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’m guessing they’re talking about a selective private school.

My husband. Grammar school convinced him that only highly academic courses and well paid professions were worth anything.
He spent years struggling to get the right experience and qualification to move into a low paid creative role after being in a high paid profession.

He wishes he’d had a broader less academically focused education. He suspects he would have focussed on having a career he doesn’t hate much earlier.

What is meant by a super selective vs a selective please?

This is quite interesting actually, because I'm not sure whether the education is any broader at a comprehensive. I was at a super selective grammar and, as far as I know, the local comprehensives did the same National Curriculum years 7-9 and had similar GCSE options. (They didn't have sixth forms so those kids either went to a sixth form elsewhere, went to college, or got jobs.) I certainly don't think the comprehensives had more opportunity for creative subjects - we did plenty of art and design, and had good facilities. It does sound like your husband's school had a certain attitude, though!

Some countries, like France and Germany, have vocational high schools as well as academic high schools, but we lack this option.

Perhaps seletive school has different levels: mild selective, normal selective and super selective? I don't think it can simply generalized by catchment, private or state etc.

Apparently in some grammar school areas they take about 25% of kids, whereas "super selective" ones have a very wide catchment and therefore take fewer from each school.

The super selective that 2 of my DSs attended did not have a catchment area so took boys on the basis of their own entrance test score alone. It was a state school and took boys from a very wide area. It was a very competitive test with far more boys applying than there were places available.

My third DS also attended a super selective grammar school which was also part of the county 11-plus scheme. They took a proportion (I can't remember how many) of boys who had passed the 11-plus in county but took the rest from the highest scorers out of county. Again, there were far more boys applying than there were places available.

Sorry, I should have said that's in response to Snooping's question as to what is a super selective.

Super selectives are schools that take purely on entrance exam results.

School A has 120 places and takes the top scoring 120 kids from the entrance exam - super-selective

School B has 120 places and take the 120 kids from those who pass the entrance exam but also live closest to the school. So Johnny who got the highest score but lives 10 miles away doesn't get a place, but Sarah who got the lowest qualifying score does because she lives 100 metres away - selective.

I don't think that is totally correct. HBS and TGS both give applicants living in the catchment/inner area some form of advantage, and they are both widely considered as super-selective.

Places like HBS are so selective it's not on a par with what most people would be thinking of. Over 2,000 sit their first round and only 300 are invited back to second round for 100 places.

The offer first to PP, LAC and within 3 miles only out of those 300, so it's incredibly selective.

There are others that have selective catchments and super-selective non-catchment places.

There aren’t many super selective schools that don’t have some sort of catchment area.

Even the Colchester girls grammar is going to introduce a (admittedly quite wide!) priority area as of next year.

Absolutely not. DD’s old grammar school is the most academically selective in our whole country but what we quickly came to realise is that ultra selective does not equal ultra good teaching. They rely heavily on recruiting cohorts of high flying kids who are able to manage on their own and need little teaching or support. This results in a huge amount of them simply being allowed to coast along and not reaching their full potential

I don't know the criteria nowadays, but 15-20 years ago St Olave's did not have a catchment area and admitted the top 120 scores from their own entry test.

I see. DCs grammar does not have a catchment. This means some very long distances for some children. We are not far at all and so far I don't regret sending DC there apart from the fact their friends are not necessarily local. That is a big downside IMO.

It's too early to say whether the pressure will affect them.

Ah, OK. I understood 'super-selective' to also cover those independent schools which are massively oversubscribed and take students based on entrance exam performance.

In terms of super-selective grammars then, I suspect my friend might regret their decision to send their daughter to one, as she has spent ages 17-24 recovering from an eating disorder. Both their sons seemed to thrive there though.

I thought we were talking about both state and private schools that are massively oversubscribed, and have an intake based on an entrance exam.

Eg - for private - schools like St Paul's, Westminster, Highgate, City. For state - Henrietta Barnett, Latymer, QE Boys etc etc.

I went to a comp. Same curriculum, but without the expectation that everyone who excelled academically was destined for particular university courses and careers.

He was told at school that he shouldn’t look into art and drama because he had better options.

Comps don’t push people who are otherwise doing well in that way.

I do wonder if this depends a lot on the individual schools and head teachers. There are comprehensives (academy chains) near me who make a lot of noise about their advanced stream, Oxbridge/careers stuff. Meanwhile (and admittedly a fair few years ago now, when education policy was quite different), my super selective school was very happy indeed to encourage us to go on to study art and drama, and frankly we barely heard a peep about lucrative careers, to the point that I felt pretty unprepared for the world of work.