angered by tuition for grammar school 11+

My dd went to a very socially mixed primary school. Out of her year of 60, 30 took the 11÷, 13 passed it. All middle class children of professional, largely university educated parents.

Does that sound fair to you?

I don't think books are found only in homes. I'm guessing they have access to libraries. Curious children by their very nature will seek out the library and other ways to gain knowledge. I don't believe it's about the middle classes, but I do believe there's a lot of bitterness about the issue.

Life isn't fair - and it's certainly not "fair" to drag down the classes of "brighter" students to accommodate the lowest common denominator.

"seeker - I don't wish to be seen as "having a go" or the like - but what exactly in the realm of education, is "wrong" with being bookish?"

Absolutely nothing. But if grammar schools are intended to provide an education for innately bright children regardless of background, and to give clever children from disadvantaged backgrounds a step out of disadvantage, creating an entrance test that favours middle class children from bookish homes is patently unfair.

VR test disadvantage those whose English is not their first languag. My DS's friend who is very bright and speaks four languages will be at a disadvantage in VR tests. He won't know what 'wan'means even though he has only been speaking english for 4 years and puts most of his peers to shame.

"I am quite happy for children who have been educated in the independent sector to compete for GS places; many of those children will only be in the independent schools in the first place because their local primary is not of a good standard."

So what is a good standard. My son has friend at an independent and he is in a class of 8 with a teacher and a TA. My poor son is in a state primary with 30 kids and no TA. Where is the fairness in that.

"LEAs / GSs skewing the exams towards their own pupils e.g. by allowing children at primaries within the LEA to sit the exam in the morning in their usual classroom setting and then making independent / out of borough school pupils sit them in the afternoon in an unfamiliar setting after a full morning at school (& normal prep in the evening) for 4 days running (Bexley council used to do this, don't know if they still do)."

ha! ha! poor little diddledums. I am sure that the private school can let the children off homework and even school if this is a problem. Any way it doesn't stop the private school kids bagging many of the grammar places.

"Maybe we should be more flexible regarding movement between GSs and other schools in the first few years of secondary to allow for children's different development."

Children make friends and might not want to change school. Can you imagine how a child would feel to be kicked out the grammar for being thick. It would knock their confidence to pieces.

Why not have a good comprehensive with setting. Changing set at a comprehensive easier than changing school.

I dunno, from past experience of these threads, it sounds as though there are two sorts of grammar school entrance exams:

1. Where they test knowledge - which does have to be tutored for as the children at state schools simply won't have covered the ground

1. Where they test ability via verbal and non-verbal reasoning. YOU DO NOT NEED TO TUTOR FOE THIS TYPE OF ENTRANCE EXAM. DD passed very high up the list (similar 10:1 ratio) after doing four practice papers. She is bright but not a real brainbox

Reading the school's automated response to you, it sounds as though they are doing the second type of exam. In which case, there really is no need to tutor. None. It's just parental paranoia. Trust me.

I don't feel frustrated about parents trying to do the best for their children and for thinking intelligently about how to achieve the goal of a good education. I am quite happy for children who have been educated in the independent sector to compete for GS places; many of those children will only be in the independent schools in the first place because their local primary is not of a good standard.

My gripes are:

Allowing people who live / work abroad (apart from forces personnel) to compete for state boarding places (including GSs) when they do not work and pay tax in the UK - this depletes the number of good school places for those that contribute to our society;

LEAs / GSs skewing the exams towards their own pupils e.g. by allowing children at primaries within the LEA to sit the exam in the morning in their usual classroom setting and then making independent / out of borough school pupils sit them in the afternoon in an unfamiliar setting after a full morning at school (& normal prep in the evening) for 4 days running (Bexley council used to do this, don't know if they still do).

Maybe we should be more flexible regarding movement between GSs and other schools in the first few years of secondary to allow for children's different development.

Working class children lose out whether it is selection by postcode or selection by 11 plus.

I think the pupil premimum is a good step forward for improving equality in education. However a bigger and braver step would be to make the intake of comprehensives in large towns truely comprehensive.

Where I live there are four secondary schools within two miles of my house. They could easily have ablity banding without having to put on extra buses. If the schools in the posh areas had their fair share of thick kids and the schools in the rough areas had their fair share of bright chidren then it would be guarenteed that each school had enough children to offer seperate sciences to the bright and more vocational courses to the less academic.

The evil with grammar schools is that mistakes cannot be corrected. Unlike a comprehensive the over coached child cannot be moved to a lower set when they cannot cope. There are less opportunities for bright children in secondary modens as there are not enough children to run a gifted and taleneted maths class.

Social mobility is at an all time low. It is bad for the UK.

Hi, Alpine. Another Bexley girl here. I passed the 11+ and got a free place at a Direct Grant school.

seeker - I don't wish to be seen as "having a go" or the like - but what exactly in the realm of education, is "wrong" with being bookish? Surely that's the point? A child who's read hundreds of books will have their imagination fired. Although I have heard a ghastly anecdote of a Literature grad boasting of owning "more than 20 books"!

I went to a grammar in bexley and nobody, but nobody I knew was tutored back then. I can think of two girls who were driven up from Sevenoaks every day - but they'd moved as families out of the area - and a handful of people from Thamesmead/Charlton - but most were just normal children from Bexley/Welling/Sidcup/Bexleyheath. :(

How depressing.

Cat64- we are same authority, and it is actually over 20 sitting per GS place! The schools take top 5% of those sitting (rather than 20 or 30%), and are usually amongst the top oerforming schools in the country.
The no catchment area thing means many children from outside the authority apply too, and even children within the authority can travel 15 miles each way (may not sound much to rural mners, but urban authority- can take me 1hr 10 minutes to do the 3.5 miles to school )

It is now impossible to get in without any form of preparation, meaning the original intention of grammars has been abandoned as mentioned above, something I feel does need addressing, as I believe academic children should be offered academic oppportu nities regardless of their parents' situation.

