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?

There's an elite girl's school we looked at for Dd. The snapshot tidbits I have of it all indicate a lot of pressure & hothousing. Put me off hugely since DD already pushes herself very hard.

Is it an elite school, or a school for elite girls?

Lots of people cast aspersions about girl only schools. Clearly like all schools some kids who go to these schools are already, or become, troubled - but that can happen in the laxest secondary modern, you know, or even hippy dippy schools. My actual (second hand) experience though, through knowing parents with girls at the famous (and famously criticised) ones, and through having known some of their alumni when I was at cambridge, is completely different from the scuttlebutt. I therefore still maintain that there probably isn't something about the schools themselves (or at least, the teachers), but more about particular girls or certain parents, and the reason that some famous girl only schools attract so much criticism is more due to the fact that they are highly successful GIRL schools than anything they are actually getting structurally wrong. Certainly local 'received wisdom' about the schools both DD1 AND DS go to, from parents who don't have kids at either school and never have had, is that both schools push really hard, give skrot loads of homework, are really stressful etc etc. Couldn't be further from the truth (especially in terms of volume of homework which is frankly pathetically weedy, from both schools).

Russians, I suspect there are examples of both.

Certainly, hothousey parents can put pressure on a school - but schools that have hothousey SLTs can manage it all on their own

Sorry - was referring to your previous post about 'is it parents or schools that are hothousing'

Copt, would you mind if I pm'd you about your preferred school for your second dd? Am racking brains for dd1, and just have a hunch...! Possibly too far away for us, or too hard to get into, but.

Don't worry if you'd rather not

Eli I'll pm you

Russians The school is one of the foremost girls' schools and I did make it clear that for DD1 it was perfect because they had motivated pupils who had a basic level of respect for each other. What they do well is to provide an environment in which cohorts of bright motivated girls are given lots of opportunities and because they have done that for a long time and have an established a good reputation they can be very selective and so get good results. I agree that the teaching in the normal way of things isn't pressuring or hothousing, indeed sometimes it is downright mediocre, but because of their cohorts, who in the main would get As and A*s wherever they went, they continue to be in the top 10 in the country.

The issue of pressuring arose when they found themselves with a cohort with some very difficult girls, not their fault, could happen anywhere (though possibly more likely with an affluent London intake) and the response was one which many girls found pressuring. A lot of these old traditional girls' school, including my own back in the 70s, have a liberal ethos because they do not generally get difficult pupils, so their armoury when they do is limited. In fact the motivated conscientious girls' felt squeezed in the middle between hectoring teachers and disruptive girls and their ever more spectacular attention seeking antics, literally sex, drugs and rock n roll. They lost a third of the year to other sixth forms, mostly the pupils they least wanted to loose.

She does miss the gossip though

There's probably a pressure in a class of its own from knowing that you are at 'one of the foremost girls' schools' and it is costing someone a fortune.

Posh education in general must be very high pressure for the consumer group. Even for the filthy filthy rich, its still a fortune being spent on that that could be being spent on something else.

But that's the thing - some people will always over think, over worry, over react - it sounds like that's what happened to your DD2 Copthall. Not necessarily the school's fault as such, just an unhappy combination. And not really hot housing, of any sort, more poor situational response.

Interesting post OP...it's a very tough dilemma for us parents...haven't had time to read it all but I just wanted to add that school is also part of "childhood" and it will be one of the things our DCs will remember, at least I do. My good memories from school also include exam time, the excitement, the studying, the day we got our results... What I mean is that it's not a "childhood versus school" thing as if they were mutually exclusive.

For example, the year DS spent preparing the 11plus and then sitting the exams was full of excitement and events and when it was all over he kept asking me...why is time suddenly going so slowly? He is going to a selective school he has chosen because he said it was a place where "things are happening all the time".

As long as it's not taken to the extreme, going to school and sitting exams is part of being a child. It gives their lives structure and purpose. School has lots of "down time" with friends too...chatting, eating, fooling around, etc!

I find I'm asked over and over again by parents who would like their child to attend the school my DC attend whether or not it's 'a hothouse'.

I hear over and over again from parents whose DC failed to get in that they're quite pleased, 'because of the pressure'. Some of them have told me that it's fine going elsewhere because their child 'has a life' (that was this afternoon by a disappointed Y6 mum).

I hear regularly from parents with DC actually at the school that once there, they're amazed how ill matched the reputation is to the reality.

IME at least, it's all about parents.

It is not all about the parents, it's all about the children if you have any common sense. I don't think a highly intelligent, yet self-critical perfectionist needs or benefits from a highly competitive, pressured environment, which is what they may well perceive one of the supposed "hothouse" schools to be. They create their own impetus to work hard and adding to their own nagging internal voices, which are already telling them they aren't working hard enough and could do better, by sending them to a school which really puts the pressure on is not going to do them any good. They might well do better in a school where there are fewer examples of their personality type to hype them up and fewer people in authority putting additional external pressure on them.

On the other hand, some very bright people love competition and being kept busy and benefit from having a bit of pressure put on them to show what they can do if they try. They might well not even perceive it as pressure, but as friendly encouragement. They might cruise along doing the bare minimum if they are in an environment where they do not have other competitive types to spar with and they might actually, god forbid, quite enjoy learning things and taking exams to prove their brilliance. I am sure such people do exist - these "hothouse" schools wouldn't exist if they didn't genuinely appeal to most of their pupils as well as the parents.

