Any regrets AFTER being at a super selective school?

[howmanyshirts]

Good morning,

If you have had your child in a top super selective school completed gcse / a levels (probably came out with amazing results) Or maybe they got burnt out due to the environment.

Any wise advise? Would you sent them to the same school again? Did their mental health crumble? Was the pressure too much around gcse? Or would you send them to a very good not as pressured school?

Or would you still go with the super selective school?

Thank you and have a great day x

I went to one of the most selective grammar, did OK and got good grade, went to good university and ending up good jobs. I won't say I enjoyed it, it is eye opener when you go outside the selective bubble to university and society, there are so many things you should care beyond just grades.

My kids are at a super selective school. It really suits them, teaching is brilliant and they are all naturally academic. They seem pretty well rounded and not particularly competitive, though I do wonder how they would feel if they were among the kids who struggle with the pace a bit more, if that makes sense.

One thing I do see among their peers - and I try to manage this tendency with my own kids - is the feeling that one must EXCEL at everything they do, which I think stems from being in a school like this, and is a bit of a negative.

Children need to know that they can do things for fun and pleasure, even if they aren't brilliant at it - you don't have to get to grade 8 violin or play for Arsenal under 12s or whatever....

As for a PP mentioning anorexia, I suspect that's incidental. There is a high rate of autism amongst highly academic people. Anorexia is sadly common in autistic girls - that's where the correlation with anorexia and perfectionist girls comes from.

You are spot on @Skinhorse. It’s not that selective girl’s schools cause eating disorders*, it’s that the cohort are much, much more vulnerable in the first place.

*Although we cannot underestimate the power of social contagion.

Both DC went to SS grammar schools. Both had a great time, came out with good grades, have made lifelong friends and are on the path to the career they want. Yes it was pressurised at times but school were supportive. Most importantly, it was the right school for them. We had a choice of grammar schools, each one has a very different ethos, we did not put them all down on the school preference list.

I remember there was a research study about eating disorders are more common in some schools than others. The study found that schools with more female students and more highly educated parents had higher rates of eating disorders among young women. The researchers suggested that these schools may create a more competitive and stressful atmosphere, where academic achievement and appearance are highly valued and compared.
This may lead to more pressure and dissatisfaction among the students, and increase the risk of eating disorders.

Not a fan of grammars but I do think it's unfair to blame them for being hotbeds of Eds. My DD went to a very bog standard comp and got stellar grades and now in her mid twenties, in a great job, is 8 years into a persistent eating disorder.
Perfectionist? Check
High achiever? Check
Possibly autistic? Check.

Surely this is it - grammars happen to be full of girls like my DD. it just happens to be the demographic.

Here is the article I read about

https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2016/apr/28/eating-disorders-are-more-common-in-some-schools-than-others-but-why

I do agree with this. DD and I attended the same school some decades apart and the difference in pastoral care is quite astounding.

A lot of grammars are not 'super selective'. They are grammars in a grammar system that may take 25% of the cohort, those who achieve the pass mark. So like the top streams / sets of a comprehensive.

Super-selectives are those that do not use distance as a main criteria but take the highest achievers in the 11+ no matter where they live. And are typically not in full Grammar areas so attract the most competitive aspirational families and the top tiny% of achievers who may be very very academically focussed.

The young women I know with EDs were / are in a range of schools - comprehensives, grammar, super selective and private. All are very bright, anxiety driven perfectionists who work ridiculously hard and worry inordinately about results. Given their ability.

Exactly this.

I went to an (at the time) very selective private girls grammar where I was considered average at best and my grades reflected that. I'm neurotypical, but the school totally failed to unlock my intelligence and talents, thank god my uni tutors were different or I'd never have my career where I'm basically paid to think creatively, spot things other people can't and problem-solve.

One of my dcs move from a non-selective comp to a super-selective grammar for 6th form - biggest mistake of her life (compared to our experience with other dc of staying in the same comp 6th form). The teaching was no better and the pastoral support non-existent and the prepping for Oxbridge was way better at the comp than the grammar. Plus as my dd put it - there was way more stress and angst for no better results (and she was horrified at how many girls had taken less GCSES and given up languages because the school had made them drop them in order to avoid them pulling the school grade average down). My youngest dc has offers from two local super selectives to move for sixth form and will only move if his current comp stops running any of the subjects he wants to do for A level (and even then I would be really looking to see if he would be better off changing subjects rather than moving from the lovely, supportive comp).

