To believe that we need to create two hundred more Grammar Schools for the Shires of England.

Or maybe wealthy is not entitled to child benefit without paying some of it back? In whole or in part? I mean what level have we stooped to if supporting yourself by working together and independent of State handouts now makes you wealthy!

What is the definition of wealthy now? Any family not claiming FSM or entitled to UC? Is that really the definition of wealthy now. Those who can survive themselves by working?

Selection at 11 favours the wealthy and perpetuates social inequality. There are numerous international studies that show this.

Selection post-16 is sensible as kids split off into a variety of different colleges and courses at different levels.

Oh, and what's going to happen in the Shires of Wales?

But I thought people only sent their dc to private because their sen needs can't be met in mainstream? Not sure there are many sen kids in grammar schools.

More grammar schools would be a good thing. It would take the pressure off private school entry where parents hedge-their bet for a free grammar place whilst helping over subscribe the private schools. Just look at Wiltshire. Only a single grammar school for the boys, and one for the girls down in Salisbury. I know parents sending their kids on the bus down from Swindon. Utterly bonkers. And the competition for private is greatly strained. Every town should have a grammar school. The brighter more academic kids can go to the grammar, the less bright kids go off to comp for a more technical/trade focused learning pathway. Leaving private school kids to have an optimum experience.

We need grammar and technical schools because they work!

Selection at 11 feeds into selection at post 16. Selection at 11 comes in various forms, proper 11 plus grammar as well as religion, catchment, streams etc. Most of the highly selective 16 plus schools are taking from prior schools that have some form of selection that then produce the best GCSE results, which then feed into the most competitive Sixth Forms and onto the elite universities.

I mentioned Oxbridge because you were telling me about bright kids as if I’d never encountered one.

Selection post-16 is nothing like selection at 11.

For Tiffin, it’s 3.4%. Same for all the other South London grammars. Which rather the undermines the claims that they aren’t dominated by the children of well off professional couples.

It is STEP because you mentioned Oxbridge @noblegiraffe

Yes, King’s Maths is a selective Sixth Form but a fair few of the most able mathematicians across London schools including the top performing grammars and further afield who are aiming for Imperial or Cambridge Maths etc have it on their radar as a follow on for post GCSE. Because they teach aka “facilitate” the type of investigative Maths that apparently is no longer en vogue … Except of course if you are actually aiming for the most competitive degree courses you absolutely need to be both an independent, creative and investigative mathematician. There are more of these Sixth Forms coming up now, which is a good thing.

It was 9s, then A*s now it’s about STEP.

All sixth forms are selective to varying degrees. King’s Maths School isn’t a grammar school.

”If you are not sure how classism is an issue read the post I am quoting. It’s this thing us teachers encourage students to do. Reading, thinking, it helps.”

@Anothermoomin - being patronising and putting your “teacher voice” on at other grown adults, tut tut!

You can go google the staff at the aforementioned school and their degrees and where they were taken and some of their previous professional lives. Obviously that one is working on outreach and reaching everyone, but still the FSM is very very low. Most of those teachers are adding huge value.

@noblegiraffe - I wasn’t talking about getting a highly able child to get an A star. I was talking about getting them to pass Cambridge STEP if that is their potential!

The whole point is that society has said a 9 and an A star is all that you need to aspire to. Whereas a selective school can push for more than that, much deeper and wider. And if it is an independent and highly selective school with copious amounts of funding on top they will be taught by teachers with PhDs from selective unis taking them that way from an early age.

I highly doubt the teachers at the King’s Maths Schools are all there for the “easy ride” are they now.

It is you who used the word „superfluous“. Why be disingenuous just to make a political point?

I didn't. When teaching top sets there are times when I have nothing to do. They can crack on and work independently.

And I don’t believe for one second that challenging and extending highly able kids at their level is any easier than getting a child to grasp the basics and pass their GCSE maths on third attempt.

