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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Going for better school...

231 replies

user789653241 · 19/01/2018 13:32

I had a thread here before and had great advice from a lot of posters regarding going for scholarship and bursary.

DS is exceptional at maths, and also doing better than average in English, and he is in YR5.
I had a talk with my ds in depth, and he doesn't seems to want it at all, like preparing for entrance exam etc. He is very strong willed and wouldn't do anything he doesn't want to. So preparing for the entrance exam will be unlikely.
He says he is happy to go to local sinking school with his friends. Destination isn't great, I am not sure if they do actually accommodate his needs or not and only goes up to 16.
What I really wonder is, can he be able to go further is he wanted to, even after attending sinking secondary school?
I really don't want to send him to where he doesn't want to. But worried his outcome maybe restricted. I don't think many will go to further education at this school, many end up leaving school as fast as they can.

OP posts:
cantkeepawayforever · 21/01/2018 20:00

It's no surprise that the Cambridge sixth forms - both private and state (Hills Road, Leys, Perse) - seem to have many participants over the years, with St Paul's, Westminster and Latymer also seeming to appear regularly.

There are others that appear more sporadically. If any of them are local to you, you would at least know that those schools have had one of the top young mathematicians of their age group in the recent past, and so would have organisational knowledge of dealing with very able young mathematicians.

MumTryingHerBest · 21/01/2018 20:04

A generation ago, at least, there were a few schools that were notable for taking those with exceptionally spiky profiles&

Do you think OPs DC has a spiky profile?

Which schools took DCs with spiky profiles?

Which of those DCs in the Olympiad have spiky profiles?

Thehogfather · 21/01/2018 20:05

If you want to keep your location hidden I'd suggest waiting a few weeks or so and then posting a thread under a different name about either the schools or your area to ask for opinions.

Iirc from past threads I don't think ops ds is lopsided in the general sense. More his maths is so far ahead, rather than being just 'ok' at other subjects.

I know sats have changed but in old money entrance exams didn't require anything more complex than level 5/6. Yes he'll have to do them fast to score highly enough for a bursary or ss, but he'll find them so simple it shouldn't be an issue. The only issue he might have is making silly mistakes because it's so easy he isn't concentrating fully. But even then if he is determined to go once he's visited he should be able to overcome that.

user789653241 · 21/01/2018 20:38

Thank you everyone for great advice.
I am very grateful for all the help.

Thehogfather, thank you for suggestion, I might take your advice.

OP posts:
thecatfromjapan · 21/01/2018 21:01

Wilson's in South London/Croydon is another selective that has a good share of mathematically able boys.

thecatfromjapan · 21/01/2018 21:09

However ... I'd listen to Noble, to be honest. If she says he should be in a private school that caters for the exceptional, that's where he should be.

A cousin-in-law was pretty good at Maths and went to Westminster. I know they do an outreach for bright state school children. I don't know if you're near London, though.

Hebenon · 21/01/2018 21:33

If you might be able to say a general area, posters may be able to advise on where you could look at without having to move to the other side of the country. Any private school is not necessarily any better than any state option, even one that isn't particularly good - you need to find somewhere that will suit your son. I have an outlier DD (not Maths, though she is in the top few in her class for that too and always picked for Maths competitions etc so like your DS very very good at one particular thing and better than average at others). I have picked three schools where I thought the ethos would suit her (one state non-selective, one private, one state super-selective) and so she has done a couple of exams and I will be very happy if she gets into any of these. But there are private schools near me (top 50 nationally, really good schools) where I did not feel she would fit in or be happy and so I did not bother to sit her for those.

As far as preparation goes, DD and I have done a bit of something once a week for about six months, though we had a break over the summer - this was largely me teaching her exam technique rather than actual subject knowledge. The two selective schools she is sitting for have multi-stage tests and she has passed everything so far with next to no preparation in comparison with what some children seem to do. One child in her class has been tutored every week for the past four years and did not pass the first stages that DD rather enjoyed. So even if your DS does not want to do tons of preparation, there is a perfectly good chance that he may be able to get into a highly selective school, particularly with his outstanding maths ability.

If any knowledge of SW London and central London schools is remotely helpful, please feel free to PM me.

cantkeepawayforever · 21/01/2018 21:37

Mum, as it happens, I knew 4 or 5 of the Olympiad contestants of my age. Note that I am quite old.....

