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.

I am not sure what the answer is - possibly radically changing the 11+ exam - but the grammar school system is most definitely NOT working as it is and is NOT serving our children well.

As the parent of a really bright and sparky 10 year old I am actually relieved we don't live in a grammar area because, if we did I would feel enormous pressure to get her to jump through all the hoops that are necessary in the system as it is.

I have three who are arty rather than academic but honestly LeQueen don't worry, the 11+ is not rocket science my eldest had her feet on the desk doodling after 35 mins of an hour long exam.

Hully yes there are forums, websites and practice papers that can be bought but what if a kid has parents who can't/won't access these things?

Someone earlier made a point along the lines of 'if a parent can't do an 11+ paper then the kids probably isn't grammar school material anyway...' which is utter balderdash. All kids should have an equal chance of gaining a GS place regardless of what their parents are like.

Redvelvet can't speak for the whole country but in birmingham the King Edwards exam has broad similarities to an IQ test...it covers maths, verbal/non verbal reasoning there is sometimes a comprehension too. Our local private school spends Y5 and Y6 gearing children towards the exam (I guess in the same way that some private schools work towards common entrance exams) however in the state sector we have to stick to the NC.

so really its the shortcomings of the State national curriculum isn't it?

I went to a state primary and then passed 11+ for grammar and we were 'trained' for the year before the 11+ exams - we had specific homework books and took old papers so it is not true to say that only private school kids get extra tutoring, also anyone can buy homework books, or find in the media old 11+ papers and work on these at home. IMO
11+ admission criteria should be based on academic ability alone full stop. I would also point out that cramming for a particular exam is just that and if you can't hold your own when you get in then you will suffer academically and emotionally. I remember starting at my grammar school and being surprised at an older boy being with us 1st years- it turned out that he had just scraped in by being crammed but you had to pass a set of exams at the end of each academic year to move up to the next year and he could not do this so had been 'kept down' for the previous 2 years - he left some months later and I never heard of him after that - wonder if he'd stayed would he still be sitting there when he was 18

redvelvetsofa I was being a bit flippant actually, re. my £100k comment, and as I said earlier, I do pay private school fees and taxes

rioswag I wouldn't say that the NC has shortcomings. Providing a framework to ensure that the majority of children are functionally literate and numerate is rather important.

As a I mentioned earlier in my area the rationale of the 11+ is broadly speaking an IQ test - so testing what a child is capable of rather than what they have already been taught. Which is all well and good if all the candidates are sitting the exam on the same playing field as it were. But when vast numbers of kids are either being taught to test at private primaries or are being intensively tutored then the situation becomes somewhat skewed.

There are a few very bright children who can sit and pass the test 'blind', but I am sure that there are some bright children in many state primaries in birmingham who are essentially sitting the exam with one arm tied behind their back simply because of economics.

alistron

Do you have any experience of the private school world?

I struggle to understand the whole 'teaching to test' concept. How do you know this?

I have nothing against the NC. I have children in state schools.

Private schools will of course offer something different because they can.

Not sure who asked this question on page 6, but in our area, the private schools cover the national curriculum ...

There really does seem to be an awful lot of misunderstanding about what private schools actually do!

If all the parents of privately-educated children suddenly released their children into the state sector, the whole system would collapse. As it is, there are not enough state school places in our borough, and the forecast for September 2011, when DD is due to start school, is for a shortage of at least 300 primary school places across the borough.

Which means that parents like myself go without loads of things in order to educate their DCs privately, rather than send them on a 40-minute bus journey to a school in another county, or to the shtty awful state school down the road which has an appalling teacher retention rate, crp facilities and parents who hang around the school gates swearing and making obscene hand gestures at passing motorists at pick-up time (I am not joking). What we don't do is assume that paying TWICE for our children's education guarantees them a place in a grammar school (at least, most of us don't); what we DO do is live in dread of Y4/Y5 when we're going to have to start deciding what to do for our DCs' secondary education. Round here, the non-grammar state secondary schools are absolutely rubbish compared to the grammar schools, and the private schools are out of our league financially.

And please don't think that any of this is an ignorant rant; my DH is a teacher, as are loads of our friends, in both private and state schools. My children have attended both state and private schools and I do not favour one over the other; if there were places available at a good local state schools for my children I would enrol them pronto.

And to reiterate - I don't think that high earners should be barred from state education, I forgot to put the [emoticon] in and I meant it as a joke.

All of this would be sorted by having no private schools.

Or better still state schools pull their bloody socks up.

Are these two things mutually exclusive?

rioswag I know quite a few kids who have gone to the local private primary and have spoken to their parents. The school was also featured on a BBC2 prog about birmingham school admissions and a teacher there actually said that they do teach to the GS entrance exam because that is what the parents want!! I'm sure you can probably find the show on the BBC website, it was really interesting.

