If state grammar schools were for only state educated children…

I am thrilled that my DS is 25 and making his own choices,

I don't think it's a possibility. Some parents will move mountains, but most want the state to deliver just enough.

Private schools save the tax payer £40+ billion per year. If you abolish private schools how will the state find this additional money?
Private parents won't put their DC in sink comprehensive schools.
If anything we need more choice, not less. The 1 size fits all fails many DC. It fails SEN kids, many low achievers and many high achievers.
Some, more enlightened countries, use a voucher system whereby the state provides education vouchers and parents then choose the best fit for their DC including paying if they feel that this is the best fit.

Possibly because they were drilled to understand that work comes before success. For me, that is the most imprtant lesson we should teach.

@IAmNotASheep they're called Secondary Moderns.

Grammar systems are great for the 20% that pass, not so great for the rest.

And i say that as someone whi went to a grammar school and sent both children to one.

Scrap grammars and tax private schools to the heavens. The extremely wealthy won’t care if private school costs £20k/term of £200k, so rinse them for every penny. Ordinary state schools would benefit hugely from an influx of involved, attentive middle class parents who aren’t averse to a bit of fundraising, and all the children would benefit hugely from mixing outside their social class. The money raised from taxing the ever loving shit out of the wealthiest families could be used to create a much more beneficial education system for all involved, including increasing SEN provision.

The playing field needs to be drastically levelled and I don’t really care if a few angry mumsnetters disagree with me.

@IAmNotASheep high schools

My extremely dyslexic son found that after a top prep school and a year of quite intensive tuition at the private school we chose, which was too far away for his stamina, that he could pass GCSE (not spectactularly well) without doing any work after Y9. So he didn't work, because it was boring revision.

The issue, for me, is about getting kids engaged.

Very very sadly, most parents are not engaged in education and don't stress how much difference it can make to their children's prospects.

There is also the small, but important genetic inheritance factor. If you earn enough to consider paying for private education, then your children are fairly certain to be cleverer than the average.

I know this is true. I went to a bog standard county primary in West Cornwall (two or three year groups in one class of around 40 children) but instead of being agricultural labourers or quarrymen, my parents were a naval pilot and a SRN qualified nurse. We had books on the shelves and read broadsheet newspapers, so without any tutoring, of course I passed the 11+, apparently with a high score. Putting FSM entitlement (which didn't exist in 1967) into the equation would not have changed the results in my Y6 primary. The people who passed the 11+ (who didn't get to grammar school because it turned into a comprehensive that year) were somewhat short changed. But via Facebook, I can see that the children of the local shop keepers are still more successful and prosperous than the rest.

There isn't a need for Grammar schools in the vast majority of the country and hasnt Been for nearly 50 years.

What are they called if they aren’t comprehensives.
Genuine question as I don’t know

Yeah. That's the case here, too. Kids who have ever been in care, or been in receipt of free school meals at any point in the previous six years, only have to reach the qualifying score - then they are in. The rankings then apply when those places are allocated.

It doesn't change the fact that very few FSM kids get in.

I think it would make a lot more sense if all kids still sat the 11 plus if they live in an area which has grammars - or that the SATS were tweaked to include an 11 plus element, universally taken. The issue isn't just that they don't boost kids from low income families; it's that the families need to know how to register for the test, and to be motivated to do it. Most people don't know that's how to access them at all, and assume the schools are the ones who decide this. IMO that's one of the biggest barriers of all.

Yes if you read above posts I did correct my mistake in a later post

When i took the 11+ in the 80s, we were all entered (I think you could opt out) and the exam was taken in school. I'm not even sure i knew when it was, just turned up one day and told it was today.

We did practice NVR etc in maths. i was top set so maybe it wasn't everyone.

But noone had a tutor that i knew of.

I dont understand the rationale of not allowing practice in school

They don’t allow the schools to do it.
They can’t stop parents paying for tutoring, or tutoring the children themselves.

I think the elite panicked when the grammar school system of old made it abundantly clear that, given the opportunity, there were shedloads of working class kids who could easily match and compete with the children of the middle and upper classes. So the system was stymied, sadly aided and abetted by the Labour Party.

I wasn't talking about lowering the scores. Just standardising by income to get the score, like they do with age. We are in an area where children are ranked to get in though, not pass/fail then distance. Distance is only used as a tie breaker.

I have only skimmed the thread so apologies if this point has already been made. Where I am in Kent, state primaries are not allowed to do any prep work with the children which could be construed as 11+ preparation, whereas the private prep schools advertise their pass rates and actively coach the children in VR and NVR. Many of them are also tutored, despite being at private schools, so the playing field is not remotely level. The Kent Test curriculum covers topics that are not taught until Y6 - yet the test is taken in week 2 or 3 of the first term of Y6....

Therefore, what would greatly help social mobility would be for KCC to allow the state primaries to run "11+ Clubs" at lunchtime, so that the children whose parents can't afford tutoring, can practise all of the different questions and then have a fairer shot at the test. Bright children who aren't tutored should be able to access the grammar schools - but they are disadvantaged because there is such a huge 'arms race' and tutoring industry here, and plenty of wealthy parents who are able to pay substantial sums for it.

During Covid, my youngest had almost no schooling during the first lockdown - just three worksheets sent via email on a Monday morning. He'd finish those by about 10am on Monday and I had to scrabble around to find resources for the rest of the week. Friends with children at the local preps were having Zoom lessons and a full school day, after about a week of lockdown. He was in Y5 and the test was in September - I asked the head of the school where the older boys were (and where we were aiming for) whether any allowance would be made for the state school children who were left to flounder - he said that they couldn't change the pass marks because the entry criteria were set the year before. It was very hard - his tutor was diabetic and couldn't meet so he didn't have much tutoring either - but luckily he (JUST) made it!

The grammars have had to change to prioritise local children, in order to get capital funding from the county - and they do have a higher percentage of state school children now, but I think that the county could do more and allow state primary schools to coach for the test.

I think maybe the point @CurlewKate is making is there is little difference in exam performance at grammar schools and comprehensive schools in non-selective areas.

It’s the kids at the secondary moderns that are disadvantaged by the grammar system.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/aug/no-evidence-grammar-school-systems-are-best-brightest

"However @CurlewKate in grammar school areas ( or at least our area ) there is very little comparison with final results. Grammars steaming way ahead of non grammars."

Because the non grammars don't have the grammar kids in them. They aren't comprehensives. So of course they don't do as well.

Our grammars even have non grammar sets.

However @CurlewKate in grammar school areas ( or at least our area ) there is very little comparison with final results. Grammars steaming way ahead of non grammars.

@moglet

I used the data from the ISC 2024 census, and I’ve randomly checked fees at schools across the country using the ISC interactive map. It was hard to find anything much even slightly below the ISC averages.

Better than ALL comprehensive schools?

If that’s the case then why all the hoopla about it then?

In my town, a fair number of children try out for OOC grammar school places. The back-up option is our oversubscribed, outstanding comprehensive. Parents still prefer grammar schools over the comprehensive.

To my knowledge, in grammar schools where they offer contextual places, you still have to get a pass mark in the exam. You then automatically get a place, regardless of proximity or any other criteria.

@ArseholeCatIsABlackAndWhiteCat "Here's the thing, if great state education for all was achievable, or even a consideration, there would be no need to abolish grammar schools. They'd become obsolete soon enough."

You do know that grammar school kids only do marginally better than the top sets in comprehensive schools? Basically, a grammar school is just the top sets in a different building.