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?

For anyone interested in the actual trip, by the way, it turns out that it wasn't just year 9- it was a few from years 7, 8, 9 and 12. They had a tour round, drinks and chocolate biscuits and came home again. No talk or q&a session. Good chocolate biscuits, though!

Can I recommend TKMaxx for bedding? And Sainsbury's for the best student household stuff.

Thanks! I've bought nothing but a bale of towels when they were in the sale in February so far - anything more seems like tempting fate but (in a Maureen Lipman BT-Ad voice) 'Antony, people will always need towels!'.

I don't agree that a child cannot achieve, their academic potential in a "modern" school . This is because I allowed my DS to refuse a place at one of the most sought after grammar schools in Buckinghamshire , . This is because I believe he will still achieve his potential with less pressure attached to the school. Granted the school does not have 7% high attainers, but 32% and only 6.3% FSM take up , so does not have the typical demographics.

The school has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and is totally unrecognizable from the school I attended. The other thing I have noticed about parents is that they are very proactive in their children's schooling. The parents have often choosen this school, while having other children at grammar or private schools , because it is the right school for that particular child .

I'm a Tiger Mother only in as far as getting DS to stop watching videos of other people playing video games on his phone
and getting DD to stop watching crap American soaps on her laptop.

As I regularly remind them, DH and I have our O levels, A levels, Degree, professional letters already.
They have to work for theirs.
We live near a massive sink estate. They know exactly what awaits those who do not work hard at school.

Interestingly though DDs cohort were a very bright and outgoing bunch who egged each other on to hard work. DSs cohort are not.
I cannot wait to get DS into the semi-selective 6th form and away from the wazzock part of the cohort spectrum at the comp.

talkin seriously don't be too optimistic.

DS attends a super selective school and still spends a disproportionate amount of time on his PS4 playing games whilst watching an ipad of a bloke playing PS4 games.

There was a time when we worried about screening. These days we scream about double screening .

And DD has taken to watching youtube vloggers. In particular My Drunk Kitchen [hmmm].

Frankly she can see this at home!

Word
Tee hee, I've saved on school fees so suffer from triple screening (phone, laptop, telly) or even quadruple (phone playing music, ipad streaming videos, laptop pulling up cheat codes and then the xbox)

Kids of today will be stuffed when they have to pay their own electricity bills

Bertrand I can only think of one poster unpleasant or weird enough to have a serious hang up about another poster's DC. It would be an exceptionally poor reflection on anyone who's pleased if your DS doesn't do well. Has anyone actually used the phrase 'arrogant and selfish' about your DS? That would be odd.

Yes don't worry about triple screening TP. Unfortunately there's only one end of one sofa in one room of our house which affords triple screening, annexed almost exclusively by DS3. He 'bagsies' it - it's quite cute. The electricity bill nose-dives when the eldest boys aren't at home so you can look forward to that.

Oh damn. molios post has just made me realise I'm horribly MC
Two sitting rooms each with sofas, armchairs and access to screens

" Has anyone actually used the phrase 'arrogant and selfish' about your DS? That would be odd."

Yep. Earlier in this thread. He also doesn't care about his friends apparantly. I thought it was odd too. But hey ho- I wasn't being entirely serious about the dancing with joy. The more in sorrow than in anger I can see happening

My ds is a real multi tasker. He can play a game with friends on one screen while chatting to them on a headset while warching total strangers play a different game on another screen while skyping other friends on his phone.
He's only allowed to do this for half an hour every second Thursday, obvs.

My kids don't do this at all. I don't know if that makes them deprived or advantaged.

It makes you advantaged

Not necessarily. The things they do instead are not without their drawbacks...

I am very interested in sunshields' account of the secondary modern she chose and the Bucks grammar school she didn't. I think she is talking about an incredibly affluent area with the River Thames at its heart. The secondary school in question does indeed have 32% high achievers but the average grade for these pupils is B with a points score of 376.0. Its value added is 1000.4 so keeping its head just above water. At the Grammar school she turned down, the middle achievers average grade is B-, the higher achievers is A. Their middle achievers (7%) get an average points score of 358.0 and the higher achievers 430.7. Therefore there is a difference between the higher achievers in these neighbouring schools but interestingly the value added for the grammar school was not supplied. As these scores are average it does mean that a few children may get all A/A*s at the secondary but presumably only a few. A C of E secondary in the north of the county gets an average grade of B+ for its 30% high achievers and has a value added of 1023.2 for high achievers. That is the best secondary in Bucks.

Bucks has no secondary with as low as 7% high achievers as the Op's secondary does in Kent. The lowest in Bucks I could find was 13%. The secondary moderns with the highest number of high achievers were largely in the areas of greatest affluence. I would love to know how the secondary moderns compare in Kent.

