Please can someone answer this simple question about state selective schools?

My impression is that the good with top 10% intake grammar schools have 50-60% A. Hopefully Talkin* can give us a rough idea if that it equivalent or more than her comprehensive's top 10% which is the impression I have formed from what she says.

I went onto the individual school websites for my local area - and the answers were pretty much as expected ...

our local super selective grammar school
GCSE A* results for 2013 =59% (D - the lowest anyone entered did =0.4%)

our local general grammar school
GCSE A* results for 2013= 32% (D - the lowest 0.7%)

our local "good" comp (where my kids go, and if they continue with current performance, are expected to get As)
GCSE A results for 2013 =3% (D - not the lowest = 19%)

Not sure what it tells you other than selection means higher average grades - which is the point of selection.

At the very good grammars at least half will on average achieve 5A*, as a rough guide.

There are all sorts of other variables which make comparison dull: some schools take far fewer GCSEs than others, with an eye on league tables and results rather than breadth. Some schools split exams over the two year period rather than taking them all in one go, again with an eye on league tables. Some schools offer 'softer' options, to suit their intake. So these numbers are all pretty crude.

At least one of the papers gives the results be grade rather than the A/A or A/B combination - but I can't remember which one (not the Graun though) - but that's before the appeals are through and the results are finalized. And even if you were trying to analyze the published info you'd need to know which schools were grammar (some grammars don't have grammar in the name, some schools with grammar in the name are private), and which were super selective. I really don't think you can make a comparison that would really stand up.

That's what I was asking earlier hak.

What is the percentage of A*s attained as an average at grammar school?

There must be actual figures you would think. And average AS scores. Places at selective universities etc

Blimey - there is some startling arrogance on display here! And not a small dollop of buffoonery.

talking assumes that her DD will be employing the thick kids in her school! And perhaps those children at the shithole comp (her words) that she drives past each morning.

Hakluyt my understanding is that is unlikely to happen in Hampshire and therefore it can be seen as a model for a truly comprehensive education and as Talkin as previously pointed out a model for what the best comprehensives can achieve. However despite all that there still seems to be a difference in As achieved (from what Talkin* says of her DD's cohort) for the top 10% ability range compared to top 10% in the excellent grammars.

It is true that the 'thick kids' will include some that will be starting up the companies that the more academic children will be seeking employment in when they leave university. There will be a fair few more who will have skills that outweigh academic ability in future life. So academic grades definitely are n't everything.

However that aside I am still curious why the top 10% in your excellent comprehensive Talkin (or from what you say others nearby) don't seem to have achieved the same proportion of A* GCSEs this year as equivalently bright children in the excellent grammar schools. Is it work ethic or a different type of teaching? It is an interesting question for those trying to differentiate ability from educational background in university admissions.

I might as well add that since I'm not sounding off about comps, it doesn't really matter that I have no direct experience of comps. I stick to what I know, and don't stray that far beyond.

What has school got to do with high music grades? Or serious sporting achievements?

Y7 DD's music and sporty stuff are hers. Not schools. Not ours.

Why do you need some form of spurious 'evidence' for something so obvious? As Rabbit says, if a kid gets 12A alongside several other kids in his year group who gets 12A, then he won't be that impressed by himself. Grammar schools are a good leveller for clever kids precisely because of that. Anyhow, I'd hazard a guess that very many clever kids are actually not super confident of their abilities, since they're clever enough to know that others are cleverer.

Oh, and my experience of comps is that I went to one and my DS is at one. Although not a high achieving affluent one in a rich county but a middling one in a poor one.

Our current politicians did not, in the main, go to grammar schools. They went to Eton, Westminster etc. Or, haverstock hill comp.

'Thick kids' isn't a very nice thing to say, really. And why assume they will be your DD's employees? Maybe they will be entrepreneurs and employ her. The music achievement isn't actually unusually good either, to be honest. The thing about grammar school kids is that with that level of achievement they definitely wouldn't be arrogant because they'd know people with 12 A*s and distinctions in grade 8 (at an earlier age). BUT that having said clearly your DD has achieved magnificently and I reckon any parent would be delighted with that level of achievement.

The thing about overseas trips is a complete red herring because only the people who can afford them go on them, whatever sort of school they are at (and. Luckily for me our GS doesn't offer huge numbers of those. It's hard enough saying no to the ones it does offer, I'm glad there aren't more to not go on).

what is your experience of comps then?

because actually NONE of us is then entitled to post as we only know how our kids did at the school they actually went to as they did not attend any other.

There's a very obvious argument that by segregating these kids and putting them amongst more or less academic equals, it knocks any arrogance out at an early stage, unlike being top dog in a comp

Please could you link to evidence that supports your not in the least bit obvious opinion?

TP that logic is ridiculous because inverted.

You don't visit these schools yourself; you have no direct experience since, on your own admission, you have no access to grammars.

It's ever so slightly weak to trot out what a husband thinks, with no direct experience, and express it as fact.

Molio
you reckon our current politicians are NOT "segregated, arrogant buffons" ?

and sorry but I just do not believe in segregation at all in state funded schools
DH goes to over 100 schools a year and he is also strongly of the opinion that mixed schools (even if the sets end up slightly socially segregated) are important to create the sort of rounded individuals so utterly lacking at the core of the establishment in England

Wow TP, that's bang out of order, stereotyping all students at the best grammars as 'segregated, arrogant buffoons'. It's woefully ignorant. Just because you chat to a husband who occasionally visits these schools can't possibly give you an insight. There's a very obvious argument that by segregating these kids and putting them amongst more or less academic equals, it knocks any arrogance out at an early stage, unlike being top dog in a comp. But of course so many clever kids aren't inherently arrogant anyhow, it's just a ludicrous thing to allege.

Forgetting the London ones but a few (with a Southern bias) are the ones in Reading, Colchester, Colyton, Gloucestershire, some of the Birmingham ones, Sutton.

I think able children frequently put pressure on themselves not just academically but in their other achievements. Schools often see it as their job to try to counteract it.

Cherwell's not really that leafy, you know. People talk about it as if it's somehow not somewhere that most comprehensives could hope to emulate. Yes it has a swathe of kids from academic families, but it's FSM numbers are only just below average.

seem not to have the experience of children coming from some of the really good grammar schools
Could you name your top 5 ?

Just that DH goes to schools all over the country, including several Grammar schools every year.
He has never commented on Grammar School kids being any different from non segregated kids other than the extreme pressure they are put under because they can be shoved out at any time to the "less desirable" schools.

Thanks but no thanks.