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Secondary education

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Original poster

My hope for dd going to grammar school

52 replies

Sarem · 20/12/2011 09:45

is that she Won't feel embarrassed for being clever anymore, that she won't be called weird or a clever clogs anymore for working hard and doing well. Am I deluded?

OP posts:
gazzalw · 20/12/2011 16:10

Not sure. My SIL was very,very bright at a Grammar School and still got teased and called a 'swot'.
But of course many of us found that we weren't quite as clever as we thought once we'd got to grammar school - that was a bit of a shock!

kritur · 20/12/2011 20:20

I still got called a swot at grammar school but it wasn't anything like the level I encountered before that. It was also never really particularly nasty. That was in the 90s though, I suspet grammar schools are far more exclusive these days but bullying has also got more sophisticated.....

Kora · 20/12/2011 21:31

I suppose she might find a few more like-minded peers, which will make her feel a bit more comfortable, and teachers who are prepared to encourage her more, but it probably all depends on the atmosphere and ethos of the specific school - whether grammar or not.

GrimmaTheNome · 20/12/2011 21:39

Hopefully it will be fine. My DD goes to a girls GS and they are all bloody well expected to work hard and do well, and being clever is the norm. And - so far - her form all seem to get on with no bullying or bitching.

It does of course depend a bit on your DD - there are some children with the knack of being clever-clever and getting up peoples noses somehow. Hopefully that doesn't apply! Smile

Lutravers · 20/12/2011 22:04

Certainly my DS is thoroughly enjoying GS and so far seems to be surrounded by like minded boys. I'm sure there is still bullying but not for the reason of being too bright and wanting to get on with their work. He was bullied rather badly in year 6, where the newly mixed up class seemed to be full of kids that didn't want to learn and were going to pick on anyone that did. I breathed a sigh of relief when he got in to the GS. I hope your DD has a good experience too.

Miette · 20/12/2011 22:06

I had the same experience as gazzalw has mentioned. The bright kids were called "the swots" and I do remember individual girls being bullied. I remember finding it a real shock that having been top of the class in primary school, I was only getting average marks at GS and it made me lose motivation. This was back in the 80s though and things may have changed a lot since then. I imagine it is more pressurised.

slavetofilofax · 21/12/2011 22:44

You are not deluded at all! But I think it depends on the type of Grammar school you are talking about.

If it's a super selective, then your dd would most likely be with girls that were all in the top one or two in their classes and will thereofre always have been the swotty ones.

My ds is at that type of GS, and he is so much happier there than he was at primary. His primary school was a lovely school, but he just had very little in common with the other boys there. Now he has loads of people that he shares interests with, there seem to be many of them on the same wavelength as ds, whereas before there were none.

exoticfruits · 21/12/2011 22:48

I don't see why she should at any school.

gazzalw · 22/12/2011 07:52

True Exoticfruits but that's not life....essentially it's a form of bullying but it's also human nature...

Incidentally in DS's class the ones who 'intimidate' the clever ones in this way are generally the ones at the other end of the learning spectrum - it was ever thus...

Always tried to tell the DCs that it's all about jealousy and to ignore it....it is easier said than done though...

But hopefully at a grammar school life will be different... If the super-selectives are essentially only catering for the top 5%, rather than the top 20% (as is the case in other parts of the country and was the case when I was at a GS), then there is going to be less of a range of natural ability anyway - and all the children there will be the ones who would have been considered to be clever/swots by their peers

Incidentally, my SIL wasn't even a super-swot - naturally very, very clever (but didn't spend all her time studying) but always had loads of friends, popular with the boys....

mumblechum1 · 22/12/2011 08:49

You're not deluded. DS is at a mixed grammar and apart from a few, everyone is fairly swotty.

People are much more likely to be teased in grammar for being dumb than clever, and there were a few in ds's year who shouldn't really have been in grammar but were coached within an inch of their lives to scrape in on appeal and just couldn't cope and were eventually chucked out at the end of yr11, or rather didn't get sufficient As to be allowed back into sixth form.

Being brainy is celebrated in grammar school ime.

exoticfruits · 22/12/2011 09:06

If you go into a good comprehensive, where there is no grammar school to stream off the best, the top sets are very clever and hard working so it isn't a problem. In my DS's comprehensive the 'cool kids' were the ones trying for Oxbridge. (If you have grammar schools of course you lose this, so would be better at the grammar school)

mummytime · 22/12/2011 10:09

I'd like to add, that at my DCs Comp there isn't much bullying, yes people are called swots, but its done in a friendly way pretty equal as an adjective to "sporty" and "popular". The last BTW isn't totally a compliment.
But it is a big school, with a lot of very bright kids, and which lets them do things other than hang around bored in the playground at breaktimes (so the library is used by the swotty and those who don't like the cold, for example).

