What is the real value of highly selective independents/grammars now?

As the op asked for views from both sectors, I thought I would give my experience of having a DD at a large mixed comprehensive. It isn’t very high achieving, but neither is it in a deprived area or has very low results. It is around ‘average’ on most performance measures - a little above on some.

Good things
*Big cohort - you can find your tribe. DD has a great friend group who are engaged. She is quite quiet and hangs out with similar girls. They aren’t all very academic, but they are engaged in school in lots of different ways. She has never experienced any significant hassle from other students.
*Sporting, music & performing art extra curriculars.
*Good facilities for the above.
*Broad curriculum - vocational options & further maths, triple science etc. You can choose a KS4 offering that suits your aspirations and aptitudes.
*Engaged teachers, rigorous teaching good feedback to the kids on what they do well need to improve.
*You can do well if you have the aptitude & put the effort in. You do need to be able to stay on track though even when others aren’t (see below).
Less good things
*There is no getting away from the fact that the disruptive behaviour of a minority of students sometimes impacts on others learning. Funding constraints make managing the impact harder.
Significant incidents are also witnessed - it doesn’t have a direct impact on DD, but it is an environment where you are exposed to challenging issues.
*Because we aren’t in a high cost of living area staffing shortages aren’t a big problem. However, there can be some areas where costs mean staffing is sometimes more squeezed than is ideal.

@Platypus7 I don't know what state school you work at but it is not the norm to have students with 8s/9s. The average GCSE grade at an average state sixth form is about 5-6.
I want my son to be taught by specialist teachers and I moved my son from state to private to achieve this. I honestly think that if I hadn't he would not be doing Further Maths at A-level, which is essential for the type of degree he is considering at the top universities. Prior to me moving him he was being taught by multiple cover teachers in Maths. It is quite normal where I live in the country to use non-specialist teachers all the time even at A-level.
Londoners are very lucky in terms of state education. They also need to realise that kids in the rest of the country are not so lucky. State schools in London outperform schools from other parts of the country by 10% year on year at GCSE.

This is not true :) There is nothing "fun" about NLCS 4+ assessments, for example. It's not true they can "sleepwalk" through to 18 either - I know of children at various super selective schools who were advised to leave even before 11 and those who themselves decided to leave as children were not enjoying a super selective academic environment.

It remains to be seen if top schools will be dumbing down their standards, but at the moment many of them are still oversubscribed so feel no need to.

At 4+, it’s not even a real exam. It’s just taking DD along to play with some puzzles and do some fun activities. Once they're in, they can literally sleepwalk their way through to 18. That’s how our current 'selective' all-through independent school operates. No wonder the parents here aren't keen on actual education.

I think the main advantage of the grammar near us is the attitude to learning and the cohort you're in. The whole cohort is essentially quite pushy and ambitious. If you've got a dc who should be keeping up nicely then that's a good environment to be in. I contrast this to my state school where you were shoved in a bin if you did your homework (by students although I wouldn't have put it past some of the teachers)

My child does not attend a private school or selective one. People have suggested that such schools are advantageous because:
They have more specialist teachers
They have teachers with higher academic qualifications
They have wider subject choices
Peers are more engaged and families are more supportive of the school
Disruptive behaviour is lower
Some posters have challenged some of these views. All I am suggesting is that posters who do think that such school environments are advantageous recognise this when contextual offers are discussed.

OP was comparing highly selective private schools, not just any PS. Parents at super selective schools, be it grammar or private, are obsessed about education. No one else would go through 4/7/11/13+ exams, it's self selection first of all.

Oh but we are all being persuaded by teachers and parents on this thread that there are absolutely no barriers for DC in comprehensive schools? On the contrary, state schools have the best teachers whilst the dim pupils in private schools are being taught by lazy unqualified staff. Surely it's the private schools pupils that should get contextual offers for being failed by rubbish private education?

It would favor academically selective schools, both state grammars and academically selective privates.

“Teachers can be passionate, innovative, and committed to their students; and still prefer to work with better behaved, harder working higher achievers.”

Dies that favour state or private schools though? I suspect a great many parents who choose private schooling do so precisely because their children aren’t and never will be high achievers and so they need to do all they can to help them out.

I believe it was you who said that independent school teachers are better qualified and state school teachers are better at behaviour management.

Please show where I said that before the last paragraph of my most recent post, where my inference about averages is based on the information in the report I linked to, specifically that children from lower SES backgrounds are less likely to have teachers with the appropriate specialist subject knowledge.

But I genuinely don’t know why you assume teachers at private schools are better qualified?

