New Grammar Schools: good or bad?

@sendsummer teachers who can't teach all students need to go back to training. It's our job and we are all qualified to teach all abilities. If some are too lazy to teach harder classes then they should be paid less 😂

Mumsneedwine not all teachers have your abilities to enjoy teaching the full spectrum. As you say there is a recruitment crisis and therefore barring such teachers who are excellent with high ability pupils would be rather a waste. To stretch the point it would be like saying that university academics are not qualified to teach undergraduates because they would be hopeless at GCSE level.

The grammar school system only works if all children who wold benefit from a grammar school style of education have access to a place. This needs to be combined with a really high quality alternative for children who do not suit a grammar school style of education. Most of these children would benefit from more hands-on learning experiences rather than spending al day every day sitting still in a classroom, combined with extra support for literacy and numeracy. If children going to both types of school leave with a school leaving certificate which then details what they did then they have all succeeded in their education in a way that is suitable for them. What we have at the moment is a watered down grammar school education for everyone and it doesn't really serve anyone well. I would add that the natural point to make this division between grammar and an alternative wold be in Y9 or Y10 not Y7.

@thing47

I'll answer it! No, I don't believe 10 is the time to decide an entire future - to be honest, I don't think any time is the time to write any child or person off. Of course, children do need to be streamed or assessed at various points in order to ensure that lessons are pitched at the right level for them currently, but it shouldn't be an inescapable conclusion and the grammar/secondary modern system did (and does) help to bake that in.

(It's not just the grammar system though - when I was at school, there was a bit of movement between top and middle sets, but almost none between middle and bottom - the bottom 40% of kids were absolutely miles off the pace after a couple of years, because they just weren't taught the basics well enough. It might have been a comp, but basically the kids in the lower sets were very much getting a secondary modern experience - any chance of them moving up was wholly theoretical. SEN and disruptive behaviour was just very badly dealt with. If the bottom 40% were better treated/funded in all schools, then frankly there would be less call for grammar schools, because there would be less fear of disruption amongst many families who place a high value on education).

Personally, I live in Kent due to caring responsibilities. If I could move to Hampshire, which generally has a high standard of comp, I would. And I would use the comprehensive. In a grammar school county, I am forced to hope my kid gets into grammar school - I'm not going to send my kid to the crap secondary modern just because I don't agree it's the best system.

@sendsummer but my kids got that at their comprehensive school. And I teach at one and am quite capable of teaching A level to A* as well as ELC students. I'd be a rubbish teacher otherwise !
No reason why bright students can't be stretched and challenged in any school.
Not sure where the teachers are coming from to teach at these new schools. Bit of a recruitment crisis at all schools at the moment.

My DCs benefited hugely from their peers and the pace and therefore scope of learning in their very academic schools. I guess many of their teachers were better suited to keeping their students stimulated in that context, particularly at sixth form and would not fare so well in a secondary modern or teaching lower sets at comprehensive school.

If there was extra money I would use it to help disadvantaged pupils at primary school to ensure the academic gap is n’t entrenched before secondary school. Perhaps next after that expand the sixth form capacity of grammar schools.

I wouldn't consider DS to have been tutored. I bought him a workbook before the test but left him to it, that was enough for familiarity with the types of questions.

And it’s absolutely not just ‘middle class’ parents who aim high for their kids, it’s quite insulting to suggest that. There’s lots of ‘working class’ people who engage tutors or teach their kids themselves. And it should be a case of bringing up those who struggle rather than complaining about people putting resource into their kids. I’m not keen on the tutoring culture in general but I do think that nobody should be complaining about people trying to do the best for their children, that’s a good thing! Level up not level down

But this isn’t correct. If people live in grammar areas they don’t have access to comprehensive schools so obviously can’t choose one. A secondary modern is not the same as a comprehensive. Not everyone with academic children supports the grammar system, however you can only choose a school that actually exists in your area

Truss supports them because her kids go to grammar schools BUT they also went to independent prep schools to get them ready.....
Grammar schools can never fulfil the purpose they were designed to (my parents were both from v working class backgrounds and grammar schools changed their lives) - as there are too many sharp elbowed middle class parents desperate to avoid paying for education a la Truss.....

No child ever got a new bike for "passing" the exam for the secondary modern.

In grammar areas people put in a huge amount of effort to make sure that the 11+ makes the "right" choice for their child.

Pretending that the non-selective alternative can have equal status is belied by the actual behaviour of parents in every part of the world where selection exists.

What I meant was - that the arguments for and against have been well covered - there's a wealth of evidence and when Teresa May tried to this back in 2017 we all discussed it to the point of utter exhaustion.

The point of my post was to bring up the myriad practical issues - supporters of grammars tend to talk as if there was some blank slate where they could be put down without upsetting anyone but no such universe exists. Everywhere there are schools and parents who would be hugely affected and will want to have their say.

If there is ever a serious plan to set up a new grammar then the campaign against needs to be very focussed on the EXISTING schools that will be affected and make sure parents understand the implications for THEIR children. A version of nimbyism for schools!

The issue with tutoring is it isn't just the kids who have private tutors to get them through it. It's also the kids who have parents who basically get them through it. If a child is spending evenings and/or weekends prepping they are being tutored, either by their parents or by someone who is paid. And if you don't have parents who can do it themselves or pay someone else you are screwed. Very few kids are going to turn up and just be able to pass an 11+ paper as it isn't stuff covered in school. Even some of the maths was on concepts that a school might not have covered yet by the time the test is sat.

I don't think there's a good answer to trying to make the test fairer, so my alternative is to make all schools better and give everyone the chance of a decent education.

