DD Year 8, struggling at grammar

But how much do grammars actually go to get unsupported DC in? I’ve not seen any evidence of it, I can’t say it doesn’t happen but how widespread is it? Certainly the number of places offered to PP here in Kent aren’t significant. As for the ‘moaning’, eh the system is significantly flawed and unfair, as someone up thread has said, why the hell are we supporting a system that gives a superior education to middle class children at the tax payers expense? All of us who feel some discomfort at this aren’t ‘moaning snowflakes’ but people who feel uncomfortable with what is completely unequal provision. And yes of course SEN provision and support should be improved in schools, hardly the same issue.

The onus seems to be on grammars to do out reach to primaries. Many have implemented varies strageties to get more unsupported dc in.

Sen dc are barley recognised in primary schools, many whose needs are are not severe enough, they fall by the way side. I'd stop all angst and energy Moaning Moaning about grammar and leave grammars to do what they do.

Instead focus should be on getting teaches trained in sen, support, different teaching stragety... And support in secondary school.

DD is in a grammar in a superselective area, in a borough (only one boys grammar amd one girls grammar) where most non-selective schools are also good or better. For us it has been great she has had the choice.

At primary it was cloying to have her pulled back so many times and told to slow down. She wanted to read more, she wanted to learn more. The problem we saw with a primary system was that it fitted the majority which was good in principle, or those who needed extra help to get on. However you were penalised as an outlier at the upper end. DD was told to re-read the same book despite getting top marks on comprehension as they wanted to move all at the same pace. We created a debt for a few years and went private.

It didn’t encourage you to stick with such a state system at secondary level if you had a bright child. I know many who felt the same. I was once accused of giving my child an unfair advantage in life having read to her every night I could be home from work in time in her first seven years of life. That wasn’t as often as I liked but it was often enough. So yes there are some of us in grammar areas who sought out establishments where education was valued by the majority. DD is also at a school that is far more diverse culturally and racially than the other secondary schools in our locale, with the common element being a love of education.

My father was put in for the 11+ during the war. The school picked out bright students and gave them tuition for the test. He passed but his parents could not afford the extra two years of education (let alone the blazer!) so he never went to grammar and left school at 14.

Why we can’t have support for tests in primary schools in grammar areas or neighbouring grammar areas for the test does seem odd to me, but I understand it as the government not ‘really’ supporting the concept of grammars so it is all rather silly and messed up.

Clymene "I think the system is mad though. How can it be that half the secondary schools in a county require passing a test which no primary schools are allowed to teach? Bonkers."

That is truly bonkers. I find it so odd too that most of the counties in the country have rejected and moved on from the 2 tier system decades ago, yet in isolated pockets it randomly still seems to be considered the best we can do for the local children.

I am so thankful we live in a good comp area. CATs seem to be a bit of a thing in assessing incoming baseline ability and I'm sure that is flawed too, but they have none of the pressure and much less of the consequences of 11+.

Overall I agree with you at @Mokusspokus & fair points but I do think that Secondary Moderns struggle to attract really experienced teachers and there is more usage of teachers in training.

• pointless as in, how does having 11+ ability cohort in a school actually help those in the sets below them.

How does someone in bottom math set benefit from the your dd being in totally different class away from her.
There are huge arguments about better teachers too and people seem think it's not necessarily down to better teaching, just less crowd control.

Grammar can't be blamed for poorly performing secondary moderns.
The whole thing needs over hauling.

@Mokusspokus - perhaps the average and struggling students would benefit? Children often work to the level of the ability around them. Also, the Secondary Moderns struggle to attract the same calibre of experienced teachers, change the system and that would change too. As for putting 11+ students into a Secondary Modern being pointless, DDs Secondary Modern school attracts students who could have gone to Grammars but sometimes choose her school instead because of the Creative, Music and Performing Arrs offerings being better. We didn’t go the 11+ route as DH is vehemently politically opposed to it but from her SATS scores & her teachers recommendations, she is grammar material. She’s in the top streams, appears to be challenged and engaged and we don’t consider it ‘pointless’.

Completely agree that it’s an unfair system but I’m sure many Middle Class parents (and certainly the ones I know) wouldn’t disagree with that for a second, including the OP. I don’t blame parents for coaching or tutoring in the least, we have to do the best in the existing circumstance for our DC - certainly I’m as guilty as gaming the system as anyone else as DD had years of private music tuition and got a music place. The question really is if we can all see it’s a completely sucky and unfair system why aren’t we all trying to do something about it?

Personally I think education needs to change massively.. Putting 11+ students into a secondary modern is pointless. They will do well and boost the schools grades
But what about those struggling or average students?

I don't think grammars should be blamed for secondary moderns not doing well.

Sj

I agree with you re putting grammar suitability back in the hands of schools. It's the only way many poor but bright pupils could get well educated at their ability level.
Parents could tutor on top but a bright child just needs exam technique, familiarity with nvr... A few other pointers and that's it.

