Grammar vs Non-Grammar.

That’s a bit dramatic, I don’t think it’s writing children off. If you’re from a less well off family you can still work hard and give it a shot surely. It’s not all doom and gloom if you don’t get into a grammar.And if you don’t make it you have another go at your GSCEs.
There isn’t a perfect meritocratic system but Grammar schools are the closest that we have at the moment.
If you disagree don’t send your kid. Out of curiosity what is your opinion on inheritance? Are you planning on leaving an inheritance for your kids - surely not, as that wouldn’t be fair to lower income families? Everyone should surely be on an equal playing field right.
The only thing I agree with you on is that we have an education system that is badly underfunded.
Im tired of hypocrisy on this topic. Bet the ones tearing down grammar schools are pretty well heeled and have alternatives for their kids.
I don’t come from a well off background and am glad for grammar schools- gives families like mine a shot.

Theres nothing wrong with a system that celebrates the brightest and/or hardworking in our country.

@littlebitmermaid There is everything wrong with a system that writes children off at 11, that children from less well off families who can't afford a tutor aren't sitting the 11+ on a level playing field, that our education system is so badly underfunded that children aren't achieving their true potential.

I’m not sure why there’s always so much grammar-bashing. Frankly the 11+ isn’t very difficult compared to exams that kids in Asia take (Korea, HK, China etc).
Why not challenge kids in the UK. Quite sick of all this molly coddling. FFS, the UK is a developed country surely we can set expectations high.
And why penalize parents who work hard and hire a tutor for their kids? A bit naive to think that we live in a perfectly egalitarian world. If you’re from a poor family then you’ll have to work harder and find a decent different way to succeed - it’s really just the way the world works. Harsh but true. if you’re lucky you’re bright enough to take the 11+ without tutoring!
Theres nothing wrong with a system that celebrates the brightest and/or hardworking in our country.

I went to a grammar school and was very sure that it was not what I wanted for my children. We live in an area with a comprehensive system but two grammar schools in the neighbouring county that we could have applied to. DD2 would almost certainly have passed the 11+ but we did not enter her. I'm very happy with the large and very mixed comprehensive that she attends. The grammar system is hugely divisive and unfair.

They didn’t need a separate school that kept them physically away from students learning at a different pace or from which kids were excluded on the basis of one test at a immature age. Or that massively favoured the comfortably off.

Just as well, @HomeHomeInTheRange as I had one at grammar school and one at the local school – and my house isn't big enough to keep them physically separate for 7 years

Kids at grammar schools don't take GCSEs which are somehow only magically available to them! My DC at a not terribly good Secondary Modern did exactly the same set of GCSEs as the one at a very highly rated grammar school.

We live in a grammar school area- I didn’t want that for my DC. I think it makes for a bit of a toxic/competitive environment in Year 6 - lots of kids getting tutored within an inch of their lives at a cost of £30 a session. Kids in school talking about ‘who’s going to the grammar school’ The ones who don’t pass getting upset. My DD came home from school saying she wanted to go for the grammar because if she didn’t apply other kids would think she was stupid! She is very academic and able, and I had to try to explain to her why I don’t think grammars are fair and I wanted her to go to the local school.

My step son is at the grammar and in the beginning made some quite harsh comments about kids at the comprehensive that he had clearly heard from other kids (possibly teachers!) We obviously shot him down and he wouldn’t dream of saying that now! But I do think it makes for quite an elitist environment and attitude. When we talk about the work he is doing it is no different to work my DCs have from the comp, and no different to to work I am setting for my classes at another local comp!

I think it’s not so much that the most able kids are ‘creamed off’ but the ones whose parents who have the time, money and education themselves to be invested in their child’s education are creamed off. Imagine how much better all the local comps would be if every child had to go there.

Both comprehensives I have had kids at had top sets of extremely able kids, and they did indeed learn fast and do lots of enrichment.

No shortage of clubs and no peer pressure about joining or not joining. Certainly no stigma about being bright and doing well. Things seem very different in schools today from a generation ago. Honestly not one of my friends have kids who have been bullied for being clever, across about 8 schools that I know of, and Dc say the same of friends experience.

