Worst forms of selection in schools: Views of M'snetters

My father, who has spent his entire teaching career in academically selective independent schools, went to visit a school on Monday - inner city, non selective comp. He went as he is helping them set up a classics department.

He was so impressed after observing the Latin lesson, being shown round the school, and being invited to observe other lessons that he emailed the head teacher to say how amazingly the school was doing.

Sod it, since it's a favourable report, I'll state the school's name: Sidney Stringer in Coventry.

He did not say "for a comp" in his praise or " for an inner city school" - just that it was fantastic by any standard.

thankgodimretired A tiny number of these selective schools were in all but name Public schools operating their own entrance systems without the fees! Giving a kid from a rough side of town a chance in life. With regard to the "Giving a kid from a rough side of town a chance in life", which selective schools are you referring to?

Nah, there are loads of pro state selection folk in the state sector.

MN is rammed with threads about how to prep for them and where to move to in order to get in them.

And in RL, they're massively oversubscribed.

You know, talkin, I never thought of that before but I wonder if you are right that a lot of pro-selection arguments come from users of private education not of state grammars?

Talkin. Well do I count as an "Ordinary Grammar school person"

Educated In a Kent Modern School (though was accepted at Benenden at 14 dad refused to pay) so back I went 321 Could have won the "Car but won "Dusty Bin" instead. DD1 Educated Ken,t High School in North East Kent though ABB is pretty good for there.
DD2, DS currently yr11, Yr9 in below average grammar schools on the "costa del Kent". That's what they call it in Calais I believe.

Smoke your right he would have got the same results at the grammar school but not the same extra curricular/cultural/intellectual opportunities. That's what I'm buying into. I've said this repeatedly and I will say it again I don't give a fuck about any "franchise"/contacts/old school tie/old boys network and frankly I haven't got the faintest idea what "franchise" you think my money has bought. I suspect neither has my DS. My DH went to top public school he also has achieved what he has without any franchise/contacts etc. Frankly after a few years of leaving school no one cares what school you went too.
We believe it's not who you know but what you know and what sort of person you as an individual are that counts in life. We're also by the way not hoping he'll pursue a career in law, the city, and most importantly and God forbid politics.

OP was discussing the vast majority of State selective schools which are by god or gonads, not by exams

and it is amusing that yet again the staunchest defenders of state selective schools are people who choose not to use the main state system.

Its interesting that there are not loads of posters from "ordinary" grammar schools saying how wonderful selection is.

The fact DCs comp comes up short against Westminster and Winchester just shows that you have not utterly wasted the £1/4 m that it costs to send an "on the curve" child to those schools .

I'm still glad that the OP has either retired or was just a wind up merchant.

And I'll go back to the real world of getting on with CT calcs now.

Happy. You have bought your son a £300k "franchise" and as long as he does not go against "franchise" rules he will be "Fine" all his life. He would have course got the same academic results at the grammar school, but he would not have had the chance of the franchise would he.

The "Franchise" is the very reason (though not quite the same with girls schools) that my brother sends his DD to Kate's old school in Berkshire (the Bullying one) . Maybe I would have bought in to it myself, if I had transferred
to Benenden at 14 but since I stayed at the "Modern" I am able to see what a privileged "entitled "bunch, public school kids are ( Niece excepted of course because she is my family).

81% As at DD's school. Top 40 (actually top 56) got at least 10 As. Vast majority do either 10 or 11 GCSEs.

Bit of a silly challenge Talkin

Indeed happy.

Sometimes talkin says the schools are rubbish, that it's the selection process that provides the good grades. Other times she says the selection isn't strict...

Then again I'm certain she said that no pupils at her school got all A*s and that such results were as rare as hens teeth. Now its The Best School In The World with veritable wunderkind ...

I went to public school.
Does that mean I have dominion?

"People sending their children to the public school system do it for the reason to make contacts and share in the "old school tie network" and proceed in to the City, Politics, Law E.T.C ."
(yawn) not thus old out of date piffle again.
We really only know friends with Dc's at public schools not one claims to do it for contacts (they already have those is multiples), or "the old school tie network" as I've already said they already have contacts in all the right places.
I'm sure many are destined for a career in the city and law but that again goes with the territory. With regard to politicians I can only speak for my DS's school. Thankfully there have been very few Wykehamist politicians the head believes it's because Wykhemist are taught that they should always tell the truth! There have of course historically been many Wykehamist senior civil servants, to quote my neighbour, "the real power behind the thrown".

