Super selectives: how much value do they add?

[Oneveryworriedmum]

I'm starting to look at senior schools for my daughter and the head has suggested trying for some super selective schools. Thing is, I found the atmosphere at some of them rather pressurised and competitive and I worry that my child, who is rather academic but not very confident, may be crushed there. She's the type that would do better being a big fish in a small, nurturing pond rather than one of the many in a bigger, competitive pond, IYSWIM.
But would she really miss out if she went to, say, Tormead, Surbiton High or (with a lot of luck because of mini-catchment) our outstanding local comp, rather than Guildford High, LEH or Tiffin Girls?
I guess what I am trying to find out is whether there is genuine value at being at a super selective (better education, more academic 'stretching', access to better universities) or whether their fantastic results are simply down to the fact that they cream off the brightest and best, who would do just as well anywhere else?
Views gratefully appreciated, particularly from people who have gone through the system!

Don't forget to look at Curriculum options as well as value added. The more selective schools tend to offer a wider more solid core of genuinely academic subjects that are the sort of things the top unis like to see. You might pay special attention to the breadth of options in modern and classical languages for example, which will tend to be better in the more academically focused schools. You would need a larger non-selective school to provide similar options, given that they have to resource the more vocational stuff too.

roguedad and portico are you local? All the schools OP mentions will do all the things you mention although the claim that they will be stretched "unbelievably hard" is not one I recognise having had two DDs in one of the most selective schools mentioned. They were occasionally challenged and inspired, sometimes bored and sometimes taught downright badly, but they did work hard so whatever the teaching, like most pupils there, got As and A*s, and thankfully didn't need "stretching unbelievably hard" to do that. In fact if any school was aiming to stretch my child unbelievably hard to get good exam results I would run a mile, every year the school Heads set great store by the fact that excellent exam results were achieved alongside the pursuit of a whole range of other activities.

Look at the data sets for schools in your area.

I was tying myself in knots until I did this. For attainers, (which I believe my DC would be classed as on SATs), there was marginal difference in outcomes at GCSE between the comps & the super selective. Obviously the super selective got just on 100% but the comps were high 90s - the lowest being around 95%.

Obviously there was no data to compare for middle/lower attainers as the super selective didn't have any of these.

In the end we did go on feel as we had solid local alternatives.

We're not in a grammar area so it was the super selective or comp.

Sorry missed out a key word...for HIGH attainers, there was marginal difference.

Children who get accepted into super selectives are often already working at their potential, so there isn't so much scope for value added, as there is with an intake of children who are underachieving.

value added being low isn't a reflection on the school in those circumstances.

Poison woodpile

My DS is in a top 10 grammar school, top 10 by GCSEs and a level results that is. In his first term at Y7 he has been tasked with revising GCSEs work now, and his other subjects are moving along at the same frenetic pace. Yes, they are stretched unbelievably hard because, a) the cohort is already strong and b) competition amongst the cohort drives further excellence.

Ps, you mentioned your dd wee in a high selective environment. Is that stTe or private.

Typos.. Is that state selective or private selective

No, not local, Oxfordshire, and round here I have been a bit taken aback at the extent of what is not on offer at some schools, with MFL an early casualty to make room for the soft stuff, particularly in smaller schools.

portico I think you miss the issue. All the schools that OP mentioned are good schools that will start challenging their girls with GCSE level work from the start, in fact in Year 10 everything had to go down a notch in terms of my girls being given challenging and inspiring work that provided them with an education because the teachers had to focus on the restrictive requirements of GCSE syllabus. So they went from interesting and challenging work to being equipped to pass slightly less challenging and in some cases distinctly uninspiring exams that didn't need them to be "stretched unbelievably hard" , so they were able to be in school drama productions, compete for school and national teams, do 19 hours of rowing training a week etc etc.

The Schools OP mentions as "superselective" are Lady Eleanor Holles and Guildford High School (private) and Tiffin Girls' (state grammar) (and there is a long discussion downthread about how the results at Tiffin Girls' compared to private schools and top sets in comprehensives don't quite match the extent to which it should be able to select the brightest from over 2000 applicants, which may reflect weaknesses in selection, and the fact that there is heavy tutoring which doesn't end when they get in tends to back that up, or teaching). However the schools that are less selective, Surbiton High and Tormead are also good schools, they enable their brightest to get A*s and As and to top universities, so sending your child there, rather than the more selective schools is not going to mean they do not get challenged and enabled to achieve their potential. It is just there are so many good schools around here that tiny differences in the points that place them at different points in the league tables get magnified into distinguishing them as "superselective" or not. To put it in perspective the average points per exam entry at A level are around 270 at LEH, GHS and Tiffin and around 250 at SHS and Tormead, a difference more than easily explained by the extent to which they select from the brightest.