My girl has set her heart on Oxford or Cambridge. Encourage or ignore????

[Ilovemyrabbits]

DD is 12...I know, it's very young and she's got a long way to go before we seriously need to consider this BUT...she is a very determined young lady who becomes very focussed when she has a goal in mind. She is academic and does well at school but she's not always top of the class. She's not overly outgoing, but she mixes well when she needs to. She has told all her friends she wants to go to Oxford or Cambridge. Her Y6 teacher told her she could do this if she wanted to. In the teacher's defence, she has two daughters who have gone through the Oxbridge process successfully and I think she was trying to be encouraging.

I am torn here between wanting to encourage dd in her aims, because it's good to aim high, and wanting her to be grounded. She's quite a sensible girl, even at 12, but I'm trying to figure how to deal with this. Part of me thinks, keep quiet...it's a long way before the decisions need to be made and she may well adapt her plans by then. Another part of me thinks, she's stubborn and what do we do if she sticks with it?? Should we be encouraging her now? Asking teachers if she's capable? Or what????

Neither her dad nor I went to university, so I guess we're a little out of our comfort zone here. Does anyone have any advice for me????

I tend to agree with wordfactory. Once I decided to apply for Cambridge - there was a separate entrance exam then - it was clear that I would need to read more widely than I was already doing. So I read Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, some eighteenth century poetry - plus some 19th century French novels. (For a translation paper). This definitely opened up new horizons for me.

For anyone thinking about doing an English degree, it's probably worth reading some English literature from earlier eras just to get a sense of whether there are particular times and/or countries - so much modern literature in English now comes from Australia, Canada, the Caribbean etc- that you find especially interesting.

But I wouldn't put this on a 'must do' list for a 12 year old!

Having had a DD take English at Bristol Uni (and loved every minute of her course) I have to say I sort of knew at age 12 that English would be her thing. She was a vociferous reader, a writer of stories (I have kept them all and they make absolutely hilarious reading now!) and I never ever pushed her to read anything - she just came to it naturally.

She was obsessed with the Beano comic when she was little (yes really!) and then slowly devoured anything and everything and at her instigation slowly moved on to some of the classics at a later age.

Her English degree involved genres she hates and ones she loved and now she has just finished Uni she said to me the other day that she is so much loving being able to read for pleasure as she hasn't really been able to do that for the last three years. Now she can read what she wants, when she wants. (and she is such a speed reader through necessity with the huge amount of books she had to read every week, week in week out)

What I'm trying to say here is... I don't think you should push any sort of literature her way because Rabbits, your DD will find her own way with it. She might well change direction ... but I wish you best of luck with it.

On the other hand if somebody thinks they want to study English at a particularly competitive University, but hasn't read any more than 'Of Mice and Men', 'The Crucible', 'To Kill a Mockingbird' the Shakespeare set texts etc and some popular teen fiction - it's not really giving them a good preparation/or enhancing their chances.

If they are genuinely interested in literature, they will relish the exploration of some less familiar novels/plays/poetry. If they hate it - well, then they've found out something which should inform their choices.

I do agree about the pleasure of reading for pleasure after doing lots of set texts!

Why the hell would you ignore??? That's really , actually...
Poor kid, with parents who have to be told it's ok to encourage her.

Reading books doesn't = place at Cambridge.
At 12, I would say Charles Dickens, A Ransome, E Waugh, PG Wodehouse, G Eliott, Maupassant, Saki, Dostoevsky, Kafka, T Hardy, DH Lawrence, Beowulf, Orwell, Stephenson (original), Dumas (original) etc all for fun: I wouldn't be forcing it down anyone's throat.

Also can I just point out that in public libraries these days it is actually quite difficult to find books of 'classical' fiction. When I pointed this out in our local library, they said it is because there isn't the demand, even though there is a large state secondary school just next door. I read as a child because the books were on my parents bookshelves, but OP wont have those books on the shelves.

There was an ironic story in an Aldous Huxley book which mentioned a person who read all the books on a classical bookshelf starting with authors beginning with A and going onto Z. In Edwardian times it was clear what one had to have read to be 'well read' . It is not so clear now. Benjamin Zephaniah is as important as any in my opinion.

I do have some Dickens on my shelves and Bronte novels and A Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovitch. I have Mill on the Floss, an anthology of Pushkin's poems,Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and a few Margaret Attwood novels. I am not well read by any means but I like to try different genres and eras from time to time. Having no degree doesn't automatically make one disinterested in different kinds of literature. And despite no formal education I like to think that I can still expand my world with good quality reading (as well as trashy teen fiction ).

