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

*Piprabbit, I have two DC at GS who have many friends at SM/comps.

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.
DC take gcses in year 9/10 and if they get the magic C, they are not allowed to retake, even if they get a B in year 9 (equates to A* in yr 11, I think) as friends DC did. So DC are getting lower grades than they should, at a locally-praised SM. It is especially annoying as at GS, she would have to resist as would not have met her personal target. So you need to ask when exams will be taken and school policy on retakes, hopefully this may be illegal under the new terminal exam system in the future? Also need to make sure you compare schools using '5 A- C Inc. Eng and Maths' to get a comparison of academic subjects.

It seems bizarre to get children who find exams harder to take them early, as surely they would get a higher grade and it would be better for their confidence than getting low grades in yr 9? After all, the DC with Es in year 9 should get Cs in yr 11 but the DC I know who got these marks thinks he failed. Is there any educational reason for doing this, apart from pursuit of C grades? One that benefits the child?

Benefits of GS, as mostly stated before: Less disruption, learning at pace suited to child, good discipline and, most importantly, high aspirations for all DC and high target grades. Excellent enrichment opportunities.
Downsides: need to want to work (but not overly hard!), May not be easy for those towards the bottom but many DC blossom when they get there so hard to tell in advance.

Sorry, long, but I feel this is unfair!

Alma, well, as I said, it isn't a great school - until last year, lowest in its county, in and out of Special Measures. But even that school had 3 children get 10 A-A*s, which was the point that I was making (and tbh the 88% isn't as terrible as some, especially given that the school has such a tiny proportion of high achievers that the difference between 88% and 100% maybe be only a couple of children)

To be honest I am appalled at a school where only 88% of high achievers get 5 A*-C grades.

Seeker - the surrounding schools aren't great. They have more than a smattering of high achievers (as defined) and they seem to undercook them a bit. The grammar is a better school. It doesn't just have the 'best' (as in most likely to do well) pupils. It gives added value.

I suppose the thing I'm struggling with a little from Yellowtip's argument is that, statistically, her children ARE 'blue moon' children if they go to superselectives. If it is the only grammar for a very large distance, then it probably takes children from within the top 1% of ability.

It seems a little inconsistent to say that these are 'not overtly boffiny' children who would not get very good results from a comprehensive, yet are in that tiny minority who go to a superselective.

To be fair, yellowtip, you did say "almost unheard of" and use the expression"blue moon"!

"seeker You keep talking aout top sets at 'the local comp' but you continue to view things through the prism of Kent, and that model just doesnt apply in other places"

No i'm not. Yellowtip said that her children's results from a superselective would have been "blue moon" results in the comprehensives in the area. I was trying to find an explanation, because a superselective, I thought, took so few children from such a wide area that it would have little or no impact on the surrounding schools.

I agree with your comment on overall picture. Our local comp is excellent for high achievers - has a very high percentage of them (despite being technically a secondary modern, it has a very good catchment) and over 95% of them make at least expected progress in English and Maths as well as nearly 100% getting 5A* to C including English and Maths (I tend to look at progress and attainment together, apologies for stats overload)

As a parent of a high achiever, I am therefore happy that DS can achieve as well there as he might in any school, whether selective or not. However, if I was a parent of one of the (relatively few) low achievers, I would look elsewhere, as results for those children are lower than for the other schools in the area.

Teacher I grew up in such an area, and I went to the comp (formerly grammar) that was better (in every way) than all the posh schools. And now Dd1 goes to a grammar that is better (in terms of results anyway) than the local posh schools. So I know that such situations exist!

Teacher - then clearly your comps are basically sec mods and they must therefore be excellent schools. They certainly appear to outperform the true comps where I live. Although maybe the overall picture is different - our comps do a great job for everyone as a whole but a poor job, it seems to me, for the high achievers. But the percentage of kids leaving with 5 proper academic GCSEs is good.

And yes, I agree that I am in an area that is lucky with its school - one of those areas that Xenia doubts exist, where even some of the comps, let alone the grammars, are better than the local independents.

Russians, without giving away entirely where I live, there are 5 grammars within a 5-10 mile radius (1 very superselective, others merely highly so), and several more within commutable distance.

Teacher - one superselective in a > 50 mile radius doesn't turn the comps into sec mods. There are no comps that I am aware of in this LEA that get 40%+ GCSEs at A/A*. I think maybe you live somewhere with much better schools than the county in which I live. Which doesn't surprise me. My old school - a comp - gets amazing results. Sadly, it's about 180 miles away from where I live now so not much hope of my kids ever going there (plus, one of my kids is a DS and it's a girls' school )

seeker I wasn't referring to As but A*s with maybe some As, those sorts of results.

And teacher I didn't say 'good results are unheard of' so that's you exaggerating what I said, rather than me exaggerating downwards the level of results. And ours is by no stretch an area with secondary moderns. There is a single, isolated grammar. The next nearest selective schools (all of which are independent, so inaccessible to the vast majority of parents) are 20 miles distant. Our comps are comps.

