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.

People will always do their best for their own DC and whatever the system people will work it to their own advantage (otherwise communism would work). I have done the best for mine, as did my parents, grandparents etc.

There are some people who like to try and think of the greater good.

ha - the popular comp the St Olaves bloke used to run was Fortismere where I went to school.

Entry is based entirely on being able to afford a house in Muswell Hill.

It was a little more mixed in the mid-eighties....

Seeker - it is very pretentious to think that you can influence the greater good . It is a far better example to keep your own house in order and do the very best for your own children.

Mila, we are certainly not rich but we do live off DH's salary. Some people are more than happy to move to cheaper areas of the country to lessen their outgoings so they can live off one wage and pay fees on the other. We have 1years worth of school fees in an account in case of emergency but other than that, no savings.

I have 3 kids. When the youngest starts in Sept, the three sets of fees will come to £1900 per month. This is pretty much my take home pay as an experienced teacher with extra points.

So, my earlier point was simply that in many parts of the country lots of SAHMs with earning potential of national average or a bit above can go to work f/t and pay a couple of sets of school fees.

In some parts of the country, I've seen them at about £450pm. Again, I'm not saying that everyone can achieve this but it's certainly more a MC thing than a rich thing.

I disgree profoundly, bonsoir.

"My kids come first" "look after Number One" "devil take the hindmost" "charity begins at home" - do we really want to bring up our children with attitudes like these?

Most children in this country attend private educational institutions at some point or other in their educational careers. They are called nurseries, as we closed down most of our state nursery schools after WW2 ended. Are you therefore going to ban children who attend private nurseries, playgroups and so on from going to grammar school as well? If not, you are being terribly inconsistent.

good point Boffin!

I think quite a lot of people here are underestimating grammar school heads. What possible interest would they have in skewing entry in favour of the kids of the SEMC who aren't going to keep up? Everything I've heard and seen them say suggests that they're passionate about the system and the opportunities it can afford.

In our area there are MC parents whose kids don't get in however sharp their elbows, some then complain noisily about some perceived inequity of the system and appeal and almost invariably fail. You can't purchase brains. The thing to do is persuade the parents of more of those kids who are born clever but poor to sit the exam in the first place.

Silly point, boffin.

Ds has never been to state school. He did have a place at state nursery but it would have meant a reduction in number of hours and also meant a big leap from that to yr 1 - summer born so stuck at nursery rather than any time in reception.

Yes we do, seeker. If every family in the country would just take proper responsibility for itself, we wouldn't be in half the difficulties we are in now.

Bonsoir - If wishes were fishes horses would ride. It really depends what you mean by proper responsibility.

I've quite thoroughly buggered up that proverb

TheCoalition - that's a platitude if ever I read one .

I have no problem with giving charity, but I have a lot of trouble with others expecting to receive it.

In fact true 'social mobility' existed throughout the heyday of the grammar schools when such schools were available throughout the UK.They were indeed the only chance at higher education for working class children[I was one].Now they are at the mercy of the comprehensive system which varies so much from school to school.What was needed was not the reduction/abolition of grammar schools but a change in people's perceptions of the seconday alternatives.Equal does not mean the same.Academic schools should not be seen as more desirable than others-just more suitable for one type of learning for those whose aptitudes lie in that direction.I dont need my brain surgeon and my refuse collector to have the same skills but they certainly have equal value in society.
The private v state question is a bit of a red herring I think.

Aye, but if you have a reasonable expectation that the state will meet your needs it's perfectly proper responsibility to work to that expectation.

Why should the state meet your needs? I think it is reasonable for the state to provide universal services but not that they should be tailor-made or meet needs...

pranma - That would only work if all Academic children could go to Academic schools and all those who would benefit from other options could access those and we could reliably say which group was which.

Which requires the provision of an expensive surplus within the education system and a test with an accuracy much greater than the one we have now and quite possiblt greater than could ever be obtained.

Deciding this at the school level is just not granular enough and does not allow for sufficient flexibility. Much better to do this at the class level with a school.

Giddy I agree that the extra couple of marks can make or break the test.

Our school is adamant that tutoring doesn't help in the exam and that the familiarisation test is all that's required. It takes the tutoring issue seriously and has asked all the students anonymously to say what level of tutoring they had, if any. A lot of work at Open Days seems to go into trying to persude parents not to wheel in a tutor and emphasising how little it helps.

Everyone here seems to think it buys marks.

It's probably not sufficient to be moderately above average to get into a competitive grammar, so perhaps the less well off kids in that group aren't missing out. At least they won't have an exam to take or parental angst to deal with as fallout.

I think that too many clever poor children probably are currently being edged out by social and cultural exclusion, those are the kids that should be drawn back in to the pool so that it's fully inclusive. Excluding private school kids is (quite apart from being completely unrealistic) looking at the problem the wrong end up.

Bonsoir - Well that's the quetion isn't it? That dosen't mean that relying on the state isn't the rational and proper way to be responsible for a lot of people within the current system though.

I think that it is quite, quite wrong for people ever to "rely" on the state. We are all responsible for state services and for using them responsibly. We shouldn't think of them as a prop to our lives - we should be utterly grateful for their existence and for the fact that we live in a country that can afford them.

Bonsoir - See, I think that position relies on people choosing to do something for the greater good every bit as much as seekers does.