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

OK. So the grades are promising, but I stand by what I said previously about the mental health of students at grammars. My husband has an Oxford doctorate and I'm a university tutor. Our kids are clever. However they've also inherited my neurodivergence. Son is AuDHD and did fine. Autistic daughter did fine too and found lots of fellow neurodivergent friends. But she struggled incredibly with anxiety (it was quite crippling at times) and the pressure from teachers and trying to keep up with her peers knocked her confidence quite a bit.

I think you may be suffering a bit from looking at this when your dc are so young.

You have decided that all the school near you are rubbish. Primary, secondary all terrible.

This is just so odd. Hundreds of parents are happily sending their children to these schools every day and many of these parents will be engaged, motivated, hard working and dedicated themselves. They don't all have low standards and just shove their kids through the doors of these rubbish schools because they don't care like you do. Hundreds of qualified and trained and caring teachers go to work every day in all the places you are dismissing as rubbish.

The majority of students at uni and in general attend state comprehensives. Many many do v well and the reasons for their success will be much less locked into the school they attended than you seem to believe.

You are randomly picking areas of the country out of a hat and considering moving to them based on grammar school availability. Without knowing anything else. And that really does mean you don't consider or understand the other factors related to dc success like community, family, access to books, cultural capital, parental availability etc.

I wouldn't want to be part of a grammar system. My dc go to a very mixed comp and are doing brilliantly while also being able to see why and how lucky they are to be able to achieve.

If you're planning on structured, academic home ed then Grammar School might be an option but it sounds like you'd prefer more of a laid back "They'll pick it up when they're ready" unschool-y sort of approach, in which case it's highly unlikely they'll be at the required standard for the 11+ at 10.

It sounds like what you want and what your husband wants with regards to educating your children are diametrically opposed to each other.

If your DC are young, it’s hard to imagine not being the centre of the world, but by the time they are teens peer pressure is a huge influence. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but your DC will do better if the friends they make have parents who give a shit.

Grammars, and comps in leafy AKA expensive areas get good results as much by selecting parents as they do by selecting bright children. Schools known for academic success attract parents who value education and who support behaviour policies. It’s not necessarily about being in the best school, but it is about stacking the odds against your DC ending up in a poor school with lots of DC with challenging behaviour.

As much as academics can be nurtured and I see why an environment such as a grammar school is a good option a persons interactions through life can define their actual life just as much as their level of intelligence. That requires a totally different skill set.

That's a fair point in regards to the non-selective schools underperforming. But it doesn't make the grammar schools any better than average comprehensives.

It depends on your view of “not as good”. Grammar schools are much more independent and set children up much more for university after. The children are supposed to be capable of excelling without being spoon fed basic information.

They don't select on ability. They select on exam performance on one day when a child is 10 or 11. That a child has been heavily tutored for (usually) therefore it's basically a social class selection methodology.

A) Do you want to gamble your whole lives on how your child is feeling on one day?

B) The often quoted Mumsnet nonsense that comprehensive schools are all full of miserable teachers and kids getting duffed up because they like maths is rubbish. We do live in London but every comp near us has really high academic expectations (and inclusion!)

Grammars are archaic and there are hardly any left anyway.

Quite often the teaching at some grammars is not so good. I have a couple of friends who tutor for GCSE and A level and their students say the teacher jumps over a lot of stuff and teaches at the speed for the more able students.
Maybe these are the students who shouldn't actually be in the grammar school

Surely that's only applicable if the grammars take a certain percentage of kids, like Kent does for example. In Essex it doesn't work like that. The Chelmsford grammars take a max of 300 a year over 2 schools and the kids aren't necessarily local so it's not as though they've taken the cream from the local comps on a large scale. There were 5 kids go on the school bus to DDs school in my town ( not all in same year) Doubt that had much effect on local schools

In what way are they ‘rubbish’?

It sounds like your views on education- wanting less testing, more nurture, more play and less pressure- are fundamentally incompatible with what Grammar schools typically offer- a fast paced, high pressure environment with high expectations and strict discipline.

You can probably take a reasonably good guess as to whether your children are going to be GS material based on your own and husband's academic records- were you both high achievers throughout school? If you were both more practical sorts then it's likely your children will be similar.

It seems like a very big gamble for something which you don't actually seem to be in favour of.

I hear this a lot about teaching in a super selective near me. Apparently it's like something from the 90s where you copied down from an OHP. The teachers aren't going to be shown up by poor results from uninspiring or boring teaching are they? Everyone is going to get an 8/9 come what may because their natural ability plus motivation and tutoring plus parental pressure will ensure it.

OP, frankly this is all mad. You have no idea about the dc academic needs and wants right now and you have absolutely no way of knowing what any school will be like in 10 years time.

They are indeed “having massive socialisations”, almost all a child’s friendships will be based around school for both primary and secondary.

I think you need to work on your issues first, then figure out where to move, school choices etc.

There's a lot of projection going on in your posts. Our children don't have to follow the same paths that we did.

Maybe get some voluntary experience in education e.g. school governor, listening to children read etc. Then see how you feel about things.

Research finds that grammar schools don't out perform the average state school. They take in high ability students so get good results, but similarly able students at average state schools tend to do just as well.

The one issue with grammar schools is that the nonselective state schools that surround them tend to perform than average (even accounting for their lower ability intake).. So it's a risky strategy to move to a grammar school area before you're sure your children will get in.

Better would be to find an area with non-selective, non-church schools, where there are plenty of university educated parents who invest in their local schools (active PTAs, etc.). Those schools will likely do better than average because they will tend to have fewer disruptive children, and parents who are engaged and inculcate a culture of valuing education in their children. And your children will not be at the same sort of risk of being found not good enough at 11 and pushed into an underperforming school.

The biggest predictor of educational outcomes for children is their parents, not their schools.

Just compared figures for Free School meals/Pupil Premium with Bourne Grammar and Jack Hunt in Peterborough - 6.4% and 36%, and Jack Hunt also has 45% pupils with English not their first language. Bourne Academy has 23% FSM. Kings school in Peterborough has 12% FSM

Be very, very careful. My husband and I moved from Birmingham (grammar school system) to Milton Keynes and consciously avoided moving to Buckinghamshire because it has a grammar school system. Areas with grammar schools have crazy intense parents who hot house their kids. It's utterly toxic for everyone's mental health.

And here's the thing, my kids did end up going to a Buckinghamshire grammar and did fine and made plenty of friends. But the kids in those schools are academically high achievers. They end up competing amongst themselves and tend to think they're stupid if they get less than an A*/9 for anything. It can be a tough environment once you get there.

Absolute BS.

This isn’t primary school where all abilities are in the same class. Those who are the brightest in a certain subject will be with the brightest in that subject and they will be on a different trajectory to those who are weakest in that subject.

Given most areas of the country are now on the comprehensive system then how come so many of these pupils are going to university if their secondary school is failing them

Ds ‘s comprehensive spent the first week of secondary school having tests to see how strong or weak they were in different subjects.

I find it odd you’re so keen on a grammar if this is how you feel.