We know lots of children at Public schools I suspect only one is currently looking like a future politician even PM but he's spent his life mixing with politicians.
Word if talkin is right and money is the main entry requirement for Win Coll rather academic selection then it's IGCSE/Pre U results are truly remarkable!

tally he's at Westminster.

To be honest it's absurdly selective. The results are always daft.

molio there are about 120 usually.

I don't know the number of GCSEs. DS will do 11 but I don't think there's a standard number to be honest.

But you're right it is to be expected. Though talkin did tell me recently that the school isn't that selective. We parents are just led to believe that... By who she didn't say! If she's right, the teaching must be the best I'm the world!!

She also said Win Col wasn't very selective either and being rich was the main entry requirement.

Which School is/was your DS at TheWord? sorry if you've already posted this haven't looked at whole thread.

Happy.I was not talking about the "Public School" system nor its parents, who have bought in to the "Born to Rule" edict . I was talking about your local private school that developed or grew because of a lack of selective or appropriate schooling available.

People sending their children to the public school system do it for the reason to make contacts and share in the "old school tie network" and proceed in to the City, Politics, Law E.T.C . People who do without cars, holidays, eating out, spending up to 50% of their families take home pay do it because of a lack of appropriate state options.

Those results are as I'd expect happy and Word. But fantastic too, of course, especially in another odd year for marking. I hope Talkin will return and give a similar de-brief.

How many GCSEs do they take at your DS's school Word and how many students in the cohort?

Clearly there's merit in keeping the number of GCSEs small happy, but how many options do they have - surely almost none? What do they insist on as core?

"Make public schools the choice of foreigners"
Smoke I could have sent my DS to a fantastic school but still I choose to pay. You are deluding yourself if you think all UK very wealthy families will choose to send their DC's to state schools if they were all excellent. Sending your DC to a big name school goes with the territory of being wealthy just like having a yacht, 3-4 other homes, and driving an expensive car. The sort of "toffs" and politicians you talk about don't send their DC's to schools that "developed mainly because a lack of selective or suitable options for parents." Few if any parents are deciding between a place at Eton and their local excellent grammar school.

Mollio there were 125 in yr 11 those with the top fifty IGCSE results made it onto the A list (first draught) no one with less than 8A's s is on it. My DS doesn't know a single boy who got less than 6A's nor does he know anyone that got any B's. But then this is only to be expected. I only responded to talkin's challenge.

Ooh I will take up the challenge talkin

DS school got, from memory, 88% As this year. Not A/A conflated (I've noticed you do that, as if they were one and the same result).

The top 40 boys got all A*s. In fact more than the top forty did. ...

Talkin it was a perfectly easy question to answer. You can't reasonably throw out a challenge to those of us in selective schools and then go all coy. You blitz these threads with so many posts how could I possibly find the answer in your previous posts without an advanced search taking hours and hours? Your response is either churlish or defensive, not sure which.

So again, but more concisely, please could you tell me:
a) how many children in the entire Y11 cohort at your DD's school in the academic year 2013/14?
b) are all 13 GCSEs full GCSEs/ IGCSEs?

That's no more than three numerals plus one word. You CanBA to issue a direct challenge, so hopefully you CanAlsoBA to take literally two seconds to reply. It's impossible for anyone to reply to you about their own school without knowing those facts.

happygardening how many students are there in your DS2's school's Y11, out of interest?

Owl, You must be reading a different thread .

OP is conspicuous in her absence and selective in replies. I find thank gods comments bizarre

I am not for abolishing Public schools, I just want the best state schools to be as good if not better and make public schools the choice just for foreigners. (maybe I would have been pro public school if my mum had paid that cheque ?).

Private schools are mostly different, because they have developed mainly because of a lack of selective or suitable options for parents. The public school system was set up to "rule" the country and keep everybody else subjugated by it. The comprehensive school system must have been a dream come true for the elite, not only did it control the proletariat , but it also got many buying in to that system. The majority of families bought/buy in to the comprehensive system mainly out of fear of a alternative system. This is the fault of Government policy and insufficient funding in different or specialist areas of education across the last 40-50 years.

agree utterly with Happy
the snobby boarding schools are a nice little earner for the UK as rich bods from all over the communist world send their kids here to get a good capitalist education.
No country has abolished private education : it just moves abroad and then comes back to govern

In fact the OP's prejudice about decent religious schools has rather more to do with the Home Secretary wanting to clamp down on inward looking and radicalising religious groups taking over schools than it does about the super rich.

"the wealthy will "home educate" using private tutors"
Of course they won't they will educate their DC's abroad we live in a globalised world if the wealthy can't get what they want in the UK they'll find it somewhere else.