Anyone backpedalled on pushy parenting and changed course?

[AnnaBBB]

Am having real second thoughts about applying for highly selective /academic senior schools for DS even though he is quite academic ....... I feel already there is too much teaching is to the test and confess I have contributed to that pressure at home too in an effort to improve his shot at getting into these schools ....but there seems to be little creativity in it all ....I am wondering if it is having the opposite effect of fostering a genuine joy of learning, and the prospect of having him spend several more years of being hothoused at senior school and then having to follow that through at home to keep up in a highly competitive place where everyone needs to get A * or they feel a failure could backfire... the constant testing even at 9/10 years old is making him lose perspective of what he really used to love about a subject and he is starting to question the point of it all. Am curious if others having got into these highly selective schools (aka intensely competitive exam factories/hot houses), regretted it and then pulled their DCs out for similar reasons. Plus you read stories of child geniuses whose parents hothoused them even giving up their own jobs to home school (so effectively 1:1 tutoring) who then grow up to say they feel they lost their childhood and would never put their own children through it (Ruth Lawrence for one). Is it really worth it in the end?

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

word The ridiculous thing is though, that when people see high achievement and a modicum of financial or professional or artistic success, say, there is an automatic assumption that the person who has this must be competitive, driven, ambitious, working hard etc. Quite often we are coasting (as you yourself almost certainly know - I recognise the patterns ;) ) and doing practically the minimum we can to do a decent job. That's certainly me. I could be ambitious, even at my age. I could work hard. But really, I just can't be arsed most of the time unless there is something particularly interesting or unless I'm going to look like a complete idiot and fall on the very arse I usually can't be bothered to acknowledge, in a public setting (then I make an effort oh very yes. But it's only a few times a year).

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Anna, Poppy I can assure you that I know whereof I speak both from the perspective of a parent at one of the all GCSEs in Y10 superselective schools, and from the perspective of someone with a close family member involved in RG admissions.

[AnnaBBB]

www.acme-uk.org/media/7392/early%20and%20multiple%20entry%20to%20gcse%20final.pdf


There is a different perspective to sitting GCSES a year or two early en masse which may be more for the school's benefit and resits for league tables

[wordfactory]

Russians there is that yes .

In fact, I was thinking that just yesterday. I'm really not challenging myself at the moment. What I do comes easily. And quickly. Partly because I was born to do it and partly because I've honed my skills.

I really need a new project...but they do keep offering luchre, so it's hard to resist!

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Anna Are you not reading Word's posts (and mine)?

Sitting GCSEs a year early is not for the school's benefit (well, OK, it happens to always be at the very top of the league tables but it was before the change to Y10 sitting) nor is it for resists! It's to stop the kids dying of boredom.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Ah, but word there you are looking for a new challenge!

[wordfactory]

Russians yes I am.

I spiced this year up, by adding the lecturing job into the mix. But this term's such a weird one, with exams and all that! I haven't been needed to do a fat lot.

And the latest book's finished...

Since Easter I've been fairly free. Should have started a new project, and yet here I am on MN ...

[AnnaBBB]

www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/teachers/academic.html

ok here is what Cambridge have to say on the subject of sitting early...I don't have a particular opinion but unless you are very confident your child is going to get A* across the board I wouldn't want them to sit them early ..I note that a lot of selective independent schools are against it also (perhaps not for maths)

[wordfactory]

Which selective independent schools do you have in mind anna ?

[poppydoppy]

Some schools obviously sit children early for GCSEs but I doubt it will give you an advantage over a child that did them all in year 13.

[wordfactory]

poppy the advanatage is not being bored!

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Anna DD1's school has one of the highest percentages of kids going to Oxbridge from state schools. Top 5 I think on the most recent government data.

Since you seem determined to shout down people who actually know what they are talking about I would suggest that you do, in fact, have a particular opinion.

[AnnaBBB]

well ...perhaps those with DCs at Winchester, St Pauls, Westminster, Eton, etc can comment though, as I said there may be exceptions like maths or MFL but again some of those also don't bother with GCSES at all and go for IGCSES or Pre Us

[AnnaBBB]

what percentage go to Oxbridge from that school without naming it ? I am curious...