I am not saying it never happens, but there is so much prejudice, fear and suspicion that bright kids will get ‘eaten alive’ in comprehensives.

Mine came out not even slightly nibbled, and are heading for very good degrees at top Unis.

They didn’t need a separate school that kept them physically away from students learning at a different pace or from which kids were excluded on the basis of one test at a immature age. Or that massively favoured the comfortably off.

Parental support does of course have an impact but I don't think you can underestimate the impact of peer group for young people. For many kids at a comprehensive school they simply could not be seen to join an after school chess or science club. The narrow curriculum is also an issue but at grammar schools because the children are all able they can race through much of this and then have time to explore topics in more depth.

Sunshine How much of the extra wider education and knowledge might have come from parents in private and grammar school family?

I have had experience of 2 S London comps (in non leafy areas) and have been impressed with the setting and streaming, and also the extra curricular offer.

My main issue compared with my own private education a million years ago is the rigidity of the National Curriculum, and the fact that the GCSE curriculum is expected to academically stretch and educationally equip such a huge range of ability, interest and aspiration, unlike the old O level and CSE system.

Oh for sure, yes, I agree with you @HerdingBats. If they can tap into higher levels of parental funding, good luck to them. I was merely addressing OP's comment that grammars are poorly funded and non-grammars get all the funding – that's much too simplistic a reading of the situation as @HomeHomeInTheRange has explained.

I went to a very average large comprehensive school, achieved excellent grades and went to a top university DESPITE my school. There is a trend of posters saying things like "my DS is at Cambridge from a standard comp and it didn't do him any harm so it must be fine." No, a very focused and able DC with supportive parents will find a way through but that's not the point. I agree with what @sunshine7891 said, although getting better grades and probably having more potential than a number of my expensively educated peers at University , I felt at a disadvantage in terms of breadth and depth of learning from my school. I would be considered one of my school's classic success stories but I still feel that they failed me. And this is not about any chips on shoulders as in my career I have probably out-performed most of them.

@thing47 but those contributions from parents to prop up the low government funding doesn't have a negative impact on other state schools. The distinction is important as one of the many criticisms of grammars schools is that they somehow take disproportionate resources that should go into making all state schools equal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Given their results, they are actually a very efficient use of government funds.

I went to a very average comprehensive school and got top grades across the board and have two oxbridge degrees. In theory I'm a poster child for the comprehensive system but in reality I feel that my education was hugely lacking. I have many colleagues who were educated at grammar schools or independent schools and their broader exposure to subjects and experience of extracurricular activities is wildly different to mine and I feel that I have been let down by the system. At school I constantly had to hide my ability and interest in subjects and I was not stretched at all. Comprehensive systems would work fine if there was rigorous setting and the bright children had as much support as the other ability groups - the reality is that they typically do not. Peer groups have a massive impact and grammar schools allow bright children to thrive. My son is now at a grammar school and loving the challenging work he is receiving. He is doing work in year 7 that I would only have accessed at gcse level.

Yes that's right, the 'raw material' which grammar schools have to work with is generally of a high standard so you would naturally expect the exam results to reflect that. If you're genuinely interested in the quality of a school, OP, the teaching and the added value which they bring, you can look at things such as the Progress 8 score.

Also, while grammar schools might not benefit from the government funding as @HomeHomeInTheRange explains well, they often have access to wealthy parents who will happily contribute to school fund-raising efforts so the notion that grammar schools are somehow poorly funded is erroneous.

OP.

The per capita funding is the same, whether grammar or comprehensive.

Comprehensives generally have far more pupils on Pupil Premium (because it is now well known that middle class parents use their greater wealth to pay for tutoring etc), and grammars usually have a below representative number of students on Pupil Premium. Because sociology-economic equality isn’t a feature of grammar schools.

So the overall budget might be higher. But Pupil Premium money has to be spent specifically on those pupils.

Grammar schools get better results because the results reflect the intake. They don’t have the students whose grades bring down the average.

This isn’t hard to understand.

Students who are capable of and achieve excellence do so equally well in comprehensives.