I would say all were spiky, as in their Maths was so far ahead of their other subjects. Their schools tended to be of the group I mentioned before - places like St Paul's, Winchester (College - the scholar's house), Westminster etc - and they had tended to be admitted to those schools by interview / recommendation from their previous school, because of their peculiar giftedness, not by the generalised sifting of the modern 11+/13+ process.

cantkeepawayforever · 21/01/2018 21:40

(I too, all those years ago, was admitted to my highly-selective school on a full scholarship and accelerated a year, not because of - or not only because of - my entrance exams, for which I had no preparation and in which I suspect I did not come top, but also because of interview and 'hunch'. It was possible then, in a way it isn't necessarily now.)

noblegiraffe · 21/01/2018 22:02

The OP's DS doesn't necessarily need to go to a private school if there were a great state option locally - Tiffin has amazing provision for bright mathematicians, for example (from what I've seen on their website) or a superselective, but if the local offering is a not-great comp with no sixth form, and not everyone has a choice of secondary schools, then private should be investigated.

Teenmum60 · 21/01/2018 22:30

My only advice would be dont settle for "he will do well anywhere" - my experience is that this does NOT happen. I would not say I have an exceptional DD but she did score the highest marks in entrance exams for Yr5 to an highly academic independent school ...We made the mistake of following her then HT;s advice - that she would do well anywhere ....It didnt happen (she was bullied- mixed with children who were on the opposite scale of her ability and therefore didnt focus on her capabilities) we moved her at the OCT HT of Yr 8 - she wasted over a year of her education in the state system where the head was retiring and was treading water (we are not in Grammar school area) - I am not sure yet whether she will compensate for the hole in her education - when she sits her GCSE's this year because she was not in the right environment/school for 15 months - she may well under achieve which is quite sad - hence why I urge you to not let your son down. He needs to be in the right environment not only for learning but for social reasons too..... if he's in the right environment he will flourish - if he's in the wrong environment he will under achieve.

goodbyestranger · 21/01/2018 22:38

mmzz super selectives are not necessarily for excelling all rounders by any means. MumTryingHerBest isn't correct.

OP another thing to consider - well, I'd be very wary of it myself, having had a number of very bright or even exceptional DC through the system - is: do you really want to fixate on one area of ability at such a young age? It seems very unfair in a sense. Thus, if you look at Tiffins as noble giraffe suggests, then sure, their maths provision is excellent but just check out their other subjects as well, in case your DS gravitates towards another area in sixth form, as he might well do.

Good to read that your son is happy, well rounded etc. Keep your eyes on maintaining that and don't give in to any pressure to make him feel exceptional. If he really is exceptional, then keeping him on the straight and narrow in terms of social skills etc is probably the biggest favour you can do him, alongside not sending him to a seriously ropey school.

OnceWasGoodAtMaths · 21/01/2018 22:58

Ok I've namechanged because this could be outing, but it's probably worth saying.

As has been touched upon upthread, there is the 1 in 10 gifted child which every class will have one or more of; then there is the 1 in 100 gifted that most schools will have one or more of. The 1 in 1000, a school will rarely have more than one at a time if that. The 1 in 10,000 - will stick out almost anywhere. But if a school is taking a high proportion of 1 in 100 kids, they may be better placed to work out what to do with the 1 in 10,000. A school that is relying on the 1 in 10s just doing fine by themselves, will almost certainly fail that 1 in 10000 child if they come their way.

I was like the OPs son as a child, a 1 in 1000 or 10000 - I don't think anyone at school ever taught me any maths, I could just work ahead through the textbooks. Just after starting school I worked through a series of American primary school maths workbooks I'd seen in a newsagent and asked my mother to get me. Later, I sometimes got enrichment work at school, sometimes I didn't - depending too much on the teacher I had and the degree of personality clash. But I was always expected to do what the class was doing as well and sometimes got very bored with problematic consequences.

Finally at the end of year 10 I was picked up for olympiad training, and less than 18 months later made my national team, and went on to get a bronze medal at the IMO. If the right people had known about me earlier I could certainly have gone further than I did (even though that was literally beyond my wildest dreams). Sometimes I wish I'd moved to the UK for uni - might have got better mentoring possibly - but I was impatient to get on with actually learning something and moving from the southern hemisphere would have enforced a gap year.

I think my own 12 yr old might have the same potential, and the similarities to the OPs son are more marked, he's teaching himself all sorts of things from youtube etc. We are extremely lucky to have him in an excellent small prep that has enriched his education wonderfully; he is about to sit music and academic scholarships for senior schools. The maths ability positively influences a host of other areas. If I could turn the clock back, I would have prepared him much more for pre-tests when he was 10, as he interviewed badly. I'd hoped he would be able to have some control of where he wanted to go, but in retrospect I didn't understand that he had no image of what senior school would be like and until much more recently wasn't ready to think ahead to it. We are now hoping for a boarding place at either a highly academic school or our second choice that we believe will be able to nurture his special abilities.

