Seriously though, why ARE some state secondary schools allowed to select a proportion of their intake? And I'm not talking about religion here.

Millymollymama They will do CATs or similar school based tests when they get into the grammar schools, MTHB.

I know nothing about CATs, do they identify which SATs level the DC is at?

dolcelatteLover millymolly actually there is statistically no diference in perormance between super-selectives and normal grammar schools.

Which statistics would these be?

They will do CATs or similar school based tests when they get into the grammar schools, MTHB. Kent must be in the same position. Indeed some of our secondary schools will not have children with Sats results either. The majority of preps here (but not all) are grammar school "crammers" and have very few, if any, children who leave at 13 +. It is the responsibility of the secondary/senior schools to categorise the children and they do get their 11 plus scores and the 11 plus is now curriculum based. The school assessment data is passed on to the next schools as well.

I have been concerned for many years that poorer children with less high achieving parents have no help to secure a grammar school place. Some primary schools hardly ever get a child into a grammar school but regularly get children with 3 x 5A s at SATs. They just don't get help with exam techniques or help with reading widely or doing extension work and level 6 maths because no-one can teach level 6 work in many primary schools. I do not think people realise that many primary school teachers are not able to teach at this level. It does not mean the children are not capable but they are badly let down. Mentoring would be very valuable if parents wanted it. Instead we have a large tutoring industry that takes money from less well off parents and tells them porky pies about their child's ability and likely test outcomes. It is scandalous!

Millymollymama is right about the SAT's level in Bucks Grammar schools.
Certainly with the new CEM test there are a lot more children how are working at the right levels for Grammar school in Y5/6 but were given extremely low scores in the CEM test so have to go to secondary school. Many of these children were level 5/6 in the Y6 SAT's.
Some local primary schools give extra lessons to those that passed the CEM test so that they achieve well in their SATs as some (of course not all) will have been tutored for the CEM test but then not had any outside school tutoring since the start of Y6.
I suppose from a head teachers point of view it's not going to look good if the number of students that pass the CEM test doesn't tally with their SATS levels.

btw speaking of Andrew Adonis, he sent his oldest to one of my local schools and then his next born to a v high-achieving, aptitude-selecting, faith girls school (the M one). So even the architect of the academy programme opted out, which really helped us to feel confident in it, not.

millymolly actually there is statistically no diference in perormance between super-selectives and normal grammar schools.

Millymollymama perhaps this supports the point you are making:

The 11 plus test content varies from area to area.
The cohort varies from area to area.
The number of a academic places allocated varies from area to area.
The size of catchment varies from area to area.
Where your DC needs to be academically in relation to the tested cohort varies from area to area (some schools you need to be in the top 5% of the tested cohort, other schools you need to be in the top 25% or so and then it is down to distance).

There are a number of Grammar schools who have very similar intakes to semi-selective schools and quite possibly to high performing comps. too.

My son has just started y7 at a private school, something I'm sad about, having had a great experience at a local (requires improvement) primary school.

The reason we did so is that our local comprehensives are in no way comprehensive. The faith schools cream off, there's a couple of girls in his class who went off to the v high achieving girls' school off the back of their musical older sisters, a couple went to super selective.

It's not so much the creaming off that deterred us, but the fact that there is a disproportionate number of very difficult to teach kids at all the non selective schools. I have no issue with him being at school with tricky kids, but I don't want three times as many as there should be under an equitable system. His primary school had this and I feel he's served his time with children (not recognised as SEN) who can't count to ten, are violent, never turn up on time etc etc.

These are the very children who need to go to the really good schools, but guess what, they don't, they get bundled into the places that don't have any hurdles.

We are now part of the problem, having not sent him locally. He's bright (not genius, but mostly levels 6s) and easily got into these supposedly v selective privates. I feel both guilty and angry about this, but being non-faith, non-musical, our weapon was the financial ability to pay. I would have no hesitation ssnding him to a comprehensive that had a fair share of all abilities. But they were well over half FSM and at least three quarters middle to low attainers.

Millymollymama Yes, MumTryingHerBest but realistically, in a grammar county the schools are not stuffed full of level 6 children!

I don't dispute the fact given that some of their intake will have come from preps. (in some cases quite a high number in fact). How do your local Grammar schools categorise children who have not done SATs?

There are grammar schools which are super selective and county wide grammar schools that are less selective. You cannot say all grammar schools are the same, nicole. You child may well have got a place at a Bucks grammar school where there is no Round One - just two selection tests which produce a single mark which is either above the pass mark or below. In an area with lots of grammar schools of course the selection mark is lower and therefore you would not expect to see Bucks grammar schools at the top of the super selective League tables. It would be impossible to achieve this. However, many would be closing if they just took level 6 children!

Yes, MumTryingHerBest but realistically, in a grammar county the schools are not stuffed full of level 6 children! Maths level 6 is achieved by some but level 6 English is more unusual. Plenty of state juniors have children going into the grammar schools who do not have level 6 SATs. It was only a few years ago that no-one in a primary school took level 6 anyway!!! The Bucks grammar schools still clearly have level 4 SATs children though.

I think in lots of areas plenty of parents do not get a choice - for all sorts of reasons. This is why all schools must be good. I totally agree schools screen children out in urban areas. Not much point for a school with a huge catchment in a rural area - where else could the child go? It is also interesting that many rural counties struggle to have good schools for all and Ofsted have commented on this. Parents in these areas have no choice.

