Grammar schools and underperforming children

[LittleMissGossip]

Apologies as I have asked elsewhere but thought I'd get more replies here.

I would like to know how do grammar schools deal with children not performing as well as they would like/expect? (They being the school)
For instance, when children are getting low scores on end of term tests?
I appreciate it will be different for different schools, but wondering how they keep their gcse results high if there are children struggling.

I work in a grammar school, we provide as much intervention and support as we can to the students that are struggling. We have an extensive Learning Support department, who do an amazing job with those who struggle to access their learning. We do grade drops around 4/5 times a year and the Heads of Department and Head of Year trawl through the data and flag up students who are struggling. That could then lead to mentoring with an older student, lunchtime drop in sessions, subject intervention or other support. In the run up to year 11 they might be able to drop a subject, with agreement from parents and the school. We provide careers meetings and work with parents if we feel that they are not going to meet our (fairly high) entry requirements for 6th form to support them to choose alternative routes for post 16 study.

Every year group has a Head of Year, whose job is to support them both pastorally and academically.

That's good to know @Whattodo121

Do you think this could be from parents who got extra coaching to get their kids into grammar? And who now find they are struggling. Also maybe some kids having been top in their junior school now find themselves amongst kids cleverer than then and it knocks their self esteem so they give up ?

Manage them out.

In my experience as ex grammar staff, it's about 75/25 split. The ones who had extensive tutoring show up normally in the first half term and a lot of them were miserable about it. They have come from a school where they were top or near top possibly without having to try that hard. They come in and are consistently bottom and it shatters their confidence, that's when they ended up in my office as pastoral worker.

In my utopia, tutoring would be totally banned for the 11+ but I know its impossible to police that so it's a pointless thought of mine.

They just flounder

I attended a grammar school for the second half of my secondary school experience and found them appalling for this. I never struggled academically but knew children who did who were left to flounder and were just made to retake exams again and again to get grades up, with very little help. When I suffered a pretty traumatic bereavement in year 12 I was offered no support, and subsequently had a very noticeable dip in my AS results. No help was offered of time taken to understand why this had happened. I got a B in this subject at AS (a huge drop for me) and then in A2’s received 100% because I got myself back on track, which just goes to show what I was capable of and what a red flag it should have been.

The school I was at until year 9 was a big standard secondary modern and didn’t have a great reputation, but the teachers there were so much better with the children and understood them so much more. My parents and I often talk about what a terrible school the Grammar was in comparison and what a mistake it was in hindsight. Me doing well there was in spite of them and not because of them, and I saw many in my peer group who didn’t have the support at home or ability to self-teach struggle and fail.

I don’t know if this is a universal experience of course.

The problem is that a lot of parents focus on "getting in" and not on what it will be like once their DC are there.

I have a teacher friend who says the over tutored DC show up very very quickly.

I agree with PP-a managed exit. And to be fair it might not be a good match for either school or pupil

DH has worked in the grammar system for many years and hates it when parents tutor their DC for a couple of years prior. They often scrape in, the tutoring then stops, and then many flounder. The DC know they end up in the bottom sets, their confidence suffers, and some end up leaving because they can’t naturally manage the academic pace of a grammar school.

Yes, the school provides support to those who need it though.

DD's school are doing what Whattodo121 says - mentoring, support, extra lessons, there are lunchtime clubs for topics like art that might need more time and some kids have dropped certain subjects altogether and use that time for other subjects.
I asked DD if she thought there were kids who struggled at grammar and she says there are - some can't work at the speed required or have no real interest or ethic to work hard.

I live in the catchment for super selective and DC are not managed out. (Unless they're in 6th form and not working hard enough, then they're not entered for A'level exams. I have had friends argue that it's better for their child to achieve a C/D than nothing, but the school don't want to know) I do have two friends whose DC were tutored, have gone to the grammar school and friends have subsequently told me their child isn't very bright. If their child can pass the 11+ they're bight, just not as academically able as the others they're at school with. They're not so much left to flounder, but encouraged to work harder. I think it's sad, and can't be nice for the child to be told they are not up to scratch at parents evening.

But then those same schools are giving out detentions to the most able for getting an 8 and not a 9 in a mock exam.

Tutoring should be banned.

I really wish it could be! I worked in a grammar and it broke my heart talking to these kids. There is just no way of banning it and it is a massive industry in some areas. Locally it is a lot of kids who would be going to private if they didn't get in to the grammar.

Some kids who were the primary classroom super stars struggle emotionally when they are no longer the the leader of the pack at a selective secondary. I agree that some children come into their own academically later on in secondary school, when it matters more. I know several boys who, being so used to dominating the classroom in primary with their fast and furious competence, became angry and unmotivated when others boys did much better than them in KS3 &4 while they were still doing very well but nothing special academically. They were so used to their classroom superstar status they didn't cope well with not being special. This can happen in non-selective as well when the pool gets bigger.

In my experience, they flounder in the bottom set and aren't allowed in to sixth form (and more often than not it's kids who have been to local prep schools and /or tutored - the difference is stark by year 9). Agree tutoring should be banned in an ideal world - affluent parents taking away spaces from bright working class kids who don't have the benefit of tutoring and other trappings of middle class.

@IndiGlowie

My DC has interventions and didn't get coaching?

In her comp we didn't even know what grade she was at we got a vague number.
She was having issues in math's but no support was offered and she was told she was in top of top set. .
At her new school she was immediately offered lunch time session's with a teacher and some a level students.
This really helped her and she's doing well .

I would hope things have changed from when I went to a grammar 30 years ago.

I got borderline pass on my 12+ (as it was in my area), got in on appeal as one of my parents was dying and they said I didn’t do well due to stress. No, I didn’t do well as I wasn’t that bright.

I was ignored, pushed aside. No one spoke to me about careers or staying on for A levels. They didn’t even bother with my work experience - I was the only person in my year not to do it, I just sat at home for the week. No one said a thing. I was just pushed aside like a bad smell.

@Myleakycauldron .. it's not tutoring that's taking that away, it's because the onus on getting onto one was taken away from the school and put into the hands of parent's.

And as we know, for all sorts of reasons some parents can't/won't/don't care about getting their children in.

Many, many years ago, I did the 11+. Not of us were coached at school; we just had a good grounding in the basics. Tutoring probably hadn’t been invented, certainly there was none at all anywhere that I knew of. We went to a local school one Saturday morning and did the tests and waited for the results.

I think it’s foolish to tutor children to the 11+ because, as PPs have said, they’ll find themselves a small fish in a big pond and unable to cope. The struggle plays havoc with their self worth.

Not everyone can be suited to the grammar school environment and it definitely does some a disservice.

Thank you, I did wonder whether those that are tutored excessively are the ones that start to find the work a little difficult.
However, it's good to hear some schools offer the support and help, but reading the replies i guess it depends which school you are at.

Hi!