A bright child will do well anywhere

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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 suspect they are talking about any non ND child. My ND child struggled at a good state primary and certainly by the end I realised their confidence was being battered by loud peers, for example. They would not have done as well in any senior school, despite being above average intelligence. You know your child best and the type of environment they do best in.

@MargaretThursday My local sec modern didn’t have a 6th form. Neither did they teach maths O level. It was cse. It would have been extraordinarily difficult to do any higher level maths from that basis. The biggest tragedy wax families stopping dc taking up their grammar places. Often bright dc passed but never went. Education was not universally supported by parents. Getting above yourself was an issue. Or the cost of the uniform!

learning is a skill. If you are bright enough to simply absorb the information out in front of you year after year, you never actually develop any study skills. Eventually, everyone hits a wall and can’t just automatically understand something by seeing it one time.

every child deserves to be challenged so they can become lifelong learners. Letting bright children coast is educational neglect.

If a bright child is supported at home then potentially they can achieve highly anywhere.. however it's friendship groups that have an impact. And at many of these schools there will be a faction of students who don't want to be there, think it's stupid to try and be clever or care about education... and if your child happens to make friends with them then they won't be achieving highly regardless of their intelligence level.
That can happen at any school but is more likely at schools which have bad pass rates.
But I do really think that bright children have the potential to do well anywhere.
I mean those schools do have a handful of students getting amazing grades.. so it's them!! There are the bright kids doing well in difficult circumstances.

An anecdote i have myself is that i had an ex who is a surgeon who went to one of the worst state schools in England. Single teenage mother with mental health issues, council estate regarded as awful, school in the centre of it.. he got straight As at GCSE. He was in the local paper because of it.
So yeah bright kids can do well anywhere.

my two are bright but were unhappy in secondary school and as a result didn’t thrive in school.

I believe a child will usually blossom if happy. I also believe school is only a small part of a child’s education.

@PokerFriedDips my knowledge of this is anecdotal from conversations with my sister. However it was a considerably larger school than a 120 pupil year group (that is only 4 classes per year) and the disruptive class was smaller than 30 so they had more individual attention.

If you read enough MN threads you can see that school was not a good experience for many, because of the actions of a few other pupils.

"And do you give up on the ones who might be redemable in the presence of enough good influence?" I'm not sure about this. The theory is that some pupils' behaviour can be improved by the presence of interested and well behaved children, which may be true, But at the same time, we know that just a small number of disruptive pupils can wreck the experience of the rest of the class.
So do you sacrifice the experience and learning opportunities of the many in the hope that they may be a positive influence on the few?

@Pogeatsalltheburgers There are high achievers who can still get some decent teaching in a poor school but they have to get lucky. They can possibly even teach themselves and parents help too. However my DD1 was good at MFLs. I don’t have an O level in a MFL, so no help from me was available. I’ve no science or maths O level either. So this idea of parents helping is a myth. Lots simply cannot when it comes down to exam level work and A levels. If parents are academically high achievers and have the time, that’s different. Most bright dc benefit from high quality teaching, like everyone else. Partly to stop them getting bored!

A bright child will do well anywhere

This is one of those platitudes which is so meaningless that it isn't even wrong; you can't evaluate it without specifying definitions of "bright" and "well". And it is often misread, perhaps deliberately. "A bright child will do well anywhere" is very different from "a bright child can do well anywhere", which is what many of the anecdotes offered try to support.

Yeah that's true. A bright child potentially CAN do well anywhere.. but there's no WILL about it. Tbh there's no WILL about a bright child doing well in an ofstead rated outstanding school or a private school or whatever... there's so many factors

Then again and again I read on MN that a bright child will do well anywhere, and I wanted to know if people really think it - who would be happy with their DC going to a school like this.

Then on other threads often when describing or asking for help with problems you'll get berated for not caring enough to get them into a better school so it's all your fault.

There are more than academics - though those are harder to pin down. DC school till GCSE year for DD1 had a great pastoral care that completely went and the entire school atmosphere changed.

I spoke to parents who have nieces nephews at the best school in area - we couldn't afford house rices there - school ran Duke or Edinburgh award scheme it was much easier to take part - the patents I spoke to where trying to replicate that themselves it was a lot more work - school had an orchestra that did meet - DC school was suppose to have one but constantly cancelled - so parents were again having to source outside ones. Most clubs at DC school were on paper only would be a few weeks then stop.

