To think that grammar schools should either be scrapped altogether or available in every county?

[Perriwinkle]

How can it possibly be fair or reasonable to have them only in certain counties?

I know that many people will say "how can a system that supposedly favours the brightest ten percent of children, ever be fair?" but personally, I've actually got no beef with that provided that the opportunity to attend these schools is available to the brightest children in all counties.

How can it be equitable that the brightest children who live in counties which do not have a grammar school system are routinely failed by the comprehensive system whilst those who live in certain counties are not because they are able to attend high performing State-funded grammar schools?

I think if you're anti grammar schools altogether you should probably hide this thread. This is not meant to be a thread about the pros and cons, relative merits, inequalities or shortcomings of either the grammar school system or the comprehensive system. It is a simply a question of wishing to hear any reasonable justification that may be put forward for the continued existence of the grammar school system in its current guise.

How can it be fair to continue restricting the opportunity to enjoy a priveliged grammar school education (akin to that which many people pay handsomely for in the private sector) only to children who live in certain parts of the country?

I also don't see why my DSs can't go to the same school-just because one went to a RG university and one had an apprenticeship-why on earth do they need to be in a different place? Luckily they went to the same school and it catered for both.

www.maynard.co.uk/?ref=home-button
This is my old school. It was a direct-grant grammar school and pupils came from all backgrounds. However, it went independent when the LABOUR government did away with grammar schools in the 70s and Devon did not join in.
I just wish that the system had continued. High academic standards, but also COMPULSORY cookery and sewing.
Big social mix. Much bigger than when I did my teaching practice near Oxford in the 1980s.
What is so wrong with promoting an academic education for ALL children, who could benefit, regardless of their "social" background?

E320 I think you will find that Mrs Thatcher did away with more grammar schools when she was Education Secretary. Why? Votes - people did not like it when their children failed - sorry were selected - for a non academic education.

E320 Exeter's state grammar schools were Hele school for boys and bishop Blackall for girls. The Maynard was always a posh school, it had some direct grant places available. Devon county council took over control of all the state schools in Devon in 1973 when Heath was prime minister and when DCC was under Tory control (as it usually is). That was when grammar schools except for colyton were abolished and the direct grant scheme was stopped.

E320 grammars and direct grant schools were not the same. My own school, also direct grant, had no domestic science at all. But I think you're correct in saying that the social mix at direct grants was 'big'. It was more polarised than at grammars. And what was interesting, looking back, was that the friendship groups cut right across boundaries - social, economic and geographical (our catchment was wide). I wouldn't want to have sent my DDs to Maynard as it is now: very restricted socially and tiny classes in some subjects at A level - far too small with no scope for decent interaction or discussion at all (I shouldn't have thought).

I went to a direct grant. The social mix was narrower than at my DSis' grammar school because at my school two thirds of pupils had paying places and one third had funded places. It was one of the few schools in the country which opted not to become independent when the direct grant system was abolished because it was a church school and was founded on the principle of education for all. Ironically although it is now a comp the social demographic is no wider (and may be narrower) as the entrance criteria is a high level of church attendance so it's really swamped by people "on their knees to save the fees."

"Perhaps you would like to tell me where I'm going wrong Seeker?"

Well, in this case, not knowing the difference between a comprehensive school and a secondary modern.

Russiansonthespree- not having been to and/or not having a child in a secondary modern school doesn't soon to be a bar to people having opinions about them....I don't think my not having been to or not having a child in a comprehensive school should be a bar to me expressing my opinion that they are the least worst option currently available.

The Maynard School was a Direct Grant school, so always a private school but one that took a proportion of state funded pupils. E320 is correct that it was the labour government of 1974 - 79 which abolished this system.

But incorrect in stating that it was a grammar school.

I guess it's to do with people's understanding of the term grammar school. As many of the Direct Grant schools had 'Grammar School' in their name and children awarded state-funded places in them had passed the 11+, they could still be regarded as grammar schools.

herewego perhaps my Direct Grant school was unusual then. A lot must have turned on geography and the moment in time. It remains a fact that a school at the edge of South London in the 1960s and 70s able to offer a free education to a large number of bright children of immigrants (mostly wartime refugees) and longtime indigenous poor whilst drawing fee paying students from the middle classes in the immediate area of the school and the upper middle classes in the stockbroker belt of the Surrey hinterland was a very mixed school indeed. And all the better for it. I think the school I attended was almost the perfect social mix, an experiment almost, which worked extraordinarily well. Not that I was conscious of it at the time, which of course is how it should be, or have been.

No, sorry CecilyP, semantic part of me kicking in. They weren't grammars in the sense of this thread.

I do think it's important not to cloud the definitions. Whatever a grammar school might or might not have been, now a state grammar school is one which is wholly selective.

Sorry, asecondary school hitch is wholly selective.

That's OK, I think you are probably right about that.

Even more retentively semantic now but all Direct Grants were 'selective'. Just how selective they were about the fee paying contingent of the school will have varied from school to school.

Seeker you are of course entitled to your opinion wrong though it is. However when those of us who did attend comps and do have kids at comps express the opinion that they are not the least worst option, please do not tell us we really have no idea at all. Since that evaluation is more suited to you than to some of us. :)

You need to know where people live to decode what they are saying.

If they live in Kent/Bucks then a 'Comprehensive' is a Secondary Modern. It seems that if you live in a London Borough it seems to depend on the individual school as to whether it really is comprehensive. Then there are parts of the country where a comprehensive really is a comprehensive because it takes all the local children and has a good social and ability mix. Whether it's good or bad depends on the senior management team but that can probably be said for most schools.

Sorry for stating the obvious though.

I don't think I did, did I, Russiansonthespree? I told Clouds and Tres that she doesn't know the difference between comprehensives and Secondary moderns- because she obviously doesn't.

And with the greatest of respect, if I am not allowed to have opinions about comprehensive schools, then many people on this thread should not be expressing opinions on grammar schools and secondary moderns.

Seeker I didn't say you weren't allowed to have opinions. I clearly said you were entitled to your opinion. I suggested that you shouldn't tell people who do have direct experience of comprehensives (unlike you) that they have no idea at all when they express a view on comprehensives. Because clearly, they do have an idea. They have genuine first hand experience. The fact that they may disagree with you doesn't mean they have no idea at all.

My opinion is that since you have no direct experience of comprehensives, your opinion that they are the least worst option is less valid than the opinions of those who do have experience. But that's just my opinion.

seeker I'm out of the loop on this one: what sort of school did you attend? Simply interested, nothing more.

Seeker - the post I am referring to was made at 18:33. To jog your memory.

Me again - Seeker I not only think you have the right to express an opinion I quite enjoy reading your opinions even though I often don't agree with you, I do applaud your unflinching support of state education. I only really take issue with you when you resort to the hyperbole of claiming those who support some version of grammar schools don't care about any kids other than those of their own who might attend those schools, and when you tell people who disagree with you that they don't know what they are talking about without proving this contention through the use of facts etc. this is not the same as thinking or saying you aren't entitled to an opinion. I don't actually even think it matters that you don't have first hand experience of comps except when you tell others who possibly do that they don't know what they are talking about. Far better to say that you disagree with them and explain why, surely?