New analysis - Grammar schools in England

So you have no idea what it’s like in a high performing comp, iceweasel, you’re just assuming that your DS wouldn’t be challenged or happy there.

I'm sure there are children in the top set of comprehensives that will get the top GCSE grades. I'm sure my DS would get similar GCSE grades at a comprehensive as a grammar.

I'm not thinking about that yet though, my DS is in year 7! I just want him to be happy and challenged after a difficult time at primary. The top set in maths at grammar is just about challenging enough so that he is happy. He is still in the top few in the class, but doesn't stand out at last.

iceweasel
what you said was
the top set of a high performing comprehensive would be too easy for my DS in maths and science.
and I wondered what gave you the impression that your son is so much brighter than kids in Comp counties ?

I didn't say that the grammar contained exclusively the top 5%, I think the grammars in my county take about 15% of students, which I understand is not exclusively the top 15%. I said the top set at the grammar might contain the top 5% of students, which was only a rough estimate.

There is also the point that the 11+ is a very dodgy measure of actual ability, so the grammar probably does contain MOSTLY children who do fit into the top 20%, with a few accidental outliers, but definitely NOT exclusively the top 5% (unless it is actually aiming for the top 0.5%, in which case 'probably top 5%ish' is not a bad estimate)

iceweasel
The children who go to the grammar would not all attend the same comprehensive. So the top set at a comp may have students in the top 20% of ability, the top set of a grammar may have students in the top 5% of ability
There are less than 20 superselective grammars in the country

Are you seriously saying that all of the children who do not live in superselective areas could not give your son a run for his money in most subjects
really ?

Indeed, the top sets at our competition and the 2 neighbouring ones were getting 9s 8s, A*, As in Further Maths (highest mark), 12 or 13 GCSEs... nearly all of them, not a rarified fee.

No selectives nearby to top slice.

A boy at DS2's comp remembered Pi to 143 digits in a challenge last week. He is not bullied. He is, as you would imagine, a little different but eh is loved, admired and lauded and given many opportunities. I actually suspect he might not be so cherished in a grammar : btut hat would eb supposition, so I shall not do that.

A boy at my school can do a Rubik's cube blindfolded and had grade 8 trumpet at age 9. he is taught up a year and thrives.

IceWeasel, I bet my comp-attending DS and his friends would not find it hard to keep up with your DS. They include 3 who just won a national STEM competition run by a Royal Society, several of them swanned straight into the Kings Maths School, they do loads of extra curricular extension work. Normal S London comp.

DD goes to mixed 6th form at a boys grammar school - it was a purely personal choice - she needs to be pushed to succeed. At her current school she is being pushed to achieve 8/9, at her former school they are pushed to achieve a pass.

Would be great if that were different, but it's not.

We are in Gloucestershire, so she meets a much wider ethnic mix at grammar than she ever did at her secondary - because people are bused in from non-grammar areas not just local.

Iceweasel,

So you think that my information is wrong, that top sets of comprehensives don't get 8s and 9s?

Or that children who WOULD get 8s and 9s don't exist in top sets of comprehensive schools?

Or that if your child was in the top 5% - and therefore able to get an 8 or 9 - they WOULDN'T get that grade in the top set of a comprehensive? Why not?

Part of the difficulty, of course, is that what YOU mean by comprehensive is, because of where you live, ['the other school in a grammar area' - ie a secondary modern.

Yes, children of very high ability are rarer in secondary moderns. That doesn't mean that in a proper comprehensive system, they aren't catered for very well indeed - secondary moderns aren't comprehensive, any more than a grammar school is.

Why, iceweasel do you think the top set of a high performing comp would be too easy, when those are the kids who go to a grammar?
The children who go to the grammar would not all attend the same comprehensive. So the top set at a comp may have students in the top 20% of ability, the top set of a grammar may have students in the top 5% of ability. His grammar takes kids from a miles away and brings them together.

Someone up thread said that grammars get the same funding as other schools. In our area the grammars get less per pupil than other schools as the local authority takes a bigger cut from the grammar schools than from the other schools.

This is not based on the pupil premium, it's a historical anomaly that the grammars have been fighting a long time.

DS is at grammar, it's far more culturally diverse than our local comp. it's one of the reasons I chose it- until DS went there he'd never met anyone his own age of a different religion.
(And before anyone jumps on me about that, we live rurally & it is very non-diverse area)

Rather over half the top set of a local comp got 9s in the new Maths GCSEs last year. The rest (and about half of set 2) got 8s.#

Would life in that top set (which also contained a decent number progressing to the higher levels of the Maths challenges / Kangaroo etc each year) really be 'too easy' for a child who passed for a grammar?

Why, iceweasel do you think the top set of a high performing comp would be too easy, when those are the kids who go to a grammar?

Iceweasel
the top set of a high performing comprehensive would be too easy for my DS in maths and science.
Do, please explain how you come to such a conclusion?
Are all of the kids in comp counties dumber than your child?

IntheMotherhood, the top set of a high performing comprehensive would be too easy for my DS in maths and science.

He would, however, be unlikely to be able to access a scholarship and bursary to attend a super selective independent school. He is not advanced in all academic areas and would struggle with a scholarship interview.

That I knew he would be happier there is exactly the reason why I sent him to grammar.

I hope you enjoy it : it's really an interesting read for the most part. Finland especially, I felt.

....and meanwhile, in Canada , they don't 'stream' anyone. Go figure.

fraggle
What you suggest already happens in comps up and down the country

but MN pretends they do not exist

There's no need for the complex system. If comps had proper funding with smaller classes of course they could stretch the most able and deal with behaviour etc. But they have been stripped to the bone and instead of fighting for fair funding and a fair system that accommodates all children parents end up shunting their kids into Grammars to try and give them a better education. I can't say I blame them.

But there is no good reason you can't stream kids within the same building and allow for late bloomers to move up when their ready or for those who need a bit more support to move down. The current system benefits no one really.

There aren't many things the US gets right but I'd take their secondary education system any day. I went to secondary with kids who did vocational courses, whose families had very little money and lived in rented apartments alongside those who had beachfront villas. Those that struggled were in small classes and weren't in the top streams. We all mixed for things like PE/Cooking etc.

But isn't part of the point that there really isn't a (much) wider grammar school system? The filter of MN could make one believe they are everywhere and they really aren't . If it ahs been shown to be such an abject failure for so many children in Kent, why on earth have they been allowed to persist. Lots of evidence points to the three tier system affecting results in my county, despite parents liking it, and it is disappearing.

Off the top of my head, grammars exist outside of London and Kent in pockets in the fringes of London, in parts of Buckinghamshire, tiny bits of Yorkshire and some parts of Manchester? There may be a few more pockets . (I am aware of NI but that's a very different kettle of fish)

Minifingerz- yes exactly. The private system undermines education for all. But, I'm not convinced getting rid of selection or specification schools in the state sector where say a school specialises in music or languages or art or sport will improve things, because the inherent private system already undermines the whole thing. And that will never change in the UK.