So Eton, everything I expected and more

[JoanBias]

My DS is at a private school, so I have experience of private schooling, but my word Eton was like another world.

Not just the school, but the people there.

There was one prep school being shown around, all in tweed jackets, and to a boy the spitting image of Draco Malfoy (well there was one Chinese boy, but otherwise....).

One of the mothers doing the tour was not quite right in some respect, I'm not sure how but something wasn't wired up correctly or something. She was immacuately dressed, 6-inch heels (pretty daft considering the confirmation letter warns about having a long walk), but she was just bizarre. The admissions tutor said 'we have a waiting list of 80 boys and typically 35% of these will make it through', and she asked afterwards 'so 80% of the boys from the waiting list make it through?', and it was then explained again, but you could kind of hear the cogs going round and she clearly didn't get it. She had asked several other similar questions; e.g., it was explained that some Houses are catering and others go to a central cafeteria, so she then asked 'so they all eat in the cafeteria'? She pointed at the Fives Court and asked me 'what do they play here?' I said 'Fives' 'Is it squash?', she said. 'No, Eton Fives.' 'So is it squash?' It seemed as if this woman had had the benefit of the 'Finishing School for the Terminally Dim', because she was otherwise every inch the presentable upper middle-class wife.

Another family had a son who looked the prototypical pre-Etonian, and sure enough Daddy spent the tour braying on about his House when he had been there.

The facilities were extremely impressive, although they didn't bother to show us any of the academic parts, and basically the impression was 'if your son is incredibly pushy and self-motivated, send him here and we will teach him to be entitled'. They said 'every year we reject about a third of the highest performers on the test', essentially because they aren't pushy enough. (The House Mistresses seemed quite nice though.)

Fantastic training for future managing directors and whatever, but not for us.....

Well worth it to sign up for a tour, very illuminating. They take about 100 a day from what I can see, so obligation at all....

Mini -- don't reward anything but effort, organisation, and good work habits.

And on the subject of cats and the paleo diet -- my mum's late and lovely moggy brought her a muddy and slightly grassy half leg of lamb one Easter Sunday afternoon. The cat had obviously got into someone's kitchen and nicked it off their counter or possibly a window will, and was very proud of himself. Mum's garden has high walls all around so he had to have dragged it up trees and then down to get it to the back door.

From that Eton article:
?You cannot underestimate the effect of family on the upbringing of a child and their educational chances,? Mr Little says. ?But it?s not just about material wealth. The real privilege is to have a happy family with lots of interest in the child. You can have very rich parents with no time to do those things with their children.? This is so wise and so true.
The things you do with your children don't have to cost a penny either. Take them out for a long walk. Play cards with them. The secret is to give them your time and your interest.
?But it?s wholly misguided to have happiness as a target. Happiness is a chimera. It?s a consequence of being busy, active, challenged, excited.?
This is also wise and very true.

Of course part of the point of Eton is that you can pay someone else to do those things with your children.

I thought it a very good article.
I particularly agreed with:-

Originality is being stifled, he warns. ?English A level is now marked like maths. It used to be the case that, if you had a candidate who was prepared to explore the highways and byways, go a bit off piste but was intelligent, you would make a judgment and give credit, but now that?s all blue-pencilled because it?s not ticking the box.

They are taught to the test and if you stick to an agreed formula you do well. You could take a subject like history and have an obscure view and as long as you could argue your case you could get good marks but it no longer the case.

It is a shame that parents have been conditioned to accept less than what Eton and its ilk offer, and a shame that if you want that for your son or the equivalent for your daughter then you are forced to look to the private sector. The DCs' US public high school mirrored public schools in a great many ways and did far better then them in many ways too (non-selective admission), offered a vast array of sports and other extra curricular activities all staffed and led by the teaching staff (who understood their job could involve being at the school until after 9 pm weekdays and again at weekends despite being unionised). All of this was available because the community demanded nothing less than the absolute best for all the children living there.

then them = than them

My favourite quote from this article

People say you can take a horse to water but you can?t make it drink. That?s true, but if you don?t take the horse to water in the first place they?re never going to drink.

So true. Friends criticise me for the range of different activities I've let ds do. The usual comment is along the lines if you do everything now what will you do with him when he's older? My counter to that is he will either be very proficient at the activities he started at a young age or be doing a whole load of different activities. I never understand why some friends decide against letting their dcs try new experiences at a younger age (assuming it is safe for them to do so).

Interesting about the A level outcome for the school's "best historian". Shows that Eton don't teach to test, which is the usual criticism of independent schools.

I remember my History GCSE. I didn't do any revision for any of my GCSEs, and one of the questions in History was about some conflict or other, and I didn't know anything about it at all, so I just spouted off in generic history essay fashion for a couple of pages.

Got an A for that.

Slightly surprised that it's become more rigid.

Unfortunately they have to teach for the test-they failed to beat the system and had to accept the U grade.

"Shows that Eton don't teach to test, which is the usual criticism of independent schools."

Depends on the school. The super-selectives don't need to teach to the test, because they pretty much all acknowledge that the test is not all that hard.

If you've got a school that takes the top 5% of the ability range, pots of cash, motivated parents, and so on, and we know that 27% of the population as a whole get As (at A Level), then, it's not going to be necessary to teach to the test for your super-bright students to get top grades.

