..and staying in the existing school
“I would like to start by saying that I disagree with many of
this country’s education policies and Mr Gove’s ideologies.
My position is that we need to stop teaching just to the few
children who fit snuggly in middle of the bell curve of normal
distribution; I think that we should invest in the outliers, at
both ends of the spectrum and cultivate a society that values
difference. I see children as individuals, all of whom have
different needs and strengths, all of whom deserve respect, to
be listened to and valued. I understand that to do this in class
room of 30 children, or in a school where one child is but one
of many is a challenge. I feel that my daughter’s primary school
excels in meeting this challenge and I would like to take the
time to tell you why.
My daughter is on the school’s gifted and talented register.
She has always shown herself to be academically capable and
shown high potential in many areas, especially literacy. She
is an active child, enthusiastic and sets herself high standards
which cause her some anxiety at times.
Parent’s Perspectives
These articles were written by two of our members
to tell you about their school experiences, although
names have been changed to preserve anonymity.
Choosing a new school…
“We, or perhaps I should say I have calmed down a bit now.
We had a very bewildering couple of weeks. I'm just starting to
get it into perspective really.
Knowing that our son, Harry, is very bright and has never really
been challenged academically at his lovely, nurturing primary
school, the obvious choice for the last three years seemed to
be to go for selective schools with high academic standards
(mainly private because that is what is available in our area, no
grammars, but one selective state school) as he might get a
chance to meet like minded kids which would be socially good
for him, and he would also be a bit more challenged. Because
the London school arena is so competitive we trained him up to
do the eleven plus tests and entered him for five of them!
I should have known it from the assessment we did with you
last year, but I really didn't anticipate he would top out in all
the academic tests we entered him for. This left us with an
impossible choice to make between five excellent schools, three
of which were offering huge scholarships and doing their best to
drag us in. I sat on a lot of head teachers' sofas and drank a lot
of coffee.
The only ones not begging us were Westminster, where they
tried to pressure us with guilt, "I looked in his eyes and saw he
was a Westminster boy! I know it's a lot of money but he will win
a scholarship at 13 (only if he boards!) and meanwhile you have
to make sacrifices..." and City of London where they make a
virtue out of being very laid back and saying "this is what we are
offering, you decide if you want it or not".
From thinking we had to compete and take what we were
offered, I suddenly realised that we had to choose, but actually it
didn't matter where he went, he would still be at the top of the
scoreboard, and the only distinguishing factors were the most
important ones, i.e. which is the nicest school and where will he
(and we) be happy? So in the end we went for City.
Many of our acquaintances who have been terribly polite and
discreet until now have since said they always thought City was
the best choice for us because it's liberal in outlook and values
all types of talents, but pretty straight down the line about rules,
and also highly academic. Why didn't they just tell us that before
and save us all the agony???
I must have appeared very disorganised to have been ringing
you in a panic two days before the deadline without a clear
plan. I wasn't quite sure why that was happening either, and it's
taken a few days of perspective to see it more clearly. Of course
another factor was that neither my partner’s parents nor mine
placed in similar circumstances showed the remotest concern
about where we went to school, and as a result we were both
unhappy for a lot of our schooldays, and my partner failed
miserably at school. So we felt huge pressure to 'get it right'. And
as a result created a recipe for getting it wrong. But hopefully it
will all be fine come September.
That's the end of my 'choosing a school' saga, at least the end
of this episode. Maybe something in it will help when another
parent phones you in a panic and says they don't know what to
do. I hope so.
And I always try to remember your trustee Wenda's words of
wisdom: “School is just daycare, the real learning takes place
anywhere.”
It is important to recognise children with high potential but it is
more important to work those children in a way which nurtures
their talents and supports their insecurities. It would be easy
to leave these able children to get on with things and not
provide additional resources as they are already achieving. My
experience is that this is not the case BF