Eton: what is the female equivalent, academically speaking?

[DiamandaGalas]

Eton:what is the female equivalent, academically speaking?

So do I as my daughter (now at university) enjoyed it too and yet all those parents whose little darlings didn't pass the entrance test go on about it being pressured but it isn't at all. She had a great time. In fact it was the sport she got most out of than anything if you asked her (and her friends too)! I don't think I would have liked children away boarding. It would feel wrong and unnatural, a kind of remoteness from your own flesh and blood, although I know some stay at home mothers owuld say I was doing the equivalent when I went back to work but you still have the contact every day physically too which you don't get with boarding schools.

in case it helps i know people on various trading floors, in politics, business, publishing, media etc etc and went to a comp - sadly what i could really do with is knowing a few more builders and plumbers

oh hang on, the builder i know went to private school...

St Paul's is not stuffed full of lunatics, any more than any other selective school is. Nor is it a hothouse that pressures children insanely. I went there and it was great. And none of my friends turned out anorexic/pressured/lunatic either. It's a really excellent school and the girls there are as nice and normal as at any other similar school. I think it's an excellent option if you can afford it and live close enough.

Good. I am sure it is. It's often other parents who are jealous who say those things. Since my daughters went to Habs/ North London 18 years ago and later I have heard so many parents go on about how pressured and awful these academic schools and usually they are the parents whose children just couldn't get into them. We never noticed much pressure. If there's pressure for some girls it comes from the girl and my own felt too little (perhaps in my view) not too much pressure internally. What does help is being educated with others like you rather than a school where most of the children will leave at 16 without many qualifications. Some of the independent schools do cater for children who will find exams hard too.

I thought the reason we send our children to school is so they can be taught all the things they need to prepare them for life. Whether that life is a high flying city career or work as a road sweeper.
Surely if a school can only manage to teach 31% of its pupils to read, write and learn basic Math, then yes, I do think that is a failure.
If a school is in a disadvantged area then they should be given better teachers and more assistance to teach those children whose parents may not care about education. The answer is in the content and the ability of the teachers.
I find it very hard to belive that some children simply are too stupid to learn.

If education is worthless then why are we so worried about what schools our children go to.

UNless the school has a highly immigrant non-English-speaking intake. You can't really expect a teacher to get an eleven-year old to level 4 in KS2 if he's arrived at age 10, speaking no English at all, with parents who can't support him.

Ronshar

31% referred to passing 5 or more GCSEs, not whether they could write, read or do basic maths.

As usual, you are only looking at the raw percentages without considering the data behind them e.g. % SEN, profile of intake, vocational training/qualifications etc.

The school is obviously doing something well for its intake otherwise Ofsted would not have been as impressed.

I think many pupils who feel pressured at these academic schools are hot-housed into the school by paretns artificially. I know someone (in fact several boys) who recently went to St Pauls boys who would never have got in if they hadn't been extensively tutored and groomed. Sadly they are always at the bottom of the class and feel like a failure and will probably do so most of their school life. In fact they are perfectly average (in fact probably above average) boys.

You can't say that complaints of pressure are down to jealous parents though (or not always). My nephew goes to an independent school very near St Pauls and they threw out on of his year after not getting good grades at AS. I have to question any school subjecting a child (even a failing child) to a new school with one year at school remaining, what little chance they had at pulling their socks up is destroyed. The biy is gutted. Same school has refused to let nephews friend resit his maths AS this month to get a decent grade when his father died about a month before the original AS. Apparently against shcool policy and they won't make an exception, his mother went to school to beg as he is a bright boy and will now have to rely on Uni's making allowances rather than having the grades to get an automatic interview.

That does seem very harsh.

Kewc, that doesn't surprise me. I cocked up my A levels royally (I hated school by that point) and got a job instead of going to university. When I went back to Haberdashers 2 years later and said "I've decided to go to uni now, can you help me with forms etc" they basically told me to shove it.

Screw up the league tables at your peril!

I don't think the better schools on this thread would throw a child out in the middle of the sixth form unless there were some really bad issue like they'd committed murder or major drug taking but I am sure some schools make silly decisions like that in both sectors.