I went to one and it was nothing like that. It was almost the other extreme - very hot on pastoral, extracurricular, etc, but actually not pushy enough about things like Oxbridge, careers. It was in a fairly rural place and although the intake was fairly middle-class, I don't mean that in a Home Counties way - no parents had London jobs, we were too far from that. More like there wasn't really anyone from a council estate, that kind of middle class. So I think there was no sense of ambition and the wider world, just a happy little backwater where we were well-taught and content. I don't remember anyone getting particularly stressed... Maybe some did, but it certainly wasn't the culture.

Which was my point, @TempleOfBloom - EDs can spring from anywhere where there are girls who are predisposed.
It's my specialist subject at the moment, sadly.

My son went to a main stream school im not rich.
But he learned just as well as any other school.
Nothing different only the price.

I keep hearing this 'spoon fed' comment regarding private schools. What does it mean? Do you mean 'taught'?

SS schools aren’t really about the grades per se. Most very bright kids would ace their exams wherever they went (barring serious disruption/ very poor teaching). It’s about the whole environment, being in a fast-paced school where it’s cool to be clever, and where there is a lot of intellectual stimulation (and very little bad behaviour).

It would definitely be hard if you were over-tutored and just scraped in. In fact I don’t know why parents do this as it’s totally counter-productive. Who wants to be struggling at the bottom of the cohort?

This environment suits my son down to the ground and he is absolutely thriving. My daughter would have hated it. Horses for courses.

I have experience of a dd at a grammar and a ds at a super selective grammar. Both in their own ways have been the right choices for my children. But it completely depends on the actual school and the children in question. My dd, for example, probably would not have flourished at a super selective but has done well at her recently graded 'requires improvement' grammar school.

At the SS school my ds is at, there is a high percentage of pupils from private primary schools who have been tutored to the hilts prior to arriving at the school. My ds came from a very low key tiny primary school - we did get him a tutor for one hour a week in the 10 month lead up to the 11-plus but he had substantially less input than many of his classmates at his Secondary and is therefore above average in his class and doesn't have to work hard or do much homework in order to keep on top of things...but I know of other dc who are not coping and parents who call the school out for being very pressurised. We don't see this at home for now so it all depends on school and child...

I went to a very competitive grammar school many years ago. I was naturally bright but lazy and inclined to do the bare minimum needed to get by, so I thrived in an environment where 'the bare minimum' was actually quite a lot. But, there were a lot of kids there, of all abilities, who were inclined to work very hard and maybe were not the most resilient, and ended up making themselves quite ill. I hope it's different now as mental health is taken much more seriously, but even so I don't think those schools are right for everyone regardless of academic ability.

My DC are young now, but I would definitely consider sending them to such a secondary if they turn out to be bright enough and have the right disposition. It's just about knowing what's right for your child.

I crumbled after I left university and started working, mostly because of the undiagnosed ND, but also because that was the first time since I was 11 years old that I'd had to work with people who weren't extremely academically clever, and I didn't really know how to do that.

Ah yes, I should have added in my post above that the SS school that ds is at has an amazing Student Support Department and that is the reason we chose the school. My ds is autistic and has a diagnosis of such but there is a high proportion of dc with ND diagnoses or dc with neurodiversity but without a diagnosis. The key for us was making sure there was a proactive Student Support department

I went to mixed state comp. My sister went to grammar albeit some years ago.
I loved school as it was fun and strict but not stupidly so. Yes we messed about a bit and had a laugh but we knew we needed to pass exams.
We were set and I was lots of top sets but asked to move down in maths as I found it too hard in set1. Ended up with a 2-1 from a RG uni.
My sister hated her grammar as she said literally no fun. All work. No one ever messed about or had a laugh.
All about work & grades.
She did ok at GCSE but flunked A levels as burnt out by it all

No, I mean that students who had been to private school at Oxford will often lie about it, because they know that those who went to state schools weren't given the preparation or 1-1 attention that they received. The spoon feeding is the extra stuff. Kids in state schools are taught, as I think you probably know.

I did and was fine. I breezed through it all and had no issues. If your kid can access entry tests with their eyes closed they will be fine. If they’re studying or needing tutors you’re setting them up to fail.

It can be very pressurised. It's also worth remembering that your child could be top of the class at primary school, but middle to bottom in a high achieving grammar.