To the OP - reading this thread I think you have taken on board that you need to be taking charge. Look as widely as you can, ask questions, and don't think any school would be presumptuous to consider. If you can get appropriate maths textbooks that might be helpful for your son to work through things systematically - repetition is key to mastery even for those to whom the concepts are trivially obvious. Depending on where you live, don't rule out boarding at age 13 as a possibility, but now is the time to start looking at such schools as well, confusingly.

When you find the right school environment you may find that your son knows it. Or he may have to grow up a bit more first; trust your own instincts as to what is best for him until he can appreciate it for himself.

Very best wishes and feel free to message me.

goodbyestranger · 21/01/2018 23:05

OP said no to moving and no to boarding as well.

GHGN · 22/01/2018 00:08

OnceWasGoodAtMaths you are being too modest here. An IMO medallist is at least 1 in 100000 and for countries with little tradition in the competition, it will be 1 in a million :)

Taking the scale of a national Maths squad, not your average bright child, then most if not all of them could do the GCSE Maths in the UK at about the age of 10,11 with a bit of effort. The one that make the IMO team will be even better and they still need a lot of training.

Aiming for the IMO is a good goal to have for exceptional mathematicians but the OP's son can't do everything on his own. He will need regular guidance, support and training if aiming for the IMO.

MrsPatmore · 22/01/2018 09:08

If you are interested in state schools then Queen Elizabeth Boys School (top state boys school) should be considered. I'm sure they've seen exceptionally gifted mathematicians before. Ditto St Olaves in Orpington (pastoral care is improving). The peer group will generally all be very clever so other boys to bounce ideas off.

In my opinion, the independents will have better one on one maths (and other) support but the peer group generally will be a wider ability range.

user789653241 · 22/01/2018 10:34

Thank you everyone.
It's just amazing so many people given me so much time and insight.

This has been on my mind since quite a while ago but now it's really approaching the time for decision and I was panicking.
I am so glad that I posted this thread.

I may think about boarding in the future too, if his health issues get better and has less check ups. (It's mostly managing meds regularly, so he has to get used to it soon or later.)

Thank you for all your advice.

OP posts:
321namechange · 22/01/2018 11:01

Take your DS to the local comp and let him see the level of the maths topics / work on the classroom walls. Like the tests now he will appreciate it is not for him. This was the clincher when deciding for DS.

sendsummer · 22/01/2018 12:02

Irvine boarding schools will be very helpful for meds and check-ups.
We don't know where you live (I am assuming that it is not London) but you need a school which has the time and resources to do lateral Olympiad type maths with him plus maintain his interest in a broad curriculum. As a fact finding exercise I would register him at Winchester and Eton (ASAP) have a conversation with the admissions about his / your background and let him go through the pretests which will require no preparation for him at all. Then see how inspired (or not) he is by those two schools and what you think after follow-on conversations with the staff there.
It may be that he is happier at home with self learning but it is only by testing the water of the other extreme (i.e. very stimulating boarding school with resources and some boys closer to him in ability) that you can find out.

goodbyestranger · 22/01/2018 13:04

Strongly agree re also being able to maintain his interest in a broad curriculum. he's so young to funnel him down a single route. A number of state super selectives are much stronger in the maths/ science sphere than in other spheres, sadly.

Hoppinggreen · 22/01/2018 13:07

321 my dd was horrified when she saw the year 8 work displayed at the local Comp open evening . She was in Year 5 at the time and as she’s a nice kid she was very polite to everyone she spoke to but on the way home exclaimed “ I did that LAST year” - soon changed her mind about wanting to go to the same school as all her mates.

BertrandRussell · 22/01/2018 14:10

Hoppinggreen-I presume she checked which sets produced the work that horrified her so much?

Hoppinggreen · 22/01/2018 17:01

They don’t actually set at that school but presumably they put work they are pleased with on display so I would imagine it was at the higher end of ability.

BertrandRussell · 22/01/2018 17:26

“They don’t actually set at that school but presumably they put work they are pleased with on display so I would imagine it was at the higher end of ability.”

Well, that would be so if you only rate the high achievers! Why would you not be pleased with the best work a low ability pupil produced?

goodbyestranger · 22/01/2018 18:25

I wouldn't draw that conclusion either. I think the work might well have been a commendable piece by a less able student.

I've been to Open Days but I've never yet seen work on a wall that my DC have sneered at.