Is your school ridiculously competitive?

Is it just in my school that an A stands for Average? Even an A* isn't enough for some; they compete with their peers based on UMS, and anything lower than 100 (in some subjects) is mediocre.

To me, it all just seems rather silly, as well as pointless. GCSEs are not the end of the world, and nor are A levels. Is anyone else part of a community where such attitudes are the norm?

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Reply 1

Aj12

Nope my school was not full of pricks

Reply 2

kat2pult

It was in secondary school, people always wanting the top marks. 7/10 was considered really bad :frown:

When we got feedback each term, we were given our ranking within the class too. I hated that :frown:

Reply 3

KJane

Only a few are. I know some girl's who spend all of their time talking about grades and exam marks, in all honesty I've never heard them discuss anything else, they tried to act as if they were the smartest girls in school. One got defensive when it turned out I had the highest number of some sort of points from GCSE's when she thought she had, they also acted really shocked when I got A's like them, then they all cried the other week because they all got D's and C's from being too over-confident about knowing everything.

Reply 4

ilickbatteries

I'm competitive, but there aren't many people to compete against.

There are only 18 people in my entire A2 year.

There's only me and one other lad in psychology, there's only 7 UMS points separating me and him atm. I will not be defeated :wink:

Reply 5

und

To be honest, it's quite fun to take the piss out of people like this by getting one mark higher than them in their favourite subject. I like to prey on people who want to do Medicine at university by beating them by one mark each time in Biology ISAs. It's always quite enjoyable :biggrin:

Reply 6

Ocassus

I'm sorry, but is it not good for education to be competitive? You know, to motivate better performance?

Reply 7

Leon Trotsky

Original post by Ocassus

I'm sorry, but is it not good for education to be competitive? You know, to motivate better performance?

So that's why Tom Daley's doing so damn well - he goes to a competitive school! :zomg:

Reply 8

und

Original post by Ocassus

I'm sorry, but is it not good for education to be competitive? You know, to motivate better performance?

I think self-motivated individuals are far more likely to succeed in ventures later on in life, eg. university.

Reply 9

thegodofgod

Original post by und

Damn...

... are you from my school? :tongue:

Reply 10

und

I seriously doubt it, but I'll hazard a guess as to which school you go to :wink:

. Is it QE?

Reply 11

Caustica

Nah. There's a general consensus amongst those who are in all 3 Set 1s (English, Maths, Science) that A* IS average (for us), but I don't think the environment is too competitive or anything, mostly because we're surrounded by loads of other people for whom B is pretty good. We're actually pretty supportive of each other--help each other with homework and things.

However I am switching schools for Sixth Form to a uber-academic school so I suppose everything will change. :s-smilie:

Reply 12

inksplodge

it was more like "who can have the most babies first" :/

Reply 13

didgeridoo12uk

nope. the norm in our school was to get knocked up by a chav and drop out

Reply 14

kerily

No. People actually used to take the mick out of people who did well or whatever.

My further maths class is a bit of a competitive bubble, but that's because there's only 5 of us (it's not a tremendously popular subject, as you can see :awesome:

) and the teacher actually thinks that anything below 90 is dreadful and anything below 100 is unremarkable, and 100 itself is only 'acceptable'.

Reply 15

loonyplatypus

Nope, I was comfortably in the top 3 in my year and I'm not exceptional! The average grade was probably a C, and there were a lot of people who just didn't try at all, and spent the majority of their time getting drunk and not trying in school :/ And I was forever being made fun of and being excluded from stuff because I was smart.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 16

VaVe

Everyone in my 6th form tends to aim for A/A* grades but we don't get too much into um.
though i did beat a girl who is going to cambridge to do maths by 3 ums in one module which was funny until she pointed out my physics isa scores :smile:

Reply 17

Organ

No. It's a comprehensive and we hardly do any work and just moan about school.

Original post by VaVe

though i did beat a girl who is going to cambridge to do maths by 3 ums in one module which was funny until she pointed out my physics isa scores :smile:

sounds hilarious

Reply 18

Salazar

Original post by Organ

No. It's a comprehensive and we hardly do any work and just moan about school.

I was begining to think that I was the only one in a comprehensive.

Reply 19

freefrag

No, in my school an E ment "you passed, be proud of yourself" - in all of my classes there were maybe 3 people that i could compete with for grades (all of them in physics) - I got so demotivated, I just skipped most lessons and ended up with 60% attendance.