How are Grammar schools so much better than comprehensives if they get the same funding?

They will have the backing and support of parents too.

How did she get good at maths if she isn’t taught maths?

I would leave it a few years when you have a better idea if your kids are grammar material or not. How academic are you and your parter? Genetics play a huge role here.

also depending on the area are you prepared to tutor from year 4-5?

You could invest in an educational consultant in a few years who will test your kids and give you an idea if they have the ability or not.

With regards to funding, the two grammar schools two of my kids were at both encouraged a yearly donation. It was a nominal amount when they first started but then became a larger one.

Yep, sounds familiar. DD2 achieved all Level 6s in her Yr6 SATs, but had to be shipped to a neighbouring school to receive the preparation for the Level 6 Maths. Apparently none of the teachers at her primary felt comfortable teaching maths at that high a level???

It comes to something when your 10 year old DD is better at maths than any of the teachers in her school FFS!

If your in Fenland I understand why you'd want to move for schools. It's where DHs parents live and they where keen on the idea of us moving there. My response to DH was only if they are paying for private high school (DH went private but we couldn't afford it). Suffolk isn't to far away and has a lot of good comprehensive high schools, that's where we are and we could have sent DC to any one of 4 schools and I wouldn't have had an issue with any of them.

There is a reason why housing is cheaper there often schools can have a big affect on house prices.

Chelmsford is a rarity in that it has brilliant non selective schools too. KEGS or CCHS is very difficult but brilliant schools.

Kesteven or Kings are good schools with long time staff but aren’t similar to the ultra selective in terms of results.

My year 6 state primary teacher gave me past papers for the 11+, back in 1974.

She taught exam technique to the three of us from my year, who were taking the entrance exam. She taught us more advanced maths for years 5 &6.

My ds' state primary left him to his own devices in year 6, focusing on getting less able pupils through SATs, leaving him bored, frustrated and miserable.

I currently have 2 DC in a grammar and one in a comp. I prefer the grammar slightly as it is less strict (none of this over the top detention for breathing stuff). The behaviour seems to be about the same in both (some very badly behaved kids, lots of noise disruption but majority of kids try hard). There is lots of SEN in the grammar as the exam seems to fit bright SEN kids well (multiple-choice short questions). Lots of pressure in grammar and I think my two grammar kids are slightly more anxious at school than my comp kid overall. The comp is better funded, has better facilities - I can only think that is down to a very active PTA, a head that is good at applying for grants for everything.
Having now experienced both I wouldn't move for the grammar but that said before sending my DC there I would have (as wanted what was perceived as the best).

Only prep schools teach it. The regular state primaries don't. And for the most part they are hopeless anyway.

Times have changed. Schools around here do not provide any help toward the 11+. Teachers certainly don't put sample questions on the blackboard and teach technique in the weeks prior to the exam.

That is why parents rely on tutoring.

I don't think there are smaller classes, but easier to teach a class of 30 who are all of above average ability with engaged parents I would think

Easier to teach as all of similar ability
Usually smaller class sizes

Well they didn't teach 11 plus papers 20 odd years ago in state primary when my DD did it. They did in private prep schools

All I will say is my DH and I didn't entirely agree either but the factors that made our school choices for us were ones we couldn't possibly have foreseen when DD was 2. Parenting can be a huge surprise!

Because the move to comprehensive in the 60s was guidance rather than compulsory government policy, so areas could decide (most decided comprehensive, but not all). Northern Ireland has retained them too.

Some grammars went private at that stage (Keir Starmer's for instance).

Many/most of the best comprehensives (by best I mean Ofsted Outstanding) select by house price/access to social housing in the correct postcode. One I'm familiar with, students need to live within 900m.

Some schools select by parental religion.

An academic test is at least more relevant to educational potential than parental bank balance or religion, or happening to be resident in places like London with a lot of choice of good schools and plentiful public transport.

