grammar schools: St Olave's and others

[kris123]

Dear Mums,

We are thinking of sending our son to St Olave's, and heard amazing things about it.

Now, we have a tiny issue - though possibly I am overreacting. It would apply to St Olave's and to any other top quality grammar school.

I admit, that we fully participated in the parent rat race, totally overpreparing our son, who is now like a trained monkey. Yes he is naturaly fairly smart as well (level 5 in all areas), but in reality, as bad as it sounds coming from his mum, I think that he might not be good enough for a place of such academic excellence like St Olave's. He can be bit stupid at times. So yes, he will probably get in, due to our work, but he will get in due to countless hours of trainning, past papers, school, teachers etc.

So, can anyone please tell me what is St Olave's really like (or other top grammar schools)? I would hate my son to be at the bottom of the class (which he will be), being ignored by a group of adult kids, only because he does not know the third capital of Medieval France.

Many thanks for your information and help on this. Other than grammar we can send our son for instance to a good bording school (we are thining of HOCKERILL ANGLO-EUROPEAN COLLEGE), which is less adacemic, but very structured, demanding, rich in extra-curricular activities like music, languages, sports, and basically a place where our son will play his trumpet, soccer, utilise his international roots, and enjoy his years fly by.

So yes, i trained him like a monkey, but at the end of he day, I do not have to send him to play in the circus. I want him to have fun too.

Also, how much of the problem is commuting of 1 hour per day (each way). Logically i find this astronomical waste of time, but maybe I am overreacting. At the end of the day, two hours a day is like 20% of the time our kids have. Its a premiership game a day :).

Many thanks for any responses.

Kris

i think you should sort out what you really think would best suit your son. also that you should tslk sbout him in a more supportive and less dismissive way.

"talk about" obviously.... i too can be a bit stupid at times...

Thanks for your reply. I do not know - thats the answer.

Frankly speaking, i cannot know, as i do not know a single child in the grammar school, a their parents who would frankly tell me that their child is not happy, underperforming, etc.

We are all in the rat race, and people are not really open about failures.

Maybe I should have been more clear about what answers I would really appreciate.

1. any experience with kids who are clearly not performing that well at Grammar Schools. Do you find that your child is finding it difficult, not sure of themselves, how is your child dealing with the fact that half of the class is hoping for oxbridge, why your child can barely achieve B grades.

1. any experience as the teacher. for instance, we know that in primary schools the main emphasis is on the underperforming kids, as the schools want to have their KS2 results as best as possible. It means that kids like my son, basically are not really being pushed to reach level 6. NObody will read in statistics how many grammar school kids the school produced. ALso, teacher has 35 kids to look after, and I must say that she is doing amazing work. How does it work at Grammar Schools? Classes are also large, so who is the emphasis on?

1. can anyone tell me how much of the pain 1h or commuting each way is? I find it logically to be an amazing waste of time, though everyone commutes in London, but i find it difficult to quantify this for the importance of the kids. Two hours a day is 500 hours a year!

Many thanks for your inputs!

Thanks, Krissy

I think you're fretting too much. Forget all this "trained monkey" business; you're doing your son a disservice!! Trust me, I've seen parents who are pushy beyond your wildest dreams, and I haven't yet encountered one that managed to push an inappropriate child into a grammar school.

Maybe that happens outside the London grammars, but here ...? Nope.

If I were you, I'd go back to basics. Hockerill is boarding. Do you want your son to board? There are pros and cons to that. Think them through. How would that situation suit him (and you). St O's he'll travel to. Check out the route. How will he deal with that? Will you be able to support a social life (of his) where he'll be travelling all over (because his friends will come from all over).

My ds is at one of those mad London grammars. He finds some subjects a breeze, and some less so. The teaching is pretty amazing, as is the pastoral care. That's a real boon. None of the children are top in everything, so don't fret about "failure".

I think the difference lies in the fact that the "top" in each subject can be pretty high, and a lot of children are near it. But not all. And, rather unfairly, the way the grammar school system in London now works (with children having to opt into it) there is effectively a filter for children from very chaotic backgrounds. So behaviour is better, and the school has fewer issues to deal with. (Fwiw, I think that is a bit sad/unjust. But I've noticed that the same thing seems to happen in "top streams" of comprehensives too. And I think that is sad/unjust too.)

So, what I'm saying is that you should put all this "failure" fear away. It's not that grammar schools are filled with super-boffin children, breezing through every subject. (Though there may be one or two, who are very bright, in a particular subject.)

Seriously, if your son responds to good teaching (and clearly he does), he will more than suit a grammar school. So, please, just lose that worry.

Ask to go and visit the schools again, if you can't remember what they're like. Talk more to your son about his expectations of school.

And ... make sure you have back-up plans, because I've known of some surprising (as in, bad surprise,) when it comes to entrance exams.

"I think that he might not be good enough for a place of such academic excellence like St Olave's. He can be bit stupid at times"

Depends what you mean by 'stupid'. Some academically excellent children are also stupid in some respects as in naive, unworldly, lacking EQ etc.
Trust the school: the entrance exam will be structured to find the sort of kids they want. If they want quirky eccentrics, then the exam will be skewed that way. If they want trained monkeys, then the exam will be skewed that way. I'm betting that they will like trained monkeys i.e. the sort who will knuckle down and get good GCSEs and A Levels for their league tables a few years down the line. [cynical emoticon ]

Are you thinking of HAEC for a day place or for boarding?
Am I right in thinking that St O's is single-sex and Hockerill is co-ed? You haven't mentioned this aspect.