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?

No one tells their children they are a failure surely. In the private system your child might sit for 3 schools or even 6 and I hope most parents make it clear any would be fine. of course all children know from a young age who is good in class and who is useless even if you keep marks hidden.

There was a scientist on Radio 4 yesterday talking about his life. His father died when he was 11 (Northern Ireland) and he failed his 11+ which astounded everyone. At the school he went to they did nothing that he liked - he read hugely, poetry and calculus and science apparently but as they only did practical things like wood work (and I am not saying comps only do practical things these days) he got very fed up and started causing lots of complicated trouble eg getting all the class to wear their blazers inside out. He was always being sent out of class. He was even held down a year. When he was 14 he stopped going and no one was bothered. He got some jobs and eventually as he was reading a lot of complex books about science he because I think a psychiatric nursing assistant and then managed to get to university late, then Oxford, Harvard, Standford... he was probably lucky though. Most very bright children who don't get a chance don't thrive later I suppose.

3% of children go to grammar schools in the UK. It is a totally non issue in most areas. I don't know why it gets so much attention. Only 8% go to private schools too. It's tiny.

If you know how the levels work (and there are plenty of people who do, in particular head teachers), then you know that Level 4, the "expected level", is actually the minimum acceptable level for children at the end of KS2 and that most children are achieving Level 5 or Level 6.

I have heard bitter and foolish people on the radio, yes. I've read them on MN too. And I know a few in real life. My DS is utterly delighted he doesn't go to his sister's school. He doesn't want to work at what for him would be an uncomfortably fast pace. He doesn't want to be doing only the academic subjects and the minimum of tech subjects (I think he's bonkers on this point, btw - but then I would, wouldn't I, with my condition. As a fully physically able person he adores tech). He likes his school, he thinks it's the right place for him and he's right. Or at least, he's right that her school wouldn't suit him. I do have some reservations about his school especially since your revelation about your son's sec mod (although I must admit that a quick perusal of the stats for Kent doesn't actually reveal a sec mod with 100% A*-C grades.....).

"Do you think the needs of bright children are less important than the needs of the less bright children, or do you think all children's needs deserve to be met equally?"

I think all children deserve to have their needs met. And in an ideal world we would have found a way of doing that equally. But as things stand at the moment, I think that children with the sort of privilege you listed in your post about why FSM kids don't pass the 11+ don't actually need any more. Parents like you and me know how to support our children, and have the time and energy to do it. The priority should be children who don't have that. So I don't think it's about brightness- it's about privilege. If we could find a way of selecting children for grammar schools which was genuinely on academic potential - brain scans or something (!) then maybe that would be a way forward. But as it stands I would rather have all children educated together. So that the child from the hideous background gets the chance to discover Shakespeare or Mozart or calculus when they come into their own at 14, rather than being told that it's tourism or child care because decisions were made irrevocably at the age of 10. And if that had meant my dd getting one less A* then so be it.

Clouds - exactly. I guess our sons are just lucky we are sensible enough not to put the label of 'failure' on them. I feel very sorry for some kids. :(

"although I must admit that a quick perusal of the stats for Kent doesn't actually reveal a sec mod with 100% A*-C grades.....).

Did I say ds's did? I must have been having a brainstorm if I did!

That's what I thought I read. Maybe I was seeing things.

I think you did last night when we were comparing it with the low achieving comp (47% 5A*-C or 23% if you inc maths and english). But it was very late.

I think that children with the sort of privilege you listed in your post about why FSM kids don't pass the 11+ don't actually need any more. Parents like you and me know how to support our children, and have the time and energy to do it.

I completely disagree with this. Not being at a disadvantage is not a privilege. It's just normal. And actually, your believing that my children have no disadvantage just because you can tell that I care about their education is making a massive, and incorrect assumption. There are all sorts of reason why children can need extra support, and most of them have nothing to do with parental income.

And apart from any other types of disadvantages my children may or may not have, I don't always know that much about how to support my children. I have been completely unable to help them with maths homework for years because my children have understood more about it than me since they were in year three.