Things have changed. "Back in the day" the subject matter of the 11+ had been taught in the classrooms by the time of the exam. Nowadays, lots of aspects havn't been taught by the start of year 6 which is when the exam is taken. Teachers no longer "teach" the 11+. So basically, the chances of even the brightest child passing the 11+ without some form of tuition whether from parents or tutors is basically zilch.

@Karma1387There were two things that struck me from your post. The first is that you and your husband seem to have very different views on education - you are very opposed to hothousing (home schooling/ your nephew’s maths /tutoring for 11+) whereas he seems to want the pushy/pressured/high achieving school.
The second thing is that your kids will be fine wherever they end up - having involved parents that value education is a big predictor of success. They are too little to be able to predict what type of secondary school they will thrive in.
In your shoes I would stay put, enrol your child in state primary and see how it pans out. Presumably once they are a bit older you’ll go back to work, and then family finances might stretch to a home in catchment for a decent state secondary. You’ll have a much better idea of whether they are candidates for grammar school - both whether they would pass and whether that environment would suit them. Ending up in a grammar school area but at the ‘secondary modern’ with the bright kids creamed off is the worst of all options.

I sat it myself back in the day. We all did. Our teacher put example questions on the blackboard then told us all how to work them out.

For about two weeks before the actual exam.

It was a measure of our respective IQs and, since we were all going to the same secondary anyway, was used to decide what stream we were in.

No one got “tutored”. If you were clever you passed it and were put with pupils who were similar and if you didn’t pass, the same.

But I’ll take your word for me being too stupid to understand a test I sat 😬

While not in any way being an apologist for the current Labour govt, it didn’t take the action that removed grammars. And in fact it was when Thatcher was ed secretary that most became comps.

In addition, speaking as someone brought up in a grammar area, they really didn’t offer children a choice. You sat an exam aged 10, most of you failed, (in my village primary six children out of about 35 passed) and you either commuted to the grammars in town or went to the more local sec mod. Even if that was really the wrong school for you. No choice in evidence. There was a lot more choice and movement possible at my DCs’ comp tbh.

You clearly don't understand the 11+ exams. Both the verbal reasoning and the non verbal reasoning papers are very different to anything a child will have seen before in primary school. Some of what is in the non verbal reasoning paper (so maths really) isn't covered until the end of Yr 6 which is long after the child has sat the 11+

Both our DDs were on the 'top table' at primary school and DD2 actually got all Level 6s in her Yr6 SATs. But I still got them some tutoring just to familiarise them with the 11+ papers and to ensure they could confidently walk into the exam room.

Furthermore, every single other bright child on their top tables also had some form of tutoring. It's disingenuous to pretend that genuinely academic children won't need any tutoring. In the 11+ speed is everything. They have 30 seconds to answer each question so hardly anytime to try and figure it out or ponder.

It's not enough to simply be bright when you're up against equally bright children, especially if those other bright children have been tutored in technique and shown the tips & tricks required.

Can I ask a question? Not to you particularly.

Why does England still have grammar schools which pit children against each other?

I think it’s archaic.

The 11+ (well, where I live) actually lends itself to children passing it with high grades if, for example, they have high functioning autism. My own children both have extra needs but both also have very high IQs. The type of pattern recognition required in the 11+ very much leads to those children doing exceptionally well, particularly when there is no extended writing attached to the test. Both my children attended the local grammar school and were very happy there. My eldest son, who has autism, had a group of friends who were all also autistic and high-achieving. We moved house to get our children into a grammar school and are very happy with the decision.

For me, as a teacher and 11+ tutor, I would say the draw of the grammar school is certainly the good behaviour of the students and the high expectations both from other parents and teachers. I wouldn’t say that the teaching is necessarily of a higher quality but more that teachers are allowed to actually get on with the job of teaching and not constantly having to deal with poor behaviour and disruption.

Well I would say that putting them under pressure and getting tutors to get them through an 11+ isn't in their best interests.

They aren’t “academic” if they need all that help.