On the other hand, I think if you've got a private school which is less selective, then teaching to the test makes a lot of sense, because you've got perhaps a top 50% (or slightly below) student, and you want them to get a top 25% result.

Both approaches provide value for the parent purchasing the education, but you need to match the child to the school to an extent, because in most cases the top 5% kids will end up at those schools.

But they clearly didn't teach to test where that boy was concerned and didn't if he was described as their best historian. He was taught to think and question rather than spout rubbish. I want ds to go to a school where he is encouraged to think rather than accumulate facts.

I think the boy in question could have got the top grade had he done what he knew he needed to do-he chose not to. I think he was great, but he sacrificed his grade. You can't be original. I have tutored for year 6 SATs and it is very much 'to get a level 4 you need to do a,b and c'-it kills originality. They are marked on a grid system.

Well it might be a good idea to hold off on the questioning just for A Level day, to be honest.

Although it's certainly interesting, I'm sure a lot of schools would say 'you arrogant fool, why are you doing this on a public exam, you've seen the syllabus, what's wrong with you boy', whereas at Eton they send it off to be marked by Oxford and Cambridge, and then say 'well done, you are better than the examiners' (and never mind that you get a U).

This could certainly be seen as 'entitled'.

I daresay there have been similar incidents at other schools, both state and private, of boys too arrogant to answer the question, the really interesting thing for me is how Eton respond to it.

As they said on the open day - Eton teaches you that you can just invite Boris Johnson round, and he will come - and here, if you don't follow the rules for your public examinations, never mind they will send it off to be marked by Oxford and Cambridge dons. Hard to see that happening at a state comp.

So you go out into the world with similar expectations.

Good article except the happiness part. It is a consequence of the list mentioned plus a whole load of other things.

Agree that exams now stifle originality.
And if not a dumbing down, certainly a "that will do" attitude in Comprehensives, almost a " we must not do better than others" attitude in the Comprehensive system.

Going out into the world with high expectations is surely better than the converse know your place attitude?

"They may decide their aim in life is the abolition of schools like Eton ? that is fine, as long as they do it with passion and intelligence and integrity.?

DS, in the car on Friday morning " why do the banks go after home owners and not the developers. I don't know where he gets these ideas from!

?But it?s wholly misguided to have happiness as a target. Happiness is a chimera. It?s a consequence of being busy, active, challenged, excited.? I particularly agree with this statement. I don't think I have given very much attention to whether my children are happy, I'm more concerned with the final product. Which is why homework gets done, I do expect them to work hard and I do offer things for them to do. If there is no homework set.....I set them to work on something. State schools offer so little in the way of extra curricular opportunities, clubs and sports. The music provision is pants too. No wonder so many teenagers from poorer backgrounds are bored and disruptive.

Minx why would you set work for your dcs to do? Why wouldn't you consider whether they are happy?

Joanbuyers, I disagree. That boy may have received confirmation that he produced an excellent piece of work, but will have to live with the fact that his formal exam result will show a fail - the consequence of failing to answer the question will be plain to him.

I agree, it was a good article and I agree with most of what was said in it. Mind you, the freedom I had to question everything and set out my own thinking when reading law at Oxford did lead to intense disappointment with law school and beyond - no longer was it relevant, what I actually thought of the status quo. In fact, being too questioning seems to be a bit dangerous in many careers. I should have stuck with academic law, I think! I'm not very good, even now, at doing what is expected simply because that's what is expected and I find the process of getting to an answer an awful lot more interesting than the answer itself.

It is not clear that there is a negative consequence to failing to answer the question, in fact to the contrary he has been awarded extra attention from some of the most distinguished historians in the country, and presumably an Oxbridge place in due course.

But he did answer the question, just not in the way that the exam setters wanted. Fair enough if they aren't academically rigorous in their question setting.

Yes but he will still have one less GCSE pass mark than he would otherwise have had

It was A level not GCSE so greater consequences than simply having one less pass.

Little is clearly hugely impressive himself but of all the Etonians I've come across personally I struggle to think of anyone truly impressive. I could certainly name some pretty lame ducks. My father said the same of his generation and the DDs say the same now at Oxford. Some must be hugely, madly intelligent because we see them in public life and Boris is one, but that can't be the norm. School prospectus' so often sound so vey much better than life. Even the really crap schools sound great on the websites. More fool those that get taken in.

I think the lad who was too clever for his own good can't be as clever as he thinks. DS1 knew the score (took his A Levels this summer), did what the exam boards required and cleaned up on 6 A* - but that has nothing whatsoever to do with his school 'teaching to the test'. He just knew what he had to do to get top marks and did it. He didn't then have to make a fuss asking dons to confirm he was clever. He just took up the place he'd been offered seamlessly and spent a lovely ummer with friends in the sun. The fact is that he can think way beyond that when that's appropriate; it just wasn't appropriate then.

Fair play to him though. He will have been taught exactly what the examiners will have been looking for, and if he's as bright as suggested then unless he screwed up the other exams in a similar way he's likely to have a goodly number of other passes.

The consequence is only for him personally, in knowing that he failed an exam he could have passed and there's only his word for it to anyone else that he could have passed if he'd chosen to.