There's nothing to stop anyone taking an AS is there, putting themselves in for it at a local centre like any adult doing adult education so surely his mother could have just applied herself to some local centre for exams so he could do the resit?

My DD's school lost out on an excellent ofsted report because they did not have enough ethnic or children with disabilities. Apart from the fact that within the catchment there are very few non-white families. Also there is an excellent special needs school one mile down the road which takes most of the disabled children from the local area.
I do not have much respect for ofsted for this and several other reasons.

My point was mostly that if a school can not teach the basic skills then children will never be able to pass any GCSE's, let alone five. It wasnt a dig at any school in particular. More at the whole system regardless of where in the country you live!

You can sit A-levels as a private candidate in a school, and it won't impact their league tables at all.

Private schools don't tend to worry too much about league tables, hence their practice of sitting exams when the pupils are ready and the popularity of the iGCSE.

I would look at which universities the sixth form goes to rather than what a body like Ofsted says about a school on the whole.

Xenia

yes of course his mother can (and I beleive did) apply for him to sit privately but in the circumstances she wasn't actually expecting to have to. As school had told her he couldn't resit, he was mysteriously off sick that day (I gather there was a nasty virus prevalent in his year that week). I was using it as an example of how the accusations of pressure are not necessarily coming from "jealous" parents.

I know both boys personally (the one expelled for doing badly at AS too) this is not a third hand tale. The school in question, which would like to consider itself in the same league as the schools mentioned here, is nowdown at about 60 on the national league tables for private schools and the headmaster is desparate to get the school back up the tables - league tables do matter to many private schools.

Do you think if St Pauls girls dropped to say 20 (still very respectable) they would say "oh well, never mind"?!

20? Schools do drop a bit up and down. My son's old school Merchant Taylors has been rising quite steadily but a good few have always been and remain in the top 10 like Eton, North London , Westminster, St Paul's and I think looking at average places in league tables over 10 years is better than one aberrant year But really it's only in the SE/London you get this kind of choice. In most areas there'll be one suitable good school like Manchester Grammar or Leeds High or whatever rather than a few around the same level in the same area. I certainly think any school in the top 20 is going to be pretty good and I'm sure top 40 you can't go wrong with if the academic side matters to you at all and if the child is reasonably bright which is never a forgone conclusion even if you pick your sperm donor carefully like my sister!

Was you sister a sperm donor Xenia? How interesting. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Eton boys = strong handshake, eye contact, "Hi I'm James/ whatever"

If you can teach your daughter this confidence without, if poss, the associated arrogance, that's all she could possibly want and if I were a fairy godmother I would give this gift.

Have I got something wrong again?

We sat down with lists of all kinds of characteristics (which they tell you in the US but not in the UK hence the import) to choose. As they just passed their exams at 6+ may be the choice was right... laughing as I type. She wanted children but not a man (she isn't gay).

Given what my divorce cost me, I can see she might well have been right.

as an aside Xenia - my (failed) carefully selected sperm donor has subsequently propduced several severely autistic children. They are assuming a genetic link. Even the best laid plans...

They did tell my sister a lot about all kinds of family medical history and all kinds of things so if there had been autistic children in the family elsewhere that ought to have come out and she's in touch with about 10 half siblings of her sons in the US all of whom seem fine.

my donor was also imported from the US - they did not inform prospective parents about the number of cases of autism. There is a class action going on at the moment. (I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with your sisters donor)

I am not sure. I certainly remember it went through things like heart disease and cancer in the family so I would be surprised if it missed off disabilities like autism but I am not sure as I just remember one day when we went through some lists together.

I imagine the contract with the clinic is probably sufficiently well drafted to exclude its liability under whatever US state law it is but who knows.

I suppose there might be a linke between high IQ and high performing aspergers/autistic men and perhaps the higher the IQ you pick the greater likelihood you are picking someone with those disabilities? Not sure, just speculating. Perhaps there are just as many with a low IQ.

yes the lists do go through known health conditions (I spent many hours puring over such lists) but if donor doesn't admit to (or doesn't know of) the risk then you don't either

The clinic is being sued on the basis that they concealed the cases of autism from those who had already purchased but not yet conceived.