There are different types of qualifications for teaching. There is the PGCE and then there is specialist subject knowledge. It is often pointed out that independent schools do not require the PGCE whereas state schools do, so private school teachers are, arguably, less qualified on average than state school teachers at pedagogy.

what you say may be true of some independents but there are loads in London where you have to be loaded AND extremely intelligent and driven. No one is coasting at Westminster or even schools several tiers below that.

I wouldn’t say there are loads that have only extremely intelligent children @VarioPerfect what schools that are several tiers below Westminster have only extremely intelligent dc?

@user149799568 I am not the one thinking in black and white, I believe it was you who said that independent school teachers are better qualified and state school teachers are better at behaviour management. Of course there are good teachers in all sectors, we all have our own strengths. But I genuinely don’t know why you assume teachers at private schools are better qualified? Schools all recruit from the same pool. I know many who have gone from state to private and the other way, we all have the same level of education in our field.

I have been teaching for a long time, I know a lot of teachers and I am only speaking from my own experience.

@Platypus7 as others have said it’s obviously not right that the best teachers are in any one sector - it varies massively and you can’t generalise. There isn’t even one meaning of “best” - perhaps you can explain what you meant by that.

@swdd what you say may be true of some independents but there are loads in London where you have to be loaded AND extremely intelligent and driven. No one is coasting at Westminster or even schools several tiers below that.

Teachers can be passionate, innovative, and committed to their students; and still prefer to work with better behaved, harder working higher achievers. I repeat: I have no reason to believe that those best teachers are any less likely to move to grammars or selective independents than their less passionate, less innovative, less committed brethren.

If, however, you define the best teachers as those most committed to social justice and to improving the life prospects of the most disadvantaged children, then I could see your point.

Teachers in state schools absolutely have in-depth specialist knowledge

Not all teachers in state schools have in-depth specialist knowledge.
https://www.iop.org/about/publications/physics-teacher-shortage-and-addressing-it-through-3rs

"We estimate... that over a half of physics classes at Key Stage 4 are taught by a teacher who does not have a post-18 qualification in physics"

"The shortage has a bigger impact on students in areas of lower socio-economic status (SES) because their schools are less likely to have in-field physics teachers."

The report doesn't address what the deficiencies are like at independent schools, nor does it break out grammars from comprehensive schools, but given what we both know about the SES at selective schools, whether independent or state, the problem will be worst at comprehensives as a category.

It’s quite insulting to assume all we are good for is behaviour management.

I can't stop you from thinking in black and white, that a teacher can be good only either at behavior management or at specialist knowledge. I deal with shades of gray; I believe that some can be good at both, others can be good at neither. I can't stop you from thinking that the only possibilities are binary, that either all teachers at state schools have the appropriate specialist knowledge or that none of them do. I believe that some teachers at any school have the appropriate knowledge but that the percentage at selective schools is higher than at comprehensives and the percentage at independent schools is higher than at state schools. So I can't stop you from feeling insult where none was intended.

@swdd we only have 1 local grammar and thousands apply to it

So be it a tiny state school, niche comp in a very wealthy enclave or indi my role is to find the most pleasant environment within my grasp so that my child grows up to love learning and life.
Yes, I think this is pretty much me too. I went to terrible schools. Well, my parents moved so I could go somewhere different for 6th form and it wasn't as bad, but still nowhere near a Mumsnet approved leafy comp. I could not have done any better academically elsewhere - I got the highest possible grades in my O levels and A levels - but I could have been a great deal happier in another school and emerged a far more confident and rounded individual. Not that I am suggesting that an independent school guarantees that. I know people whose schooldays in some of the most expensive and well known schools in the country were at least as bad as mine. Possibly worse in fact as I did at least get to go home every evening to a safe, happy and supportive family whereas they had to sleep in the same room as their bullies. But that's by the by, the point is that there are some schools that provide an environment in which a particular child is more likely to thrive than others. Depending where you live that may be in the private sector or it may be a state school. We were lucky to find what we needed in the state sector but I'm not naive enough to believe that that experience is universal. If they are fortunate enough to have choice I think that most parents are looking for where they feel is best for their offspring. If I had been facing the prospect of sending my DC to my old school I would have crawled over hot coals to try to prevent it.
I get irritated by sweeping generalisations on this type of thread though - "state schools are X and private schools are Y" type comments are usually wrong. There is a huge range in both sectors and it's best not to jump to conclusions.

