If state grammar schools were for only state educated children…

I think I’m lucky as my dd goes to an amazing comprehensive school - it’s unusually large and very successful and has an amazing Progress 8 score, despite loads of kids who don’t speak first-language English. It is very popular and regularly churns out kids with almost straight 9s, right alongside kids who could only dream of a 9.

I could have had her tutored to attempt the super selective in the next town. But I decided that maxing out her grade potential didn’t count as much as having a balanced childhood and being amongst people of all kids of backgrounds and races. (The super selective is very intense and 80%+ middle class Asian families, basically kids who are chaperoned to and from school and drilled endlessly to pass exams - with insanely good academic outcomes of course.)

Personally I’m happy with my choice and dd’s secondary school is fabulous, I wish every family could access a top notch comprehensive school like this - I think grammars would disappear if they were more common.

You mean grammars, clearly. There are not "hundreds" of comprehensive state schools with "much much more privileged" cohorts.

Their parents earnings matter on the selection process because it is SELECTIVE and rich parents have an advantage. Pretending it isn't effectively the same as a private when it out performs many of them and the parents could probably match incomes is ridiculous.

I would also ask - wrt Starmer’s primary - whether the figures reflect its catchment or whether they are in any way manipulating who they admit.

I have much less issue with a primary the makeup of whose pupils represent its local catchment than I do with eg a selective (by ability or faith) school taking <2% FSM pupils and 2% SEN when its effective catchment has 25% FSM and 18% SEN.

Im not in favour of academic selection. It’s very hard on kids who are deemed ‘not good enough’ at age 10.

However as I live in a grammar school area I know that parents will and do pay for extensive one to one and group classes in preparation for the 11plus.
Some friends even from a very early age ( one I know of started their kid at age 5) Most start a couple of years before the exam.
This is mainly down to the fact other non grammars really aren’t doing very well at all here and haven’t for many many years unfortunately.

Whilst we do have a private primary grammar Cramer we also have a private 4-18 all through school that do not do any 11plus preparation and if kids want to move they have to pay for the VR and NVR tuition privately ( not at the school )

So, no I do not think it is right to prevent access to grammar for anyone. It would be better if there were no grammars at all, it might help those non grammars to improve by having a wider range of academic ability.

As I said, it is an area where ‘being average nationally’ makes it an outlier. But stating ‘it is the Eton of state schools, only available to a tiny few’ is a false narrative where there are hundreds of schools with much, much more privileged a d less needy intakes in many parts of the country.

And as was posted before the schools around it have 44% FSM...in the area it is in it is a massive outlier

There are many hundreds of schools like this nationwide.

For comparison, here is a good but not ‘Eton’ school in an affluent town, chosen at random. Its figures show a MUCH higher level of privilege and much lower level of need than Starmer’s.

As I have posted before, the primary school that serves Starmer’s long term home has SEN just above and FSM just below the national average, and EAL well above. I understand from posters on a previous thread that it is an outlier in its area, but in many, many areas a school with this data would be ‘average’, not ‘the Eton of state schools’

The point is his primary had it's own science block funded by the parents. Hardly a normal state primary. His kids are getting a free private education because of where he lives. His kids' free education paid for by the state is only available because he lives in an area where super wealthy parents band together to fleece the system rather than pay for private schools so they can pretend they aren't as affluent as they are. There's no other way to see it. That type of school is literally the Eton of the state sector and very very few members of the public or their DC will ever get to experience it.

Your point being ? Lots of summer born children are perfectly capable of holding their own and it’s totally different to getting a score boost due to income .

From what I understand from friends in London, where Starmer lives has become an area of two extremes. It has social housing but the private housing (rent or owned) is very expensive. That was already the case by the time he moved there, although slightly less extreme than now. Going back further in time, even in the 90s, it used to be much more mixed with cheaper housing to buy or privately rent.

Talking of Labour leaders paying for good schooling, didn't Tony Blair do something like that? Sent his DC to a (faith based) state school but also paid for private tutoring. I might be getting him mixed up with someone else though?

