Dreading move from private to state - help me feel more positive!

[LeatherSuitcase]

My DS has been at prep school for years 5 & 6, we'd hoped for grammar like my older DS but he just missed out.

DS is now heading to our local state school for year 7 onwards. He went for transition day and hated it and neither of us are feeling very positive about the new school (though I'm hiding this obviously). Apart from Eng and Maths all the classes are mixed ability and he's worried (and so am I) that he'll be bored after the pace and level at his prep school. Also he's done two years of French and Spanish at prep so is predicting being bored for two years in those subjects.

I've had some other threads under different user names exploring mine and my husband's dilemmas re keeping him in the prep school versus sending him to the local state school. If I had more money and a DH that supported me I'd rather keep him at the private school where he's currently very happy (it runs to end of year 8). But I can't do that and now I'm dreading the new school and feeling miserable.

How can I cheer the h*ll up and embrace this new phase and also stop worrying that I'm ruining his life by taking him away from somewhere where he's happy and making him go somewhere he's decided he doesn't like?

THat version of prep schools utterly depends on which one you choose. Plenty around me tutor for 11 plus and that’s why parents send their children there. Others focus on CE and nearly all their children will go to boarding schools at 13. Its horses for courses.,

11 plus exams vary from area to area. Some have a wide range of tests, including Maths and English, others don’t. Years ago Bucks was VR only. Some children can get through without tutoring and others are tutored to death! Very very few would now get an academic scholarship anywhere if they were not grammar school standard irrespective of test used.

I presumed my son would be top set at his state school when he left prep but I was wrong. He hated prep and whilst he’s never been a school lover, he’s thrived and is predicted As and Bs in his GCSEs. That said, it’s a high performing comp, the best performer second only to the two private schools in a very large metropolitan borough

OP I think you need to get a bit of a grip.

First of all you have no idea what the other kids in the school will be like. If your son just missed out on grammar then there may well be other kids in the same boat. As for the French and Spanish presumably you can explain to the school that he’s studied it already? Although how do you know other kids haven’t studied it too? My kids are in state primary and have studied French and German all the way through.

You need to try and drop the negative mindset. State schools produce plenty of people who pass all their GSCES and attain much higher levels of education.

@bubbles

This was 16 years ago. (I went to specialist music school in the end because it was cheaper than half the private school fees.)

I see, much better if they do a bigger range of tests I think. For me it was the non-verbal reasoning that was the problem - I just don't have that visual imagination. Lack of those skills mean I still can't drive, struggle to follow maps, and trip over things all the time - but it never held me back academically, including maths and science.

I just struggle to understand how its a good judge.

Children are good at picking up on parental preferences, unfortunately they tend to act on those preferences in a less nuanced way. So if they pick up from you that it isn't as good as the grammar, and by paying for prep & moving him from his "normal" primary with a view to get him into the grammar you have signaled this to him already, he may well discount his comp education as being worthless. That will be a bigger barrier to his success than the lack of streaming. If it was my child I would be doing my very best to make sure that my view of the school improved so my child doesn't discount the educational opportunity they have just because I feel as if I had wasted 2 years of prep fees.

I went to the most rubbish comprehensive on the planet. Today I do the same job as my Eton/Oxford husband. It's what you make of it that counts.

We live in a grammar area, a friends DD got a place but turned it down and went to the local high school ..... she's just graduated from uni with a first with honours.

You need to big this school up OP in the next few weeks, turn it around, make an effort to say very positive things about it regularly, make some things up if you have to about so and so's kid loving it/doing well etc.

My DDs didn't get into their first choice high school on the first round and they were allocated a school which everyone locally hated. However I'd learnt from the experience of my neighbours son who was a year older and whose family were in despair at his school allocation. So I built it up in my DDs eyes, we have a lot of power over his they view things at this age.

BigSandyBalls is right. Go out and have a fun day buying new pencil case and bag and getting the uniform etc. Transition day is weird. He'll love it - all those new subjects and science labs and art studios and tech rooms etc... chin up...

I really feel for you and your post shows what a supportive and positive mother you are. Are there no bursaries you could apply for at private schools so you can avoid him having to do the state route? Happy chat to you about ideas if you wish. IF forced to do the state thing keep looking at private options as you could always remove him to the sort of school where he belongs.

JUST WANT TO LET YOU ALL KNOW

That I'm not reading messages on this thread (and haven't been for a while), I'm taking a break from MN.

I just had a very nice DM from someone which made me log back in to MN again, but I decided to take a break as I was finding some of the comments on this thread too upsetting / stressing me out so I decided not to read. Also I was spending too much time on MN anyway!

Thanks for taking the time to post. Don't waste your time posting any more as I'm not reading, unless you all want to talk amongst yourselves and argue over whether I'm some awful bitch or a really nice parent or whether my child is thick or clever or whether I'm prejudiced or not or whether this post is defensive or tongue in cheek (the latter). Enjoy!

But seriously, thank you to anyone has posted and I may come back and read in a few months time.

