Difference in grammar schools vs high schools

I agree that the figures are unclear, however the Pate's target from August 2017 to August 2018 appears to be 'only' £150,000.

Clavinova, sorry, maybe I misread or misinterpreted that? I had based it on actual monies raised rather than targets that could be aspirational or overly conservative - Balarras was £50,0000, Pates to end December 2016 was £200,000, both given on pages linked to before.

The Pates target of £150,000 was for the end of August, so I had assumed from January to August, as the £200,000 reported had been to end December?

The Pate's School fundraising target for the academic year 2017/18 is £150,000, for Balcarras it's £100,000. The gap is not as wide as you are suggesting.

Pate's does have a Foundation as well of course but that's because the school was founded in 1574. Interestingly, Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust attended Pate's Grammar School (his father was a Vietnamese émigré who attended night school to learn English and became an engineer).

The general impression I get from this thread is that grammar schools are for the monied elite. The moneyed elite send their dc to independent schools.

Oliversmum, I would query the 'monied elite'.

I would say that, in any area, they are for the 'RELATIVELY monied elite' - so those who are relatively wealthy in that local area. So a grammar in a generally poorer area WILL have more children from deprived backgrounds than a grammar in a wealthier area, but what they will both have in common is that their intake will be less deprived than average for that area.

It's a bit like private schools - not all parents are rich in 'absolute terms', but the average wealth of the parents in a private school will be higher than the average wealth of all families in the area it serves.

cantkeepawayforever Fri 21-Jul-17 09:21:01 Attracting a fair proportion of deprived children would in fact improve their funding very substantially,

As would filling existing empty places:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2017/03/grammars-oversubscribed-apparently-not-in-lincolnshire

The general impression I get from this thread is that grammar schools are for the monied elite. Those with parents who can afford trip to India and after school activities and money to prop up the school. For a solely academic career. There doesn't appear to be any choice.

A few years ago a friends son without any extra tuition managed to pass the 11+. He left after 2 1/2 years because his aspirations for his life didn't match what was being taught.
Friends son flourished in the local comp because he wanted to learn a trade. Something that the grammar school looked down their noses on. Friend was so angry after the meeting with the Head Master who was very dismissive of his life chances if he went down the trade route. He now has a huge business something that if he had stayed on in the grammar would have been denied.

Of course school alumni will tend to choose to contribute to their old school if it has given them a memorable experience that has led to their future success in life.

However, the economic ability of alumni to contribute is going to vary by school population - alumni who are successful lawyers, bankers, surgeons, top business people are likely to be able to contribute in more substantial amounts than alumni who are successful joiners, electricians, nurses, admin assistants.

So my understanding of school funding would suggest that, within any given local authority grammar schools will be less well funded than leafy comps with low %PP, who themselves will be less well funded than schools which take high proportions of children from deprived areas. It seems to me hard to argue that that is, a priori, unfair - though the huge variation between different local authorities seems to me to be unjustifiable.

However, the ability to raise additional funds from current parents and alumni is likely to be in reverse order - again in the same area, the grammar is likely to be able to raise more than the leafy comprehensive, which again is likely to be able to raise more than the school with high % of deprived children.

To what extent the funds from parents / alumni can compensate for lost revenue from central souces is unknown - schoolcuts suggests that Balcarras will lose £572,474, offset by c. £50,.000 per year, whereas Pates will lose £372,246, offset by c. £200,000 per year. That will change based on new government announcements, though, as Gloucestershire looks to be a significant net gainer from the announcement that the block grant will not be less than £4,800 in any area.

However, that said, grammars will tend to be able to raise more money from their more affluent and more engaged parent and alumni base (especially in opt-in counties, it is engaged parents who enter the 11+). It is the exception rather than the rule that comprehensives and secondary moderns will be able to draw on parents to the same extent.

Well if the schools offer something that is 'memorable' and worth preserving , i am sure Alumni and current parents will be more than happy to provide funding !

If a school is in affect just a 'traffic light' meaning a place children go to before the light goes green , it is hardly surprising the ex Alumni have no desire to put their hands in their pocket !

Schools need to be able to offer 'memorable' experiences during a pupil school career for those ex pupils. This is the reason why schools that offer this have ex pupils that are predisposed to helping out their old school whether financially or giving i.e speeches or advice to pupils !

From what I can see (I have used Gloucestershire as an example), what happens to the block grant is that minimum funding is set for primary, KS3 and KS4 (ranging in Gloucestershire's case from just under £3,000 for primary age pupils to about £4.500 for KS4).

There are then additional factors (deprivation, low prior attainment, EAL) that attract additional funding and then some more minor adjustments.

So grammars will 'miss out' relative to comprehensives and secondary moderns, simply because of the fact that their % of deprived pupils and children who start their secondary education from a very low base is lower. Attracting a fair proportion of deprived children would in fact improve their funding very substantially, as well as removing one of the most obvious examples of their unfairness - the fact that children from low income families have a significantly lower chance of attending them.

