Dilemma... 'more average' sibling to follow super-bright brother to same school, or somewhere else, with a chance to 'shine'??

[fluffyhamster]

I'm sure we're not the first to have had this dilemma..

DS2 has been/ will almost certainly be offered places at two schools, and we can't decide.

• School 1 is a local independent with an excellent reputation (Top 100 in the country). DS1 is already at this school. Doing well (is super -bright with top scholarship etc) Excellent facilities - esp. music & drama (which DS2 is into).

We weren't sure that DS2 would get offered a place, but he has. However we know that he was in the bottom 20% of those who passed the entrance exam. I worry that he might struggle a little, will always be towards the bottom, and constantly in DS1's shadow. It also seems to be a school where you need to 'find your own feet/ stand up for yourself'. DS2 is not massively confident, and may find it hard.

• School 2 is a local voluntary aided school with fantastic facilities and above average results. Rapidly getting even better, but not the same academic pressure as school 1.

We are lucky to be in the catchment for this school - parents lie and move to get their kids there . Feels a bit more nuturing. Is smaller. I think DS might feel less stressed and more confident here. But he may not 'stretch' himself enough if he can get away with it (he has a tendency to follow the path of least resistance...) Music & drama isn't as good though.

The other consideration is that DS2 is very young (August birthday) and it feels as if he may still be doing some catching up vs. his peer group.
The change in him over the last year has been massive, and in another year it might seem as if he could have coped better with school 1?

I just can't decide.
School 2 would obviously cost less too, but I couldn't bear it if in later years DS2 accused us of sending him to a 'less good' school to save money!
Any wise words?

No of course I dont.
"The deprived child is shoved in a push chair and driven around the shops at speed facing away from mother with bottle of ribena in hand, much more than a middle class child. The family of the middle class child speaks in grammatically correct sentences. Then we get onto nutrition etc etc.
This is a gross and offensive generalization. I work with children from a huge variety of backgrounds and there are good parents and bad parents from all walks of life. We have a high number of parents from "deprived" background and also those with learning difficulties all are genuinely trying to do the best thing for thier children often in almost impossible circumstances.

Phew!

You've been very quiet for a while seeker MN has been boring without you!

Really? You must just have not noticed me. I'm so inconspicuous and self effacing it's easily done............!

Well you've certainly not been posting on the things I've been reading. Its the fact that you are so "inconspicuous and self effacing" that makes your postings such value. There nothing like a good debate!

Seeker/gardener -I acould never have been the next Mozart or the next Usain Bolt no matter what my early experiences.I just was not born with the right genes.same with intelligence.

Yes- people's levels of intelligence differs. But the assertion that rich children are intrinsically more intelligent than poor children is breathtakingly stupid and offensive.

seeker I don't often say this, but I have to agree with you there.

Stickin my neck out here. School 2.
I think the need to not be identified with his shiny older brother is probably massive for him.
And, about the resentment thing.
I went to a state grammar, my other 3 siblings went to private schools. I never resented my parents for that decision. In my case it was a financial thing - I was a late 4th child - but I've been considering doing this in reverse with my dds, sending the 2nd one to an independent - she's very academic and eccentric and hates boys and also missed a year of school for illness - whilst my first is generally doing great at a state comp which is very sporty like her, and getting lots of support with her (expensive) interests. Kids are different and have different needs, and treating them the same doesn't seem right to me. As long as it all evens out in terms of their NEEDS being met.
You can spend the money you save on drama and music coaching and let him be independent from his brother.
If it's a disaster, coach him for 13+ entrance.

Didn't finish that sentence (shows how poor i am lol) imtelligent parents create intelligent children

seeker why is it stupid to think that intelligent parents are likely to create intelligent children.

It isn't stupid to think that intelligent parents tend to produce intelligent children. But you said that rich parents are more likely to produce intelligent children. Would you like me to c and p?

