Is everybody happy with their choice of a selective secondary education over an non-selective one?

[PooshTun]

DS's primary school wasn't particularly academic so he found the transition during the first three weeks at his selective school very tough going. They get three pieces of work a day and in theory they should only take 20 minutes each. In practice, for the first week DS would be up until 10pm doing it. He would then drag himself off to bed half asleep.

Most of his classmates came up from prep schools so they were use to the academic pressure. Also, since they had already been introduced to the material in Year 6 they were whizzing through the homework.

DS's middle initial is 'F' and during those dark days he would often say to us that it stood for 'failure' :(

Things werren't great on the friends front either. Most of his classmates had known each other for years from their time at the prep school so DS found it difficult breaking into these friendship groups. DS ended up going to the library during breaktime because he had no friends to hang out with.

Round about week 4 things started to come together. He got use to the routine, he was coping well with the work and he had made some great friends and friends begets friends.

Now, looking back, DS can laugh at his 'F' is for failure remarks. He looks forward to school, is very active in athletics and music, doing very well academically and was recently made 'editor' of the Year 7 newsletter.

During the first few 'dark' weeks DP and I did doubt that we did the right thing in placing DS at such an academic school. But everyone pushed on and now we are 110% sure that we made the right decision.

But that is us. Any parent out there who have regretted their decison to chose a selective education for their DCs?

I think DD1 had a different experience to your son at her grammar - she found it refreshing that all the girls were clever and she was not singled out by the teacher all the time as the "clever one". She also liked the fact that everyone was generally well behaved and keen to work. She had been at an independent but it was rubbish academically with some badly behaved kids - she was behind in maths when she started - but the teachers realised it was down to poor teaching at primary and she soon caught up.

DD2 was put into the top class of 8 forms at her comp. Some of the kids are exceptionally bright and articulate and she felt a bit down for the first few weeks as she thought they were a lot cleverer than her - she found it difficult to cope with the homework at first - but she soon found her feet and is considered one of the most able in the class now.

I think the transition to secondary is a great worry and traumatic for quite a few kids - not just in a grammar!

Our five have been/are at selective private schools from age 4+ and it's gone really really well. I think it's hard to generalise for eveyone because schools differ but if you are qutie bright and everyone in the school is you do better. Any Question son R4 this week had some discussions (and any Answers) about selective schooling - Northern Ireland may abolish ist 11+ which made all the usual points but the bottom oline is the NI which has selective schools has children getting much better results than in the English areas without selective state schools (ie most of England). One very articulate 14 year old boy called in to the programme. He was at his comprehensive only maths was set and that was fine. In the other classes it was all mixed ability and hard that made it for him.

Also a lot of children follow their peers as teenagers. If your peers are mixed ability and plenty will leave school at 16 you may well do so. If 99.9% go to leading universities at 18 you are likely to do so.

But what about parents whose DC went to state primary schools but chose a selective secondary?

My dd goes to grammar school, hardly any of her peers come from private schools.
Are you sure so many of his friends do? Infact I'd be hard pressed to think of more than 2 girls in her year and the one above who did.

Oh and no, no regrets!! Suits DD to a "T"

What a bizarre op

@QOD - DS is at an indie so the background of his classmates will differ from yours

I keep getting told that the 11+ and GS entry favour heavily tutored prep kids. I'm glad to hear that its not true in your case.

Enragia - Why is it a bizarre post? A lot of state primary school parents choose a selective secondary education for their DCs, whether grammar or private.

I am interested in hearing other parents stories. In our case we had a happy ending but I'm aware that not everyone has a happy ending. What's so bizarre about wanting to talk about it?

I don't think it's a strange question. I hear all the time on various threads that over-tutoring DCs for 11+ / highly selective indies is a mistake because will result in them going to schools that are wrong for them and they will be miserable, but I have no idea whether it's actually true.

I think it's odd to endlessly navel gaze. If your kid hates the school move em

Enragia - Why do I get the impression that you are one of those posters that regularly inject themselves into a thread and go 'dump the bastard' whenever posters just want to swap relationship stories :o

As premature said, we keep hearing from parents going on about how tutoring is bad and that any kid that requires tutoring in order to get in will inevitably struggle. I am interested in hearing about similar parents experiences now that Year 7 is drawing to an end

I know its raining outside and it has probably spoiled your Bank Holiday weekend plans but come on, you must have better things to do then to come here and flame people for discussing a subject that presumably doesn't affect you.

