Academically selective V Nurturing and arty ?

[delillah247]

DD1 has been offered two scholarships for entry to year 9. Which do you chose, both have very good results, one is more academically pushy, ie maths a year early, the other has the most fantastic extra curricular facilities. DD is very academic, and really wants to be challenged. She does lots of dance etc, outside of school. Am I right in thinking that she would thrive best at the more academic school? Very confused.

Does one do IB rather than A levels?

What happens if you do a GCSE early and then want to carry that on to A level - can you start the A level early?

No they both do A levels as far as I'm aware.

My understanding of the boys school is that the situation is rather fluid. Boys who sit French early (and of course they're not encouraged to do so unless they're predicted a good grade) are then encouraged to continue with their French. This is in fact the start of the A level syllabus, though of course an A level amount of time cannot be devoted to it.

Some boys with particular lingusitic flair can also learn Spanish in that time.

There is a degree of flexibility though, and I 've heard of some boys who loath French and simply doing it early to get it out of the way, being allowed to do other subjects, or simply concentrate more time on their ohter GCSEs.

The majority of boys also take maths a year early and again what each boy does with that free time afterwards is something to be discussed with the school.
Many begin their A level Maths (maths is the biggest dept in the school), others continue with it as a challenge, knowing they will probably drop it in sixth form.
Others do something different alltogether. It's been known for some boys who take French and Maths early to get an A level in one or the other by the end of year eleven.

The decision as to how best to proceed is down to the boy and his parents, though with strong advice from the school who, let's be very honest, want each boy to gte the best grades they can.

Pushy is not always a good thing - the most important skill a bright child can learn in school is to motivate themselves to work hard and do their best, even when distracted by "fun stuff". i remember loads of kids at university who had been hothoused and when they got to university and were left to their own devices they fell apart as all they wanted to do was let loose and party - they had peaked too soon so to speak. If your child is very bright and used to being the best then I would err on sending her to the other school to encourage her to keep up her academics WHILE participating in all the extra activities her school has to offer - that is an incredibly important life skill....

Also, it will look a lot better on her university application form to have straight A's from a non academically selective school and lots of other strings to her bow, then have straight A's from a school were everyone has straight A's......there is also a huge advantage for her to "stand out" in her school for being very bright, rather than get lost in the crowd l.... Of course, if the arty school doesn't have good track record of getting kids into good universities then ignore what I've said as you don't want to go TOO far in the other direction!!!...

eshermum both schools in question are private. I doubt universities are going to get into that level of minutiae with contextual data once they've registered the fact that the 'arty' school is nevertheless clearly a fairly decent independent.

Now if OP was to sign her bright DD into an underperforming comp. and she could continue achieving - then you might have a point..

DD is in an O.K comp, I am sure she would get straight A's, but the fear is that she will completely lose the plot in the process as she is sooo bored! The whole 'being clever is not cool' is hard to deal with day in day out. So far she has coped with it, but it really does get to her. GCSEs are the same whether private or state, I am just hoping that by sending her privately we will be giving her the opportunity to experience loads of extra curricular things and put her into an environment in which a greater majority of the students have aspirations similar to hers. DD current school is fantastic with average and under achieving kids, but unfortunately doesnt seem to have the capacity to stretch the system for the very academic kids. Its a real shame, it is actually a really lovely school, it just doesnt fit my dd's needs.

eshermum - the school we have chosen, although it appears less academic, had the same number of oxbridge acceptances as the more selective school, and only 4% less a-c grades.(55% a/a at the less selective and 57% a/a at selective) Maybe I am wrong, but my way of thinking is that if a less selective school can almost match the results of a very selective school, the teaching must be extremely good!

I think you need to look at the subjects. If it's GCSE needlework that will not be the same as at some schooles where cirtually every child is doing, eng lit, eng lang, maths, french, 2 or 3 sciences, history etc.

Xenia, not sure if I'm getting the wrong vibe from you, what is wrong with GCSE needlework? At DD's school they definitely all do 2 sciences, the more able do 3, they have to take either geography or history, and obviously English lit, language and maths. There are more vocational courses, ie. btecs, , agriculture, social care, p.e., D.T, drama etc. I am getting the vibe that you don't think these are worthy subjects. From what I can gather universities today are looking for students with a well rounded education. Surely choosing something like social care for example, shows that a person has empathy and people skills, in the same way as doing art or textiles shows creativeness.

Many confusing cross-threads running here, but a couple of points to make:

First, since the freeing up of the curriculum, there are quite a lot of honcho points to be had from children taking exams early. Not only does it look good in the prospectus, it also gives an easy "not quite ready" excuse for disappointing results and an equivalent "didn't we do well!" claim for average ones.

Second, very few teenagers realise that the law requires them to stay in school until 31 Aug of the academic year in which they turn 16. Many of those who are not deeply committed to an academic future begin to get itchy feet during Yr 11, esp if their 16th birthday is anytime before about Easter. I teach SEN and our children seem to do a lot better in their Yr 10 exams than in their Yr 11 ones.

