New analysis - Grammar schools in England

I agree, Noble The ones I know of are '1 in a career' type, so the 1 in 10,000 or less.

I would also say that there may only need to be 'high ability special schools' for a limited range of subjects.

You seldom hear someone say 'my child is of such high ability in English / History / Geography that they cannot be sensibly educated in a mainstream comprehensive'

Maths, some Sciences, Computing [to be fair, those 3 probably involve the same children to a greater extent than the others] Art, Music, specific aspects of PE, maybe Languages? Would a series of units attached to comprehensives, so 1 for highly able Maths / Science / ICT; 1 for Languages; existing provision for Music and PE; maybe 1 for Art per county?

those of whom there are a single example per large school

I don’t think I’ve taught anyone in over a decade in a large school who needed university level maths aged 11.

To clairify the point "However, the cut-off for the 'high' end is extremely high, and may not be the same across all subjects", what I mean is that even those children who are at the 1 in 10,000 ability in Maths may well be within the normal range of ability in History, Geography, English, Art - so a Special School catering to their high ability in Maths could be co-located with a comprehensive school at which they attended most of their other subjects (Computing, Physics etc might also be taught to that child in the Special School, because they are also likely to be areas of strength)

IntotheMotherhood,

I know that your question was not intended for me, but it is something that I have wobndered about for some time.

I think there is a place for 'Special Schools for those of such extreme ability / disability that their needs cannot efficiently or appropriately be educated in mainstream schools' at BOTH ends of the spectrum of need.

However, the cut-off for the 'high' end is extremely high, and may not be the same across all subjects, so such Special Schools (of which there would be very, very few, probably 1 per county) could sensibly be co-located with a comprehensive, which most pupils would attend most of the time.

However, provision for those needing university-level Maths at 11, for example, could then be provided for children who were identified by an Ed Psych assessment as 'not efficiently educated in mainstream'. We are talking those who are in the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 - those of whom there are a single example per large school, or 1 in 10 years per large school - level, not 5 in 100 or 25 in 100.

I am thinking of the Royal Ballet School / Yehudi Menuhin school type model - the vast majority of able young dancers and musicians are well catered for by local dance schools / music teachers, complemented by associate-type outreach schemes / junior conservatoires / holiday courses. A few are so able that educating them through that type of provision is not appropriate or efficient, and so they are brought together into a very small number of expert centres, combined with a 'normal' comprehensive education across the remainder of the curriculum.

DO NOT believe most of what you read on MN about how hard good schools are to get into That's simply not true in London though unless one has been very strategic about where one has bought a home. Our closest school by some way is one of the most leafy and best performing comps in London. We are out of catchment, partly because the school operates a sibling policy (in my view totally unnecessary in London)...

DO NOT believe most of what you read on MN about how hard good schools are to get into
We arrived in the UK a year ago, I've learnt everything from MN
.

iceweasel
I live four miles from the comp my kids went to and well outside the catchment boundary
but they (and dozens of their friends from round here) got in

yes, houses in the catchment of top comps cost more
but not everybody owns their house or lives in catchment

DO NOT believe most of what you read on MN about how hard good schools are to get into

but you do not know all of the other children and where he truly sits in the scheme of things
No, I don't know the other children, I said I only know my child. He did well in year 7 CATS and got into grammar without tutoring though.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe in a 'leafy comp' the top set would be at the same or higher level as at the grammar. If that was the case then DS would be fine. I don't think that would be the case even if we had 'proper' comps in Gloucestershire though. Don't schools like that select by postcode as a proxy for income, so my child wouldn't have a chance anyway?

I'm certainly not afraid of him 'roughing it', he is a kid from a single parent, low income household.

As a parent with a child who will have to attend a special school, I really disagree with the suggestion that transport should be funded to 'super selectives'. Ultimately it is a child/parents' choice to attend these schools - they would still be accepted in their local school and catered for (although possibly not as well). This is not an option for many children with severe special needs who are simply not welcome in mainstream schools.

I am also a teacher at an inner city comp with 1/3 of our children receiving pp funding (roughly national average and certainly not a leafy comp).our whole top set got grade 8/9 in maths GCSE, children to Oxbridge every year etc.