It’s a bit weird to compare all three schools together. It's much better to look at them separately.
If an academic DC gets a grammar place and the alternative is a comprehensive, then they should absolutely go. It's a no-brainer, as both grammar and comprehensive are free. Whether you look at the quality of the school, the peers, or the parent community, it’s really hard to argue that a comp is better than a grammar.
The OP mentioned that the main con of a grammar school is the cost of 11+ prep. Generally speaking, if your child is naturally academic, then the prep is absolutely worth it. We shouldn't look at 11+ prep as pure torture and waste of child life though. By exam prepartion you cultivate a life long habit of hard working. Having said that, if it too much and requires that much of a miserable struggle just to pass, then a grammar school probably isn't for them.
As for private schools, with the massive fees, it’s indeed hard to justify them over a grammar (unless it’s one of those top elite, super-selective independent schools). IME, I highly doubt the idea that private schools are automatically full of 'parents who value education". While grammar parents mostly value academic excellence and hard work, you don't necessarily get that with an indie anymore. With fees being so sky-high, indies are no longer filled with ordinary middle-class families; a lot of the kids are from wealthy backgrounds and already set up for life, so they're happy to just coast through university and focus on networking rather than top grades. If you're an ordinary family just about stretching to afford the fees, putting a naturally academic DC into that environment can do more harm than good. When their peers don't care about grades because they have a massive safety net, a bright kid can easily lose their academic drive. They need driven, hard-working peers to thrive, which is exactly what a grammar school offers.

@BreakingBroken I really hope you don’t pass on these incredibly prejudiced views about children on to your own children. Remember we are talking about 11 year olds here. If, perhaps, they have not had the best start in life, I don’t think branding their families as “rough” helps anyone, it just perpetuates stereotypes and division.

I don’t believe in selective education, for many reasons. I wanted my children to see that I have the conviction to live by the values that are important to me, and inclusive education is one of them. A lot of their friends you would probably categorise as “rough”. I don’t, I invite them round to tea, any friend of my child is welcome in this house, I don’t care who their parents are. My children understand the value of education because they know it’s important to me. They know they are lucky to have parents who are able to help them with GCSE revision, and a lot of their friends don’t have that. We have a lot of dinner table discussions about the education system and class system in this country (more so since DD is doing A Level sociology!) and they have grown into, I think, well-rounded and caring people. Not elitists who think anyone different to them is “rough”.

I hope that when contextual offers are next discussed on MN the barriers children at comprehensives face that have been very robustly highlighted on this thread are recognised.

@user149799568 when I say the “ best” teachers I mean those who are passionate about education and about their subject, those who are innovative, interested in the latest educational research and committed to their students. As opposed to those who just want to wait for their teacher pension by delivering the same old lessons to a bunch of compliant middle class children. Teachers in state schools absolutely have in-depth specialist knowledge, and teach grade 8/9 students every year. It’s quite insulting to assume all we are good for is behaviour management.

Going to school with and being friends with children whos families are rough; smoking, drinking to excess, swearing, lack ambition or drive, value social unrest etc etc etc is NO badge of honor.
Children get their vibe from their tribe.
Education is a long game, honestly lifelong as a parent I want the experience to be enjoyable enough that at 50 they may want another masters degree, relevant enough that they are not afraid to try. So be it a tiny state school, niche comp in a very wealthy enclave or indi my role is to find the most pleasant environment within my grasp so that my child grows up to love learning and life.

We signed our eldest up for a very good pre-prep and then had a change of heart at the last minute, and sent him and then his brother to the local outstanding state primary instead.

We just didn’t see what value the private school was adding. Both parents are very academic and we thought we’d see how they did in the state school. It’s easy enough to move to private later if they turned out not to be excelling there.

It sounds like you had a horrible experience. Having many supply teachers is clearly never a good sign. I do think though that there are plenty of decent comps, at least here in my part of outer London. My DCs’ comp was rated as ‘good’, as are most others in our area.

No one is saying that can't happen, but as lots of people have said, not all comps are the same!

I was a "very bright and motivated" pupil aged 11 when I started at my comp. Left five years later with nothing after being mercilessly bulled for five years, struggling to try to learn in classrooms more akin to Beirut with constant disruption, endless "supply" teachers, etc.

That school is still a "crap comp" today, 40 years later, and has been in and out of one form or another of "special measures" for decades.

Yes, some pupils do very well, but I think it's more luck than anything else. The majority don't as demonstrated by the Ofsted reports, external exam result tables, etc.

It really is luck of the draw, the surrounding/environment, etc.

Ironically, my school had just converted from a grammar to a comp a couple of years before I went, and the local claim by the school was that it would be "grammar education for all" - what a load of crap! Teachers were leaving in droves or going off with nervous breakdowns year on year as the extensions were built and more and more pupils joined from the two "closing down" secondary moderns nearby to create a huge "monster" school instead of having three smaller/friendlier schools.