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]

Anna most recent government stats here www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-destination-data-for-the-first-time

Don't quite match your figures, for the two schools you mention, not sure why...but I would assume those are the right figures. According to those stats of the two schools you mentioned Reading's most recent percentage was 14%, Colyton's was 13%, two top schools were CRGS at 16% and QE Barnet at 15%. So yes, according to the government stats Reading is clearly a MUCH MUCH better school than every single other school than CRGS and QE Barnet. However unless you live in or near Reading, it's probably quite difficult to send your kids there, logistically.

I really don't understand this competitiveness but for the avoidance of doubt I'm sure every single parent in the country except for those who have kids at CRGS and QE Barnet will agree that Reading is clearly the BEST school and must therefore have the best kids and Reading parents definitely Win. Is that OK?

word You know why. Competitive parent syndrome.

[Bonsoir]

OK, thanks

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-destination-data-for-the-first-time

Sorry - proper link

[AnnaBBB]

WF- I am not saying it is right or wrong, and as I said I don't know the school at all......what I am trying to counterbalance is the implication that uberbright children (as you call them) must be so bored if they don't sit all their GCSES's at year 10 as an entire cohort ...the pace is not slow if they sit them later if the teaching is enriching beyond a GCSE syllabus

[MrsSalvoMontalbano]

Wordfactory make a very valid point about getting the irritant of the exam out of the way so that they can get on with learning. Certainly at our school the exams are precisely that - necessary evils to be despatched, with most of the effort going into stretching the DC with interesting stuff that inspires them.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Anna You can only speak from your experience. In my experience, which is all I can speak from, even with the teachers enriching way beyond the GCSE syllabus, and with huge amounts of extra curricular stuff, for the whole cohort at DD1's SS, doing GCSEs in Y10 is not a stretch. This is primarily because the KS3 curriculum is way overstretched, covering it in under two years is really not a problem for those kids...

[wordfactory]

Anna I didn't say that!

As I've said, DS school do a flexible smorgasboard. I'm sure there are some boys who don't sit any early.

But it costs highly in time, money and resources to do this.

Enriching every child to correct level in every GCSE subject is very tricky for schools without oodles of time, money and resources!!!

[apatchylass]

I'm torn on this. DS got into highly selective schools without much effort (some, certainly, but in no way hothoused, merely expected to do a couple of hours a week instead of nothing.)

They have 1.5 hrs homework a night at new school. He had none before. I saw a couple of teens strolling down the street yesterday, eating icecreams and laughing and had a quick pang that I am forcing him towards a much less carefree life. But actually - I don't believe I am.

To my mind, we vastly underestimate what teens are capable of, what they need to be challenged to do in order to feel worthy in our culture. I told DS he'll have to work very hard Monday to Friday in term time and play hard at weekends and in the holidays. So far he's fine with that. he loves learning. It's not always a chore to work hard. It can be fun. No harm in instilling that possibility at a young age!

Hot housing like Ruth lawrence's dad did is something else. It's the cruel manipulation of another person's life in order to make yourself feel worthy. How could she possibly thrive long term if she had no friends, no social skills, no interests beyond maths.

It's not one or the other. The best way is a balance, different for everyone, but I think most DC thrive on high expectations. DS2 is very laid back and not as overtly academic as DS1 but on the few occasions I've tiger-mummed him, he has really blossomed and his confidence has exploded. For me the key is to make sure that however hard they work, there are always fun activities each week both as a family and among friends. It's no hardship to do 2 hours homework a night if you also have sleepovers, go to the cinema, play rugby, hang out the park with mates and go for an ice-cream. That's a good, full life.

