May has got her Grammars.

Now it was a full comprehensive school. This is because it was located 15 miles in to a non selective area !.

I used to spend over 2 hours a day in the car travelling 40 miles a day for DS to attend that school.

The only problem with grammar schools is the current bum fight they entail regarding accessing them. This totally being down to the lack of availability of places.

A bad school doesn't suddenly become a good school because it is a comprehensive !
I think academic people on the political left believe comprehensive schooling is a testament of their own 'noblesse oblige ' to the masses !

I think the "obsession" with free school meals is that it is one objective measure. Would you like selection to be by whether you don't live in a council house, or speak with the right accent?

If you have one at grammar letstalk then was your comprehensive really such, or was it a glorified secondary modern?

So what’s your objection to grammars Peregrina?

My objection to grammars was that so many children were written off at the age of 10. You state "if the alternative is dire" - is that really acceptable for 75% of children? Nor was my own grammar all that good - good in parts was the best description, but it had a very good opinion of itself and some extremely silly rules. It's now considerably better as a good comprehensive, and that is the sort of standard that should be available for all children. It isn't in an especially wealthy area either.

A continual obsession on here about free school meals !

All free school meals tells us is a family don't have 1 parent or a combination of two parents working a total of 40 hours on minimum wage.

It is not definitive in deciding who is in poverty and who is not.

There are a number of reasons excluding the obvious ones as to why grammar schools have low FSM % which in reality tell us very little.

The obvious one being 'aspirational' people that are more positive or want improvement are likely to find work in whatever way that entails.
I know this view plays badly to a left of centre political demographic here.
In the majority of cases (disability, mental health serious illness E.T.C aside ) People can not find employment down to their inadequacies .

On a personal note the so called nirvana of comprehensive education left my son attaining/struggling @ around level 1 at Maths/English GCSE . This being a school rated as outstanding and particularly good with children with educational difficulties.

Therefore why is that the Independent school (though not selective) that operates in a similar way to my DDs grammar. This being in behavioural standards amount of homework required each night detentions etc.

The 'grammar' ethos school has got a child with a 'supposed' IQ of 72 up from level 1GCSE Maths/English to 4/5 in 18 months !

This policy of more cash for grammars only is a disgrace. All schools need adequate funding. Not extra, not above and beyond what they should get - but actual ADEQUATE funding. They've not had this for years now. Having been at the coal face, approaching state schools for GCSE options and year 12 admissions it is obvious that many schools are having multiple problems, from concentrating their smaller budgets on teaching rather than building maintenance, to reducing teaching staff because they simply can't afford to pay them, to cancelling subject courses they traditionally offered. There are less subject options at GCSE and less subject options at sixth form than five years ago.

So what happened to your DM's contemporaries Whisperquietly, who didn't pass the 11 +? I don't doubt that some made good, because the economy was expanding.

So what’s your objection to grammars Peregrina?

I don’t doubt you’re right in your assumption, but I thought the objection to grammar is that the alternative is so dire.

Testing on VR and NVR is not testing who is naturally bright, it is just testing who can afford tutors or can do DIY tutoring for things not taught in the curriculum.
Stopping the pretence that this tests some innate ability would help.
The number of man hours ten year olds must waste on improving their ability to do these useless, stupid puzzles would be better spent actually learning English or maths. Then at least those in lower income families would be assessed on something they are learning at school.

Primary schools are damned if they don’t and very damned if they do.

If primaries tutored, then well-off parents would take the free tutoring and still tutor on top. And imagine the fuss if the primary said their kid wasn’t good enough for the tutoring and the parents thought they were? If the primary tutored, they’d also get the blame for kids who didn’t get in.

And it takes time away from the actual job of teaching the kids. Primary teachers are not 11+ tutors.

Plus, there’s a myth that needs to be perpetuated that it’s ability not tutoring that gets kids into grammars.

I agree that in fully selective areas such as Kent and Bucks, the fact that state primary schools often pretends Grammars and the 11+ doesn't even exist disadvantages the less affluent. The middle classes might pay for a tutor or buy some resources and self-tutor, but if all schools had to provide some basic preparation/familiarisation, bright children from less affluent backgrounds would have a stronger chance of getting in. In these areas, we are not talking super-selective, but the top 30% ish, so bright children who have had some preparation (doesn't need to be loads, just familiarity with the question styles and papers)would push out some of the less bright, but tutored children.

