We all know that, despite having as many hours in a day as Beyoncé, the majority of us will never be able to rival her capacity to revolutionise the music industry whilst slaying it in a rhinestone leotard. But when it comes to parenting, Beyoncé has more in common with us lesser-mortals. She tells her daughter, Blue Ivy, on a daily basis that she can achieve anything she wants: she can become President.
Isn’t that what we all want for our children? Not necessarily to become President, especially when we consider the bloodbath that is the current US elections; but we do want our offspring to grow up knowing that the world is very much their oyster. ‘Dream big’ is a daily mantra for this generation.
Children achieve highly if you set high expectations for them
When we talk about ‘privilege’ and ‘entitlement’ being entrenched in the education system, we are talking not about the fact that some children receive their lessons in pre-fabs on sink estates and others in Hogwarts style castles. Nor that some children play football and others Eton Fives. Potato potAto. When we talk about ‘privilege’ and ‘entitlement’, the defining feature of such childhood conditions is that the adults in the child’s life, from teachers to parents, believe unquestioningly in their protégé’s capacity to become a glittering success. And the kid, inevitably, internalises that expectation: they become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So we teach children to shoot for the stars. Simple?
Not so in London. Here, in the capital, Type-A, alpha parenting is normcore: children are expected to grow up to achieve stellar success. The message becomes confused and confusing however, when children are also taught that ‘failure’ is taboo.
So much of the experience of childhood is mediated through the education system. Here, in London, the emphasis on streaming, assessment and performance afflicts students, particularly in the independent sector, from day dot. One of the factors which makes the London schooling system appear so oversubscribed, is that there is a culture of assuming that the ‘best’ school for a child will be the school which yields the best academic results. This produces a false dichotomy, associating anything less than the ‘best’ with failure. Of course, good results open doorways, but a successful education is so much more than straight A* grades.
At Magus Education we hold an unfaltering belief that the ‘best’ education for a child is one in which they grow up to feel capable of stepping out of the school system and conquering the world.
Inevitably, however, when faced with the onslaught of assessments which mark the entry points to future schools, parents become so terrified of their children missing a step on their educational journey that they pack their childhoods full of cramming sessions and Kumon maths. Faced with the potential of failing these entry assessments, it is difficult for parents to give children the time, space and autonomy to develop their idiosyncratic abilities and passions: the freedom to test their wings, and gain the independence to fly.
At Magus, the running success of our consultancies is down to our skill in helping parents strategise an approach to the education system, enabling their child to meet their unique, maverick potential. We encourage parents to take a long-term view of their child’s education and development. We reframe the intimidating succession of entry exams for independent schools as an opportunity to reassess a child’s abilities, interests and fit with a particular school’s philosophy rather than a reductive pass/ fail scenario.
Join us at one of our upcoming workshops on the school system: we can help you to develop an educational pathway for your child, so they grow up ready to make their mark on the world.
