How did the school you go to affect your later life?

[redskyatnight]

With all the constant parental angst of "which school to send their children to", I wonder if a school REALLY makes that much difference taken in retrospect.

My parents skimped and saved to send me to private school which I hated as I never felt I really fitted in. I came out with a clutch of good qualifcations and went on to a top university. But ... I have also maintained a sneaking feeling that as a driven individual who was pushed by her parents I would have come out with much the same qualifications if I'd gone to the local (average) comp. And I might (obviously no guarantees) have fitted in better and would certainly have been more likely to have had local friends rather than being ostracised by all the local children.

Do you think you would have done better/worse/differently had you gone to a different school?

I went to a huge state comprehensive with mixed results (average GCSE results, but very good sixth form). It was base din a liberal, middle class area of north London but had a very wide intake of kids from all sorts of backgrounds. Discipline wasn't great there. I fucked around loads and barely scraped my GCSEs (although I had a blast of a social life .

I was lucky in that had a nice, supportive, educated mum who helped me mop up the mess I'd made of my education and got me through A'Levels and into uni. I credit my mum - not my school - with the level of education I ultimately achieved.

Interestingly, I won a scholarship to a prestigious girl's school but refused point blank to go to a school 'with all those posh geeks' (I think they may have been my exact words, actually). I'm glad I didn't go. I think I had a rebel streak in me that would have come out some way or another, and a high pressure environment would have made me kick back even harder. As it is, I got a lot out of my system and was able to re focus my energies in my late teens / early 20s to great success.

my parents were socialist (in that middle class way) and so we went to local comp. A lot of people I knew went to the local private school. I am pretty certain that is I went to the private school I would have got better A-levels and gone to oxbridge type - HOWEVER in the long run I am glad as I have ended up in a job working with people from vaired backgrounds and I do feel my education was very important in preparing me for this and so in the long run I appreciate my parents for what they did even though when younger i didn;t understand.

I went to a fair few different schools. Started off in a state school, ended up (via a few other schools) in v posh private school!

Think changing schools lots of times is not that great tbh. I didn't enjoy moving around BUT there was one move when I went from a school I was very unhappy at to a school I was much more motivated at that completely changed my life. Think had I stayed at the school I was unhappy at, I shudder to think whether I'd still even be here today.

So I suppose you could say it did then have an impact. Being miserable at school is so horrid and I think it can take a very long time to recover from that. I don't think anyone should underestimate that in a child.

I finished off in 2 schools I enjoyed (for want of a better word) and got into university and it was there that I found my feet.

I went to the local very large comprehensive having been to a small church primary. I hated it, didn't fit in and didn't do very well. My mother wasn't very interested in my education except to say that I had to do A levels because she couldn't afford for my dad to stop paying maintenance - nice! There are very few good things I can say about my father, but he did instill the notion of working hard and determination. Luckily I took this on board and ended up with a very sucessfull career inspite of not having a degree and a couple of artsy A levels. If I had gone to a better, smaller school I am absolutely sure I would have gone to university, which I still regret to this day.

Needless to say I'm fairly obsessed with my dc's schooling especially dd1 who is just like me.

I went to what was, on reflection, quite a decent comp. But my mother was worried that I wasn't doing very well and sent me to a really crap prviate school. I did ok but it was a waste of money and I loathed it.

My best friends remain those who were at the comp.

Overall, I think I would have been better off going to an encouraging, liberal mixed boarding school. My home life during my teens wasn't great and I think I would have done much better - academically and emotionally - if I'd been away from home.

FWIW, out of my newer friends, ones I've made since having children, the most sorted, confident and socially get-on-with-everybody types come from boarding schools.

I went to my local secondery school and absoluitly hated it. I was bullied for the whole time and left with a few GCSE's all below C grade.
All my secondery education gave me was low self esteeme and a few scars.
I know it's not like that for everyone, but it's given me a phobia of schools and I'm absoluitly dredding my daughter going to school.

I went to a crap comprehensive (child of socialists) and hated every last minute of it. The teachers were bored, the pupils generally disengaged the facilities dire. Expectations of pupils were not high.

As my schooling had an impact on the education of my offspring? Hell, yes. There is no chance my son will go to a crap comprehensive. A good one, maybe, although the one we are catchment for is pretty dire.

went to local comp. It was a dive with lots of truanting and bullying. Hated it so did poorly but blagged my way into 6th form college on probabtion and took O levels and A levels and went to uni.
Private would have been out of the question for single mum with 3 kids on council estate which is what my mum was. Heck, I'd never heard of private school before |I was about 16!

I went to grammar school for a year until our area went comprehensive and combined the boys and the girls grammar with 3 secondary moderns. It was a huge school (12 form entry).

At 11 I was predicted 10 good O levels. Unfortunately the only people who got on in the new school were those who didn't care what other people thought. I was bullied for trying to work so started getting into trouble just to get certain girls off my back. The best 2 years were the last 2 (what would be Y10 and Y11) because by then we were set and all the SM kids were in the lower sets.

I got 5 mediocre O levels and left with no self esteem and no self confidence, and very few friends.

That's why I get so angry when people go on about getting rid of grammar schools. My school was the best in the city as a grammar but is now the school you don't send your kids to if you have a choice.

Private selective school. Incredibly glad that I went. The intake was very diverse unlike the white catholic state school I could have gone to. Had a great time, and when I did have a problem with bullies the head expelled them- no appeals, no 'mediation' crap

I went to a comprehensive with a mixed catchment area. I did ok, but with more encouragement from my DP's would have probably done very well. About 10 people in each year went to Oxford/Cambridge.