Does C- average grade for high achievers and 918.5 value added (or value reduced) in a Kent Secondary modern have any resonance? Would not give me confidence.

Bertrand the outreach trip sounds a bit of a damp squib. Was it actually organised by the university? If so it seems as though it was a pretty minimal effort. How can just showing buildings provide much incentive or inspiration to apply to university (even with the biscuits)? I hope the school will be able to provide feedback.

My mum thought I was "off my mind" not to send DS to the fore -mentioned grammar , she didn't speak to me for a week !.

Milly yes it is a very affluent area and probably does not reflect the problems faced by the OP , but the fact is it is still classed as a modern school. The interesting thing though it still is not regarded as well as it should be, this is certainly the case by "mother" . She taught both my sisters at the girls grammar ,where my two DDs now go . This means she has always viewed the school in a unfair negative light (for the way it turned me out) and quite wrongly many believes modern schools are like a caricature of a 1970s education.

Surely though, the term 'high attainer' as per the gov performance tables covers a fairly wide spectrum of ability, i.e. all those dc who achieved Level 5 or above for KS2 maths and English. When ds1 sat the KS2 SATs papers 2 years ago (used by his prep school for end of year exams so marked internally) the school followed the official mark scheme and the range of marks for Level 5 in maths was 79% - 100%. Now especially with the introduction of Level 6, perhaps the term 'high attainer' needs to be re-thought?

Our local comp did this, took pupils on a day trip to the nearest university in year 9. Mine wasn't invited and we enquired why not We were told that it was a broadening access visit aimed at pupils who might need encouragement to apply for higher education and as places where limited they weren't taking the high achievers.

Although we understood, we were unhappy she missed out...

I do actually think that the higher attainers at a secondary school may well be the lower end of the high attainers, if you see what I mean. I suspect the OP would disagree with this and I do know of children who have 6+ A* GCSE grades at the secondary schools and get to top universities. I am also aware that the style of teaching at the secondary schools can be beneficial to some and in Bucks there is not such a huge gap between the grammars and the secondary schools, except in a few notable cases. I would be pretty confident your DD will do well at the Bucks secondary you have chosen, sunshield. However I have been aware that sport, music and drama can be pretty average in a few secondary schools and recruitment of good teachers is a permanent headache.

However where a school, as with the one in Kent, has an abysmally low value added, attaining the higher grades is more of an uphill struggle for the high attainers, as indeed it is for everyone else, because the "value" the children had on starting is actually being reduced. With only 7% high attainers there is a very small cohort of similar children and if C- is the averge grade that does not compare well with any Bucks secondary. The figures for the Kent school rather suggest there are big problems, unlike the current situation in most Bucks secondary schools. Very many of the Bucks secondary schools have over 20% higher attainers and what is achieved with them in most schools is good. As a county, Bucks is very high achieving and is the highest achieving Shire county. Kent is some way below the standard overall in Bucks.

DS year 7 goes to the Upper school my two DDs year 9 and 8 go to the girls grammar nearby !. Just to let you Know....

sunshield how many would chose to turn down a GS place for an Upper school which only had 7% of high achievers though? I suspect that would be a much more difficult decision than sending a child to an upper school with enough high achievers to have decent sized top sets (who could be expected to aim for A* - B).

Sorry sunshield. Got the DS and the DD muddled up!

I think, LaVulcan that very few in Bucks turn down a grammar school place. It is unusual and most parents see the grammar schools as the Holy Grail. Bucks grammar schools are now taking far more out of county children so the numbers of high achieving children in the secondary schools is significantly higher than 10 years ago. I think very few people would choose the secondary school in Kent over a grammar school. I read, and I forget where, that every 8 points below 1000 leads to one grade lost in one GCSE. So a rough calculation means the children in the Kent school are achieving 8 GCSEs at a lower grade than they would have done in a school with a value added of 1000. It's just really sad and the governors and SLT of the Kent school do need to do more improve the outcomes for their pupils. A trip to a university is playing the fiddle while Rome burns really.

Given that thousands flock to Bucks for the grammar schools, it figures that the secondary schools (non grammar) must be populated by some - if not bright - kids, then certainly ones with invested parents. A former council house where I used to live is for sale at £560K, so you can imagine the price of the average 4-bed. Not everyone can pass the 11+ so there are going to be presumably "better" dcs in the non-grammars.

I also saw that in my old grammar school the make up is now nearly 25% non-white British when the area profile is less than 10%. This indicates that either this demographic do particularly well at 11+ or are coming from outside area. Bit of both, I expect.