to think most would not really want a secondary modern

[inkyfingers]

OK, tell me why the 'grammar school system' is good for the 85% who don't get a place? I love the pace and challenge etc the GS offers (as many MNers tell me), but how does the alternative serve the huge majority of pupils? (cos surely a 'system' has to benefit as many as possible??).

If it's a really good wheeze, then the GS supporters would surely be happy if their own DC don't get places?

The point being made is that NOWADAYS children like one's parents who grew up on council estates etc etc WON'T necessarily get into a grammar school, regardless of how clever they are.

The system has changed since then.

There are far fewer grammar schools for a start and those chldren who DO gain the places have often been professionally tutored, or come from the private sector.

Obviously there are some children who do get in without tutoring and/or practising the papers at home, but the vast majority do not just turn up on the day, take the test, gain 95% - 100% (which is basically what is needed for some of the superselective grammar schools)and, bingo, have their place and their lives changed radically for the better, education-wise.

I think what people really get upset about is that academic children receive a better education at a grammar school. Why should middle achievers or low achievers receive an education of lesser quality than highly academic kids?

Maybe if there were small high schools, with highly motivated staff, full of kids keen to learn, there would be lest angst over children gaining places at grammar schools.

Yes, LeQueen, they do that at our GS too (set a test to see which children are really academic) but it is notoriously difficult to get those less academic children to leave the school!! Why on earth would they leave voluntarily having fought tooth and nail to get the place???

Very, very few places ever come up, for those who may have missed out in the first place, and the waiting list is VERY long.

However, I do agree with your sentiments re academic children and a grammar school education in principle, I just don't agree that the present selection criteria is fair, because of the reasons I have stated.I agree it seems to be OK to select on grounds of sporting/artistic/technical ability but a complete outrage to select on grounds of academic ability. Just make the test FAIR, that's all I am saying.

How can you ban coaching? You can't stop parents wanting to help improve their childrens educational attainment, whether that is hiring a tutor or just working with their own children. It would be impossible and is counter-productive

Yes, that's a good idea LeQueen, although I suspect one of mine would have been out on his ear as is clever but v lazy, but I/he would have had to put up with it, and he may have gained more from the teachers at the local comprehensive :)

My point is where are my children supposed to go in a grammar area when they are not suitable for grammar school?

Personally I would move to a non grammar school area, we moved for the schools why wouldn't you ?

And as for struggling at the grammars, far far better to be bottom of the class at a good solid grammar school than top set at a poor school.
My neighbours son is struggling but they refuse to let him fail, nobody will leave that school without 5 GCSE's C+ and he will bloody well get them. Yes it's hard work for the parents and the child but in the long term it will be worth it. I wonder if the schools with a 30% pass rate are so determined that the children succeed ?

at ds's state primary, it seems there are quite a few parents who pay for tutoring for Yr 6 sats. We have an entirely comprehensive secondary system round here. No idea what they think they are paying for.

Edam, I suspect they think they are paying for entrance to the top sets in the comprehensive :)

Actually I think there is far more pressure on children these days to be/stay in the top sets at a comprehensive, than to actually be at a grammar school as once you are in, as mamatomany points out, you are more or less guaranteed to pass all GCSEs just by dint of being there.

mamatomany, but that would mean hundreds of families moving to comprehensive areas. Then there would be no places left in the comprehensives.

I think the answer should be to improve secondary moderns.

hum.

i live in a comprehensive area.

i would rather not send my kids to the local comp. I would send them to a different comp over the hill which gets excellent results-

the problem is the conflation of 'comprehensive' and 'mixed-ability' education.

a large comp can set quite narrow ability streams if it wants.

so can a grammar, but ultimately state education funds a certain level of teacher to student - and that is the same in comp or grammar.

people have commented on the pressure in grammar school.
comprehensives that have mixed-ability groups can suffer from a lack of pressure - kids that aren't pushed to work have time to bully. Kids that are good-natured and get through the work easily just get bored and muck about. In a way, it replaces academic pressure with social pressure.
A good comp that sets by ability can avoid this.

i don't agree with leq that comps can't deliver a high acadmeic standard - but i do agree that mixed-ability teaching fails the most academic kids.

the system whereby able pupils are buddied up with less able kids seems to me to be a shocking arrangement for both children - one has to always rely on another child fo help, the other is always dragged back. This ignores the social dynamics of the classroom - that one will be very likely to pick on the other as a consequence.

The answer is to improve the comprehensives, without a doubt, has been for the last 40 years. Not happened though has it.

"comprehensives that have mixed-ability groups can suffer from a lack of pressure - kids that aren't pushed to work have time to bully. Kids that are good-natured and get through the work easily just get bored and muck about. In a way, it replaces academic pressure with social pressure."

One of the main reasons I chose to send DS1 to the school he goes to is that it is a comprehensive which doesn't set. (At lest not in Y7) He couldn't have coped with different people in each lesson, so staying with his class of 30 for every lesson has suited him down to the ground. Academic results are very good, also.

DH and I see a potential problem with DD, in that academically she would be best suited to a grammar school, but she is already super confident, and we don't feel sending her to a girls selective school will be the best way to turn her into a well rounded young person. But neither would a secondary modern with no orchestra, etc be best for her. We feel very lucky that we have other (Comprehensive) options open to us.

But do you have to go to school for those "lessons" Riven, the whole point of the curiculm being taught in a building with other children is to teach them academic subjects to a certain standard and mark them accordingly.
The DC's can learn everything else at home and frankly school undoes a hell of a lot off my hard work.

Curriculum and of - .

I don't think that less able pupils should be buddied up with more able pupils. Why should other pupils be responsible for other memebers of the classrooms education.