It's not just highly able kids you've got though. It's ones with a proven track record of putting in a significant amount of work out of school.
Of course it is easier to get a highly able kid who works hard outside of school (and whose parents are willing to hire tutors if they're struggling) to the top grades than it is to support a kid with a track record of difficulty and failure and with all the reasons that go into their previous difficulty and failure. I mean, getting a kid to pass maths on a third attempt, god, that's a real achievement. I'd be crying buckets of delight over that one.

I’m not sure ‘socially I belonged in grammar school’ is always snobbery. I got on much better socially when I moved to a grammar school because people didn’t take the piss out of me for working hard or getting good grades.

„Gosh it's a wonder any of the kids I teach get 9s or A*s or go to Oxbridge given that I just don't understand how to teach bright kids“

So @noblegiraffe - you do understand and you do adapt your teaching to eg Cambridge Step style? It is you who used the word „superfluous“. Why be disingenuous just to make a political point? I don’t see the difference in whether a teacher is helping pupils directly during class time or has spent a similar amount of time preparing to challenge a highly able class. If you have had years of honing the latter skill it doesn’t mean the effort wasn’t there. And I don’t believe for one second that challenging and extending highly able kids at their level is any easier than getting a child to grasp the basics and pass their GCSE maths on third attempt.

If you are not sure how classism is an issue read the post I am quoting. It’s this thing us teachers encourage students to do. Reading, thinking, it helps.

Can you lot not follow an argument. It’s like banging your head on a brick wall. My point was because the children are gifted, because they work hard, because their parents support them - in some cases - the craft of teaching is lost.

I’ve said absolutely nothing about staff recruitment.
Teaching top set, bright children, is one string to your bow. Top set teaching is not the most skilful, that is not to say it requires no skill. Teachers in comprehensives, teach across a number of levels, stretching their skills and their students. Often trying something with one level can give you ideas about how to do something different with another set. It allows the craft of teaching to develop in a different way.

@Anothermoomin - not sure how British classism is relevant at all in a grammar school that has hardly any white British kids in them and most wouldn’t know about MN style British class stereotypes. Because they are culturally either British Asian or just ILR anyway.
And no, the whole point is the grammar schools with the gifted kids can adapt their teaching methods to their cohort.

Project based learning - I thought that had been abandoned? Direct instruction - more traditional teaching - is now encouraged . Investigation teaching unless done in a very controlled fashion is being debunked.

I got top marks in primary school but wasn’t allowed to go to the grammar school because my parents couldn’t afford the bus fares and the local authority wouldn’t pay either, as I lived too near to the local Comp.

I left school at 15 as I hated the kids in the Comp I was sent to and eventually got my law degree by doing night school whilst working full time in a crappy admin job.

Whether a grammar school education would have improved my life seems unlikely, as I’d always be singled out as the poor kid in school.

We don’t need more Grammars. We need more investment in education generally with smaller class sizes less govt. interference, and proper streaming for the brighter kids.

“Socially I belonged at a grammar” - those of you saying it is nothing to do with snobbery read this and weep, your argument is demolished by the OP. In her opinion it is everything to do with your social background.

Yet again OP you respond to a point I did not make. I did not say no WC parent could not coach their child themselves, but children - like you - whose parents are teachers have an advantage. I was also discussing my own 11+ in relation to yours which was in the 1970s based on your comments, and it was a very different world back then.

“In life people have more luck than others” yet another I’m alright jack comment. Some posters are making valiant efforts to defend grammar schools on educational grounds. Whenever the OP posts it is apparent it is about snobbery and keeping middle class children away from working class children. All other arguments are swept away by these attitudes which are the worst aspects of British classism.

I don’t like grammar schools for education reasons and @noblegiraffemakes these points excellently. I also dislike them because they encourage the worst type of middle class snobbery, based on ignorance and classism.

Gosh it's a wonder any of the kids I teach get 9s or A*s or go to Oxbridge given that I just don't understand how to teach bright kids.