Maybe to even the balance there should be different offers to kids from schools who don't traditionally send great numbers of their pupils to grammar schools. Say an offer of 360 (out of 420 marks) instead of 400 or whatever it is in any year.

I couldn't agree more. My ds took the 11+ for the one grammar school we have in our area, (we haven't had results yet) and it was heartbreaking on the day to see so many children in private prep school uniforms, and overhear two parents discussing the extra help they had been given to prepare within ordinary lessons. Not to mention the extra after school lessons the schools provided, and the private tutoring the parents got privately.

I don't think any child that has been privately educated at primary level should be allowed to take the grammar school exam. I know that would be unfair on a small number of people who have fallen on hard times and could afford fees previously but can't anymore, but they would be a very small minority comapred to the masses of children that are currently almost discriminated against for not being privately educated.

And, even setting the tutoring aside, the tests themselves are not a lvele playing field. In Kent, certainly, they favour children from bookish homes - my favourite example is a question where you had to know that there were 3 meanings for the word "sage".

My jaw is sagging a bit at this "it is now admitted that tutoring makes a difference" stuff.

I grew up in Kent, and was tutored by my primary school for the 11+ in the 1970s. In the 1980s (as part of the Baker reforms?) tutoring by the schools was banned.

I remember my primary teacher mother citing in the 80s the known fact that tutoring raised scores across the board by iirc 1-2 percentage points. So that tutoring by the schools takes all students forward equally and keeps the playing field level; partial private tutoring immediately creates a step-difference and massively skews grammar school intake.

FWIW, I loathe the grammar school system - and I came in the top 10 in the county in my 11+ year (obv I'm not supposed to know, but had parents in educ mafia), but went to a comp out of parents' choice. Not only is entrance very dodgy, but I felt my comp served people with variable talents very well - eg people who were excellent at English but struggled with maths, or who only found their niche at 14 or 15.

My ds has had lost of cognitive tests and he has a very high IQ. He also has issues (reason for the tests) but that is for another thread. We don't have grammars but something very similar here. I had him tutored as his issues can affect how he takes exams. Strange though how cognitive tests can identify his ability but I know that the VR and NVR are not good indicators of his abilities.

We can't afford it. DP been unemewployed for 20 months but I knew the system is unfair so I wanted to give him an edge. Still don't know how it will pan out. Hate this sytem!!!

Agree 100%. Parents have 'done the maths' as they say and realised it's much cheaper to tutor their little darlings twice a week for 2 years than it is to pay school fees for 5-7. The grammar schools don't mind this because it means they get a cohort of nice, middle-class kids who will get support from home and whose parents, having saved themselves a few bob, won't mind contributing generously to school funds/trips/prizes for the Christmas fair and so on.

DS is at a super-selective, highly academic grammar school. He loves it, it's a great school but all his mates are middle-class kids (as are we, no axe to grind here), about 50% of whom went to private prep schools and whose parents are mightily relieved they no longer have to pay.

I am one of the most vociferous "the system is not fair" people - and my dd is at a highly regarded, high achieving grammar school.

That's how I know how skewed they system is towards middle class children from nice middle class homes. You only have to look at the free school meals statistics to see this.

The whole point of grammar schools was to provide a step "up" for bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Such children have a snowball's chance in hell of getting inot a grammar school nowadays. the vast majority of the places are taken up by children from "Grammar schools are wonderful - now we don't "have" to pay school fees" homes.

OP - your original statement is very vague - you have 'heard of' girls, who we not as clever - how do you know they are 'not as clever'? Seems a bit sour grapes because you dd did not get in. A prevailing attitude on MN seems to be that the system is only 'fair' if the poster's own child gets the school they want.
In any case - why would it be 'fair' if 'clever' children got in, over those who were not 'as clever' but had demonstrated commitment and hard work going to a tutor/doing extra homeowrk etc? Since when would it have been 'fair' that a chld who was already blessed with innate 'cleverness' should waltz into a school on the basis of a gentic gift, not through their own achivement?
I have always thought the children who 'deserve' the best education are those who are NOT naturally 'bright' as the 'bright' kids already start with an advantage, whatever their economic circumstances, and those in greatest need are the not-so-clever poor children who are prepared to work hard and who need every bit of extra assistance possible...

GiddyPickle ? yes absolutely, different counties, different systems. Are you in Kent? Bucks operates an ?opt out? system so every child takes the 11+ unless their parents specifically ask not to.

We have several grammars, single-sex and mixed, but even so they are quite hard to get into. My DD was predicted (and later got) levels 5s in all 3 of her SATs but was still some way short of the 11+ pass mark because she finds verbal reasoning difficult.

There is actually a report in Bucks (not widely circulated, surprisingly ) indicating that it is now accepted that tutoring can make a significant difference in a child?s ability to pass the 11+.

Interestingly, there is very little correlation between children?s 11+ scores and their GCSE results, though presumably if the tests had no validity at all the schools themselves would press for a different system.

There are no grammars in our area but they still exist in the next county.
A surprising number of parents push their DCs for the tutoring, in spite of the 60 mile round trip to school each day.

StanHouseMuir your understanding of the Bucks system is entirely correct. What SFCG says is not how it works in Bucks.

Incidentally there's no direct correlation between SATs levels and the 11+ because they are completely different exams which test different things. In some parts of the country the 11+ tests things which are not covered by the national curriculum, which is one reason that tutoring has become such a growth industry.

The authorities used to claim that it was impossible to tutor for the 11+, but are now starting to admit that this is, in fact, total bollocks.