seeker
Setting the way you see it might seem good. But it's very idealistic. Before I went to my 'grammar'-type school, my middle school (which was in a more socially mixed area than my primary school) was based on 'setting'. Your final 'set level' had a big say as to which school teachers would recommend you for - yes, there were no big exams, it was your performance at middle school and your teachers who made that decision for you.
Not every subject was 'set'. They saw no need to do 'setting' in subjects like History or Physics which we've only just started, so there was no prior track record to base our level of knowledge on. The weird thing is - as different as Maths and English may be - the 'top set' was almost always the same.
And do you know what the problem with that school was?
The feeling - the ambience around you - the majority of people just generally were not into "working". As a "bright kid" you were in the minority. It just was not "cool". You may say, it doesn't matter, because you use "setting". But you don't spend all your school day in class. You have breaks, and in those breaks, being in the "top set" was a cruel thing. The brighter students generally struggled, and became quite introvert. Their confidence plummeted. I did have a few friends who were not in the "top set" - more middle, let's say - and though I think they would have benefitted from an environment where working well would have been appreciated, they often found themselves being pulled the other way - which happened to be where the majority was.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of saying that the "less bright kids" are the minority, and could thus be "pulled up" by the bright ones. Well, I think it's actually the other way around. You only have to watch movies set in high school to figure out that the bright kids - the nerds - form the minority. And there's a far greater likelihood that in the spirit of "belonging", they will dumb down.
I can see that some children may be good at sport and not in academia - because one is a physical activity, and the other a mental one. There will be quite a few who are good in both. However, when it comes to "academia" on its own, it is rare (we're talking dyslexic properties, etc.) to find someone who is excellent in one, but who will completely, majorly screw up the other. People good in Maths, for example, are widely believed to be better in Music. People doing PhDs in Maths / Physics, still have to be able to write a thesis. And have you seen the art work produced at some of these academically selective schools? They are - more often than not - amazing! And yet, if academically gifted children were not meant to be artistic, then that should not be the case. Once you get children who are well above the average, you do tend to have people who will be good at many subjects, and not just one. They also tend to be rather competitive.
When I do see a child who is fantastic in one thing and really bad to the point of failing in another, I do have hope that it is because of something quite tangible. Often, this is because very early on in their schooling, the foundations were not done correctly. I've once helped a friend's young DS who was apparently appalling in maths, which was surprising, because he otherwise seemed like a bright child. After a bit of probing, it turned out, he didn't really understand how division worked. So he couldn't understand the more complex things, and basically just gave up - to the point of hating the subject. After a few weeks of going back to basics, he progressed quite rapidly. I see this kind of problem happening a lot with languages particularly (which is not taught very well in state schools within this country), which is probably why not many British school children take languages for A-levels.
And I just wanted to add that happygardening is not alone in her plight with the schooling of her DS. He aced some kind of intelligence test when he was little, and his state primary suggested his parents should move to the private sector. What do you do if you have a child for whom state schools cannot cater to.