Parents of private school children..

[Imsosorryalan]

How do you find the attitude to learning? My dds are only small but our local schools aren't great and basically it's not cool to be the nerd. I'm worried, my easily led daughter may end up not achieving because of the prevalent attitude of her peers.

We may be able to afford private fees at a school close by but wondered if children have the same mentality or if they take their education a bit more seriously?

It depends on the school. We tried to limit our children's schools to those in the top 20 so very very academically selective. If 100% of the class goes to the best universities and everyone is very clever given teenagers tend to follow the herd then the atmosphere is you will go to Oxbridge or near equivalent and pursue a successful career. I am glad that rubs off. Ours went to these very academic schools from age 4 or 5 so from that age were in a class in a school where most children who apply are not bright enough to get in. It works very well.

My 2 are grown up now but went originally to a local independent school with an aim to encourage every child to achieve their full potential but, while this worked well for some of their friends, it was not academically focussed enough for ours.
We moved them to another school locally which was more academically orientated but still aimed for the all-round experience (sports, drama, art, debating, etc) which worked well.

DS has said to us that he now appreciates the chance we gave him as he feels he would not have achieved as much at a less encouraging school as he has. He feels he might have messed about too much and been more conscious of being cool than of being clever but who knows if that is true or not

It is extremely cool to be clever, hard working and nerdy at DC's school. (Also cool to be sporty, musical or good at anything really. Pupils are very supportive and admire others who excel at anything they are passionate about.)

Most (not all) pupils behave very well so classes are rarely disrupted and teaching is at a very fast pace. I coach GCSE and have seen less well planned essays among GCSE pupils at other schools than in Yr 7 at DCs school. It's a very academic school and a very warm, friendly, lively one too.

Definitely a good work ethic at my kids' private schools, but I suspect you will find the same in top sets at comps.

DD goes to an independent secondary.
It's selective entry, but it isn't really high end like down south, etc. They don't exist in our city.

Work ethic is promoted and encouraged. It's not seen as a bad thing to be clever or to work hard. They are all expected too. Overall academic ability is very high. They also take things like sport and extra curricular activities seriously. However, they are also encouraged to play and have fun too; not just all graft.

Although I wanted DD to go to a school where she would be encouraged to work hard, I didn't want her to go to a school with ridiculous levels of pressure. I want her to have a fun childhood as much as I want her to do well at school.

To be fair, most of the higher achieving state schools will be very similar, especially in the upper sets.

And there will always be a minority of children at every school who will highlight other children and taunt/tease and even bully for some reason. If it isn't for being clever, it will be for something else - clothes, hair, music, etc.

Thanks I think to find a high achieving state school would be the holy grail! Where do I look??

My ds is at an independent secondary school, one that is academically selective but also very sporty. Work ethic is promoted and it is cool to achieve. There is a marked difference to our local state school

Iamsosorryalan. I would look at the government's information (league tables) on schools in your area. They give value added, how well each group of children achieve (higher, middle and lower), best 8 GCSE results and much more. Whether you can get into the best one is another matter. You have to find out how places are allocated. Could be religious affiliation or could be catchment area or other selection criteria. Nothing will tell you how nerdy children get on though! When you get to the time when decisions have to be made, you will get to hear views from other parents but you may need to move if your local school is truly useless. Nerds might be totally accepted - there might be something else in fashion to dislike by the time your DCs get to secondary school!

One of the main reasons we went private was because at open day at our catchment school, the headteacher stood up and said that the previous year they were celebrating because 1 child got sufficient qualifications to go on to university.

My dd left school last Friday (sob sob) and looking at the probable destinations for all of the leavers, 85% have offers for university (many conditional so they may change), 10% are having a gap year with no published subsequent plans, and the other 5% FE college.

Schools do vary considerably. Many schools do publish leavers destinations, so worth a look.

Where do I look??
It depends where you are - here in Kent we have grammar schools so its pretty easy to find a high achieving state secondary, some are selective (you just have to pass the 11+, others are super-selective ie you have to pass with a minimum particular score)

Starving. Clearly your local school does not get the middle class, clever children. Perhaps they all go private so the school will never improve? Or maybe the clever children are all in other state schools, but just one going to university must make it the worst performing school in the country. I am amazed anywhere is that bad.

Asterisk, at our local 'outstanding' secondary comp, behaviour is so bad in the top sets that sometimes trainee teachers come and sit with the misbehaving ones so that the rest can try and learn. That sort of behaviour was true at my old comp too. I loathe it. Really loathe it. Hence private.