Crikey

For the record, my DS is starting year 7 in an independent school and all the classes are mixed ability. I know at least two children who need learning support. It happens everywhere.

I'm finding your posts very confusing.

Why did you allow your Ds2 to concentrate on all the homework, rather than the exam. He missed out by 0.25?

He chose that school. But you aren't impressed and would have preferred him to go to the other, that you consider better?

You didn't go to the Open evening? Seriously? With a child in such a delicate situation and your obvious damage/history of education, you didn't go?

I think maybe you are underestimating the local school and not giving it enough respect. Ds1 is in our local catholic secondary that has a superb reputation. There are 100's of incredibly bright kids who excel at everything and many of them are getting above 95% in maths exams and such.

He'll be bored? Because he's done some French and Spanish? oh purlease. He'll be fighting to get in top sets, I can assure you.

I'm sure he'll be fine.

Sorry. Just seen the update!

Prep schools don't prep for 11+, they prep for common entrance. I failed 11+ but got a full academic scholarship at private school (which would have been far more competitive than 11+).

That’s just not true. In our area prep schools use the 11+ prep as a selling point.

Why shouldn't I care about my child being engaged at school and fulfilling his potential, doesn't every parent care about this?
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Yes, OP. Every parent (with the odd exception) does care about this. And the vast majority send their children to state school.

Research shows that clever, affluent individuals perform no better at private schools or grammar schools* than they would at a comp. All selective schools do is put privileged children in one place.*

Look at it like this - your child's genes, work ethic and aspirations come from home and from you. If you give up on his school, he's likely to pick up on it and give up too.

I know Op has said she's having a break from this thread because she's found the comments upsetting.....well, that just confirms in my mind that she is hyper-sensitive and really not rational about all of this.

I understand that her past own experiences of education make her want a good education for her DC and that this promoted her to fund 2 years of prep education, but this sense that an alternative to the Grammar is a disaster, that her child will be far ahead of everyone else and disengaged and that the comments if one parent must be gospel and apply to every child there are......well just totally lacking balance, especially after all the very thoughtful and sensible comments made in this thread that are not designed to upset, but to point out lots of realities.

Op seems to be lacking in empathy and perhaps some social awareness - ie that the vast majority of parents send their kids to Comorehensives and many many of them do extremely well - so implying or openly suggesting that a Comp will mean certain failure, is lacking awareness of how that will come across. Likewise, interpreting all quite honest comments which point this out as unkind and hurtful to the point of needing to exit the thread, suggests problems in being able to interpret what is being said accurately and being hyper sensitive.

I would re-iterate what others have said - that this boy could be scuppered by his mother's attitude if she isn't extremely careful, not by the school. Kids DO get a sense that parents don't rate a school or its pupils or think they are better than others.....and it's so damaging in impacting the attitude of the children as they start. I know Op has no intention to do this, but she could very easily do it unwittingly.

Now is the time to accept what has happened. He has been in state school for the majority of his schooling already and 2 years at Orep is really not going to have set him miles ahead of everyone else, especially bearing in mind he didn't pass the 11+, so really he starts the same as everyone else - a bit of French and Latin really make little difference and within a term the children who are doing brilliantly at these tend to be those who are genuinely clever, regardless of whether they have done them before or not. Accept what has happened and move forward positively, working with what you have and not looking for excuses or things to complain about. Notice how lots of kids get great results at that school and work on building resilience and a can-do attitude of hard work in your DS and have confidence that you and he and the school can deliver success - don't let yourself be knocked so significantly as you are being by something which is absolutely not a disaster - it really is self indulgent and damaging to allow yourself to continue with such an attitude.

And recognise that when you ask a question on MN you will get a variety of views but also that lots of people spend a lot of time saying very useful things....be grateful for that rather than hyper sensitive and determined that everyone is out to get you and be nasty - they really aren't.

Hello OP. Can I tell you my experience? My parents were from a poor background but paid a fortune for a posh public school at 6th form. I should have got AAA. I got a B, C and N. Went through clearing, got a BSc then MSc then PGCE. Then realised what a disaster the teaching at the public school had been (many ex-army with no teaching skills).
I was determined that my children would go to the local comp. They have but not before I got some stick for not going private from other Year 6 parents (it seemed that if you were bright you went private). My daughter, last year, got 10 As and above at GCSE which is more than some equally clever former primary classmates did at the private school. So money wise, we 'saved' a lot and she's got a nice deposit for a house after Uni. There will be other children like your son at his school, he just needs to find his crowd. With a mum who is keen for him to do well he's half way there already.

I wonder how it's going for your DS? I hope he's found some great teachers and made a couple of good friends.

My kids to a ggrammar school in a small town.The corresponding 'secondary modern' got kids last year with 9 s in maths and English

If it makes you feel better, there are hundreds of kids who pass the 11+ who don’t go to grammar schools because the cut off score can be many many points above the passmark. Plus many won’t take the 11+ who could have passed.