I also have 3 nieces at a grammar school (it's a fee paying grammar) and their private primary was a feeder school and in KS2 did 'teach to test' - but obviously this is a different scenario to private primary/state grammar.

Of course, I can only comment on the schools/system in my area that I know about. I'm sure there is a lot of variation across the UK.

Despite being a socialist if I could pay and guarantee a decent education for my son (who is at local 'sink' comp) I bloody well would Although I feel bad for saying that because the quality and content of the teaching and learning is excellent (better than at his sisters grammar schools) it's just the worry about him being beaten up or something that I find difficult.

No it wouldn't waffleanddaub. You would still get the same issues as there are at present - state schools differ and vary wildly across the board and some are more successful than others, especially those in more affluent areas and/or where the parents care more about their children's education than others (and both those factors are not necessarily directly proportionate).

People who could afford to would still move to what they consider catchment areas for better schools, or donate more to their children's schools to help them "improve", or hire tutors, or home-school with paid-for tutors etc. What you would get is simply "private school by stealth".

YABU

Why should a grammer school place be given to a child who is performing below the standard of another just because he went to state schools.

Places should be given on pure merit not on the method they got there.

Well I think it would help, TheMartorialist. No, it wouldn't remove all inequalities but that wouldn't be the aim. It would, however mean that everyone would have a stake in the quality of all schools and that, in my view, would not be a bad thing.

Not read whole thread but

op - YADBU.

Can you imagine another OP coming on here and stating that non-private educated kids should be excluded from a grammar school education on the basis that their parents CLEARLY couldn't afford to pay sufficient taxes to support the education system as they hadn't BEEN to private school.

Plus the private school kids had supported the education system twice - once through their parents' taxes (which IMO if they can afford approx £10,000 per child per year towards school fees they must pay quite a lot of tax)

and secondly because they weren't using up the resources in state schools and therefore allowing more resources per capita.

There would be OUTRAGE (and rightly so).

What disgusting inverted snobbery!

Never mind levels at KS1, what are your DCs levels now? And are you doing anything to support him / prepare him for the 11+? (like practise papers etc????) And why don't the teachers think he 'has a chance'?

Wha an awful thing to think - that children should be so prejudiced against because of their educational backgrounds. You should be ASHAMED of yourself IMVHO, to be soooo prejudiced.

And no, I cannot afford private education for any of my kids.

Too many people already have a stake in the state system and either don't realise their input is required, it's the teachers job mentality or else they do know but for whatever reason simply do not help out at fundraisers, with child's homework, on school trips, enrichment at home etc.
Whilst you have parents like that in the system, obviously it's not the kids fault then people will pay to avoid them and the children will fail.

"Wha an awful thing to think - that children should be so prejudiced against because of their educational backgrounds."

But at the moment children from families who can not afford private schooling or tuition, or who have parents who can't/won't support their education ARE discriminated against.

I wouldn't advocate barring private school kids from state grammars but a leveling of the playing field would be good. After all don't Oxford and Cambridge mitigate certain admissions criteria for pupils from state schools? If they can do that then I am sure that grammars could mitigate for children who haven't got the advantages of a private primary/tuition/good state primary.

I know the private grammars around here do interviews in addition to the test, I don't know...I think the situation needs tweaking. There is a definite 'educational apartheid' going on which is more divisive and limiting than the old grammar/secondary modern divide.

Mamatomany - you make a good point about parents not taking up their role as stakeholders in the state system.

During the last snow DH was trying to get his school open after a 2 day closure (MASSIVE 2 day snow dump on site - literally couldn't move about and all kids sent home early as bus companies refusing to come out later and it was getting dangerouse - could have been left on site with LOTS of pupils ) and put out a request for parents to come and help. Bearing in mind how annoyed the parents were that the school had closed, guess how many turned up to help clear the site?

ONE. (out of over 300+)

There were 10+ teaching staff there, MY DC (who isn't even at the school) 5 Year 13, site staff and DH.

Shameful really that the parents cared so little. And he's head of an outstanding school, where you would think the parents gave a monkeys!

Roffling hard at some of the totally ott responses on this thread.

The op makes a good point.

93% or something of children are state educated in this country.

Whereas in some grammars it would seem that 90%+ of pupils have been educated in private prep.

To not even admit that the system seems skewed somehow, is just plain bananas - frankly.

It's very true that the parents make a huge difference to a child's education whatever school they go to.

Surely as a parent it's your job to move heaven and earth to get your child into the right school for them. That might be a grammar school or a performing arts school or somewhere private with tiny class sizes.

The parents who push their children with years of tutoring to get into a grammar school when they're struggling to get the required marks aren't doing them any favours. The parents whose children may well be perfectly suited to grammar school but aren't supported in exam prep by the school aren't doing them any favours if they don't get some old papers and go through them with them.