(For those looking at Kent, btw, you have to be very careful to compare within particular towns/areas, because some areas are very different in terms of deprivation and sociology economic mix etc, much more than Bucks - West Kent is far wealthier than many other areas, though private education also strips high performers out of WK schools),

I went to a comprehensive school in the 90s/00's (supposedly a golden age for finding). As a bright child, it was utterly utterly shit. Aspirations were low, behaviour was very poor. I was bullied relentlessly, but I kept on studying because I didn't want to give up. I changed school for sixth form and got into oxbridge - no one in my school had done that for years.

(We had mixed classes for the first year and about 25% of the class could barely read, certainly not well enough to study a very simple abridged version of Oliver Twist, like an "early readers" one, that I could have read easily at 7). The TA in our class was very busy and for me that year was a waste of time in many ways - you could have given me the text books on day 1 and I could have sat at home doing them and got to the same place (except in my maths class, where my teacher was absolutely phenomenal at differentiation and took no shit).

I am the kid that MN says "well bright kids will do well anywhere", but it took a huge mental toll on me having no friends because no one would be seen dead with me and it caused me serious MH issues.

I spent a lot of my life wishing that I had had the option of going to grammar school. In fact, my sixth form pretty much was a grammar school (was a church school but basically became not religiously selective at sixth form, kicked out anyone without 5 A*/C and B in chosen subject and gave places to kids like me) - it was heaven. The kids there were so nice and all wanted to learn.

I now live in a grammar county and I suspect my kids will get into grammar school in due course (I know many people say this, obviously, but my DD in particular is very like me and very much a bright self starter). If they don't get in, I'd probably consider sending them private, certainly over one of the options.

However, I don't agree with grammar schools. What I actually needed from school could have been achieved by a combination of better aspirations, better discipline (not hardline, or stupid technical infringements, but firm/fair/consistent approach) - I didn't need a system tailored for me, just one that felt less like a jungle.

Rather than focusing on the top 25%, we should be focusing on the bottom 25%. Some of them will have SEN and should be better supported in mainstream, some may be better in a proper SEN environment (30 kids in a class is not for everyone), some will need better behavioural interventions that better account for their circumstances. And ALL of those "bottom" 25% should have something to aspire to, not the prospect of failing their GCSEs and then being written off.

We don’t really grammars in our corner of London, but a quick look at the nearest “super selective” - Latymer in Enfield - makes the argument that this type of school is accessible to all backgrounds look pretty iffy. The borough of Enfield has 25% of its state secondary pupils qualifying for FSM. So does Haringey, the neighbouring borough. The figure for state secondaries in England overall is 23.7%. At Latymer it’s 5.3%. If all it takes is the “right sort of brain”, why are children on FSM so under-represented?

This. We live in a similar area . Super selective grammar school down the road and normal grammar schools over the county boarders newrby.

DD failed her various 11+ exams by a long way, despite practice. She went to the local bog standard comp...... where she got 10 GCSEs all at 8 or 9 and 4 x A* in her A Levels. She is now at a top uni and heading for a 1st. If anyone is grammar school material, it's her. In fact, I would say she is top end of grammar school. The 11+ system totally failed to recognise her abilities.

It's hard to explain tbh. Some brain are just.. they get it. I don't know how but they do, and they enjoy it (unlike me.)

The thing is, I have children who are like that. 2 of them.

Both comprehensive educated. One at Oxbridge and one at an elite institution for their specific passion. You don't NEED to have a grammar school to educate able children, or even unusually able children.

I have long posted on here about a 'special school' model:

• A good, highly funded and well-resourced comprehensive school system for the vast majority.


• A good, highly funded and well-resourced series of special schools model for those whose additional needs are so significant or specialised that they cannot be efficiently and effectively educated in a comprehensive setting.


• A good, highly funded and well resourced series of special schools for those whose academic ability is so extreme that they cannot be efficiently and effectively educated in a comprehensive setting because they are so rare - children with one or more areas where their ability is in the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 level where they are unique within a normally-sized school. The nearest current equivalent would be the specialist music schools.

Importantly, admission for all of the non-comprehensive elements would be by EHCP, not by any form of mass entry exam.

People advocate for grammars using 'outliers'. There are very, very few genuine outliers - the majority of pupils in grammars are adequately bright hard workers with supportive parents, virtually identical in their educational needs to a significant cohort of students in the non-grammars.

@user1477391263 - some kids would prefer to go to a school that does a mix of vocational and academic subjects, longer time spent on core subjects if required.

if you make it aspirational to go to non grammar schools (like apprenticeships are aspirational), then I don’t see this as a problem. Not all kids want to go to oxbridge or Russell group unis. It might provide a different focus for education but equally good (depending on child).

I would be disappointed if my child didn't pass and probably be a bit bitter, like many people on here.
My child has always been on middle tables for maths and English and never been gifted. In yr 4 the teacher said he was below average, so when holidays and weekends came along we worked hard (2 hours a day), I don't have the money to take my child on holiday or activities.

Resources are generally free online and for nvr the book was £6.

If you think throwing money at a tutor for 2-4hours a week will make you pass the test, you are wrong. There was lots of children in my sons class, who's parents done that and they didn't pass because the parent(s) need to work with the child.

It's not about being gifted in one area, it's about working hard and an all rounder.

@LouisCatorze - I agree! Our experience seems to have been similar.

Given a second chance I'd put my DC either in a good comp or a good indie for secondary - somewhere that has a good mix of all abilities, interests and competitiveness. Considering this for my second DC even though we are in a grammar area.