I went to grammar school & we only had a handful from private school who got places. This was early 80s. They tended to struggle more as they had been coached & didn't have natural ability. Back then nobody was really coached & I can't recall anyone having any tutoring. Would you also ban state school children who had parents with enough money to pay for 11+ tuition?

In 2002, a third of Eleanor Palmer kids were on FSM. A new head came in 2003. Starmer moved into catchment in 2004. I very much doubt the school was anything like a prep at that time..

Round here (S. Warks) category 1 for grammar places is looked after children and FSM, when meeting a criteria of marks lower than the minimum score for everyone else. There is about 5% of places reserved for these children.

Agreed about OOC ones: we have loads coming from across county boundaries now, which has pushed the qualifying score up hugely for all the grammar schools

The primary his kids went to has been likened to a prep school. The catchment round it is very very tight as it’s lovely. Lots of million pound homes (like his) in the catchment. The likes of that primary is not available to most of us.

”the local primary” needs to be taken in context (the million pound houses!)

I went to university on a low offer for the course, from a failing school in a deprived area.
I actually did well, I was very self motivated and used to independent study as I’d had poor input from school.
(later on though the old boys network was a separate barrier as I watched everyone have internships ready…)

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER a lot of LAs don't allow state Primaries to prepare pupils for 11+

Around here, IMO quite a few go from private primary to our (very highly rated) grammars. Tutoring for the 11 plus is also common, though if the state primaries paid the same attention to preparation for the 11 plus that the privates do, maybe tutoring wouldn’t be needed.

We lived abroad until dd1 was 10, she’d attended a very good English speaking school, but unsurprisingly there had been zero 11 plus prep.

So she had never even seen the type of ‘verbal reasoning’ test the 11 plus then consisted of, so at the beginning of her one and only term (at an independent) before the exam, she was scoring 40-45% in the daily practice tests.

By the end of that Christmas term, her scores were up to 90+%.

Just through lots of practice.

Nuff said.

I did hear not long ago, though, that at least one of the local grammars had resorted to the old style 11 plus exam - maths, English, writing an essay/story. That was apparently because too many children who’d scored very highly in the VR tests, could barely write a coherent sentence - they were having to give new entrants remedial English lessons.

Why should children be educated with children of a similar academic ability. That benefits both academic and non academic children. I have had a child at a grammar school and a child working 2 years below exactions both were in the most suitable school for their needs.

And yet many do give places to children in receipt of FSM with a lower score, with no issues. Your experience is out of date.

My MIL was at school in the 50/60s. Her parents were of the opinion that grammar schools was not for the likes of them and MIL needed to be out of education as soon as possible to start earning for the family, so no grammar school for her. When DH was Secondary age, grammar schools had gone but there was a good school out of catchment which you could get in if you met certain criteria eg played an instrument, which DH's primary school had encouraged him to do so he fulfilled the criteria, but again their thought process was 'not for the likes of them' so he went to the local sink school. He did well academically, mainly self taught I think, but was horribly bullied. Has no happy memories of school

AFAIK, Starmer sent his children to the local primary school, given that he had lived in the same house within catchment for several years before they were born. Would you rather he had sent them private or moved to a different house just to satisfy your purity requirement?

I’m also not aware that Labour currently have any plans to abolish grammar schools (mores the pity).

My comment applies equally to state schools. I have no illusions about the state system. Like many parents, the needs of both my NT and SEN were not met well. They experienced all of the things that you mentioned and more. My children have options today that they would not have had because I went toe to toe with their teachers and headteachers and also invested a lot of time and energy myself.

I don't have a problem with the existence of Private or selective schools. IMO We need to focus on fixing the state education system rather than getting distracted by propaganda and half truths. Parents, schools and the government need to work together to fix the state system not just create places and opportunities for children who can pass exams at 11.

Quite right. Make them stand their private schools and pay the 20% VAT. That will ensure a more level playing field.