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

Frankly, it sounds insane to move and give up your jobs for the sake of hypothetical places in schools that you don't know your children will even get into or want to go to. You'd be better off looking at areas where there's a good selection of comprehensives with a strong reputation.

As you're near Cambridge, I'd consider some of the areas around you that have good state schools. Somewhere like Saffron Walden - I hear excellent things about SWCHS.

If be careful about how selective they are. The grammars near us take the top 5% and have no catchment. It's 60% out of area students. There is also practically no Sen support. In theory our kids could get in. In practice it would be a terrible environment for them. They are absolute hot houses. I do worry they won't get the 'best' but actually they are much more likely to do just as well in the local comp with tutors and private 6th form.

You need to differentiate between super selective and normal grammar.

My son is at a super selective grammar. It’s not a grammar area like Kent. There is one ss grammar in about 60 miles. As far as I can tell everyone was tutored for the 11+. My son went there (we didn’t send him). The teaching is good is but the teachers couldn’t survive in a comprehensive school (one tried, it wasn’t pretty, he soon went back to the ss grammar).

Ds says there is no bullying, although the sixth form common room was trashed overnight for some reason. DS is year 13 now. Lots of the boys are going to “top” universities. DS likes the teaching but says their idea of EDI is funny.

We aren't just thinking of results we are thinking about exposure to behaviour and environment. Not sitting in school for hours with half that time taken up by disruption.

You have a very polarised view towards grammars and comprehensives.
Not all grammars (I would suggest none) have perfect behaviour.
Not all comprehensives (I would also suggest none) have all children spending half their days sat in school with their time taken up with disruption.
The reality is that all schools (and even all year groups within all schools) sit within a range.

You are also assuming here that your children won't be the disruptive ones. No way to tell when your oldest is 2, and the other not yet born.

What you should be looking for is a school with a good behaviour management policy (that they demonstrably apply). Although, whether they have one or not now, is no indication of what they might have in the future.

"Best for our kids" - You seem to be only thinking of the grammar in terms of "better results" (which as explained at length on this thread, is hardly surprising).

They can also be extremely pressurised and damage a child's self esteem and self confidence. These are much harder to rebuild, than it is to retake exams later or take a different route into a career. As someone who doesn't even want their children to move primary school once in case it disrupts friendships, I have no idea why you are even considering grammar as a "best" option.

if you have no intention of pressuring your children to go to certain schools, then you absolutely do not want to move to a grammar area. Move to an area with good comprehensive schools (even better, one where everyone just goes to their local school.

20 years ago, we made a similar decision to you. At the time I had a toddler and another one on the way. We could have moved to a grammar school area or an area with decent comprehensives. We ended up moving to the comprehensive area and I'm so glad we did.

A few people I know sent their kids to private schools from yr 7 and a couple of kids ended up commuting to the grammar schools (and the worst case of violence I've heard of in the last 20 years happened within a group of grammar school students - police involved and exclusions). Some of the best GCSE and A Level results have come from the comprehensive kids with so many of them going on to great universities or degree apprenticeship.

What I've learned is that if your kid's in a half decent comp and you're giving your kids a stable homelife, support and you're interested in their education, the likelihood is they'll do well.

I also read on mumsnet that parents get their kids tutored from yr 4 to get into the superselectives and I think it's beyond insane. I'm so glad I didn't put my kids through anything like that.

@Karma1387 if you don’t like where you live then it’s ok to move. Find a location that you do like, find a house that works for you, is near good job opportunities and family/friends if you can. Pick a location that has a nice nurturing primary school and as a minimum an ok comp. Primary school is all about socialization.

I understand that you had a bad experience moving at primary school, but many children move schools and are happy. We moved my youngest to a new primary as the first one refused to meet his needs. It wasn’t bad kids or bad teachers, but poor leadership. It was the best decision and my youngest loved his new school. My older children also moved primary schools because we moved house. We made the move an adventure and they adjusted well.

Many families here move house when it’s time for secondary school so that their child can go to a school that suits them best. We had no idea what our kids would be like academically, socially etc when starting secondary school when they were only 2 years old! The schools that are the ‘best’ when they were 2 are not necessarily the best ones now. Why not wait until closer to the time to pick a secondary school and focus on finding a primary one you like?

It’s more than just being selective. In an environment with bright, motivated pupils you can have consistently larger classes without negative effects, so you can save money on basic staffing. You generally aren’t spending as much on TAs and other learning support resources. You don’t spend as much time on behavioural support, ed psych and similar. So you have more money to put towards facilities and other things geared to improve achievement.

