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?

Why do some people have such a patronising attitude towards the WC?

I mean, non selective schools would be so much better if only the MC parents send their kids there instead of a GS or Indie, goes the argument. These proactive parents will push for the school to be improved. I suppose that will allow the WC parents to spend more time to tend to their whippets eh?

Or that they are too naive to understand that they don't have an equal shot at GS. I think they are aware that without being told.

Poverty is one of the main indicators of academic under achievement. It is not patronising to point this out. It is not patronising to point out that grammar schools have 25-30% fewer children on FSM than high schools and to consider it a scandal. It is not patronising to consider that allocating children to schools based on a test that requires you to have parents/carers who have the time,energy,education and confidence to help and support you in very specific ways is likely to favour the privileged.

Nurture may have a lot to answer for in Wealth IQ differences. Studies have shown rich and poor babies show equal signs of intelligence (how anyone can claim to measure a babies intelligence I don't know ), but by the time they start school the rich kids are a year or more ahead of their poorer peers (on average). Tumble tots and museum visits (or whatever rich people do with their dc that poor ones mainly don't) would seem to provide better development environments than not doing those activities.

If both parents aren't highly educated or well off then of course their child will be at a disadvantage with homework, career advice and 11+ to name a few things.

But it is patronising to say that their schools would be so much better if only you and other MC parents were to come in and take over the PTA for example. Or their kids would do so much better if only they had your MC kid to act as a role model.

I think (know) that the thing most likely to deter less well off parents of bright kids from entering those kids for the 11+ is the constant banging on about how no-one can hope to pass without tutoring and how these schools are so relentlessly mc that no-one else will fit in. Both things are bollocks and it's more productive to repeat that mantra over and over again than it is to keep moaning about exclusivity.

Up thread exotic talked about a well off family who bought her house because it was near a good GS and how the DC proceeded to fail the 11+. Elsewhere seeker talked about how her DS failed the 11+.

So why do people keep on going about how the MC have a secret handshake when it comes to getting a GS place?

Seeker. There is an approx 8% difference in fsm levels between the grammar my DD attends and the local community school. Please stop quoting 25-30% difference as though it is the standard difference across the country. It may or may not be the difference in Kent, or in your bit of Kent. It isn't everywhere.

I can see all sorts of mechanisms for poorer children not attending grammars, yellow. What's more interesting, is how the top comprehensives manage it too as per the article I mentioned above. Why don't poor children who live in catchment of a top performing comp attend it? Where else do they go?

There are no poor children in some catchment areas gelo The house prices see to that.

Also, the 11+ test that DD! took did not require her to have parents/carers who had the time,energy,education and confidence to help and support her in very specific ways. In fact, I told her that if she wanted to do this then I would buy her the recommended workbook but other than that she was on her own. Those were my very words 'you're on your own love. Like you will be when you do the exam'. I was very firm about this - it was her choice. I know that some parents are ridiculously micromanaging controlling smothering types, but its not actually necessary most of the time, and I think its slightly amusing when people like that assume it's the only route to success. My own theory, which is only a theory, is that it's actually the very worst thing you can do for a child. But I might be wrong.

@gelo ne of the things that prevent poorer people from attending grammars is the negativity from people like Seeker telling them they have no chance so why bother. So, they don't bother, they don't take the test and therefore they don't get in. :(

Of course there are lots of mechanisms for poorer children not attending grammars gelo but I was referring to the situation where poorer parents with a bright enough child is actually deterred from entering the child for the exam by this stuff about tutoring and profile, when the child, if entered, would stand a very good chance of getting in. It does real harm on the ground gelo.

Cross posted. Russian this is a very bad habit of yours.

My grief will be controllable.

are deterred, not is. Just as well I never ever coached mine in grammar really :)

seeker on your own preferred measure of FSM uptake, why not compare the FSM uptake of the top comps and that of the languishing comps and see how much intrinsically fairer that distribution appears to be. Given that entry to the top comps is based overwhelmingly and in a much purer measure on income or capital. chance. Then justify it.

Obviously, the income levels of families of children will reflect the area that the school is in. So to compare FSM in a top comp and a languishing comp would be a little silly. Also some so-called top comps practise selection by the back door and they, too, have low FSM uptake. What seeker has done is compare to schools in the same geographical area, accesssible to the same families and reported the resulting discrepancy.