[AnnaBBB]

I am not pitching Reading vs Colyton, as I said I know neither school well.....someone asked me before for examples of superselectives that don't do all GCSES early ......my own DS is in the independent sector because i wanted to avoid the whole SATS testing and will likely stay there ..so I have no axe to grind on preferring one state school vs another ...as for being competitive, you have not read my thread closely enough....my DS is academic and bright however while considerably ahead in some areas particularly maths and middling in one or two others. My whole approach has been to decry the constant testing approach adopted in the education sector as a whole ...and for that reason I would likely avoid a grammar for my own DS and particularly one that has whole cohort doing GCSEs at year 10

[wordfactory]

MrsSalvo they are an irritant, those bloody exams. And even if the teachers are challenging the class, until the class take them, the teacher shave to keep one half eye on them...

Impossible not to.

Also, without sitting early, how can you buy time for new subjects?

[Bonsoir]

"Also, without sitting early, how can you buy time for new subjects?"

One (very famous) school in Paris negotiated a special timetable which reduced teaching time by 25% across the board in collège - French standard 1 hour classes were reduced to 45 minutes. The deal was that no extra homework would be set. Thereby "buying time" for extra subjects.

It has worked extremely well! Results have continued to be extraordinarily good at that school. So maybe reducing teaching time is the way to buy time and maintain a lot of subjects in parallel? I had 14 subjects in Y12 and 11 in Y13 and it was fine.

[wordfactory]

That's interesting Bonsoir and would indeed be another way of doing things.

[AnnaBBB]

To be honest though in independent sector Common Entrance is pretty close to GCSE especially if you sit the tougher scholarship exams (and some harder I think) ...but then once you've passed the requisite exams, and got into your senior school of choice no one really looks back at them ...

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Of course, posh schools are clearly the best of all and obviously no state school could ever possibly hope to be as good, and nor could state school pupils ever hope to be as clever. Because obviously all posh school pupils are GCSE standard at the age of 12 or however old it is that they do common entrance. Obviously. Stands to reason.

[Bonsoir]

Indeed, in my DD's (primary) school, teaching time for the French NC is reduced by 25% in order to accommodate English, and the standard of French and Maths seems great (versus French expectations...) to me. And then 1/3 of the lunch hour is taken up with Spanish, from Y5, for those pupils who to learn Spanish. I think that doing lots of subjects in parallel is a good thing, over many years. Better than doing accelerated learning in consecutive years, IMO - the learning sticks better when it was done over a long period.

[wordfactory]

Anna many of ths studenst coming from good preps, especially those who sat scholarships, have covered much of the GCSE syllabus in MFL, Latin, Maths etc

[wordfactory]

Russians not at all.

It's just that the CE and scholarship covers a lot of the stuff!

So the kids arrive in year 9 pretty well prepped.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Bonsoir that sounds like an excellent idea. Certainly one of the reasons why they find it easy to cover KS3 in 2 years instead of 3 at DD1's school is that there is no titting about in lessons.

[Bonsoir]

Competitive prep schools certainly take the DC a long way into the GCSE syllabus.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

word clearly the parents with kids at the posh schools have won not only the education system but also the internet and basically the world. I am merely agreeing with that fact!

[wordfactory]

Bonsoir in many ways I agree with you. And it is also one of the reasons I prefered DD to move schools at 11. She automatically started lots of new things!

Because DS didn't move until 13, he found that he was very accelerated in a few subjects, but hadn't even tried Ancient Greek for example!

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Imagine not even trying Ancient Greek before you're 13. :(

[wordfactory]

[AnnaBBB]

sigh Russians ...you have a chip on your shoulder ...whatever I post you are going to read it your way ...I have nothing against state...some of the state schools will be far better than the mediocre private schools...but state schools like WF says have less resources than the top indies to focus on the individual ...and as superselective as the likes Tiffins, Reading and Colyton are ...their Oxbridge % are not close to the top indies...there must be a reason for that, and it is not simply because Oxbridge prefers posh ....

[Bonsoir]

All the DC I know who have got into Oxbridge in recent years have something spectacular about them which has resulted from amazing and unusual opportunity combined with great intelligence and application. It is not wild hypothesis to imagine that fewer DC in state schools get amazing and unusual life opportunities than those in private schools or from international backgrounds.