OP, it really varies by individual
school. Mine went to grammar because the local comp is fine but not very academic. Yet my friend in a different town sent her kids to the local comp where they all
excelled and one of hers went to Cambridge, which was entirely the idea of their school teachers.

A family member sent one child to a very highly sought after grammar, as their child was a top scorer in the 11+ and continues to excel academically, but the school has some drawbacks and they really wish the child would switch to the local
comprehensive that their other child went to and loved. The latter is a feeder school for an excellent A level college, and the older child got 2 As and a B at A level, which is what they needed for a place at university.

I would focus on all the reasons for choosing a new locality, when your children are older, such as house prices, job opportunities, closeness to family, as well as access to good primary and secondary schools. But definitely there are some great schools out there which are not grammar.

I feel so sad for children born to parents like this ☹️. I truly hope you seeking help for your mental health issues

Explained it badly but if there are no local grammar this raises the performance, behaviour and standards at the comps as the top 15% have no been creamed off by grammar.

Personally I am staggering you are considering moving and both changing jobs to move to a grammar school area with children so young.

As pp have said you have no guarantee that all, or any, of the children will pass 11+ or if the educational landscape will change by then.

Have you considered where your children will attend school if they are not offered a place at grammar or what the primary schools are like?

Have you considered moving to an area with strong primary and comprehensive schools, perhaps a little nearer the time? I say this as a parent of children at such a school, that children have left grammar to join, where I feel my more academic child will reach the potential he could have without the long journey to grammar, and my less academic is also doing well and carries no stigma that she is at a different school to her sibling

If they went to a grammar and then a comprehensive, they wouldn't be transitioning to a state school. Grammar schools are state schools. You say your partner is aware of this but you seem confused yourself.

Is your partner's worry about 'the social aspect' based on the (mistaken) view that grammar schools are entirely populated by well behaved, studious children and 'state' ie comprehensives crammed full of common, unwashed oiks from rough families who don't know how to eat with a knife and fork?

It's worrying that you think it is remarkable that a pupil would achieve A and A* (old system) grades. It is as though you have written off comprehensives as a dumping ground for badly behaved children and unmotivated teachers. More than 90% of children in the UK go to a comprehensive. About 48% of young people go to university. We have good schools, with some excellent ones and a few that are dreadful

You are boxing yourself in and your children will pay the price if you don't give yourself some breathing space. Please try and be more open-minded, for the sake of your born and unborn child. You have not even visited your local primaries, dismissing them on the basis of comments from other parents. School choice is as much about what you experience when you visit as it is about what the league tables and Ofsted reports say. Why not visit them when you've had your baby and see what you find there?

The reason why children are tutored (in my experience in Kent it is usually only when they are in Yr 5 ie 9-10 years old) is because the format of the 11+ exams are unfamiliar to children, but of course they need to know the types of questions they will face. State schools are not allowed to spend their time doing this familiarisation, so parents pay tutors to do it. There are some private primary schools that focus on 11+ preparation and some parents move their children into them in Yrs 4-5 expressly for this purpose, though most don’t.

I'm amazed that you are thinking of this now but I guess that shows the thought process of grammar school parents and how it differs from parent to parent. I did not even think of it when my child was that age, I was merely trying to make it through each day at the toddler stage and get out alive 😅

OP: do you and your partner realise that teachers in grammar schools have exactly the same training as teachers in comprehensives , and they teach exactly the same curriculum?

Yoir partner seems to think that grammars are some sort of rarified elite existence.

The kids in the top sets at comprehensives in non grammar areas are working at the same level as grammar schools and doing as well.

Kent as a County, with a full grammar system, does not perform better overall than comparable counties with comprehensive schools.

There's a pack of insults in those six words. You have insulted all the parents on Mumsnet who didn't attend grammar schools, whose children don't attend grammar schools, and who teach in schools other than grammar schools. Your ignorant, snobbish attitude is what Richard Crossland wanted to stamp out when comprehensivisation was first introduced. It's all our loss that he wasn't successful.

most kids who go to grammar schools near me are tutored. There is a lot of parent involvement, I think that automatically excludes the students who come from perhaps more chaotic homes. My dc go to the local comp. 1 student from their class was excluded in y8 for dealing weed, he was highly disruptive in ALL the classes. It doesn’t take many of these students to disrupt the learning for everyone. The grammar schools process weeds these kids out.