I've had poster often in London insist it's the more deprived schools that get more opportunities - but that's not case here.

Best school you can - but if you do end up in a bad one it's possible to do well or well enough it's just going to be harder on kids and parents.

Though agree with TizerorFizz we do have education background to help with all but MFL - we can but additional help with books and on-line stuff as well. So we did cover English for two kids - one no teacher for prolonged time and one a very poor one - and for another DS,DH and I ended up teaching DD2 physics - she came up 3 grades - but they'd have better shot at getting top grades if they'd had a good teacher to start with. Plus you need teen onboard doing work - DD1 was very hard to help younger kids much easier.

@whiteroseredrose The theory is that some pupils' behaviour can be improved by the presence of interested and well behaved children, which may be true, But at the same time, we know that just a small number of disruptive pupils can wreck the experience of the rest of the class.
So do you sacrifice the experience and learning opportunities of the many in the hope that they may be a positive influence on the few?

Neither should be sacrificed. Whole class teaching with enough TAs in the room for 1:1 support where needed at all ability levels. Enough staff and resources put into discipline so that the teacher can focus on teaching with another adult in the room to do the crowd control. No hiving off of some categories to make the adults' lives easier at the expense of the education of some children. Which requires budget.

I went to a school which, had such things existed at the time, would without doubt have been deemed inadequate by Ofsted and probably put in special measures. I excelled academically and couldn't have got better exam results anywhere. So I guess I fit in with the "bright kids will do well anywhere" trope and also am evidence of the importance of a supportive home environment and parents who value education. I didn't find it particularly difficult to largely teach myself, but I was miserable at school and I absolutely didn't want my children to have the same kind of experience. There's so much more to school than exam results.
I think that if you are forced to send your children to a poor school they can still do well in exams and there are things you can do to at least partially compensate for the shortcomings of the school,so it isn't the end of the world, but they could probably have a better experience at a better school. I couldn't have "done better" at a different school from the exam point of view but I could have had a more rounded education and I'm certain I could have been happier.

They may do well but it's whether they will reach their full potential.
Too much disruption in a classroom may start to reduce the likelihood of achieving the very best they could do.

No it’s nonsense. There might be a limited margin of difference if your definition of “anywhere” for your bright child is the super selective grammar, or being in top sets at a comprehensive in the same affluent town. So people shouldn’t worry too much about things like that.

But if you take a bright child from either of those scenarios and put them in a school with worse attainment and a wholly different intake then they almost certainly have a much worse experience eg learning in a class with lots of disruption or unmet need, worse teaching because of higher turn over and burn out or an ideological preference to support children who are less able or more disadvantaged; socially having a potentially smaller pool of friends; emotionally having to observe silly rules as schools use these for behaviour management.

Of course there will be bright children doing well in the latter type of school and they are tenacious, disciplined and incredibly impressive because they are still able to achieve (hence conditional offers for university etc). But why would anyone prefer that for their child? You also have to think carefully about the experience of a bright child with SEN for example mild dyslexia. They will have a very different experience in a private school with small class sizes and a teacher who can tailor learning compared to being in a larger class with a teacher offering little support or differentiation.

Any child can need a school that is a good fit. Just say your child got a scholarship to a minor public school. They were pleased to have him but not really set up for a highly academic child that found the uber focus on sports a distraction. Not something that would happen at a grammar school or comp.

I was a bright but unmotivated child allowed to coast in top sets at comp. Moved to grammar where higher expectations and being selected for extra opportunities like science challenges without having volunteered made me realise I was good at and enjoyed certain subjects. I'm sure I wouldn't have done as well had I stated at the average comp. Very motivated sibling did well at comp though.

Depends very much on the personality of the child.
A very bright child who gravitates to the unruly side of the classroom will be dragged down.
A child who cares what others think, wants to be one of the cool kids who mess/ coast will be dragged down.
A child who is very bright but doesn't have a vivacious personality or popular standing will disappear in the crowd.
A bright child from poor background without educated parents will have lower expectations from day 1. If they mess around, schools won't look at ability, but look for other reasons.

I don't think a bright child will do well anywhere and I would never say that. However, a bright, supported child will do well anywhere. Which is a different thing.

Well my daughter is very bright, but she is also autistic which means that she will not automatically do well.
We have sent her to a private school where she can get the support she needs to reach her potential.