Please share good experiences of state secondaries-having a wobble!

[colourdilemma]

Dd is in year five and will be going to a state comprehensive in year seven. We're starting to choose and I'm feeling wobbly. Our finances and philosophy both mean that we need and want to send all three of ours to state comprehensives, almost certainly co-ed but we have several high attaining independents near us. Dd has been to a number of activity days at two of them and I am finding it hard to keep my head when the marketing material comes home and dd has had a lovely time.

Please can you share your good experiences of state education. Dd is academically able and enthusiastic, but also struggles in some ways to focus and I fear (dh does not!) she might not be the "she'll succeed wherever she goes" type. We are both teachers, but that isn't helping me stop wobbling.

OP- did it occur to you that your post is pretty offensive that you are 'wobbling' about your snowflake doing what 93% of our children do

OP, apart from the positive things said about state education above, there are a couple of other points you need to keep hold of:

a) your dd is not you; she will have her own totally unique experience and totally unique way of dealing with it

b) the straight path is not the only path.
My dd for various health related reasons did not perform as well in her exams as might have been expected and for various other reasons is taking a roundabout way into finding a career. While this can be hard to watch, it is also clear that she is developing an amazing amount of resilience along the way; watching her I feel reassured not only about her present determination but about the way she will tackle difficulties and hardships 20, 30, 40 years down the line. She may not be gorgeously confident in the same way as children who have been taught confidence and surrounded by confident individuals, but she has a confidence that is all her own.

c) you don't even know which will prove the easy path. Seriously you don't.

Both my DDs are at our local state comprehensive - it's a big school, about 350 per year group up to Yr11. And yes, there is a hard core of people there who are not interested in learning, we live in a very mixed catchment with areas of great deprivation so that's the reality.

My DDs are also both very able, DD1 in Yr10 is one of a small group who the maths team feel could achieve the new grade 9. And they are having the teaching to go with that aspiration. DD2 is a science and history buff and is very well supported. Lots of trips to support the curriculum and beyond.

Pastoral support is really good, DD1 was bullied in Yr9, when she was finally persuaded to report it, it was stamped on immediately, and hard. Both my DDs mix with a huge range of people and not all are as academic as they are - they're a mix of people but they are all lovely. There really isn't anything to be afraid of.