To think if the gov are serious about social mobility they should be banning privately educated kids from taking state grammar school places?

[MilaMae]

Spending ££££ on tutoring to get your kids into a grammar school is one thing but sending your kids to a private school which is free from the national curriculum and able to spend every day teaching to the 11+ is wrong and buys kids school places which should be reserved for the state educated.

Alongside freedom to teach to the 11+ private schools have tiny classes so it's pupils have even more of an advantage. Many of these children won't even be naturally bright and shouldn't even be at said grammar schools.

In our local area apparently far fewer state educated kids got into grammar school this year. Obviously this is due to more privately educated kids applying for places due to parents struggling to pay fees in the current economic climate.

This is wrong. Grammar school should be reserved for state kids only. For many kids rightly or wrongly it's their one big shot at getting a leg up in life. The rich shouldn't be able to hoover these places up because they're feeling the pinch.

You can't put a stop to tutoring but the gov could put a stop to this very unfair practice(if they truely believe in social mobility).It would be very easy to control.

This isn't sour grapes on my part(my dc are tiny) just an observation.

Do people use childcare for secondary school age children?

The 11+ is totally unfair, so I don't think that it is any different to use private cramming education.

so many of the pupils at private preps are not even naturally bright and shouldn't be at grammar school.

On what basis do you say that!! I spent hours every evening with my parents tutoring me on past papers for the common entrance to ensure I got my first choice school. Not because I was think and could not have got good grades without it but because I wanted to be the best. Its called working hard to achieve your full potential.

I made it to my first choice school, to a good uni and a good career. I was consistently at the top of my peer group. Some of them have greater natural intelligence than I - they chose not to work more fool them!

Grammar places should go to the children in the borough that exhibit the greatest intelligence - if they choose to work to ensure that this intelligence is exhibited kudos to them.

I do understand that not all families have parents who can teach their children or afford teachers to do so but the local library is free and resources are available online. If kids really want to gain social mobility they have to take some personal responsibility for it.

I agree with Seeker to a certain extent although those parents don't necessarily need to be middle class. They do need to be interested and supportive of their kids education though. You can tell right from the start.

Oh and some state primaries have stupidly high amounts of levels 4&5 at Y6. They are no less crazy, pushy exam factories than their private contemporaries.

thick not think! that will teach me for typing while ironing!

I'm an ex grammar school girl and was educated in a state primary and wasn't tutored to pass my 11+ (deemed too thick, older sister was coached as she was deemed the bright one, she failed...) and I don't think this is on. If a child is bright they will pass through school (any school) with flying colours. If they cannot, or will not, apply themselves, they will flunk out at some point in the process.

The new 11+ is much fairer than it was in my day.

State education and state funded health care and public transport will never be good enough in all areas of the country to compete with private until the people in power have to actually use them. The only way to achieve this is to take away the private option.
We don't have grammar schools here or a good private school within sensible travelling distance so the comp is brilliant because the children of the professionals or well off who would normally go to the grammar or private actually go to the state school, this means the top sets are composed of the bright kids regardless of income which I think demonstrates social mobility. If you took out the kids who might have been sent private the school results would not look so good and the poorer bright kids would be on their own.

See in this area (where Grammars are still thriving) it has brought the reputations of the comps UP to such a degree that it's really no big deal if your child doesn't pass the 11+ because the exam pass rate and care given by the schools is nothing short of exemplary.

Grammar schools really aren't the be all and end all in life.

If we weren't in the fortunate position to pay for school, I would choose the comprehensive over the grammar 9 times out of 10. The 1 time being if it was truly awful.
In my experience, a grammar school experience is a very narrow academic education which I wouldn't want for my children especially my eldest who is very academic and needs to be forced away from just that and encouraged into other stuff.

Totally disagree with you on the narrow education. Grammars (in my experience) produce very well rounded students that excel at sport, in the arts, and are very literate and articulate individuals.

Sadly i missed out on these lessons but all my peers managed it :o

Asinine - Exactly!

You hear so much about 'the culture of benefits' and 'teenagers with no aspirations'.

If they are separated from 'high flyers' in by the state education system, then in effect the percieved problem is accentuated by segregation.