And then there are the highly intelligent people who just aren't interested in the type of work they are being asked to do in a highly academic school, because their interests do actually lie elsewhere. They might well resent the amount of effort they are required to put into subjects that do not really interest them sufficiently to justify the effort expected.

Russians But that was my point entirely, one size does not fit all when it comes to a school. In this area of London parents get ridiculously obsessed with minute differences in academic results and getting their DCs into the most selective schools. I think that may be at the heart of OPs post. The amount of parental energy, vicarious ambition and competitiveness that goes into getting DCs into the most academic schools is frightening.

However all the indies around here are capable of getting a bright child As and places at Oxbridge. However not all of them will provide your DC with the atmosphere and ethos that will build their confidence and enable them to thrive, and that is as true of the most selective schools as it is the less selective. The top school in the league tables isn't necessarily the top school for your child, one child's challenge is another child's pressure something DD2 and I have learnt the hard way. I can assure you that DD2s feelings of being pressured are not from the parents, as long as she tries her hardest I am so laid back about exam results whether at 11 or 16, 17 and 18 as to be horizontal, I really don't think B is for bad if it is the result of hard work (and that attitude is probably the only way to stay sane, and keep them sane, given the randomness of marking these days. The ultimate irony in all this is that the school was badly affected by the GCSE Eng Lit marking debacle that affected many indies with many pupils who were confidently predicted As getting Bs, never mind the ones who hadn't worked.)

Obviously we couldn't have foreseen the precise situation but I really did feel at 11 that even though she was clearly bright enough (and as you know with a dyslexic child you do actually know where your DCs ability sits versus the wider population) and more than deserved to have been selected for the school academically and in terms of her talents (and when we gave in our notice we were offered financial incentives to stay). However the other school just felt more right for her. It's intangible, I even dreamed on the eve of making the final decision that the other school was surrounded by elysian fields with angelic pupils so much did I subconsciously feel that it was the one to choose, but sibling rivalry and more rational factors such as academic results and facilities swayed the wrong decision.

It should all be about the children - if it isn't, therein lies the potential for problems.

I know a family with dds at a very highly regarded, highly selective London day school - the eldest is exactly as child a) described by Rabbit: very intelligent, motivated, creative. Just got a scholarship. But she already pressurizes herself, is sensitive to expectations at home and at school, and is quite stressed by her environment.

her sister, naturally far more competitive and less inclined to give herself a hard time, seems a lot happier there.

Ah - cross posted with Copt. Exactly so.

I do like the Elysian fields dream, I hope I get one of those when we choose dd1's school

And thanks for your pm!

I think it is definitely horses for courses.

Some DC are a perfect fit for a highly academic school, others are not. And it often aint about their ability.

DS is very laid back. When he interviewed at his school, he was asked 'Oxbridge or Ivy?' Some would find that a horribly pressurised question. DS saw ut as a joke !

rabbit I possess considerable common sense and frequently have to apply it. Far too frequently pressure in these allegedly schools comes from the parents, although of course there are some kids where the pressure is entirely self-imposed. More often though, I think one can look to the parents.

in these allegedly 'hothouse' schools etc.

"Oxbridge or Ivy"? Was that a question at 11plus? I hope not!

I see that Copthall also has direct experience of that type of parent, in relation to these sorts of school :)

I admit that feeling a pang that dd turned down a placeat a school with excellent a level results to ibex where the maximum number they can take us two alongside their vocational course.

Dd is academic - at her induction day the teachers picked up in that. But she wants to go to a vocational school.

There are a lot of them about. IME schools try to squelch them. Both for the sake of their kids and because if they don't succeed, it's the school that's blamed. Usually unfairly.

Rabbit It shouldn't be all about the parents but it very very often is. That's the problem.

It's a shame nit isn't in this thread or we could talk about Meg's parents.

I entirely agree it shouldn't be all about the parents, hence my comment about common sense. However, I disagree it is usually all about the parents when things go wrong. It is always partly about the parents, because the parents chose or allowed the child to choose the school, but having gone to an all girls' grammar school myself, I saw a lot of girls who put a lot of pressure on themselves, regardless of their parents - they were definitely reacting to the other girls around them, overreacting to teacher comments and to their own anxieties, not their parents' expectations. I witnessed first hand the different reactions that different girls had to the same teacher comments, comments which often were designed to put a rocket up the backsides of the lazy ones, but which were like water off a duck's back to them and instead stuck like knives in the minds of the neurotic hard workers.

Yes, the absolute most toxic situation is the pushy parent with the bright but sensitive child in an academically high achieving school, but there are endless permutations and combinations of contributory factors when it comes to a child being unhappy at the wrong school for them. You may not see it if you are not unhappy with a school, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and is all the fault of the parents' expectations for which the school itself is blameless. In all honesty, it is actually the wrong combination of parents, child, peer group and school together when things don't work out!

OK, assuming most academic children finish their education with top grades, what sets them apart? If you were an employer what would you look for in a candidate?

I think it depends on the industry/field of work. Common sense, good organisational skills, a positive outlook and an ability to stay calm in a crisis are all quite useful traits in a lot of workplaces, as is the ability not to alienate your colleagues. Sheer brilliance might be enough in other areas of work.