In terms of the thread title, it does over-simplify my question somewhat. I suppose I didn't want to over-encourage dd now in terms of university. It's not that I needed other people to tell me to encourage her in a general sense. It was more about how to balance 12 year old aspirations with reality and to assess whether now was too early to encourage destination thinking. Also, I have little knowledge of when to start thinking about university. This will be the first child in my family or dh's to go to university (if she does go in the end). And it seems that building some habits should start now and options next year need to be right for dd's aspirations.

I am shocked at the 'poor child, terrible parents' sentiment. Blimey...I'm not talking about squashing her aspirations or pushing her out to get a job and pay rent! I am just trying to get the balance right.

I have picked up lots of advice from this thread, so thanks for all constructive advice. One mum has even been kind enough to PM me, so thank you so much for that.

oooh...I love Benjamin Zephania. What an amazing man. They are serialising a story of his on Radio 4 Extra, I believe. That's on my own hit list for the next week or two

Sorry for wrong spelling of name....back on small phone keyboard!

I'm currently working in a community library. There are classics shelves in both the adult and children's sections. Also librarians will get books from other (bigger) libraries that are part of the same authority. Most librarians are incredibly supportive of borrowers. They are keen to get people in/increase borrowing figures so they can fight against councils who see them as a soft target for cuts.

I think the sought-after universities are looking for evidence of a real curiosity - and/or 'passion' to use a rather stale term - for the subject. So just having read school set texts and the most widely read contemporary authors wouldn't show that curiosity/passion Some libraries now have teenage reading groups, which weren't around in my day. Again this can be a good way for young people who might be a bit more interested in a particular subject than some of their classmates, to take things a bit further...

I find you can pretty much order anyhting online from your library. I think they charge 70p.

O levels are formal education rabbits. Did any of your elder siblings sit CSEs? Was your school a grammar or ex grammar? I think you may have had a better education than you think; lots of people did far worse.

Gosh I really hope you're joking funny (for fun, aged 12? ).

None of my siblings took exams at all. I was the first. I am not saying I didn't have any formal education. I said I didn't have a degree. I don't.

DH Lawrence is not fun! And I think at 12 it might be positively harmful....

I apologise...I meant no formal further education.

I really think that you should just make mild encouraging noises and forget about it. There is far to far to go right now and too many bridges to cross.

FWIW for a child to be aiming at Oxbridge they need to have a genuine passion for their subject. So I don't mean doing stuff diligently at school, but really being halfway possessed by it.

I just wanted to let OP know she isnt alone in that ds1 wants to go to cambridge and do archeology and anthropology. We went to the museum a few yrs ago and he still raves about it. He is nearly 10 !!
He is doing ok at school but not a genius by any stretch. I kind of said.... Yes yhat woulf be cool but a long time until you get there and you might change you're mind. he does however love national geographic and any bbc 4 programme about archeology so you never know!!

Funnyperson has mentioned the kind of things my cousin was reading at 12 and it was always clear that books were her absolute passion. She read every book in her school library when she was at middle school. She's been offered places at Durham and Nottingham(which now has more applications than any other in the country). She will be the first child in her immediate family to go to university and they have supported her love of literature, but she'd have been going to the library every other day even if they hadn't.

I'm certainly not Oxford standard, but I was reading Lawrence at 12 too! It was on the shelves and so I read it because I can find something to love in most books and 8 books a week from the library sometimes wasn't enough.
Dh is the same (he did English at Durham), tbh there's not much he hasn't read (well some of the dire stuff on those lists aside!) and I am jealous of the amazing way his degree took him through the history of literature.

OP encourage her by taking her seriously. Her goals may change over the next few years and they will be equally important to her and as valid. So as long as its ok for her to choose her goals freely and work for them then go for it.

Yellow you are being very persnickety. It's none of your business what qualifications OP's siblings have nor is it relevant.

rabbits you did say 'despite no formal education' earlier this evening (6.39pm) and so, given that you have O Levels, I picked you up on that. O Levels were not taken by the whole school population, they were for the upper tier only. CSEs were taken by the majority until GCSEs became the universal qualification.

LittleBearPad I'm entirely free to ask questions. It may be none of my business and OP is not required to answer of course, but this is someone pleading no decent education and who castigates her mother for discouraging her educational ambitions (as distinct from merely not encouraging her). I'm intrigued with the apparent contradictions and it's certainly not your business to tell me that I shouldn't be. I'm always interested in apparent contradictions. I find it quite often in the CVs I'm required to read.

'Halfway possessed' Wuldric? Boy, there must be a shedload of frauds studying a those unis in that case. Really, you just need to be seriously clever and genuinely interested not halfway possessed - that sounds completely exhausting.

FrauMoose I agree aout Lawrence. All these idiotic orgasms every few pages. Not really for 12 yr old 'fun'.

at those, not a those. No odd dialect intended, sorry.

We did sons and lovers at school when I was 13. I wished we hadn't. It put me off Lawrence for life.