Pigs will fly before the private option disappears (or is deemed unneccessary).

There is no answer.

They should decide to get rid of grammars altogether, so that the comprehensives are actually comprehensives, not secondary moderns.

We need to return to an effective three tiered education system. It works in several European nations, it worked here, bring it back I say.

Scotland got rid of grammars years ago. Our school was an ex grammar turned comp which sent at least 7 kids to Oxbridge when I was there and lots to the now russel group unis.

No, private schools shouldn't be allowed to take up places & neither should people out of borough be able to either.

I am NOT in a grammar school area, btw!

"For many kids rightly or wrongly it's their one big shot at getting a leg up in life."

I don't agree with this. I know people who aren't from affluent backgrounds, didn't pass the 11+ and have done rather well for themselves after attending a secondary modern.

I also know quite a few people who went to grammar schools and have quite bog standard lives.

I don't think the 11+ is fair, but neither do I think you should ban children who have attended private schools.

Hardhat, I don't remember at grammar many straight A students being encouraged to do art at uni if that was what they wanted or textiles (fabric). It was all about becoming doctors/lawyers/accountants/teachers etc.

So I don't really mean excelling at sport etc because I think grammar schools do encourage all that stuff too but I mean opening their eyes to lots of different options that aren't necessarily high achieving careers.

I want my academically gifted child to be encouraged just as much to do sculpture as to do science if that's what he wants. I think state schools in general aren't good at this which is a big reason why we pay.

YABU, its a very middle class argument, alot of people who choose to send the dc to grammar can probably afford the private tuition needed to get in if the give centre parcs a miss a couple of times a year.

We couldn't afford a house at the time in a good catchment area so we are sending our dc to Prep. We were on a waiting list for a (state) school we loved but decided not to hang on, she had a place in a very respectable Catholic school across the road from where we lived but we are not practising Catholics and it wasn't the right school for my dd.

Giving up the place meant that somebody desperate to get into that school got a place. Prep school is a struggle for us but we go without holidays etc to afford it.

This countries education system sucks its not about the children its about the figures and unfortunately the private/ state debate won't go away. I work at a red brick University and the majority of my students are privately educated. This is certainly not going to Change under the new Conservative policies however we are a democratic country and this is what people voted for!

It is no point comparing the situation now with the situation when anyone adult now was doing the 11+. Then it was possible for a bright child from a disadvantaged background to pass and go to grammar school - and it is possible to argue that the grammar schools did help social mobility to some extend. This is no longer the case - as the 2% free school meals at GSs testifies.

Not my experience at all MrsWitcher. There were 15 of us in my A Level Music Class. So many people wanted to take Art they had to create a second class for it (as many took art as took English Literature).

Our school trips ranged from going to National Gallery, to watching the ENO to skiing trips, trips to Moscow... from my year group there are professional musicians, fashion designers, linguists...as well as the traditional Doctors, Dentists and Vets.

Don't pigeon hole something on the basis of assumption and stereotype.

When it comes to choosing a school you do so not just off the Ofsted reports and exam results but the atmosphere and ethos of the place, i hope!

It's not based on assumption or stereotype rather my own experience. Yours was obviously different. That doesn't mean yours is the more common.

I teach primary now but I taught in a comp for 3yrs before switching. My experience there too was that academic kids were encouraged into doing academic degrees. Kids expected to get 3 or 4 A grade Alevels were treated with kid gloves etc and certainly after their GCSEs they were encouraged to take the more academic Alevels.

I'm not saying they didn't themselves want to but it was certainly very much encouraged. Straight A 14yrs old were certainly never told, have you thought about becoming an interior designer but were asked to consider medicine and law etc.

Thats suprising. Possibly because I come from an arty family and myself and my siblings (non grammar kids) were all encouraged into the arts.

OP is correct for my area. All the preps have 11 + entry numbers on their websites.

If you look at the parent's cars on open days and the (very silly) uniforms on some of the prospective pupils it's fairly obvious that my DD's state grammar school is shoved full of affluent middle class types. It's unfair to so many equally deserving bright kids whose parents can't pay for tuition or private primaries.

Yes, the number of kids at grammar open days in shorts caps and straw hats is noticable in our area.