The school also has a strong ethos of trying hard, and students do strive to get an effort grade of over 90% (don't ask me how this is judged).

Original poster
Sarem · 22/12/2011 20:55

Yes in dd's year 6 class the ones struggling with the work, who are in the minority, set the tone and the higher achieving ones go to great pains to hide their ability. Bizarre.

OP posts:
nailak · 22/12/2011 21:13

In my gs we were bullied for not affording latest labels etc. It was full of girls from private preps who spent obscene amounts on private tutors, tennis lessons etc.

exoticfruits · 22/12/2011 23:08

Grammar schools are not immune from bullying.

GrimmaTheNome · 22/12/2011 23:36

Grammar schools are not immune from bullying.

of course not, but if the OPs DD has a particular problem in her junior school being bullied for being clever and working hard, the probability is it'll be less in a GS. Similarly, it would probably also be less in top sets of a good comp like your DSs and mummytimes. At this stage presumably the OP knows her DD has passed 11+ so she specified GS because that's what applies in her case. I don't think there was any comp-knocking implied. Smile

breadandbutterfly · 23/12/2011 00:29

At my gs, there was no bullying for being clever, and I always felt good about being top at my gs.

dd1 has recently started at a grammar (well, semi-selective, actually), and so far there appears to be no bullying for being clever - indeed, the pressure is to be clever not the reverse. also the girls seem clever enough not to be too bothered about image, so there seems to be no bullying re looks either.

startail · 23/12/2011 00:39

I would have thought she wouldn't get bullied in that way.
Primary school can be hard for cleaver DCs who stand out we've lost lovely children to private schools and larger prairies for just this reason.
DD2s class are unusual because there are 4 or 5 very able pupils, one is off to GS, DD wouldn't try and I don't know about the boys.
I do know it's meant the teacher has had to provide interesting work and no one has stood out to be picked on. Quite the reverse they are a very feisty bunch.

startail · 23/12/2011 00:39

Primaries not prairies grrr

startail · 23/12/2011 00:47

Oh I meant to add that I had no trouble at my bog standard comp, being cleaver because we were very strongly set.
By Christmas of Y7, the core of the group who were to go one to sixform and university had already formed. We bullied and teased each other a bit, but we had very little to do with the rest of the school.

exoticfruits · 23/12/2011 08:10

All you need is a top end large enough to pull the bottom up-if the bottom end is larger they pull the rest down-this is the same whether in a class, a year group or a school. It helps enormously in the grammar school because the bottom end is missing altogether.

exoticfruits · 23/12/2011 08:11

If you are lucky you get it in a mixed ability school, but it is more variable.

Theas18 · 23/12/2011 09:42

OP I hope that very much for your DD too.

DS was bullied a lot in year 5 and 6 verbally for being clever and hated it so much. We did "fix it" at bit by pointing him at hobby with other delightfully geeky 9+yr olds. But super selective grammar was a real relief to him. Yes there is some teasing etc but nothing he'd class as bullying. Being top is celebrated (and he's found a sport niche too which is great).

DD1 was similar though not bullied so much (probably- she floats past things easier) but only had 1 or 2 friends ever. At grammar she had so many friends and a firm bonded group of 5.

DD2 academically similar to the others coped better at primary for some reason but wouldn't have done at a comp.

** NB having super selective grammars locally mean the comps are not truely all ability schools - remember that.

I was the "school swat" at a very ordinary comp in the late 1970s /early 80s and pretty much hated every day at school just because of the friendlessness of it all (me and my 2 mates, that was it).

gazzalw · 24/12/2011 13:19

Don't think I agree about the super selectives meaning the comps aren't truly all ability schools - not all children are put in for grammar schools. Can think of at least one boy in DS's class we has always been a frontrunner and he's not even tried for the super-selectives - sure he is not alone.....

ProperLush · 28/12/2011 20:46

Actually, surely you have a bigger 'problem' if the local GS isn't 'super selective', just ordinarily selective. Losing the academical top 20% of your potential intake makes the school way more 'bottom heavy' than losing the top 5%.

My girls GS (1973!) was merely selective. I was aware of the discovery that I wasn't as clever as I thought I was! But academic excellence was celebrated, which is what we're talking about, here!

FWIW, I am sending my DSs to the 'best' comp in the county, academically, but not because of that but because it is very MC. There are plenty of DCs there who could a) make grammar or b), go private. DS1 is clever enough for an ordinary GS so is in the upper sets in the classes that do set (not many, actually!) but DS2 is C, bordering D grade. My hope is that in a school such as this, there might be less thuggish, ignorant bullying than goes on in more socially deprived schools- the same thuggish, name calling bullying that might affect DS1 as he's small and shy as well as clever, to boot!