Come and tell me some of the benefits for children in going to a grammar school

PIPRABBIT. You are very fortunate that the Comprehensives, are quite good. My DD narrowly failed her 11 plus,and was allocated a School with a 27% 5A*TOC so if she fails, you have at least a decent,Comprehensive School to be allocated. I would give it a go.

Well you can never really know, can you? I mean, yellow can feel sure based on what she knows of her children, and we can feel sure about other things about our own, but ultimately it's all speculation, right?

I doubt, Yellow, that all your children (I can't remember how many you have, sorry!) would have grown up so academically able if you had all that many deficiencies in the way you've brought them up though!

Yellow,

So what you are saying is that, while children can and do achieve very good results from your local comprehensives, the children who achieve those results are temperamentally different from your children?

Which is a little different from your original point that such results were 'unheard of' from your local comprehensives, but absolutely a valid point that the results a child obtains can be as much a function of their temperaent and character as of the schools 'quality' on paper.

I can see that in reverse - in that my DS is likely to get better results from his comp than he would have done from the all boy's grammar a few miles away, simply because the whole 'macho / testosterone' atmosphere of the latter would have been deeply unsuited to him (and last time he was unsuited to a school he ended up under the Ed Psych as a selective mute).

"the grammar is working some magic for that type of kid which the local comp is not."

Well, if the comprehensive doesn't have many kids like that it's not going to be geared up for them, is it?

"
"If I wanted to get into the 'as a whole' argument, which I don't really because I'm neither the mother nor the employer of people 'as a whole' but of individuals, I would perhaps put forward the view that it's not necessarily good for society as a whole to condemn its high fliers either to failing to reach their potential or to go off to be educated with the poshos"

And are you saying that this is what happens in the vast majority of the country where there is no selective education?

I'm not generalising either. What I am saying is that my individual DC planted instead in their designated comp, with their characters and abilities would, I'm utterly certain, not have achieved anything like their current results. Perhaps that's due to a deficiency in the way I've brought them up, or a natural lassitude, but I think it's more likely that the grammar is working some magic for that type of kid which the local comp is not.

teacher - no need to apologise! It was I that displayed a shattering lack of reading comprehension (slightly worrying in the context of the work I'm supposed to be doing today. ah well.) :)

Russians, I suppose the secondary moderns / comprehensives where I live are examples of why those are NOT the only two options available - they are examples of how high fliers can reach their potential in a comprehensive system...

My kids are still young, so I'm not speaking from any of that sort of experience. But I just wanted to share an experience of a friend's...

Her son didn't pass/sit the 11+ test and ended up at the 'best' non-grammar in the city. In our city, we have 3 grammar schools (of course, you can travel and go beyond the city... ). 2 single sex schools and 1 mixed.

He's currently in his second year of secondary school and he recently recorded a class lesson on his phone (as he was previously complaining that he couldn't concentrate, focus, learn...) and it turns out that it was like a zoo, with the teacher doing nothing more than crowd control.

His parents are now considering private ed. He's not the most academic, but he's very much talented in other things (sports, music etc). I don't really know what his options really are, but I thought, when I heard this story, that the system's somehow failed him and his parents...

I guess what I'm taking away from this is that going to grammar school does not mean you automatically get to do medicine at Oxbridge, but going to grammar school could significantly enhance your chances because the environment that you study in is perhaps more geared towards learning (a combination of course, of the school curriculum, teachers, headteacher's leadership, other students and their attitudes....etc). Of course, I'm talking with reference to one case example.... I can't comment on others.

If I were you, I would encourage my child to sit the 11+ and go for the grammar school.

Seeker - it's the same school.

Sweetie, there are about 4 different discussions going on!

If I wanted to get into the 'as a whole' argument, which I don't really because I'm neither the mother nor the employer of people 'as a whole' but of individuals, I would perhaps put forward the view that it's not necessarily good for society as a whole to condemn its high fliers either to failing to reach their potential or to go off to be educated with the poshos.

Apologies, I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't 'calling you out', as you describe it, I was (or was attempting to) 'chat around your point with more detail, to expand it in the context of the debate' - ie that whether a school was a grammar was entirely separable from whether it was a good school or not.