And why don't primary schools provide advice about which schools might suit children at the next stage, when there are selective schools as a possibility? If Secondary schools provided zero info about uni applications or refused to write references for those application there would be an outcry, but somehow it is acceptable and encouraged that primary schools pretend Grammars don't exist and refuse to discuss if a child might have a chance of passing the exams or no hope.

Heard an excellent debate on radio five live yesterday between the chief exec of the academy trust in Walsall which has 2 comps, 2 grammars and a 14-19 college. He gave evidence that in this urban less affluent area, grammars did work in part, but that they are just as commited to their comps. Fair play. The unfairness was shown by the other contributor, the head of The Cotswold comp in Gloucestershire, a grammar school area , with super selective grammars too (Pates). He stated that out of all the kids going into year 7 grammar places in Gloucestershire (approx 850) this year only 34 qualify for free school meals. THIRTY FOUR!!!!!! Just over 1 class for the 5 grammar schools. How does that increase social mobility????

I’ll be interested to see whether the conditions attached to the £50million actually make a difference and whether any applications are rejected.

Peregrina this is very true. My dad was a working class boy who passed the 11 plus and did very well. My mum failed and always felt inadequate. I had a few friends whose dads failed but got on in life by going to night school.
I totally agree if the government really cared about social mobility, they'd be putting in place some formal system to admit pupils from underprivileged areas.

I’m very annoyed they didn’t even read the consultation responses and got a computer to do it for them instead. I spent bloody ages on mine and they couldn’t even be arsed to look at it.

As a life long Tory voter I am absolutely seething at this. May has been a rubbish leader as it is but this is the final straw and I will never EVER vote Tory again!!

to actually actively tutor for grammar.

You mean instead of teaching the actual curriculum? What would you like removed to make way for tutoring?

That poem is blinking brilliant!

My attention is caught by the faith schools aspect: just what we need when faith is in decline and the fastest growing ethnic group is ‘mixed’!

Of course she has not read the research and it would not sway her anyway. Pure ideology going on, pandering to idiocy and hatred of teachers at work. Hate the tories, so much.

Has Mrs May not read the research?

Do you need to ask? I am sure the answer is No. Grammar worked for her, and if she hadn't got in, there would have been money for a little private school. She was at such a school for her middle school years, so some believe she slid into grammar via a back door.

I am so very, very angry about this. As a school governor, I sit through lots of meetings where we talk about the desperately unsustainable financial position that our school is in, and how most local schools are in an even worse position than we are. Our existing schools are really, really struggling, but all the fucking Tories want to do is chuck more money at selective education and faith schools!

We don't need more of either, we need proper investment in all of our schools to ensure a better start in life for all children, not just the privileged few. Has Mrs May not read the research?

Just adding that Dennis Skinner did get to grammar school, from a working class background. He had two advantages:

• a mother who valued education and had been denied her own grammar place,
• the War was on, so the uniform requirements were relaxed to only requiring the House cap. Otherwise it would have required a uniform from an expensive Outfitters in Chesterfield, and the family wouldn't have been able to afford that.

JustRichmal - school tutoring didn't work back in the 50s and 60s as far as getting disadvantaged children in and there is little reason to suppose it would be different now. I like the idea of quotas, but even then it could be open to exploitation - one measure of deprivation is entitlement to Free School Meals. How many self-employed people will order their affairs for a year to make sure they have a low income in a qualifying year? But then back to normal when the Grammar School place has been obtained.

I agree it's not about social mobility, or at best that's a bit of window dressing, but it's to buy a few votes from middle class parents either avoiding cash strapped comps or priced out of independent education. I don't think it will work. Last year I went to a talk about education in the county. One spokesperson reckoned that about 50% of children would be classed as of grammar ability. No one is talking of creating sufficient grammar schools for that number of children, so there will be a lot of disappointed middle class parents - as there were back in the 1960s.

DIY tutoring is still tutoring. It does not count as a child having had no tutoring because it was the parents, not a paid for tutor, rather like a partner's chips not counting as calories.