A bright child will do well anywhere

[User3542564]

I keep reading on threads that a bright child will do well anywhere. I'm just curious as to whether people honestly believe that about all schools? My DC are still in primary, but our nearest secondary has an English and Maths pass rate of 5% and a Progress 8 of -0.98. I cannot see how a bright child could do as well there as they would in a school with just average results. Am I missing something? It's been made into an academy, several changes of SLT over the last decade and just gets worse.

Or when people say a bright child will do well anywhere, do they actually mean will do well in any nice middle class school with above average results?

I had a really bright son who got totally turned off with school, as he “wasn’t learning anything”. This was in a wealthy neighborhood, where kids knew they could coast by. I had a real job on my hands making up for it at home, and am certain now I should have sold the house and moved to an area with better schools

I did my work but received no guidance about where to go or what to pursue.

This is a huge issue for the kids at DC school. There are outside services in area and on-line suggests from government agencies they get sign posted to but the advice is so often poor and generic and lacking in ambition for them. So ones with helpful supportive family have a huge benefit again.

I agree really , my nephew went through the normal school system and was obviously very intelligent , went to do A levels at local college like his peers and now in second year at Oxford

I hate this phase. On the face of it, I was that child. Straight As at A level and top GCSEs despite going to a rubbish school. However, I think like a few others I survived not thrived. I hid my abilities significantly but also benefited from setting for core subjects which made a difference. A level was much better than GCSEs as the more disruptive kids left. Lots of my friends did not reach their potential and I’d also say despite being bright I was painfully under-confident. It took years and years of work to build up my self-belief.

Cohort makes a massive difference. My eldest is in a difficult class at primary and is not thriving despite being very bright. It’s all about crowd control and she’s struggling to learn. My youngest’s class is an absolute dream in comparison.

I feel like we're stress testing this adage to its absolute limit.
DS is a bright kid in a special school.
It literally doesn't (and cannot) cover the majority of the mainstream curriculum. any of the humanities, which unfortunately is where DS's interest lie.
I bought the text books and we're working through several subjects in his spare time.
We'll see how it works.

My mum really wanted me to be a doctor (standard immigrant parent stuff) and that's all she ever went on about.

We were given leaflets etc I don't think there was a lot on the internet back in the 2000s. I think it's asking too much of a 13/15 year old making choices about which subjects to pursue to imagine what careers are out there/ attainable and how to get to that point.

My DD's upper school went into special measures when she was in year 10. She got a stars and A's.

She changed school for sixth form but her friend stayed and get straight a stars at 4 a levels.

The school can be bad but the child does well because they don't fall in with the "bad" crowd and the teachers pour attention onto them because teachers want to teach interested children

DD2 went to a then very poor secondary modern, but a recently appointed strong HT and a rapidly improving SLT meant that the 'direction of travel' was upwards.

DD was fortunate to get in with a friendship group who were academic by the standards of that school and all 8 of them went to university, 3 have Masters now (including DD who has a pretty special one).

I would agree with all PPs who said a combination of staff clamping down on disruptive behaviour, a solid and (relatively) academic friendship group and strong support at home are important factors.

True in my experience. I went to Oxford from a school in a deprived area from which almost no one had ever gone on to a university of any kind — I had to fill out all the forms etc myself. No advice or support was available at school or at home. And I won scholarships all through (which I needed) and to fund my postgraduate degrees. Poverty can make you very motivated.

The school can be bad but the child does well because they don't fall in with the "bad" crowd and the teachers pour attention onto them because teachers want to teach interested children

I think that the worry at DC secondary - a few do well - but the good experienced staff are still leaving years after initial downturn- 7 years now - and more switched on parents are trying to move to better areas or plug gaps with outside tutors. The subject shortages as others schools are preferred also starting to bite. It starts to be downward spiral and gets a bit harder every year to do well.

Honesty mine are doing okay - they have home support and friends that want to work - and older two were much happier at college - and DH got through his sink school to better - so suppose people would look at that and say see bright kids do well - but I think it masks a lot and in different schools they'd have done better with less work.

On bright side rest of their education post 16 is much easier.

I know a very bright boy, top of the class at primary school, whose parents decided to send him to a pretty rubbish secondary school because it was the closest to them. He dropped out before even doing his GCSE's.