Apologies. I have misled you, and didn't mean to. This Parliamentary briefing:
heer is a useful summary, and I had not appreciated the role of the LA in setting the local allocation of the block funding.

It would be interesting to see how that works out in different areas.

However, that said, grammars will tend to be able to raise more money from their more affluent and more engaged parent and alumni base (especially in opt-in counties, it is engaged parents who enter the 11+). It is the exception rather than the rule that comprehensives and secondary moderns will be able to draw on parents to the same extent.

I found the Balcarras data by googling - however it may be that not all schools publish their data in the same way.

This document:

here gives the current block funding - ie the amount of money per student every single school in an area will get. Gloucestershire's is £4,357.45; Burnley in Lancashire's will be £4,481.89; Nottingham's is £5,329.23; Islington's is £6,220.88.

So a grammar school and a secondary modern and a comprehensive in that area will all get that block funding. What makes the difference in terms of funding will be things like pupil premium and SEN funding - comps and secondary moderns will tend to get more of this (even comparing Balcarras and Pates, Balcarras has 8% PP, Pates

dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/idmap.html
(third time lucky?)

Pates link

It's probably worth noting, in the interests of fairness, that Pates grammar appears to be raising c £200,000 per year from parents and alumni, plus being supported by a foundation. Balcarras, from the link provided, seem to raise about a quarter of that, up from £15,000 5 years ago.

dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/idmap.html

The poverty in Winchester, Hampshire....is not comparable in any way to Burnley Harpurey Hey or Moston in Manchester...

According to the ONS its directly comparable.
Look at the map for the Index of deprivation .....
dclgapps.communities.gov.uk/imd/idmap.html

Yes, but if you actually type in the location names in the top right of the Index map then Burnley etc. are indeed much more deprived than poorer areas in Winchester; Burnley is ranked 79 out of 32,844 LSOAs in England, where 1 is the most socially deprived LSOA in the country.

None of the 70 LSOAs in or around Winchester appear fall into the 10% or 20% most deprived categories;
www3.hants.gov.uk/factsandfigures/figures-economics/deprivation_indices.htm

Wow!!! That's incredible and nothing like the comps in my area. We chat move or access comps in a better area.

I suspect many comps in wealthy areas are similar.

The Balcarras School website is most helpful

www.balcarras.gloucs.sch.uk/page/?pid=24

•210 families give a monthly standing order to the school.
•PTFA events like this year’s ball which contributed a staggering £11 000 to Balcarras and our charity, LINC.

How do you find out how much schools have to spend per child? Can only see what they stand to lose on that site.

And surely comps with wealthy catchment areas,they should include average house price and the amount of kids paying for buses to get there too. Cheltenham has Pates grammar.The other Cheltenham comps are Good however it is still social selection if all the wealthier kids go to Balcarrass( and 8%fsm) but everybody else goes to the other lesser comps( good not outstanding)due to being unable to afford houses on that side of town. It seems no different or better than kids going to grammars.

Ironing,

The thing is, it's a bit like when people on here who live in wholly or partially selective areas and say 'the comps here are dire compared with the grammars', showing a fundamental disregard of what a comprehensive school is.

The problem with a dataset that is called 'comprehensive schools' but includes schools that do not have admissions criteria that are comprehensive is that it limits the conclusions that can reliably be drawn. The difficulty, of course, is that it does require more detailed knowledge that statisticians may have time to perform.

It would require them to know, for example, that even within a single county, the local concentration of grammar schools affects whether other schools are comprehensive in their intake or not - so that Balcarras, as cited above, despite the fact it is in the same town as a grammar school, is a comprehensive, whereas schools in Gloucester, with 4 grammars, are not.

It would also require them to know which schools are religious in name only, or even have religion as an oversubscription criterion which is barely used, and which are highly selective and only admit those who meet stringent religious criteria.

So I absolutely understand why the dataset is so imperfect. I think it could easily be improved, by dividing it into 'comprehensive from non-selective counties', 'other schools in selective or partially selective areas' and 'religious schools', because although there would be some schools somewhat misallocated, and there would be edge effects in counties neighbouring selective ones, it would allow better and more detailed analysis.

You've been through and know know all 500 and nearly all select in ways that differ to house price selection?

I thought Sutton were pretty reliable. Disregarding studies you don't like the results of does smack a bit of cherry picking.

ironing
But surely the top comps should reflect the amount of pp in their area too. That link says 95% of the top 500 don't.
Because most of the "comps" that the Sutton Trust quotes are not "comp".
A boy's Jewish school will not reflect its general area because it only admits from a miniscule subset of the population.

Look at the data.
It does not support the conclusions that the Sutton Trust have drawn.