Going to High-Achieving Schools is Potentially Bad for Your Kids

Poverty, trauma, and discrimination are three of the top four risk factors for mental health challenges. The one that’s missing from the top 4:

Excessive pressure to excel.

Multiple studies of high-achieving school (HAS) cohorts have shown elevated rates of serious mental health symptoms (relative to norms), and a range of evidence from other research using diverse designs supports this finding. While the only data I could find came from the USA, my experience in HAS in Australia is consistent.

A recent research review shows that the “unrelenting pressures [in these schools] to accomplish ever more” and be the best is associated with anxiety and depression at a rate an astounding 6-7 times higher than average for students that age.

Socio-economic status clearly plays a role, but, interestingly, some studies show that the psychological damage “likely derive[s] not from affluence of students’ own families but rather from affluence of their neighbourhoods and their schools”. However, the researchers report, “we know of no studies establishing that helicoptering among affluent parents is a major cause of serious anxiety and depression in their high school children”.

(Consistent with my previous blog, the researchers note that “teaching students a growth mindset” shows no benefits for students in these schools “and could even backfire, being interpreted by some students as implying that they need to work hard because they lack innate abilities”. And they offer similar cautions against boosting “internal locus of control” (these kids already overestimate the power of their own efforts) or teaching “mindfulness” (which emphasises “solitary thinking rather than connecting with others”).

Finally, if high school students are allowed (or, worse, encouraged) to take lots of advanced placement courses, “it is unrealistic to think that teaching them coping skills will help them withstand the enormous pressure associated with incessantly high workloads.” These courses tend to simply be more work, and do not encourage deeper reasoning or thinking.

In Queensland, students talk about taking on “the suicide six”: Maths Methods, Specialty Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, plus their English class. On what planet does this matter? Even entering an advanced/specialty university track can be accomplished with a lighter load, less stress, and a lower cognitive toll. I’ve had regular conversations with university lecturers who indicate that the high school curriculum is harder than many first year university subjects.

ATAR scores are more about school marketing than the health and educational aspiration of your child. With abundant opportunities for entering university at any age and almost any educational level, we don’t need to be doing this to them.

I remain a firm believer in a gap year. As a former lecturer at university, I consistently saw far better learning and growth (and internalisation of content) with mature-age students when compared with school-leavers.

We’re not the USA. We have a university system that is less competitive and far more equitable. But too many schools are pushing academic excellence to a level that does not serve students well. (And even if we were the USA, I’d still maintain the following position:

HASs must do more than teach coping skills. They must reduce the emphasis on achievement, while still building competence and encouraging a love of learning (rather than a love of high grades).

Our children’s mental health matters more than their ATAR (which doesn’t matter at all).