I do think though if you're naturally bright, don't go off the rails and have supportive parents who buy you all the revision books etc then at GCSE you can get away with it. At A-level I think it's much, much harder to do well without a good teacher.

I completely agree with this.

You need more skills than being bright.

If your question is really “would I send my kid to that school if I had any possible way to avoid it” then the answer is I absolutely would not. (Frankly regardless of whether the kid was “bright” or not). Only exception would be if this school has a population of kids with particular academic needs that mean that’s a sensible result for the cohort. In which case I would send my kid absolutely if they were in the relevant cohort.

move house.

That's just not true. I kniw of plenty of dc who weren't even exceptionally bright but who put the work in and they've done well no matter what school. GCSES aren't that difficult and all teachers are delighted to have dc who want to learn and can achieve the highest grades in their classes and will help them accordingly.

@thing47 Wiyh all due respect, I know the school where your DD went. It was never a basket case. I can point to several others that were far worse. It’s very leafy lane and has always had many supportive parents. That is not to say it didn’t need to improve but results were never that bad.

@User3542564 I cannot imagine a school where only 5% get 4-9 GCSE grades in maths and English. I can only assume it’s very very deprived. What’s PP like? How many low, middle and high achievers? Any high achievers at all? Nearish to me is a secondary modern school (so grammar dc nit there) and it’s 32% GCSE maths and English. Are you sure this school isn’t a special school. It’s very very low. Check the student data.

I went to a rubbish state school. Grades wise, I wouldn't have done any better (all A*s). I was naturally bright and would have found school easy wherever I went. What I would say though is school didn't challenge me. There were a lot of behavioural issues, so I never really got any attention because I was well behaved and just got on with it/taught myself.

And my social skills/confidence was very poor. I think I'd have flourished in a better school where teachers could have given me a bit more attention. There were also just no opportunities in my school save for the bog standard things like after school footy, so nothing to make me stand out in terms of the very top universities.

So yeah, I don't think this is true. I was a naturally self motivated child who genuinely loved school and learning, but not all children have the same personality and some need the right environment to reach their full potential.

So you don't think children learn any differently in a calm class with a teacher who can easily progress through teaching topics and then go into more depth, compared to in a chaotic class where the teacher is constantly having to try to get children to focus to even grasp the basic foundations of what theyre learning, and dealing with disruptive behaviour?

I was a bright kid in a fairly poor school. At least half the lesson was spent on discipline. A bright child will do better than other, but not as well as at a good school.

Looking at my peers. We prioritised local school, non-selective, good music. Results at the national average. Middle class area. Behaviour variable, but not awful. My friends prioritised grammars. Their kids did better than mine. Not sure I would make the same choice again. Well, I might. Not sure.

No I don't agree. Sd very bright child went to a comp she should've achieved all 9s at.
Wrong school for the child she left with 5s and didn't complete any further education.
Total waste despite huge parental input.
Absolutely the wrong school, her mum wouldn't let her sit the 11+ and on reflection she should've done and gone to grammar school where she would likely have done very very well

@taxguru

Are you me? Your journey is very similar to mine, I’m now a qualified professional with two degrees behind me but a terrible school experience that left me mentally struggling as well as academically. I was a bright kid full of optimism……and then I went to a hellhole of a secondary school where the kids and the teachers were straight out of Cell Block H. I hid myself under a bushel in order to survive and not be mercilessly bullied.

It damaged my self-esteem but I managed to find steady ground eventually. Even now I’m not as socially confident as I could be. IlIt did teach me a lot in other ways though. I know how to handle myself if I need to

I think at worst schools it can be a succussion of temp teachers and/or teachers teaching outside their subject area with an increasing uncooperative class vs a topic teacher in well behaved class in better school.

Even at GCSE my DC my kids have had missing subject teachers - though TBF it was worst for DS and has improved for next child.

Perhaps that an issue discussing this - what do we mean by a bad school - OP 5% pass rate for English and Maths is spectacularly low - much lower than my DC school which is on low side in area with low results.

I think it's one of those platitudes people use to make themselves feel better.

Another example is " children are resilient". No they're not. They will be affected by divorce, bereavement, bullying, abandonment etc

DH went to an inner city school where they had to be searched for knives.

He now has a PhD and a c-suite level job.

I think the difference is that back when he graduated it was still possible to get social mobility through going to uni.

I can't imagine a bright lad from a London council estate being able to get on the board of directors on merit alone these days.