Candidates flying from overseas to sit super-selective grammar 11+

With boarding going up 20% it would be at least £500k to board at a majority of private schools. I can understand why families would rather all relocate for a free state that might be getting similar results.

Crux of the matter is that no parent with strong educational values voluntarily sends their DC to a school full of kids from households lacking in educational values. Whether they send to grammar or high performing comp is neither here nor there.

There are plenty of really good comprehensives that set really well and if you can afford the catchment, then of course that is an option many people choose. Especially if you live in a nice middle class area like Cambridge, Winchester or St Alban’s or somewhere like Richmond in London. There are loads of schools like this too all over the country.

Oh fuck me, this is why I keep saying “generally.”

I don’t know every single person in the country. I can only speak from personal and work experience.

Yeah, I’ve just waved my 23 year old son off abroad for his career. I’m happy for him. Why wouldn’t I be?

He could do that because I supported his education and him. He couldn’t have done it jobless and on on UC.

But actually, you have a point. I sometimes look around me and the ones who play they system to do fuck all do actually seem happier in thier lives than me. They seem to have no worries, apart from who has shagged someone’s sister or that carol gave them a filthy look in Tesco, but even then, they revel in it.

And before I get called a horrible snob - this is one of the areas they used to get Jeremy Kyle participants from. First day dd started school when we moved here, one of her classmates mum couldn’t wait to send me the video of herself on it, screaming about the paternity of DDs classmate as a baby. She’s proud of it, it was the highlight of her life.

Many other families, not just south Asian, are also instilling good morals in their children and supporting their lives. However, many of them choose not to send their children to 11+ grammar schools, and I always wonder why. Many of their kids still go on to have happy and successful lives.

Isn’t that setting up a child to fail though? I have no experience of these schools myself so don’t know how they work but surely the teaching and curriculum are geared to these supper clever children who gain top marks in the exams. If a child isn’t up to that then doesn’t it become obvious once they start attending and are bottom in every test? It’s abit like when people lie about their experience on job applications without seeming to have any consideration that they will need to be able to do those things if they get the job.

Besides “underprivileged working class kids” whose parents are gaming the system for benefits surely have quite smart parents too, who understand how to work this system for their communities. How is that any different from smart immigrants who come here too?
The donkeys are the middle classes pushing their kids to work hard and pay into the system for everyone else. That is why a lot of their DC are now going to other countries, where they are more valued and where they will be able to build up a better quality life for themselves long term and have a family and buy a house.
The real assets Western economies have are young educated taxpayers. Every other country seems to realise this. Harvard university is upping the threshold for financial aid to 200000 USD - if that will include British kids, rest assured many will be going there.

God, this in spades.

I am half Indian. One of the not so nice remarks made has been, “of course X is going to a grammar school, her mum is a P*ki, they all do.”

I was actually called in to school over that one by my dds lovely head. It was said to a teacher by another parent, with lots of other children in earshot and joining in laughing. He wanted to assure me that it had been dealt with and that any comments to dd would be nipped in the bud and dealt with immediately. Which I know they will, I have an excellent relationship with my children’s school, I respect them and in turn, they respect me.

My children have never had any racial abuse as they are all blonde haired and green eyes, you’d never guess thier heritage. So it’s me, and it makes me feel awful for them.

I’ve also had a parent say to my face they aren’t surprised that dd is going to the grammar she’s going to “as most of them are P*kis there anyway.” Yeah? I wonder why, mate. Maybe because the Indian parents aren’t sat in the park smoking weed, drinking can and screaming at their toddlers. They are, in general, instilling good morals into their children and supporting them to have the best lives they can.

@CurlewKate - if the system wanted to help the bright little 11 year old girl that @Mydogisamassivetwat describes, it could do so very easily. Every state primary school in this country has a ton of data on every child - we could easily use that data to give grammar places to such children, if we wanted to do that. If free transport were offered as well, then such parents may be persuaded to let them go. You just need to start encouraging a few to do so, in the first place.
Instead, the system underestimates these communities and keeps them trapped in poverty and on benefits. Away from work opportunities because politicians are focussed on 5-10 years max.
And the Tories replaced cheap EU Labour with cheap labour from other countries instead, many on eg carer visas who will never support themselves taxation wise either.