Went to fairly average comp in semi-rural Scandinavia. My Mum did sometimes regret that we had not stayed in her home town where we could have attended the far more academic/driven school. I have later taught those students- and have not regretted my own experience. Nor have I felt at a disadvantage compared to dh or friends who attended various prestigious private schools in this country. Parental influence far more important in my case.

Dd now at local comp- no grammar schools in our neck of the woods- and I feel confident about her chances of getting a good education. Would feel a lot less happy if she had got in at the new academy which is our catchment school- her friend says she's not learning anything there.

Am committed to sending my DC to the equivalent school where we live now. I am fairly confident they will achieve more than I did, AS DH and I give them so much support with school/ learning etc.

I went to a local comp and still became a Chartered Accountant and married an Eton boy.

If I had gone to a private school (desperately wanted to due to Enid Blyton's St Clares and Malory Towers) I surely would be ruling the world by now! Or would I? DH and I discussed this briefly today he thinks I would be more successful if went to a private school but I think I wouldn't as instead of being one of the bright ones I would probably have been one of the average ones, and one of the less well off ones so would have have the cocky confidence I have now.

No WAY my Champagne socialist parents would spend the Barbados fund on school fees though!!!

My DH had all the money in the world thrown at his education he is very bright but he got thrown out of school and one A'level so what can you do....

No way of knowing what will happen.

I went to an all-girls Convent Boarding School. Academically I did well (but I am sure I would have fared just as well in the State Sector)

The best thing is that my best friend is the girl I shared a dormitory with from age 11. A lot of us are still in touch - I am seeing two of them tomorrow

It also taught me a lot of independence and confidence.

I went to a huge and really average comp where the bright kids were bullied for being swots. My brother wanted to do oxbridge but the school wouldnt provide help with entrance exams. My parents paid for private tutoring to help with a levels - 3 sciences and I got to university and never looked back. My kids are in private schools and I shudder at the thought of giving them the education I got although I think they would probably do fine. We are lucky we can afford it. Interestingly when I worked in corporate everone thought I must have been to a posh girls school as I had so much confidence. Not realising that I got that from fighting off the bullies

Badly I think. I went to an expensive private school with a strong academic record. But I was in the bottom stream of 4. I was embarrassed about that.

It took me ten years to realise I wasn't stupid. I was the worst of the best. {grin]

I would have been better off being amongst the best of the rest really! It would have done a lot more for my confidence. I won't send my children to my old school.

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I went to an awful comprehensive.They hads lots of strikes in the 80s but my mother insisted i would become a barrister and i did.

I went to what I thought at the time was a comprehensive (it was called one!) but as grammars were being phased out in the area at the time, it was probably more of a secondary modern. I was among one of the last cohorts to take the 11+ and I passed it but my parents sent me to the comp anyway (older sibling already there). I enjoyed school well enough, and definitely learned to be self motivated - there was very little spoon feeding. We had some very good teachers (along with a few not so good; I'm sure that's par for the course) and we were encouraged to be indepedent learners and thinkers which I liked. I had some friends who went on to the grammar school, and for the first few years I got the impression they were pushed more, but by O Level it seemed to even out more, and then again at A Level it evens out even more.

I got into a good University, which is the stage at which I really feel I came into my own academically, did a higher degree a bit, Law Conversion and have had a legal career before diversifying into a new area.

I realise looking back that I wasn't at an academic hothouse by any means!! But I don't regret that - I've achieved what I wanted to. I'm glad I didn't go to a fee paying school as I haven't had to have any guilt about my parents paying, and I also haven't got any self inflicted pressure to pay for my own kids as I'm pretty confident they'll be fine too.

sorry, did a higher degree a bit later

I went to a privaye school until 11, and then to the senior school of the same - which was a now extinct form of school - a Direct grant school - half selective private, half the places paid for by the LEA for top 11 plus performers. A sort of SuperGrammar towhich people could also buy thier way into.

It was highly academic, and conservative.
I did well - but alway felt that I had been cosseted, and that my success was due to the rarified atmosphere, rather than ability, which undermined my confidence. I knew that plenty of the people in the school, also doing well, were not naturally that bright, so worried that someone would do an Emperor's new clothes'job on my ability. I would have like to be tested more. Also the priveliged ethos was not 'edgy' enough for me, and when I went to university, I felt naive and immatue compared to the more politicised students I admired!

I'm not sure how it affected me in the longer term.

I think most people, who possess a healthy does of determinism and ambition, together with supportive parents, will succeed.

The thing that bothers me most about my crap comp is the lack of advice, support and expectations for its pupils. For example, despite ending up (by chance really, not by design) in a Russell Group university, and getting a 2:1, I'd never heard of a masters degree. Consequently, I hadn't considered it as an option post degree. I eventually obtained my MA degree in my early 30s but it really bugged me that I'd not come across them during university. I think I thought that the really clever bods were plucked out of our cohort and channeled into PhDs.

I was also the first in my family to go to university, so school input would have been very helpful.

Am a little confused llaregub - how can you not have heard of a Masters degree while at University? It seems a bit odd to be blaming that on your school!

I went to a fairly ordinary comp (well, secondary mod really as I said) and I had still heard about various types of degree. I also went to a RG University and did my Masters fairly shortly after my first degree.