I think if a head had got up and honestly said that and expressed his pride and pleasure at that, I'd have been really impressed. But yeah, much better run screaming and clutching your pearls to a school where they only let in the ones who are going to make the grades

Original, all schools are selective in 6th form. It's not pearl-clutching to steer clear of staggeringly low aspirations.

A, no they aren't and b I'm not entirely sure I believe that anecdote anyway, to be honest!

Echo Janeparker.

Starving - one person from sixth form got to univ? A few years ago, I went along to a local comp's introduction eve as support for a friend and the Head was proud of their 23% GCSE Maths A-C grades. This comp had an "very good" rating too.

If your child can get into a selective private school and you can afford it, I'd certainly suggest you look into it.

It's so easy to make the assumption that independent schools are stuffed with highly motivated, hard working, well behaved children who all to a man think learning is cool. But these are children we're talking about here and adolescence in particular so it's inevitable that even in independent schools you'll find those on both ends of the spectrum and children change in their levels of motivation from lesson to lesson and day to day. Also IME super bright children particularly at super selectives get bored quickly and any mediocre teacher whose not capturing their interest can quickly find he's got a class full of restless teenagers on his hands. On the other hand nearly all if not all parents at independent schools will have very high expectations and frequently possibly too higher expectation of their DC's and the school it self, both children and school are usually very aware of this so this has a significant impact on both of them.
It's awful to think that in the 21st century any school can be proud of sending only one child to university, I'm not overly knowledgable on state ed but I doubt this is the norm. Our local school which is selective at 6th form although not overly sends a good % to RG universities, medical/vetinary college and Oxbridge every year. You need to look at all the schools on offer state and independent and try and find one that's doing what you want. By the way don't listen to gossip in playgrounds etc about an individual school be it state or independent go and see it for yourself and do your own research and check results for yourself on schools websites etc. I'm always stunned by the number of parents that make assertions like my DD school has the best/worst A level results in the country, when you look it up you find it doesn't, league tables are also very misleading as many of the top schools have pulled out or some league table compilors use different criteria.

When our daughter started in year 7, the sixth form was just being built. At the time, it could only offer vocational courses, as that was what their funding was based on. We knew in the future we'd need to look elsewhere for sixth form. I'm sure their early successes were similarly modest.

As I speak, they're taking 12 year 12s on a mini bus to the Cambridge Open Day - things change a lot in 6 years, but I'm sure they would have been speaking proudly of their first year 13 to leave for university a few years ago.

(Mind you, I'm sure that only going to the OPen Day in year 12 is ridiculously late and the sort of nonsense only state sixth forms try to get away with because they're so woefully ill-informed &c &c).

My 2 DDs go to a selective, private, girls school. The school has a strong ethic of hard work and the girls are very competitive, they support each other in success whilst striving for the best themselves. It works for us. They are always trying to be top of their game and complacency is not acceptable. The cool girls are not just the pretty, popular ones but the girls who are really smart. Hard work and achievements are something to be celebrated.

Original, I don't think it's technically too late, in that, they could still apply. But you really want to nab them earlier than that. Yr 4 is a great time to start saying: you're bright enough to apply for Oxbridge - want to give it a go? So I hope they do that too.

"but I suspect you will find the same in top sets at comps."

Yes, that is certainly true of DD's school. DD has just finished year 9. A couple of boys in her class have sat maths GCSE this year because they will get A*. DD is always comparing herself to them and other bright pupils and is happy if she achieves higher marks than them in tests.

Her school is a comprehensive, but a high achieving one.

newpup that's exactly my experience of private education. I'm not saying all private schools are better (far from it - we rejected most we saw out of hand.) But DS1 was sneered at for being bright at his state primary whereas he's popular and settled at his new school.

At his old school even his teachers used to say he should try and dumb down. At his new school the teachers beam proudly at his achievements. And so do his peers. It's really convinced me this was the right decision. He'd have got by at the local comp. He'd have got pretty much the same exam results I suspect. But he wouldn't have felt as accepted.

I have taught for 20 years and done a mix of state and private.

Top sets instate schools do still have kids who are too cool for school an with parents who aren't as interested in education. Private schools can vary greatly.

Intelligent and curious kids will tend to latch in to learning whatever their environment unless they really are in a school where this would leave them open to bullying or no one else would get involved. A state school can have a problem with recruitment but private schools tend to have teachers hammering down the doors and will also get rid of teachers who don't engage the kids. More importantly, private schools have much smaller class size so your child gets twice as much attention.

This is just my own personal experience btw.

'Middle class' and 'clever' aren't synonyms, MillyMillyMama.

So much tiresome state school bashing on this thread. There are many, many state schools with large numbers of children who want to learn. Do you really think that 93% of the population are peoe with bad attitudes who don't care about learning?