Right. Tell me what to do here- key words- 11+, g&t, University, widening access......

[BertrandRussell]

Ds is at a secondary modern school. 7% high ability, of which he is one. Letter home today inviting him in a visit to our local (excellent) university because he has been "identified as talented in one or more subjects"

Fantastic thar the school is arranging visits- it has only just started to send any kids to university at all. The school's catchment means that there are very few parents with more than a basic education, and they are pushing hArd to raise the aspirations of the kids- which is fantastic.

Dp and I have 4 degrees between us. Dd is at a Russell group university. Ds will definitely, if he wants to, go to university. It iseems ridiculous of the school to waste a space on this trip on ds. Should I say something? He's not particularly bothered- except that it means a day off school. If he doesn't go, they could give the space to someone that it might actually make a difference to. Surely they should have thought of this? What do I do? And is it depressing that even in a secondary modern school, privilege attracts privilege?

"None of this is relevant to school stuff though"

Yes it is!

I've been not the least hands off with my DC and have spent their lives inserting literature/music/films/food/sports etc into their lives.

I taught them a second language and I've taken them all over the world.

Some of these things have had a fabulous impact on them, some have been cheerfully ignored.

However, these things, no matter how wonderful, have very little to do with GCSE results. GCSEs are utterly prescriptive. Schools/teachers who know what they're doing, make the difference here.

So of course, introduce your DC to all sorts of things, but for good grades, make sure they are in the best school possible (and by 'best', I mean those schools geared to getting good grades).

You and Me (But Mostly me) Toclafane .

Bertrand you evidently don't like or believe the fact that I'm one of those mothers who are actually genuinely hands off on any proper definition of the term. There are many other similar mothers whose kids achieve just fine. You and I are hugely different, it's blindingly clear. I'm not asking you to plough my particular furrow but equally can you please stop insisting that in truth I'm ploughing yours. I'm not. I wouldn't. I'm far too lazy and besides, I don't think it does any good. I actually think it can do a degree of harm, but I'm not sure - just an educated hunch.

"Benign neglect" is much easier to achieve if your kids go to a private/pushier school and they are the sort who if led to water will have a good drink or will even go and have a look for water themselves.

Those of us with non-tiger kids at less than stellar schools have to make an effort. Yes, it would be lovely to do the Swallows & Amazons-style neglectful parenting but that is pricey and risky in more than a financial and health & safety sense.

Moilo- for whatever reason you have decided that I am ploughing a particular furrow- not sure what you think it is, but I don't recognise it. I am just pointing out that apart from the homework thing I do very little that is different to you. You seem very invested in this not being the case. But most of what I am talking about in terms of support is what you and I both would regard as normal family life. Except that very many children do not experiece what we regard as "normal family life".

If I remember correctly, your children go to a super selective. I hold to the view that if this was not the case, you would feel the need to be a bit more proactive. And if my child went to a school like yours I would not feel the need to be so proactive. If my son had gone to the grammar school, for example, i would not have had to look for opportunities for him to do the music and drama he loves, because he could have done it at school. You are not, I assume, saying that I am damaging him by finding him a youth theatre to join?

Bertrand it's you who is insistent that I am actually hugely pro-active and asked me the question. I didn't ask it of you. Then you insisted that we adopt the same approach, which we don't. Of course I recognise our schools are different - that's why I was curious about your attitude to your DD's schooling.

Bertrand it really isn't. It might be if the books I was planting (I don't plant these days they just take what they want and I yell at them) were Dostoevsky or Dickens. They weren't.

But BR as TWF says none of that is going to get him the A* in Maths that he is capable of. He leave with an A. Or whatever. He WILL have some slippage in terms of grades. Same as my dd, who has had music lessons, travel, culture etc firmly entrenched into her life. She'll still end up with a B in Spanish I hope... which if she'd gone to a selective school would have been an A.

You're extremely naive to think that he will get the best GCSEs he is capable of at a secondary modern because of YOUR input. He absolutely won't. That's not to say he won't gain in other ways, but his grades will suffer a bit.

"Bertrand it's you who is insistent that I am actually hugely pro-active and asked me the question."

No I'm not. It's you who are insisting that I am!

"But BR as TWF says none of that is going to get him the A* in Maths that he is capable of."

No. But having a dad with a PhD in physics who can keep an eye on what he is doing and what the A* curriculum requires might well.

Bertrand - I do understand why you are concerned. As I said above, this year I have suddenly had to be far more proactive than I have ever been (even in my own life) as a result of my DD1 not being in the mainstream in a particular issue and it has been horrible and I am stressing out about it madly (as people who sometimes find themselves on the end of this stress will know). I do understand (now) what it is like to know that there is information and important stuff out there that some kids are being given but that is not being provided to my kid, so I have to go find it for her (or point her in the right direction). So I have some sympathy with you. But your threads over the years have demonstrated an almost forensic knowledge of what your kids (both of them, not just your DS) are doing at school, you know about test results and about content of tests and what they are studying at the moment and you have mentioned looking at their books...to me, that is overkill. I have never looked in any of my kids' schoolbooks/ringbinders. Ever. DD1 was recently long listed in a national writing competition and I never even saw the piece till it was published. I haven't seen the short story course work she got full marks for at AS. Even though it sounds like it might be my sort of thing. I haven't heard her composition coursework. I do sometimes yell 'that was wrong' down the stairs when I hear DD2 fluffing a scale but that is the limit of my engagement with them on music (to the point that on more than one occasion when choosing sylabus pieces (or for DD1 post syllabus pieces) their teachers have gone and bought music for them that I already own ).