The reason many children of immigrants “do well” is because they are the children of intelligent aspirational people who know how to, or know how to learn how to function within a complicated system. Who want to “better” themselves. Who are often well educated. Because if they were not all of those things they would not be immigrants. They are the same sort of people whose kids pass the 11+ whatever their origin. It is showing massive misunderstanding of the situation and borderline racism to say “Look, brown kids can pass the 11+ - so underprivileged working class white kids can too”

God knows.

A lot of people, especially on forums like these, are blind to how huge swathes of this country live as well.

When parents see school as the enemy, something to fight against as that’s what they did, that’s what their parents did, when they see working as the enemy too and have no aspirations in life, other than to hang out of windows shouting about who is shagging who, then children have no chance. No respect for anything is instilled. When you see your parent shouting at a teacher, you aren’t going to have any respect for education, or the people who who want to help you succeed.

One of my DDs friends is such a lovely girl. Really bright, such a funny, witty, kind little 11 year old. But her mother’s aspirations for her? Oh, she will be her carer. She’s 31 and already never worked due to a bad back (which isn’t so bad she can’t carry on as normal), she’s already got one eye on the mobility scooter though, just like her mum, who is 47, two years older than me and acts like an old woman. So that’s what this little girls mother has in store for her. Saying she will have kids young and end up at home with them, on the estate all her family live on, looking after them and her mum. And so it will continue.

That is the norm where I live. Few of the children in dds class will go on to be anything other than like thier parents are now. Why would they? There is no push. Life is comfortable doing nothing. It makes so sad.

You have to remember that for some people, they don’t want a different life. I was shocked when I moved here. I’ve always lived in a little middle class bubble. Call me a snob all you like, but the world of weed, big dogs, peeling wallpaper and never doing anything is completely normal for so many people and they don’t want a way out. They love it.

The reason people are very driven in eg India for their kids education is because there are NOT enough places in unis in the first place. To get in you need to be a top scorer. So if people with these educational values live here, their DCs can do very well. And many are very bright in the first place. Same applies to eg Chinese, South Korean, Japanese educational values.
You just need to look at the voters’ attitudes towards education overall in this country. It is not top of people’s agenda as mattering to society as a whole when in reality, it is the foundation of a successful society 20 years on, particularly in an economic sense.
We cannot grow this country if people do not change their attitudes towards education and its importance.

There are a lot of cultures around the world where education is seen as THE ticket out of poverty. Despite years and years of push through our education system, it seems some indigenous Brits still do not believe that education will be their children’s ticket out of poverty. That needs to change! The question is how.

How many nations you mentioned above are S Asian? Bingo.

Whether overseas or legitimate UK residents, I see no point in some middle-class, who don’t want to pay for private school but wish to take advantage of, or at least believe in, a certain kind of education in the state system, pretending to be, or representing, a poverty family when they have no idea what that truly entails.

Of course, S Asian children do not participate in 11+!

LOL

I'm sure many children from single mother family perform surprisingly well, although majority of the nations you mentioned are likely not participating in the 11+ exam or attending super-selective grammar schools.

I know of many first gen immigrants from India, Poland, Syria, Ukraine, some were/are single mothers, some not just poor but absolutely destitute being refugees. Their children are doing "surprisingly" well y'know.

But no, it's not a typical representation of "can't be arsed" attitude.

Like I said, there will be exceptions. But honestly, I’d bet my house that no one from the estates I live near are putting any thought into their children’s education if they can’t even get it together not to have punch ups at nativity plays.

I have two DC. You sound creepy to remember internet strangers so well tbf.

I was a single mum living in poverty, I put my DC forward for Tiffin and Latymer exams and they got in 🤷‍♀️

HBS and other SS don't have postcode requirements, it's perfectly legal to apply from Yorkshire or wherever.