If you are in the process of thinking about secondary schools for your child this blog is about decisions of life altering importance…
Maybe🤔
📚Choosing a school for your child can seem like a decision of life-altering importance. We all know how formative our school experience was in shaping us as adults. You want the best for your child, so choosing the right school is important to you. The deadline for applications, the uncertainty around the process and your child’s friendship groupings all combine to heighten the emotion, and the stakes, further.
However, how important are secondary schools in shaping a child’s life?
How Important are Secondary Schools?
It is difficult to research conclusively (we will never be able to know the counterfactual), but in terms of academic success it seems other factors play a big role…
🏡Home life and culture
This is mostly within our control as parents. There is research which shows how much we value school, how much we model a love of learning and how much we encourage our children has the biggest effect on a child’s academic success.
👫Peers and network
We have some control over this - but probably not as much as we would like! Research shows that peers will have a big influence on your child - especially as they enter the teenage years. Your child will want to ‘fit-in’ with the crowd - so if their friends all want to work hard and do well on tests, it is likely your child will want to do so too!
👩🏫 Individual teachers
We can’t control this. We have all worked for bosses we liked and respected - we would go the extra-mile for them. Conversely, we have all had the opposite experience. The same will be true for your child and their teachers. At secondary school, they will likely come into contact with between 15-100 teachers over the course of their time there. Some they will love. Some they will dislike. This will be true no matter which school your child attends!
🏫The school
Finally, we get to the school. The culture of the school does matter. However, secondary schools are large organisations divided into subject departments. In a way, it is not correct to think of a secondary school as a single unit. It is lots of individual parts combined. All schools will have good aspects and not good aspects. Schools also change a lot - even in the five years or so your child will be there.
School and teachers are important. However, they are somewhat out of your control as a parent. Luckily, the things that make a big difference are more within your ability to influence.
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