I think this is an interesting post my DS is in a super selective and I don't regret it in any way. Before finally making our decision a few years ago I talked to lots of teacher about selective versus non selective and I found they rather irritatingly sat on the fence. Our old head (who retired after we'd been there a year) at our prep was old fashioned and believed very bright children should be in super selective schools as did some of the old guard but the younger ones seemed much more ambivalent I'm not sure why this is. The only thing is I wouldn't want my DC to be at the bottom of the intake that must be a pretty crappy place to be.

Poosh what sort of school is this? Independent, superselective grammar or grammar in a grammar area?

Our school insists that Y7 don't spend more than the allocated time on homework, that that's at least as bad as, if not worse than, spending too little. 10pm is nuts, even though I see it only lasted a week.

I've noticed that you've started several posts on this theme recently but have only glanced at them, so I'm curious to know which category of school, because obviously the ethos can differ.

Oops, maybe I should have read more than your OP!

Here's another one who can vouch for the overwhelming majority of students at a superselective coming from the state sector too.

Poosh you seem fixated on this tutoring kick. Why?

I went from a state primary to a selective secondary school and it was probably the wrong decision. I enjoyed being at the top of the class at primary but found being near the bottom when I started secondary really hard. There were issues as I also moved boroughs so had covered different things than most people at the secondary I found myself far behind struggling to catch up. I stayed there for 7 awful years and I wish I'd just been able to go to the secondary at the top of our road with my friends from primary school, but that didn't happen.

Just as a balance though, my sister made the same type of move and thrived. Different personalities suit different schools. The hard thing is to work out what is right.

Hi Yellow. It's an indie that is in the top 20 of the Sunday Times rankings.

The school did say that 20min should be the max DS spends on a particular piece of homework. Personally I can't see that being realistic. I mean, the other day DS was asked to write an essay on whether he believed Jesus existed. He then had to take the opposite position and write an opposing essay. All this in 20min???

lol

Yellow - Why is me asking for people's experiences with regards to coping or not coping with selective education an example of me being fixated on tutoring?

Just because you choose to read that into my OP doesn't necessarily mean that is the case.

It's the recent proliferation of your posts I suppose, all on the same subject.

Yes, 20 mins either way for Jesus in Y7 seems fair. They're not required to think at dissertation level, they're finding their way.

I'm fixated on people who fixate on tutoring as opposed to being fixated on tutoring itself if you see what I mean.

I accept that some kids who are tutored to pass an exam will find that they struggle once they are in. For a period of about 3 weeks I thought that my DS was one of those.

So I accept this as a valid criticism of tutoring. Hence this thread.

The reason why I fixate on people who fixate on tutoring is because I just can't understand how they can live with their double standards.

I mean, to Yellowtip a parent discussing science and history with their DC is a sign of a supportive parent which is good. But if that parent were to hire a tutor to discuss science and history with their DC then that is bad. Why? Because that is 'tutoring'.

I think that I need to see my optometrist on Wednesday because these days I can't seem to stop rolling my eyes when I am on MN :)

I find the idea of hiring a tutor to discuss science or history just plain odd as a matter of fact. I'm no scientist at all and haven't ever casually discussed science with any of mine but they're all either competent with science or excel at it (DS1 has just plonked two gold certificates for the Biology and Chemistry Olympiads on the table next to me, one of which he forgot to tell me about). The only thing which seems to me to be necessary is for a parent to show an interest generally, not to engage in earnest high brow conversations on esoteric matters of physics or philosophy or indeed any particular subject at all. I'm not convinced that delegating that to a tutor shows an interest in the real sense tbh.

DS1 cruised into selective secondary education without a single blip. I have not had a single moment's doubt that he is in the right school.

tutoring for me meant preparing my kid for different types of qs

wouldnt have consideered if they werent already top of primary class

i think you are a leetle obsessed

GOD yes ( looks up previous posts) you ARE obsessed