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Poppy Could you clarify - did you really mean that kids who sit all their GCSEs in Y10 don't have advantages over those who sit them in Y13? Or did you mean Y11?

Clearly, some kids who sit all their GCSEs in Y10 have humungous advantages over kids who sit them in Y11. Others have smaller advantages, possibly dwindling down to none at the margins. But if you consider the brightest of the kids forced to wait till Y11, and compare them to the kids allowed to progress at their own pace, then the kids who haven't been held back are clearly getting an advantage over and above the one conferred by nature.

[wordfactory]

Anna my son attends one of the schools you mention.

They don't sit early as a cohort, as they do in Russians DC's school. It's all a bit flexible. Each boy has his own schedule.

DA just sat 2 IGCSEs. He is in year 9.

[MrsSalvoMontalbano]

DC are at a top indie which does not do iGCSEs early, they do them all in Year 13 - but they do not teach to the test, the DC do lots of reading around the subject and extension work so they do not 'get bored', they are all being stretched to the extent of their ability. The only exception to the early GCSE is if the child is a native speaker of a MFL - in that case they might take that a year early, but will then use the extra year to progress in it to AS.

[poppydoppy]

Sorry I meant year 11.

DD is very bright as are her peers. The school she attends wont let the students sit GCSEs early but they do teach ahead. DD is currently doing A level work (in a few subjects) in year 10 as they have covered all the GCSE course.

[MrsSalvoMontalbano]

Sorry I mean Year 11, not 13

[wordfactory]

DS sat an MFL (not a native speaker) and Latin early.

He did this because a. he was ready and b. he wanted to take up a new MFL and Ancient Greek, both virtually from scratch. There simply wouldn't have been room in his timetable to do this, if he had sat early.

[Bonsoir]

"The only exception to the early GCSE is if the child is a native speaker of a MFL - in that case they might take that a year early, but will then use the extra year to progress in it to AS."

Some universities discount any MFL GCSEs or A-levels taken by native speakers and, frankly, there is little point in native speakers taking public examinations designed for second language learners.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

word DS's comp makes most of the kids do French GCSE in Y9. I'm not wild about this at all, but it's a fait accompli. They then do at least one (possibly two or even 3) more MFL GCSEs in Y11. The top sets may also do maths early, I'm far more relaxed about that (DS will likely do that, and I'm cool with it, if that's what he and his teachers think is OK. They have a much better track record with the selective early maths than with the practically across the board very early French).

[AnnaBBB]

well I note there would be exceptions like Maths or French and my DS could probably sit Maths next year in year 7 and get an A (outside of school) but I don't see the point really ...but doing onw or two IGSCES a year early so you can move on AS level may be good...but what I am questioning is that somehow it you are bright and in a superselective the whole cohort should be sitting them all a year or two early or they will be bored stiff ...I also don't consider sitting GCSES at A* early a mark of an excellence in education in the holistic sense ...yes, excellence in teaching to the test perhaps but that is a wholly different thing.

if that was the case then why don't all the top superselective independent schools do that ..I mean schools that are getting 25% + into Oxbridge each year if it is such an advantage ...I may be mistaken but I have not been told they do that as a matter of practice unlike the state school that is being referred to by Russian above

Russian - Expressing an opinion is not "shouting down"......I am entitled to disagree with the approach and say simply that I wouldn't choose a school that forced the whole cohort to do that - acceleration is not the same as enrichment in my view ....but that's my choice

[Bonsoir]

In the case where a child sits, say, French GCSE in Y9, how does that child continue to make progress in French in Y10 and Y11?

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Anna my exception to your posts isn't in relation to your opinion, to which, as you point out, you are entitled, but to your insistence in the face of experience that universities (and in particular Oxbridge) 'don't like it'. They are neutral.

This is however an excellent example of the phenomenon word and I were talking about above - people look at other individuals, or groups of people, or schools, who do things differently - and instead of saying, oh, that's different than how I/we/my school does it, that's interesting, now, who's on centre court they immediately start saying that's wrong or universities won't like it or my child could do better than that in Y7 but they choose not to. Or similar. Text book competitive/pushy.