The grammar system is just rubbish. Counties like Kent and Bucks which still have it end up with 25% of children going to grammar and the remaining 75% going to less well-regarded secondary schools. In my London borough, the vast majority of the secondary schools give a great education to the high-achieving children alongside the children who struggle more. Good schools can accommodate and celebrate all children's achievements. My DD got into Tiffin Girls but we chose our local comprehensive because we felt it would give her a better, more well-rounded (more focus on sports and drama) and co-ed education, and two years in we believe that to be the case. And I'm 100% confident she'll still go to Russell Group/Oxbridge if that's what she chooses.

The books are really expensive too - it's a crap system

We didn't do anything until year 5 and neither did anyone I know. Most kids went to one after school group lesson a week and did a bit of practice at home. I think the Kent test is probably pretty hard to pass if you've never seen those sorts of questions before.

I think the system is mad though. How can it be that half the secondary schools in a county require passing a test which no primary schools are allowed to teach? Bonkers.

I also don't know a single child who has ever passed the 11plus without about 2 years of tutoring AS WELL AS doing tons at home with parents. It is a shockingly middle class system and in my mind so much worse than the state / private issue as tax payers are paying for middle class children to have a better education than working class children who often don't stand a chance (but might well be brighter.)

‘Put into the Kent Test with no preparation’ that should have read.

@Baaaahhhhh, with respect you can’t disagree with my actual lived experience! I live in Kent and of the 23 kids I know currently in a Grammar, I know all had either professional tutoring or they were coached at home with purchased books by their graduate level parents - timeframes from everything from the start of Year 4 to a couple of months before. I accept all the children you know at grammars had no coaching (even if it really surprises me and most definitely isn’t the norm around here!). Of the kids I personally know (5) who were put into the Kent Test, none of them passed. That’s my direct experience.

The tutoring issue isn’t really relevant to the OP’s issue - but my children both passed without tutoring. Although we did 2 months prep at home with ds (practising papers).

No child I know (and I appreciate some may but I’d suggest they are a minority ) who was put in for the 11+ without tutoring has passed it.

Picked this up from first page. I completely disagree! In complete contrast, no child I know had any tutoring at all.

@crazycrofter, fair point if DC were only doing Geography but I suspect English at even Year 8 might be the beginning of a headache for a child with no natural bent for creative writing, reading or dissecting text to do more than achieve an average. I was quite taken aback by some of DDs English work during homeschooling which included the likes of finding 5 instances of the Sublime in a Shelley poem and then detailing what he was actually describing!

Oh yes, I know that waffle doesn’t get you far @SJaneS48, I’m a humanities graduate too. It’s just that in KS3, Maths and Science (languages too) can feel really hard if you’re not a natural - at that stage in education, I don’t think the humanities feel the same to those with a science-bent. By GCSE stage, they’re perhaps starting to find those subjects hard - but they may only be doing Geography (plus English) so it doesn’t impact them quite as much as finding Maths and Sciences hard does.

I think that there is a whole other method and any old waffle really doesn’t get you far in Humanities, even at GCSE level.I completely get what you are saying about method to an answer @crazycrofter in Science and Maths but as someone with a Humanities degree, certainly the further you progress it’s all about knowing about argument structure and realising there are many possible answers you can give, you just need to argue them well! I do remember at school various of my peer group who were stronger on the Science and Maths front really struggling with this and putting in a lot of work (and waffle) for mediocre results. There is a formula to it, much like in Science and Maths and once you grasp that formula, tackling questions is pretty easy. I’m sure by degree level many of us who have Humanities degrees will acknowledge that we more than once submitted essays with totally spurious arguments that we probably didn’t believe in ourselves but as they were well argued & backed up, we received good marks on them.

OP DD was in your DD’s situation around the same time. Breezed into grammar school with ease with familiarisation but not tutoring. It started getting harder in Y8 and she floundered. We got to the bottom of it that she just wasn’t used to trying and it was alien to her to have to try. She went from top maths to bottom and was convinced she was stupid compared to her peers. We worked with the school and we and they helped her realise how to learn not just absorb and regurgitate. This can happen to lots of bright children. DD is now doing so well she will be sitting Further Maths.

Guymere KCC publish a whole spreadsheet of how many children get every mark, which areas they live in, and whether they go to state or private schools. It makes interesting reading. Sorry, can't dig out a link as I'm at work, but if you look on the 11+ forum website it will be linked on there somewhere I'm sure.

@BaconAndAvocado it’s often the kids who are humanities-orientated who struggle more (or think they’re struggling) at selective schools. I think in subjects like Maths and Sciences it’s very obvious if others are picking up concepts before you and you’re struggling to get ‘the answer’. It can feel very stressful. Whereas those who are weaker at humanities don’t have the same experience- maybe their essays get lower marks, but they don’t have to sit struggling to find the answer, understand the method in the same way. Anyone can waffle! Also, some grammars are very focused on STEM so it can feel as if your ability in these subjects is what’s important.

My dd went to a very selective girls school and did suffer with lack of confidence. Things seemed to turn around in year 10 when she started to get very good marks in history,RS and geography and she realised she was able. I think by that stage they realise each subject is one GCSE so no more or less valuable. She also started working harder at the subjects she found difficult and made good progress. Ultimately I think it’s quite helpful that she knows she’s just ordinary, not some sort of genius as lots of people talk about having that realisation at uni and getting a shock!

:-) i think that might be a whole new debate @BaconAndAvocado!