It is completely unfair to suggest that children whose parents don't engage with their education are more deserving of already limited resources. They are all equally deserving, they are children! And these are schools we are talking about, not social services. Parents have responsibility for their own children, and if they want to show little interest in education, that then it's obviously very sad, but it shouldn't be detrimental to other children as well as their own.

Ah. You said Mind you- ds's high school got 95% a*-c this year.

Which also isn't a stat that leaps out of the BBC league tables either.

But if it's accurate then it's better than most comps and some grammars so You Win.

if comps were small and single sex they might get better results

I agree with that Julia. I don't mind co ed, but I definitely think comps need to be smaller than many of them are.

I'd like a grammar system that is fairer, but I don't disagree with the Kent system enough to want to move away from family & friends to somewhere else. Plus the fact, my DDs will probably benefit vastly from it. They will get a good chance to attend some of the best secondary schools in the country, a chance I never had, only being bog standard comps where I grew up, where being average was encouraged.

Plus the fact I like the idea of single sex schools, not the least for not having to worry about sexual harassment on a daily basis.

They will then always have that school on their CVs, which will make life easier when it comes to higher education and jobs.

A normal comp isn't likely to get 100% A-C incl m&e as it is non-selective. It caters for all abilities. My DCs school gets 75% which I think tells me as a parent that if my DCs are academic and work hard, they will get good results. If they are not academic then no they may not get 5 GCSEs incl. m&e but the school offers alternatives - BTECs etc.

95% a-c or equivalent. Yep- they did very well indeed last year. And I have said all through the years of debate we've had on the subject that it is a good school, but nobody every believed I meant it!

Hobbitation "They will then always have that school on their CVs, which will make life easier when it comes to higher education and jobs"

this is the attitude that is wrong. Equal qualifications/results are what should count - not what school somebody attended!

I agree, but that's how it is.

I had no view on whether you meant it or not. Now though, I wonder why you were so very very distraught - and you son also - at him not getting into the Grammar school. Although I suppose 95% A*-C might actually be 95% C which wouldn't be so good.

I swore I would not respond to any ad hominems. However, neither my son nor I were distraught. That was a fiction created by a couple of very unpleasant and malicious posters amusing themselves at my expense. If you are who I think you are I am surprised and disappointed that you have jumped on that rather shoddy bandwagon.

Well that's not how it is as far as I'm concerned Hobbitation. When I read a CV I look at the qualifications and the school and the worse the school the more impressed I am by high grades. I then look at the university attended and do the reverse: thus the better the university the more I value a 2.1 or First.

Hobbitation outside maybe of the Ed forums on MN, and of Kent itself, most people wouldn't be able to name a single school there, let alone sift someone in on the basis that they went to a particular one. Or would they?

Someone at her work noted that my adult child had been to Haberdashers in her first job and said you must be very clever. It is certainly not something that would get you a job or would not but clearly it did have enough of an impact to be mentioned and the place will be full of people whose children dry to get into schools like that and are wrestling with the fact their child however rich the parents are or bright the parents or however much they pay tutors, very often does not get into those academic schools.

Im not jumping on any bandwaggon and you know who I am (in a mumsnet sense). Unless you haven't been back to the AF thread? You were what I would have called distraught, and at the time I tried to calm you down and have done so since. But you just seem to be so very involved in your DCs schooling - the number of threads you start about it, for example - that it's very difficult for someone more detached to get a handle on. As for ad hominems - my DD's actual school has been outed in this thread by a poster who persists in talking as if she knows me when as far as I'm concerned, she doesn't - and you yourself have trotted out the old 'you don't care about anyone else' thing again. So I think that I'm more under the microscope here than you.

You chose to mention your sec mods results. I was amazed. They are on the face of it miles better than every single comp in my county, not just the comp my DS goes to (although of course A*-C is a wide range). It sounds like an amazingly good school. If the Kent system can produce in one 'small' town a good grammar and a sec mod with results like that then I've changed my mind about the Kent system. It's clearly capable of being a brilliant system.

Yellow - when I read a CV I note if the school was in Croydon. If not, I stop caring about the school and just look at the degree taken and the results obtained.