If Gloucestershire did not have Grammars it would have proper comps
so you'd either be paying fees
or roughing it wit the rest of us

I am not in London, not middle class, and if the seven grammars in my county were not here my child would not be at a 'leafy comp'!

DS and DD attend a high performing comp.

There were too many children (c. 200 intake) with the old L6 for them all to be in the top set in Y7. And, as I say, more than the whole of the top set got 8s and 9s in last year's GCSEs.

Skewed intake, I agree - leafy, unchallenging intake - but comprehensive.

There are some very clever kids in the top sets of comps, particularly in London where there are either no local grammar schools or they are too far to commute for most people. Indeed there are several kids at our local comp who got into some of London's most selective private schools but chose not to go (or in the end their parents couldn't afford it). In fact there was research done years ago about middle class kids who attended rough inner city comps which found their academic performance exactly the same as those who attended private schools.And re maths and science easily the brightest kid I have ever known was a cousin who was borderline genius but attended a very rough state school with knife muggings etc. Needless to say he need up at the worlds leading uni for maths.

but you do not know all of the other children and where he truly sits in the scheme of things

No, I am not suggesting that the top few in the top set at a comprehensive would be less happy than my DS, I only know my own child.

jellybean
Comparing schools 20 years ago with now is not valid

when I was a kid, state schools did not produce anywhere near as good as private

• with the caveat that private schools hushed up their bad results left right and centre

before the modern obsession with tutoring, grammar schools may well have taken the brightest kids
now they take the best tutored / funded

league tables - for their sins - have changed schooling for ever
base your views on 2018 not last century

You said a high performing comp, iceweasel, those schools have more than their fair share of high ability students.

My school has ten sets for maths. I don’t think our top set is so full of duffers that iceweasel’s DS would be sad.

The kids in fully comprehensive counties are just as bright, not sure why you thought I thought otherwise. However, the top 5% would be less than 10 kids in a year (assuming a cohort of less than 200).

I have a mixed opinion on grammar schools and I went to one!
We lived on a very large, very rough and well known council estate. I had no idea we were poor til I went to grammar school! I definitely felt different to most of the others (except for one other girl in my class who also came from a council estate and we became firm friends!) Honestly, it made me a stronger person and bought out that will in me to show people that I deserved to be there too (that I hadn't had in me til then) and I was pushed, hard, to succeed. I don't believe I would have done so well in our local comp because I did need that push,- I would have happily spent my school days messing about and bunking off like my friends did that went to our local comp. I spent a lot of the time wishing I had gone there too as I felt I was missing out on all the fun. I look back now and am grateful I was pushed to do well, plus I met lifelong dear friends that I would never ever have crossed paths with.

However, our local comp was known to be shockingly bad and had a terrible reputation, so is in no way comparable as the schools are polar opposites. My dsis went to a different local comp and absolutely thrived there. She left with pretty much identical exam results to me and loved her time there.

I do not think grammar schools should be abolished completely, but I do feel as though some comps (especially those near grammars, in my experience) can just be left floundering because the emphasis is on getting your dc into the grammar to avoid the comp. More emphasis should be on taking the best bits of independents and grammars and inserting those into the comps to level the playing field. I do not believe your whole education should be based on how you perform on one day as an 11 year old child.

Iceweasel, are you genuinely suggesting that the top few in the top set of a high performing comp are going to be less happy than your DS, even though they are likely to be of almost exactly the same ability? Why?

HPFA,

Your point is absolutely accurate - the ability range in the top set of a grammar would be narrower.

Iceweasel's point - that the top set of a high performing comp would be too easy in Maths for her DS - is not accurate.

iceweasel
The comp that my kids attended is good but not in the top few in our county.
Each of my kids got a string of A and A* grades at GCSE
Neither of them were in the top quarter of the top set in their year groups

I think you rather over estimate how different grammar school kids are from those in non selective areas

But if a comprehensive has say, six sets for a Maths and a grammar has five wouldn't that mean that the top set at the grammar had a narrower ability range than the top set at the comp?

We can argue whether it's necessary for a top set to be so narrow in order to challenge the most able but that's a different issue isn't it?