Kent , a fully selective county, does not achieve overall better results than comparable non selective counties.

@TizerorFizz There's no need to be rude just because I am not entirely in agreement with some of the things you say. I live in the area we are talking about (and always have done), I used to cover educational matters and I have had a daughter go through a secondary modern school from 11-18 and a son at a grammar school at the same time. I believe I am fairly well qualified to recount my differing experiences of those school systems. I gather your daughter is at an independent school? I don't comment on those because I have no knowledge of them.

I don't dispute the fact that a number of children do relatively well at Bucks secondary moderns, which is what the tables you posted show, but that does not in and of itself mean that their exam results bear comparison with the grammar schools, which is the main issue under discussion on this thread.

Ignoring the sensationalist headline on the story below, you'll see the figures for GCSEs grades 5-9 – every grammar school exceeds 94% while the top secondary modern is just under 60%, going down to below 30%:
www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/17978801.best-worst-secondary-schools-bucks-2019-gcse-results/

Regarding A levels, I was actually quite careful in my wording. I said taking 3 academic A levels was a relatively new development. At DD's school (which was not the Misbourne), they had to reorganise the entire way they taught GCSEs because of issues around children wanting to go on and take science A levels, which there had been no demand for prior to that. This was 2015 – I consider that 'relatively recent', though of course other people may not, it depends on your definition.

There are probably lots of times when I don't know what I am talking about, but this isn't one of them as I lived through it, in real time

This is probably the best secondary modern but it’s in the north of the county and selects on CofE attendance. None the less, these DC are not grammar DC.

@ChildHeadache
I’m fully aware that these schools are in very nice areas! I’m just saying that these children are not failed by the schools and neither are they failures or disadvantaged. Once DC move on from the 11 plus, very many are not failed in secondary moderns any more than they are in some comps. I do think we have a number of schools that would like to improve their progress 8 score too.

Wow yes those right 2 have much higher amounrs of high achievers than round here!

Last one.

Here’s a breakdown of DC attending The Amersham School, Great Marlow, Chalfonts Community and The Misbourne. All in the south of the county and high percentages of high achievers.

@thing47
You seem incapable of looking at how the government differentiate between children and what high achieving means in educational terms when looking at stats. It’s rather pointless continuing this conversation if you don’t understand this basic description of DC in schools.

The Misbourne School has offered A levels since the 1980s. You simply don’t know what you are talking about. It’s not remotely new for secondary moderns here to offer A levels. You are really talking rubbish right now.

So according to you @TizerorFizz the 11+ does a good job in selecting the 'brightest' children and most children go to the schools which are right for them. In the south of the county around 30-35% of children go to grammars but nevertheless there are loads of high achievers among the remaining 70%? I'm not quite sure how you square that circle to be honest.

So yes there are some high achievers in the secondary moderns, you are right, perhaps 10%. That's a very different environment from a school where it's maybe 80% high achievers. I didn't say they were low achievers, incidentally, I said lower, it's a comparative term, there's nothing offensive about it. And again we're talking about the 11+ split here, things can change a lot over the subsequent 7 years of secondary schooling, and beyond.

Lots of secondary moderns do a fine job, I agree, but there really isn't any mistaking the attainment gap between the grammar schools and the secondary moderns in terms of exam grades. And yes I'm fully aware that children can do well at secondary moderns, thank you, as 1 of my children went to one. The fact remains that her cohort was one of the first to do 10+ academic subjects for GCSE and then stay on and take 3 academic subjects for A level. That is a relatively new development.

@CruCru

Yes I’m sure you are correct. However in Bucks there are few day schools to choose from. Some have also become selective. Eg Pipers Corner for girls. Day schools for boys in the South of the county don’t exist. You would be travelling elsewhere. Stowe takes day pupils in the north but Berkhamsted has become much more difficult to get into. Both Berkhamsted and Pipers have their own preps and will ask Jess academic DC to leave before senior school. This, to some extent, explains why reasonably clever DC do go to our secondary moderns. You need deep pockets or be just below grammar cut off score. This is why some people get so anxious about the grammars. In truth the leafy lane secondaries are all great.