Thirdly, the real challenge of GCSE used to be the ability to juggle an amazing number of very different balls simultaneously: actually, a really good "life skills" predictor: 10 exams in Physics, French, Marths & Music etc is a useful comparator if all taken at the same time, preferrably at the same age. But if they are taken at different ages, or over an extended period of time, then the objecive value of this is lost.

Fourth point, very important, will have to wait as DH is making eyes from bottom of stares.... (Freudian, sorry)

millie I hope you come back with your fourth point, despite DH's stares.

I think the hardest thing about GCSE's compared to AS or A2 is the number of subjects to learn, remember and juggle. Splitting the exams makes life much easier, even if some are taken earlier. Completely agree with milliemae.

The UCAS form orders exams chronologically; I'd assume some weight is given to the relative ease of splitting exams and the relative difficulty of sitting ten or eleven at one time.

I don't think any weight is given for how one sits the exams, as long as one does well.

Otherwise the schools that encourage early sitting simply wouldn't do so. They have their reputation as a school from which 99% of leavers go to excellent universities to maintain.

Call me a cynic, but these schools know which side their bread is buttered and only do things that reflect well. If they thought there was anything to be gained by insisting the pupils wait, they'd do it and boredom be damned.
It would afterall be more convenient to be rigid about these things.

Also, home educated children often have a very odd smattering of GCSEs taken from different boards at different times and there is no evidence that they struggle to find university places.
Oxbridge in particular will consider applicants with few formal qualifications...

Breadth and depth is more important than acceleration with regard to children's intellectual development, so early exams are not necessarily good, except perhaps in subjects like languages and maths, where competency often comes early and children can then go on to develop their skills. A good school will use any slack time in a subject to go beyond the syllabus a little. This is especially true of subjects like English and History.

AS Levels taken a year early are generally discouraged by universities (again, maths might not fit into this category or posters might have evidence to the contrary.)

A tiny number of generally very high-achieving schools will try to get some exams out of the way early and then progress beyond the syllabus. Some state schools will have students sit exams early for the good reasons stated by Millie, (she's been at the bottom of the stairs an awfully long time hasn't she?) and also so that if a C is achieved in year 10, their baseline requirements for league tables are met and students often then might resit to raise the grade next year. The latter is a bit of a pragmatic approach and maybe not educationally ideal, but ensures students may progress to the next step. They are doing their best for their children in an imperfect system.

It is, generally speaking, best to take most subjects in one year to show a student can cope with them all and universities will take note of this and be more impressed by this. That said, all posters' comments above are true in so far as there are no (or few) real hard and fast rules since students are individuals and we hope will be treated so. They come to university application via different paths and from different circumstances, which admissions tutors are trusted to take into consideration and, I think, broadly succeed in doing.

slipshod The theory behind our school accelerating KS3 and entering all pupils for all GCSE's in one hit in Y10 is all about breadth and depth, but in the Sixth Form. Obviously it's not a programme that would suit every school.

As this time of year comes around again I see how hard it is to try to do eleven subjects all at once (leaving aside the year early thing) and how much more relaxed AS's and A2's are by comparison.

wordfactory of course independents 'know which side their bread is buttered' and have the capacity/ income to take an individualised approach. They'll be looking for the best way to maximise the grades achieved by each child because that's what the parents' want. That doesn't mean their system presents the pupils with the most challenge, so it's good to hear from someone who knows that universities do take this into account. Our school simply wouldn't have the teaching resources to do what your school does.

oh, I'm under no illusion that the school I'm thinking of does it to maximise grades/ensure their pupils all go to good universities.

But for DS it will have the happy by product of providing more of a challenge so I'm content to go along with it.
I just can't see any benefit in going over old ground again and again.

That said, if I believed their would be any benefit to him in terms of university admissions to take all GCSEs at once, I'd insist of course.

I quite see that going over old ground will do no good at all, though it isn't a relevant factor at our school.

I'd have thought that overall, in terms of university admissions, there was more benefit to a pupil in wringing out the best grades possible from that child than from taking all GCSE's in one go and risking lower grades. Less challenge no doubt facilitates better grades. I'm sure that's the calculation schools such as yours will have made. But not all schools have that luxury of choice, so it's good to know some credit at least is given for the in-built challenge of taking all the exams at one time. I'd assume the credit given was pretty marginal anyhow. I like the fact that the dates of exams show up clearly on the UCAS form though, because I happen to think it's extremely impressive to manage something like twenty five or so different papers at that age in the space of three or so weeks.

An accelerated KS 3 sounds good with an academic intake but I am interested to know what the curriculum is in Year 11 Yellowstone?

slipshod the cohort which left last year was the first to have completed the three year programme and the school has tweaked it along the way. For the moment, Y11 sit General Studies A2 and Critical Thinking AS that year as the school believes both have value but don't directly affect university offers. The students start their four AS courses which on the whole all are now going to be expected to continue to A2. The general philosophy is that students go beyond the syllabus in their subjects, so they look at literature in MFL for example and historiography in history and look at significantly more works in Philosophy than they otherwise would. The theory is that there should be more breadth and more depth. The programme also gives space for all students to do an EP and beyond that the school believes in encouraging extra curricular activities for their own sake/ light relief/ personal growth.

Yellowstone, thanks for the explanation. It all sounds very interesting for students.