So my 'exactly' was a further 'yes, I know, I'm still agreeing with you' kind of comment, but I can quite see that if you had seen my first point as one contradicting you, it would have come across entirely differently. Apologies

Even results in the range of 6A/6A is almost unheard of seeker, let alone 12 or 11A (the local papers publish the individual top results every year).

teacher I don't want to do a dissection of the individual idiosyncrasies of my DC but in many respects they don't appear to resemble the many DC referred to on these threads as eye wateringly high achieving 11yr olds or obvious academic stars from reception age or small versions of Einstein. As such I think almost all of them (a couple of the boys in particular) would have followed, or been assumed into, the crowd. Academic stuff would have been significantly more marginalised than it is at their school and though clearly capable of stellar results, I can't see any of them having achieved them at any school where it's so far from the norm.

piprabbit - I went to one of the Essex single-sex super-selective grammars, and I loved it. I was from a relatively rough area, bullied at primary school for being a "swot", and acutely conscious that if I made the most of my time there and worked like billy-o, my grammar school opened up amazing opportunities to me for university and beyond.

It was a hothouse - right up my alley, but that kind of environment doesn't suit everyone, so it is certainly something to consider. That said, the pastoral care was outstanding too.

If your daughter's teachers think she is in with a chance, I'd put her forward for it - if they think she is in the top 2%, that's amazing!

I thought I was talking about the schools where yellowtip lives- am I getting confused?

I went to a Grammar school on an assisted place. It was selective and fee paying and I spent the time feeling like a poor relation tbh. Academically my results were great, and there was no shame in being a bit fo a swot, which there was at the comp I went to for a year. And it looks great on my CV, got me into a great university and raised my prospects without a doubt. But the whole experience left me feeling wanting, which is my own failing really. In a school packed with dc who go skiing, off on tropical holidays, do every kind of outdoor sport going, I was never going to feel anything but an outsider. It's left me unsure of my place in the world, my family frequently refer to me as a snob as I have been educated beyond our working class background if that makes any sense. There was also a massively unhealthy emphasis on perfection on all levels, eating disorders were absolutely rife. But even with all that, I wouldn't have turned down the opportunity. If your dd loves learning, then by all means let her sit the test. But keep up a dialogue with her. If she's unhappy there then make sure she tells you.

I do think there are two separate discussions going on. One about individual schools and individual children- one about the education system as a whole. Particular children might do better in a grammar school, but children as a whole do better in a comprehensive system.

What do you mean, 'exactly'? You just called me out for what you thought was generalising and I explained that I was not generalising, I was talking about the specific school Seeker was asking about.

Exactly, Russian.

Teacher, I'm not generalising, I'm talking about the specific school my DD1 attends.

seeker, bizarrely it is going on now. The year 9 exams were taken last June, appealing be allowed to retake still going on at great length. I can't see how it benefits the school either but they won't budge.

"THE SMs do really well for mid and lower ability DC but not always for those who are 11+ 'near misses', due to the quest for the magic 5 A*-C. In at least two SMs near us, this equates to 5Cs, even if the child is capable of much higher. "

It is impossible for schools to get away with this any more, now that the expected progress of different cohorts is monitored. A school would be considered to have failed its high achievers if they only got Cs.

Russians, I think in such discussions we have to be careful about generalising by sector.

Of course, some grammars ARE great schools - not just because on paper they get good results, but because they are fantastic places of inspirational teaching and independent learning.

But other grammars are NOT good schools, and get good results only due to having a selected cohort.

Equally with comprehensives - some can be powerhouses of ecellent progress for children of all abilities.

Some can excel for some groups and be relatively poor for others.

Others can be dire - and amongst those 'dire' ones are ones that appear to have good results, but coast given their cohort.

It would be foolish for me - as a supporter of comps - to deny that poor comps exist. They do - though they aren't always the ones that look worst on paper / from their results. Equally, it would be foolish for me to deny that some grammars are excellent scholls 'in the round', not just because of their results. It just isn't as simple as 'grammars good / comps less good', especially when we got into the equation that grammars + sec moderns = comprehensives, so there is no overall benefit of a grammar school system to counteract its obvious disadvantages.

I think the point, alma, is that even the worst schools in the most difficult circumstances usually get a few kids who do very well, so it seems a bit odd that none of the ones round yellowtip's way do, and she is so very sure that her obviously super bright children would not have done well in a different school.