In my LA the specialist schools did not select at all, and few parents seemed to choose because of the specialism. The popular schools remained popular and vice versa. What was confusing was that the specialist schools that did select the 10% were to select on aptitude not ability, hence many discussions about the definitions of the two words.

To add, the children in my dc's school who sat the 11+ were almost all achieving at level 6 in writing and maths. Several got academic scholarships to very good private schools. Only one got into the grammar.

My ds passed his level six SATS maths and got level 5's in his other SATS. He didn't even get past round one of the grammar tests.....

"Do you think grammar schools are full of only level 6 children, nicole?"

Almost every grammar school in Kent seems to have over 75% high achieving children. Most have 85% +

In my area the grammars are super selective. They have no low achieving pupils and about 3% average achievers.

"The whole lesson from this is that all schools should be good".

Yes!

taxguru Surely it's time to either accept/adopt selection across the board or scrap it completely.

I agree

Millymollymama High achieving is level 5 SATs not level 6 It is defined as those who are above level 4 on the DfE performance tables.

Surely it's time to either accept/adopt selection across the board or scrap it completely.

The comprehensive experiment was doomed to fail the moment they allowed church schools to continue to be selective whilst shutting most of the grammars. All that happened was that the "parents who care" suddenly found religion to get their kids into a decent church school rather than the "bog standard" comp, and so many comps never stood a chance and it was virtually inevitable they'd only ever attract the poorer performing kids.

Comps will only work if there is NO selection, i.e. a level playing field, so no grammars, no church schools, and a real geographical limit on your options. Utopia where you automatically go to the local "comp" within easy walking distance. No selection at all means a broader cross section of pupils so less chance of disruptive and poor performers ruined it for everyone.

In our town, there are two poor comps - even at a time of rising population, their rolls are falling! The bus stops all over town are full of kids waiting to be bussed to the nearby city for the church schools or across the county border to a good comp (at least 10 special school buses cross the county border!). What chance do the town's comps have when the only kids who go there are from families that don't value education! It's a downward spiral.

So, either ALL selection needs to be stopped, or we do need to go back to allowing selection, i.e. a choice of a grammar, a church school and a couple of "comps" for each town or for each district of a city.

It's crazy having to bus your kids to a different county, to pretend you're religious, or to have to have your kids tutored for years, to get a decent school. We either have to accept full selection or none at all - this middle ground and fudging the situation has been going on for decades and needs to be resolved.

tiggytape But now the birthrate is so much higher, more children from every local area fight for every local school and anything that takes places away from local people is much more contentious.

Add into the mix:

Parents who see "selective" or "X% A*" as "best"
League tables (top 10, top 100)
Immigration
Reduction in surplice school places
Failure to plan school provision in with housing developments

High achieving is level 5 SATs not level 6!!! So we have level 4 children in Bucks grammar schools. Do you think grammar schools are full of only level 6 children, nicole? You are not correct and it is not semantics.

The reason for the partial selection policy, I believe, was given as parental choice. Andrew Adonis was the architect of it and it was assumed that parents with children who wanted, for example, a technical education, would get to a school with a technical specialism. Likewise a language specialism, or a sport specialism etc. Frankly, it was a way for existing schools to get more money and they adjusted their curriculum to make sure the specialism could be delivered. It took money away from LAs and redirected the money to the schools directly from central government. This might work in an urban setting, but in the countryside you may only have one school so it was pretty useless for many parents. Plenty of children went to schools with specialisms they were not interested in by default.

The secondary school near me was a sports specialist school. Heavens knows how? They were never brimming over with successful teams or even outstanding facilities. Some schools chose to implement the 10% selection and others did not. For example the Bucks grammar schools continued to use the Bucks 11 plus but if you went to a grammar school with a language specialism, it was obligatory to take at least one language at GCSE out of a choice of 5 MFL. Also 2 languages were taught from year 8. Another grammar school was performing arts. However if you wanted the sports specialism you had to choose the secondary modern over the grammar school. Unsurprisingly, if you were selected for a grammar school, no-one chose the sports specialism secondary over the grammar school. Likewise for good comprehensives. No-one really cared what the specialism was at the poorer schools, they only wanted the good schools, whatever the specialism.

The whole lesson from this is that all schools should be good. If everyone was happy with their nearest school, then there would be little incentive to shop around. I can see why music might make you choose a certain school, but that is usually supported by a healthy parental income and, in my area, the time and money to take your child to the music centre for orchestras and ensembles. They are not full of children from the struggling secondary schools.

"I think the religious selection is actually the worst"

I agree.

Especially as it has absolutely bugger all to do with the child's spirituality, which is not in question.

It is all about the parents, and they're not attending the school!

"Actually the grammar schools in Bucks do not have 100% high achieving. They can have at least 10% who are not due to successful coaching either in private schools or at home."

Semantics.

If a child can be taught how to answer challenging maths questions or write well it really doesn't matter how they got there - whether by their own talents or by lots of support and tutoring. I believe in a growth mindset. I honestly think most children without learning difficulties would be able to achieve well at GCSE given the right support - although some might have to work very, very hard indeed.

The bottom line is that regardless how much tutoring a child has had, if they can complete a level 6 SATS paper and pass then they are by definition 'high achieving'. They may not be fantastically bright but they have achieved highly.