To think that grammar schools should limit the number of places available to private school kids

[reallytired]

Many grammer schools are over loaded with private school kids. Bright state school kids just can not compete. It is a massive advantage being in a class of 8 with specialist teachers and no SEN kids.

I think that the number of places for privately educated kid should be limited to the percentage of private school kids in the area. Ie. if 10% of kids in a town go to private school then 10% of places should be reserved for private school kids and 90% of places should be for everyone else.

It would then give poor state school families a chance. My son got mostly level 3s at his key stage 1 SATS and is on the top table in his class for every subject, but his school does not think he would get a place at the only grammar in the area. Its crazy. Its no wonder that social mobility is at an all time low.

SATs type test totally inappropraite for this purpose. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as an IQ test which can't be coached for - if the actual test is the first of that type a child has seen, they won't perform to their full potential. But beyond a certain point - all the tutoring in the world won't get some kids through it.

Are these grammar schools mixed? I ask this because in the past, and I mean when 11+ was the rule, not the exception, marking was rigged adjusted in order not to disadvantage boys who, on the whole, were not as advanced as girls at this stage.

Does this still go on?

I'd be amazed if boys has changed so much over the years

Have changed - subject/verb agreement. Doh!

1. Learn to spell the word grammar
2. Grammar school entrance is blind in most areas of the country, apart from one, IME. This means they test reasoning, something which you cannot in theory prepare for

DD got a place at the superselective locally. We did not take it up for the reason that it did not cater for sports or music in the way that an independent school would. The academic side was a bit dodgy too. Grammar schools offer nothing that is not available at local comprehensives.

echt - in a lot of areas (mind included) they are single sex. (Another reason why I am a bit about ds2 wanting to do the 11 plus). In my area there are more places for girls than boys (by a bit of a distance).

saintly do you mean more schools for girls, or more places for girls in mixed schools?

Grammar schools offer nothing that is not available at local comprehensives.

Well, maybe it depends on which GS and which comp you're comparing. That certainly doesn't ring true to me. Bit at a 'superselective' which is 'academically dodgy'. DDs is 'normally' selective and academically excellent.

My area has single sex schools grammars echt but there are more schools for girls than boys.

My area doesn't have any, but in the adjacent areas that children may be able to get residual places in, there's a mixed, a boys and a girls. THe boys is slightly larger. I don't think there's any deliberate bias.

Ah, that happens here, where the private schools and Catholic ones are single sex. Put that with a girls' only government school in the same area, and the effect on mixed schools is astonishing.

Oddly, the private boys' schools here are pretty well-known for not, ahem, excelling in the way the private girls' schools do.

Oh no it's not deliberate. Here is just represents historically which closed and which stayed open. I think there was a mixed one as well until the 80's.