What seeker has done is told us how it is in a tiny little bit of Kent and assumed that that is how it is everywhere else. Kent is not the world. And I suspect the bit of Kent in which she lives is not the whole Kent, either.

gelo - our local comps aren't great by my standards but they are good. One particular one has a local rep for being more academic. It is regularly under subscribed.

A couple of parents I know didn't even list it in any of their 3 choices. Why? Because they didn't think that their kids are academic (they were more academic than mine) or they didn't want an academically pushy school.

Not quite poor children but it partly answers your question which is that some parents don't encourage or support their DCs. It doesn't help that here and RL people harp on about snobby pushy parents and how you are at a disadvantage if you don't have a tutor

socharlotte, I'm looking at the difference between the fsm intake of a school and the fsm % of its catchment area. So, the fact that very few poor people live in catchment is corrected for. I think there must be some flaw in the methodology, I can't really understand it.

The original sutton trust researchh is here

Have seen the flaw, the fsm % of the catchment is based on the postcode of the school not the actual catchment area which will be wider and more varied. So the study's not worth the paper it's written on.

Why the state thinks children in Buckinghamshire have such special genes they can benefit from (or be hurt by) grammar schools but not children in say Northumberland is beyond me? Either you think it's fine for children whatever their region or you don't as it is a state system into which everyone pays taxes.

But 'the state' doesn't think anything. Since the late 70's it has been left up to individual LEAs as to how they organises their secondary education. But you already know that, Xenia.

Difficult to know on that one yellow/russian. While I agree it's not good if people are being put off applying, I don't know how much seeker raving on mumsnet contributes to that as against the likelyhood of her cries resulting in say a less socially skewed test, for example, or resulting in more teachers of such children going out of their way to actively encourage applications if they are more aware of the issues. Voicing opinion doesn't always have the expected result, and I'm very hesitant to advocate supression of free speech.

What seeker has done is told us how it is in a tiny little bit of Kent and assumed that that is how it is everywhere else. Kent is not the world. And I suspect the bit of Kent in which she lives is not the whole Kent, either.

One thing I think that Kent does, both seeker's tiny little bit and the rest of Kent, is reflect the selective system as it was in the days when selection was universal throughout the UK. I am guessing that if seeker lived in some other parts of Kent, she would be even more unhappy that her DS failed the 11+ because the non-selective options are far less appealing than the school to which he goes. Everywhere else (well not everywhere else but many areas that have selective schools) just have the odd grammar school as part of a broadly comprehesive system.

I think (know) that the thing most likely to deter less well off parents of bright kids from entering those kids for the 11+ is the constant banging on about how no-one can hope to pass without tutoring and how these schools are so relentlessly mc that no-one else will fit in. Both things are bollocks and it's more productive to repeat that mantra over and over again than it is to keep moaning about exclusivity.

But would less well off parents of bright kids actually be aware of the constant banging on about how no-one can hope to pass without tutoring. Would they not be the ones who put their untutored DC's in for the test? Once people are aware of tutoring and the extent to which it happens, then obviously, they can join that boat.

The "funny" thing is that, based on what seeker has posted, the results at her DS's secondary modern is better than the comp at the top of my road.

So much for the superiority of the comp system.

The answer isnt to scrap the selective grammers, but to invest heavily in bringing the other state schools up to standard so that all children have access to a good education, approprate to their needs, regardless of whether you can go private, get a tutor or buy a house in a good area. Then the middle class obsession with getting children into grammer will naturally fade over time. BUT it requires years of very expensive investment.

I have children in private school as the only state option for us (Derbyshire) is woeful. Where we live there is no choice of school in the state system AT ALL. I have many friends who live in more affluent areas of the country who have moved house - sometimes to a specific street - to be in the 'right' catchment. I know people in bucks who tutor their children for 11+.

It irks me that because some state education is not good, people talk about closing private schools or scrapping grammar schools as if this will solve the problems elsewhere. This is a distraction, and it is being used cleverly by poloticians of every party to divert attention from the real issue, that state education in many (usually worse off ) areas is just not good enough and is failing generations of children.