ridiculous pressure on high achievers.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Just want the opportunity to rant please, without it appearing like a stealth boast, which it really isnt.
dd is in year 10. Target all a*s. Only now this doesnt seem to be good enough for some of her teachers who are putting pressure on her to aim for 100%

she has a mfl speaking thing soon. Dropped 3 marks on her last one. Her teacher has told her she should be aiming for full marks. Its batty! If she makes a single mistake she will have 'failed' their expectation. Its across several subjects and yes, she is bright, but she is a human who makes mistakes like we all do.

How on earth do I handle it? We've spent much of her life trying to rid her of the idea that she needs to be perfect and weve suddenly reached this.

[TooManyHouseGuests]

For me, perfectionism is about conscientiousness and organisation and discipline. All good things, but a prison, if you go too far.

Being academically stretched is about thinking more deeply, more creatively, and more broadly. Pushing a child not just to analyse but to synthesise. The GSCE/A Level system doesn't really accommodate this at the extreme, right end of the bell curve. So the teachers are a bit hamstrung; the directives they have just don't fit the child or the situation. Also, for kids who are really miles ahead and are obvious deep and critical thinkers, it may not be until they are in a University type setting where are very clever and knowledgeable adult can lead their thinking through a socratic type dialogue before they can break free and truly fly.

If you are fortunate enough to have such a child, I guess the task is to get them out the other end of "the secondary education tube" unharmed and still keen to think and learn.

[AChickenCalledKorma]

"TooManyHouseGuests" I think your final sentence is very wise and I need to reflect on how to respond to my very able, self-motivated 13yo who is beginning to be a bit too obsessed with how to "get" the next level/learning intention/tick box to please her teachers. I can see that she has the sort of mind that will really flourish at a university that provides the space to explore ideas. But how do we help her get through that tube?

[TheWordFactory]

I think getting a very able pupil to keep perfecting what is a relatively easy task is stupidly unimaginative and a recipe for boredom and lack of real progress.

My DS attends a super selective school and regularly hits high scores but I have never heard anyone say anything so idiotic to him. And would not be impressed if they did.

Instead the work just gets broader and deeper. He is constantly challenged by really tough stuff where he can't get close to 100%.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I'm feeling relieved that so many agree. She has another year of this to go. Do we bring it up now, or do we just give up and accept that she is only going to be sufficiently challenged in her best subject? I would bring it up at parents evening, only hardly any of her teachers will give us an appointment as they are only giving them to people whose children are missing their target grade.

[TheFallenMadonna]

i think in your situation I would go to the More Able/G&T coordinator, or SLT person with responsibilty for that.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I think that could be the way forward. Thank you :)

[TheFallenMadonna]

In my school, your dd would have something similar to an IEP, and you would have a regular point of contact. It can be useful for teachers I think. Focuses the mind.

[howabout]

I am shocked you cannot get an appointment at parents' night! I would be complaining. The teachers at my DC appreciate having them in the class as they are a positive influence on everyone else. In turn I just want my DC to fit in and thrive and the teachers want this too. This means I get equal time at parents' night which is as it should be. I don't think parents' night is for dealing with underachievers only, surely these are the parents who need more time and special appointments?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I feel bad that I had let things coast. I hadnt realised that it had got so bad again. I think her HOY has been pretty good at geeing things up in the past. I kind of wondered if teachers would say that dd should be telling them that she needs better challenges now shes year 10 rather than having parents jump in?

Only 3 teachers have agreed to see us, none of them core subjects. There is one I really need to speak to. They may not have concerns but we do.

[LotusLight]

One my GCSE year children had 28/30 (music not French) in something and today I think they got 30/30/ He was utterly unpressured about it and whether he gets A or A* I don't he or I really care too much. I think these things are all just about what that personality of that child feels. I have never had problems with teachers having high expectations of children but then I've never had a child who has seemed at all stressed about exams (more is the pity - if they were they might work a bit harder).

So I suppose it is how to handle the perfectionist child's psychology. Mine would be saying okay let's try for the full marks but I don't really care if I don't get it even if the teacher seems to want it. Another child might feel they'd failed if they'd not got the full marks. If someone has one of these worrying kinds of children perhaps they just need to tell the teacher having high standards for the child doesn't work with that child so lay off a bit.

[AChickenCalledKorma]

I'm absolutely shocked that you can't get a parents' evening appointment! Can you make an appointment at a different time? But I agree that if there's a SLT person with a remit for more able students, that would be a good way to approach things. One would hope they would be able to see beyond the "aim for the next target" mentality and come up with a more creative way to challenge her.

[thatsn0tmyname]

I sympathise but her teachers are under pressure too. We are given targets that we have no control over and we have these hammered at s over the five years. If your daughter is predicted A and achieves all A then she 'earns ' the teacher a 0 residual when data crunching. Teachers pay is linked to student performance. It' s unhealthy and everyone is under pressure.

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Is that really normal camelhump? DD1 is at a reasonably large comprehensive (about 1200 students). There is a parents' evening for each year group and we can see every teacher we want to see. I'm amazed to hear that is not the case in all schools.

[noblegiraffe]

You should be able to put your foot down about the appointments. "Yes I know you only want to see the parents of kids who are missing their grade but we want to talk to you and if you won't oblige with a parents evening appointment which would be easiest all round then you will have to arrange to see us another day", if they refuse. Your DD probably won't want to say that but she could certainly tell the teachers that if they won't give an appointment then could they please phone you.

[TheFallenMadonna]

We have 40 slots, and I teach 82 year 11s. With the best will in the world, I would struggle to arrange another 42 appointments outside parents's evening. However, I can and do phone parents who request it.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Camel, not year 7, year 10 :) I do realise though that even the best mathematicians cant make 90 students fit into 30 slots, its not really appropriate to apply the pigeon hole principle at parents evenings.

I'll do that nobel. Its not every teacher I want to see, just a few - two I absolutely want to see.

[Hakluyt]

If all the slots are full, then just make an appointment to see the teachers you want to see at another time. Or ask for a phone call.

I've actually had some of my best Parents evening-type "meetings" via email. My Dp drew a brilliant cartoon of the staff room at ds's school the morning after reports went out, with the teachers all warily opening their laptops to see who would be the first to get an email from Hackluyt Minor's mum.....

[Northernlurker]

I've e-mailed and spoken on the phone too. I understand that everybody can't have an appointment but the parents of high achieving kids can often have as much to discuss as those with kids who are 'failing'. Your job is to advocate for your kid. I would say something now.

[LotusLight]

(Yet another reason to pay school fees... I had no idea about this slot issue in the state sector).

[Hakluyt]

I bet you never knew such poverty existed, eh?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

LotuslLight - I am in the state sector and had no idea the slot issue existed either! Don't know whether that means my DD's school is better managed in terms of number of classes per teacher, or whether half the parent body doesn't bother to turn up to parents' evening

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Fair point. Actually, I've looked and we have 45 slots ... so it may well be true that they bank on only half the parents turning up!