I'm not, actually, saying that I think this is good. Ideally I would like to be a more involved parent. But I do believe that standing on your own two feet is a Good Thing. I come from a long line of women whose mothers died before they were out of education/had left their teens. I bucked the trend by making it to my 20s (just) with a mum. I HOPE my kids buck the trend even further but they have to be able to cope if they don't. Especially DC3. I remember very clearly my mum saying to me that she would give anything to be able to wrap me up in cotton wool for a few more years but that she couldn't because it would be the Wrong Thing To Do in the circumstances (she'd just had her first diagnosis at that point). I am obsessed with my kids being able to cope if something happens to me. That's probably a bad and a sad thing but there you go. There's probably a good middle furrow to plough between your furrow and mine. I haven't been able to find it.

Presumably you're also intimately familiar with Exam Board mark schemes and hold higher degrees in geography, English lang and lit, history, French, RE and all his other GCSE subjects?

Bertrand you asked me a set of questions! I answered them!

Possibly neither of our very different levels of input are standard but there's no doubt whatever that they are very different and mine haven't changed since primary, so it's not actually a selective school thing. I just take exception to the suggestion that I can't know what I'm talking about even though it's my life and myself. Swallows and Amazons is a bit off as well (I know that was Brenda, not you). It's my approach and no worse in its way than yours. The fact remains that I want my DC to be happy above everything else, which may well be helped by doing well, but I don't see that they'd benefit from the level of micro managing that you appear to do. So I don't do it. But I don't generally make a big fuss about not doing it either, only when I'm told I am actually doing it, by a complete stranger.

"Presumably you're also intimately familiar with Exam Board mark schemes and hold higher degrees in geography, English lang and lit, history, French, RE and all his other GCSE subjects?"

Nope. But you did ask about Maths!

" But I don't generally make a big fuss about not doing it either, only when I'm told I am actually doing it, by a complete stranger."

But I'm not telling you that you are doing it- I'm telling you that I'm not!

Toclafane the reasons are sad, but what you're doing is very far from bad.

I didn't ASK about Maths - I used it as an example. Great - obviously Maths and Physics, and probably Chemistry are sorted. I'm sure your dh can also coach him in his ISAs too.

But what about the rest of your ds's subjects - for clarity I am asking about these. Do you have enough subject, curriculum and mark scheme knowledge to supplement the inevitable lack of thorough teaching to A/A* level to ensure that he categorically will not slip a grade in a few subjects?

"But what about the rest of your ds's subjects - for clarity I am asking about these. Do you have enough subject, curriculum and mark scheme knowledge to supplement the inevitable lack of thorough teaching to A/A* level to ensure that he categorically will not slip a grade in a few subjects?"

No. And of course I can't categorically say he won't slip grades. I can't categorically say he won't completely disengage and leave with 8 Fs. But I am more optimistic than you. I think his teachers will do their best- for his sake and for theirs. I think he will work hard. I think we will do everything we can to plug the gaps. There are plenty of resources available. There are tutors. I think he will do his best. And I think most of his teachers will too.

Well I'm lost.

Bertrand you say, oh no, I'm not super-involved, but then say, oh all will be well because...I'm super involved (and the other DC who don't have involved parents are at a disadvantage) .

I think the reality is that you are a very involved parent. I've got a good enough memory to recall the Approved Hour (which I actually thought was a great idea).

But my view (supported by just having had two go through GCSEs) is that all this stuff really does not help with getting the best grades possible. It's far from worthless of course, but that's something else.

This is why I bang on all the time about why schools have to make changes to help the most able. Parents, however involved, cannot make up for policies/decisions/teaching, which are not appropriate for the most able.

This is the crux of it all for me.

I think what I am saying is that I am involved - but only insofar as I need to be- my level of involvement varies with the needs of the particular child at the particular time. I think it's daft to say "this is how I deal with school" my dd needed very little academic support, but huge amounts of shoring up socially. Ds is the reverse.

My 19 year old dd said to me when she came home from University "Can you sort out some books for me that I might not have thought of?" So the Approved Hour continues!

I do hope everyone on this thread is still here on results day whatever year it is. I will grit my teeth through the combination of more in sorrow than in anger and triumphant cheering reactions to poor old ds's 9 Cs and two Passes!

I'm sure everyone is really hoping your DS does well when the time comes. I know I am.

Bertrand no one wishes your child ill!

And of course, every year there are kids in crap schools that do very well indeed. I was one of 'em!!! With any luck your DS will be one such lad.

I think all people are saying is that your faith in background/being middle class or whatever is misplaced in the face of a school which doesn't cater for high achievers.

This is why parents up and down the land do whatever they can to get their DC into the best school they can. It's not for the good of their health, their stress levels or their bank balance .

Thank you very much!

I think there might be one or two who would like to see his "arrogance and selfishness" cut down to size. And for me to get my comeuppance. Oh well, only time will tell.

Oh there are far more waiting to see my two fail, I tell ya.

Then they can dance around saying how I've wasted my money and time!

I can only think of a very few posters from the past who would have enjoyed a good head tilt at BR's DC doing less well than hoped.

If my dd does as well or better than hoped in her A levels, I won't be saying 'HA - comps ARE best'; I'll be too busy being massively relieved and then buying cheap bedding.

I don't think anyone has much invested in other people's DC doing well or badly, on an individual level - it would only be irritating if they used it as a reason to vindicate a wider argument. I know I wouldn't win one with GCSE results, because there's too much disagreement about which, how many, and how soon, a child should do for it ever to be a complete victory on that basis !