Of course some kids do well at my designated comp - they're bound to, especially since it's a decent comp. I'm merely making the point that knowing my DC as I do and where they were in the global pecking order aged 11 and how none was overtly boffiny with no particularly glaring talent and given how hands off I am by inclination with the detail of their education there is no chance whatever that they would have blossomed as they've done and turned out the results they did because it only happens in a blue moon at the comp and they aren't blue moon children.

seeker You keep talking aout top sets at 'the local comp' but you continue to view things through the prism of Kent, and that model just doesnt apply in other places. Dd1s, school, for example, serves a massive area. There are far more posh school places available than GS places, for the area served. The distribution of the kids at the GS is that for any given comp they wouldn't make one viable top set. Not even, I think, at the comp closest to the school. Because there are kids there from more than a 50 mile radius. In DD1s year, if the GS didn't exist, there would be four of Dd1s cohort at the comp DS attends. If none of them went private instead (and I think two of them might have done). How do I know this? Because the city operates a feeder school system. There are probably 4 or 5 other kids at the comp who would have done well at the grammar if they hadn't had on off day on the test day. That doesn't even add up to one full top set.

But that's actually not the main reason why I was very glad DD1 didn't end up going to a comp I'm more than happy for DS to attend - the sheer size of the place, and her SEN issues, would have made it a hell on earth for her even if she had been destined for mid table (which is where she is in most subjects at the grammar).

DD1 has had a very difficult year (involving serious (well, serious in the context of her life plan, and in the context of being about to do GCSEs, not serious in a life threatenening way) injury and also illness). She is not going to get results like Yellow's kids do. But that doesn't mean she isn't at the right school for her, and I have no doubt that her various SEN related challenges would have made it very difficult for her to access an appropriate te education at her brother's school even if it was there to be accessed (which is debatable in some but not all subjects).

Hmmm 2 at grammar and 1 at uni post grammar here.

All very academically able (not boasting, think it's fair comment if they are getting academic prizes in a superselective environment) .

Don't think any of my 3 suffer grammar pressure/stresses because they can cope with it fine. DD2 stresses herself, that's different LOL.

IMHO the comps round here are very different than comps in non selective areas. The teaching is clearly (due to the removal of most of the academically able kids) skewed to BTEC etc. Even the girls that were at primary with DD1, went to comp then back to grammar with her for 6th form got 5A* at GCSE (and were applauded on school websites and the " success board" at the comp- I know because this was the year DD2 was applying).

Other areas with less/no grammars clearly have comps that can teach the whole ability range - in the local comps if you have 1 or 2 kids in a year that could get a full A* range you may not have the resources/time to teach them to that level?

As an all round school choice it seems to have been the right one for my kids, but it is child dependent. Ds is another slight "odd ball" who had a miserable time at primary as the boys weren't " like him" but the grammar was instant happiness. Sports/music/drama etc are also very well taught, supported etc. The kids all do lots of extracurricular stuff as well as the academic.

Ethnically the 2 schools are very mixed (

Both my dc are at a mixed grammar. IME, having come from a school where they were "clever" "geeks" etc etc, not a huge detail but made them feel different, they are now in an environment where there are a comfortable cohort of similar children. There are a few superduper bright, and some not-so, but they fit in and are very happy. The general ethos is that one works hard and behaves well and there are loads of extra curricular things too, and lots of art and music. They have a wide variety of friends, which they lacked before, as while bright kids may indeed do well anywhere, they may have a much smaller friendship pool.

That said, I would in an ideal world, have all schools the same, no private/grammar/academies/faith etc.

(Just checked our local comprehensive - one similar to Yellowtip's, in the sense that there are still superselective grammars locally so it is technically a secondary modern. Nearly 40% of all GCSE results were As or A*s. It would seem to suggest that 'good results being unheard of' is perhaps an exaggeration)

Similar to the school I referred to, seeker - small percentage of high achievers, well over 50% 'disadvantaged', but 88% of high achievers got 5 A-C including English and Maths, 3 with 10 A / As.

Two children got all A*s at my ds's secondary modern with only 8% high achievers.....

One of the well known tricks to raise grade averages is simply not to enter students who are at risk of failing into the exams at all. It's not something done in comprehensives but I've encountered (in my career as a FE Lecturer) many a student from grammar or fee paying schools who suddenly found themselves in need of a place that will let them sit exams.

Yellowtip, are you sure that nobody got all As / A*s?

I was looking at information from a comprehensive in a very challenging comprehensive recently. only goes up to 16, in and out of special measures, historically the worst school in the county in terms of results. Still below the government floor target (mostly because of the very low entry levels in Year 7 - the progress figures are extremely good). However, there were still 3 children last year who got 10 As / A*s in GCSEs. And that isn't a 'normal' comprehensive, but one that is in speciafically challenging circumstances, so I would expect that most 'normal' comprehsives would have a group of children - however small - who achieved that type of results.

So are you saying that nobody at the comprehensive gets all As?

I don't believe in sacrificing anyone's potential, either. But if there is a choice to be made.............

Yellowtip - you commented that on a micro level your DC did better at their Gramamr than they would at the local comp. I responded by saying that on a micro level my DSs have done as well at the comp as they would have done at a grammar school - quoting 2 sets of cousins (with some shared DNA!) to qualify why I think that.

If I took the raw stats for (say) KE and compared them to the raw statas for comp then obv KE would be higher - as you wuld expect. BUT not all DC get get all A* at GCSE, even less at A level, mine didnt.
But neither did either set of cousins.

The elder ones (all now at Uni) are on comparable science courses at comparable unis with A*AA standard entries.

It would be nice if one could be similarly simplistic on the UCAS form seeker:)

There is no other selective state school in our area and it's not a huge school and of course some parents won't want to send their kids there anyhow, however clever they are. So I'm not convinced that there are only a few high achievers at the local comp: plenty of bright local kids who apply don't get a place at the grammar, precisely by virtue of it being a superselective.

I don't agree with sacrificing any child's potential tbh.