As anyone who breeds horses will cheerfully testify two Derby winners don't sadly breed another Derby winner. It is also the same with humans. Secondly you may own a Derby winner but if you never race it you wont know. Just because your a road sweeper doesn't mean your not clever maybe you were never given the right chances in life. We also know plenty of Oxbridge grads many with 1sts and successful jobs but their children are not necessarily of the same calibre. Life is thankfully just not that black and white.
The independent sector frequently has much higher expectations of its pupils and of course many parents are forking out over £30 000PA and they too have high expectations of children. The culture at my DS2 schoolis that of achieving A*s. From the moment they walk in the door this ethos pervades. I suspect some of these would cruise in the state sector and perhaps not achieve such good grades.

I know seeker you are anti independent ed. and I can see it from your point of view because it is unfair but then life is unfair. I personally would like all state ed to be universally of a high standard as offered to my DS1 and surely high expectations cost nothing.

"Would you like me to c and p?"
Im obviously not clever because I dont know what that means?

If he's passed the entrance exam for the 1st school then in my opinion he's good enough to go.

No matter how much you 'dress up' a decision to send him to another school as being in his best interests he'll always feel that you didn't think he was good enough for the first school. His results should tell you otherwise. So what that he was in the bottom 20% - a lot of those 'better' than him will be almost a year older in academic terms. You say yourself that he has 'come on' in the last 12 months and going on my experience I'd be prepared to bet that this improvement will continue. Have you asked him what he wants to do.

I was in a similar situation to you in that my eldest (born at the end of october) was always top of the class, her sister (an august birthday) most definitely wasn't. I can't deny that there weren't comparisons made between the two by teachers who should have known better, but there was only once that I had cause to regret the decision to send her to the same school and that was when she overheard all the complimentary comments being made about her sister when she came along to a parents night and remarked that no-one had ever said things like that about her, nor would they.

I'll never know whether those comments spurred her on or whether she just caught up age wise with others in her year but what I can tell you is that after a pretty average set of GSCE's (her words not mine) she ended up like her sister with the highest grades at 'A' level, a 1st class degree and a further professional qualification.

c and p = cut and paste

Ah thank you. I've always been crap with crap with abbreviations perhaps thats an indicator of low intelligence. But I haven't come from a very poor back ground?!

Certainly my typing errors would also indicate that!

seeker - I said that (overall) more intelligent people tend to be in higher paying jobs.

Clearly university academics and teachers are much thicker than lawyers or bankers, in fact about 10 times thicker, as that is the approximate relative position of their salaries...or not.

Not everyone chooses to go into high paying jobs. Some people choose jobs that are high interest and/or status rather than high earning.

Certainly, among people that I know the correlation between those who earn the most and the most intelligent is precisely zero.

Would that the capitalist system was as efficient at rewarding brains as Abitwobblynow imagines - I and my family would be loaded. (She says modestly. )

The reality is that wealth can be inherited with no requirement for brains of effort on the part of the inheritee, whatever their distant forbear who amassed the wealth might have possessed in the brains department. Wealth is supposedly the reward for risk-taking as much as/rather more than brains or hard work within the capitalist model. Or at least that's what all those defending huge salaries for bankers keep telling us.

That is not what you said. You are backtracking.

Dandelionss- this is what you said-

"I think rich children overall would be brighter than poor children."

By the way, as Yellow has pointed out, my state grammar school beats all bar a tiny handful of private schools hands down in the league tables. Just gibbering nonsense to suggest all private schools are inherently better than all state schools. Sorry to point out the obvious (again).

I have also have worked as a teacher in both the state and private sector and anyone who truly believes that the private sector looks after their kids better or that the teaching is inherently better in the private sector just BECAUSE it is 'independent' is truly a fool, who deserves to have hard-earned siphoned out of their bank account every month.

I say that with feeling having been horrified at what I have seen in the private sector.

seeker this is what i posted
'I think rich children overall would be brighter than poor children.One or both e parents are more likely to be in jobs which demand a higher level of intelligence and therefore the children are more likely to have 'intelligent' genes.
Now of course there will be many poor children who are very bright and many rich children who are thick as short planks.But overall using a large enough sample I would certainly expect a pattern whereby children from affluent backgrounds were more intelligent than those from poor backgrounds.''

I can't see how I've backtracked on that!

'my state grammar school beats all bar a tiny handful of private schools hands down in the league tables.'
..well i should bloody well hope so!! A free selectuive school is never going to be short of takers and is taking the cream !