personality of some children or the parent but not often from the school at these places.

also the nice thing about these kinds of schools is that you do so many other thigns as they ave bit and there will be loads of great singers or musicians or chess players or sports players so that the standard of the extra curricular activities is often very high too so you get a fairly good all round education, or so we found. Smaller schools with children who aren't quite so bright might not have such a full range of other activities.

He's not thick at all. Lots of children don't get into these schools. But I do think if your child wants a class full of children full of ideas working at the same level it is much more fun if the whole class can work together like that. I do not enjoy dinners with very unintelligent people whose brains move terribly slowly. There's the aeroplane test isn't there - would you like to be stranded at a Moscow air port for 12 hours on a business trip with this person or not?

Children who are quite bright tend to do better in classes with chidlren who are similar to them. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all but it does mean every stat primary in the land in a sense is failing the brighter children as they are all educated to some kind of boring middle ground as state primaries are not selective.

Xenia
I disagree. 'Getting into' schools is not on some sort of number line with brightest children only aiming for 'top schools' and duffers allocated to Schools For Thick Children at the bottom.

Parents/children want different things. Average children are coached to get places in hothouses. Bright children often go to more laid back schools because they don't want undue pressure.

Schools like North London Collegiate or Wycombe Abbey should be getting 100% of their girls into Oxbridge given their entry requirements and the amount of work/uni preparation the girls do. But they don't. A much more laid back school may have a smaller % of academically impressive pupils, but that's enough for them to spur each other on, and a healthier/more stimulating environment for many children.

I quite agree smallwhitecat!

Yes but on the whole brighter children tend to do better in schools with children of similar abilities and teenagers tend to follow the peer herd and if their peers are leaving at 156 without GCSEs to go on the dole they may well follow that. if most of their peers, 99.9% from these types of schools who go to good universities are doing so then it is more likely that they will do so. North LC wa sa great school. I don't think you can really suggest it fails if 100% of children don't go to Oxbridge. It's just about the best girls' school in the country on most scores (except of course if a girl wouldn't thrive there as she's not that kind of IQ level).

My point above is that the schools are fairly laid back. It's just that some of hte girls aren't and that's either the genetics of the girl or the parents of the girl that causes that, not the school. Now there may well be some exam factory schools with no extra curriculars and no attempts to foster education as life long learning and rounded thing for life, but we've been lucky enough not to come across any narrow type of school like that. I'm sure if I had children at Eton too you would hear the same thing - not exam factories in any sense and provide a great education which is very rounded for the brighter child and that these are not "hot house" places at all.

I don't think just because most of the children are bright (and even in these schools you get a broad range - very genius type children and others who just meet the IQ 120 old grammar school/university entrance threshhold)) means that the school is not "healthy" or not "stimulating".

If you've got a bright - or perhaps better to say academically ambitious - child, they may not need the whole school to be like them for them to thrive. They need a group of likeminded children and teachers that cater to them, and that's all. We're talking about private schools here, not schools whre many pupils are "leaving at 16 to go on the dole."

Some bright kids love the high power environment of a North LC - in which case fantastic. As you say, despite the enormous work load etc it won't feel pressurised to them. Some find that sort of school all too much though, and despite their ability prefer a broader, less competitive environment. My argument is that they'll still do well - assuming its a good school with good teaching etc - probably better.

I don't remember much of a huge work load. All children are working for the same A levels or IB.

Will a child who could have gone to North London do as well at the other less academic private schools local to that? Well the league tables tell us they probably won't because more children get Bs and Cs or not A*s there but of course an individual child can do fine anywhere. I wasn't very challenged at my own small private school. There was not really anyone like me in my class. I got the best A levels in the school in my year etc. May be that benefited me rather than was a disadvantage but it coudl have been just as likely that I did worse because there were few comparators and it made debate in class less interesting. no one really wants their essays read out to the class because they're so good. You would just prefer everyone else was much the same.

I still think competition comes from inside you. Some people are more driven than others whatever school they are at.

Agree, you need a good cohort of academically ambitious children in a school if your child is academically ambitious - but you don't need the whole school to be that way.

Don't want to quarrel, but London parents are already hysterical to the point of illness thinking their DCs have to 'get into' the top schools to do well. They don't. Many - not all - schools lower down the league tables take a RANGE of abilities and do well by them all.

Competition: some children/adults thrive on competition, others hate it. It has nothing to do with intelligence or internal motivation. It's handy if your DC is competitive as they tend to squasg all others in their quest for world domination, but some brainy kids aren't.

Yes, parents should realise most is genes and a lot is peer influence and stop worrying. I don't know if my children are so laid back because I am. none tried for Oxbridge even though it was suggested because it would involve some extra classes or something patheticaly objectionable to them as teenagers and I was quite happy with that. One got A but was in the bottom set of 5 for maths. Even those best schools have a broad range of children and broad range of types - somke will be in tears wherever they are because they didn't get full marks and others will do the least needed to get by and a small minotiry will be in absolute fear of parental reaction if they faile (which is dreadful) but quite rare. They have to take their own decisions and live their own lives but if you can get them into a good school then I don't see any problem with that.

Nor do I feel those schools were competitive (except to get in).

What you want with children i s to play a long end game. Given them lots of chances, lots of things they can enjoy, learn and then they will pick their life long interests from the wide range you give them, ensure they are able to get a form of internal contentment and are happy and feel appreciated and loved and then if you can add a good school on to that so much the better but it is not the end of the world if they're in the second tier not top one. When daughter 2 didnt' get into habs at 5 (she should have done as at 3 they couldnt' find a book she couldn't read and her sister was there) it didn't ultimately matter as she went to North L at 7 and if she hadn't got in there or those two at 11 she'd be fine too I expect but that doesn't remove my basic point that if you can get them into a good school that for many is best although inm y view never a boarding school as too many children are damaged thereby (but that's for another thread)

Not all but some. They might well not have got in. We will never know. I didn't go. My siblings did. I did okay. I would have preferred them to try but I don't think they were at the top of the class. I suppose one issue is had they been in more mixed schools would they have been well ahead of everyone and more likely to apply to Oxbridge. They seem to be managing pretty well without so far now they are into their 20s. I'm sure I urged but I don't control older teenagers and perhaps they just assessed they were unlikely to get in even if they made a tactical application. I don't think that many people really think of those types of day private schools as mill stones. I know a few people hesitating over the years with a boy at 13+ as to whether Eton would be damaging or beneficial which is perhaps more in the balance but not schools like Manchester Gramma, Habs etc. They are not pareticularly posh or privileged school. They are just full of clever children from very mixed backgrounds. Whenever the girls have mentioned anyone mentioning their school it tends to be a positive mentioning of it by an employer not an ugh... stand away from me you posh awful thing but may be if their career aim was to work for a socialist London borough that might be different.

I have worried for years over the decision about whether to send DS's to Eton because it may be a millstone around their necks. But at the end of the day I decided that the only place it may be a problem is certain environments in the UK. Globally, Eton is a gold standard brand that it was a small risk to isolate my son from the fashionable whims of the times in Britain, which as we know change every couple of years!

I once thought Oxbridge was the be all and end all but now I know a little more it is clear that going to certain schools but not Oxbridge still stands you in more favour than going to Oxbridge and not these schools. Yes it is an unpleasant, unfair thought, but that's life!