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?

Absolutely! That's why I was happy to lay my credentials on the table, such as they are. Just wish everyone else would do the same- the number of posters saying that "this" or "that" happens in comprehensive schools, or doesn't happen in grammar schools......

I know. I do get about some of the things that are posted about both!

Unnecessary, rude and unpleasant, Laqueen.

I think I'm the spectre at the feast, TOSN - "The mumnsnetter whose child failed the 11+"

A Ghost of Christmas Future too hideous to contemplate.

Apology accepted. Oh, sorry, it was TOSN you were apologising to.........!

Seeker, well if you are so am I - the mumsnetter who didn't even put her DS in for the 11+ despite passionately believing in grammar schools (at least, the type of grammar school he would have been trying for).

Russian - I just think you'd make their heads explode..."does not compute".....

Anyone happen to see the BBC news at lunchtime? There was a piece on the Kent grammars changing their test to make it tutor-proof. Sorry if this has already been mentioned, for once I haven't read the full thread.

There was a thread about whether tests could be made tutor proof a few weeks back. I can't remember if there was any consensus.

CecilyP
In answer to your earlier question, my ambition was not unreasonable at all. At a fee paying school nobody would've batted an eye. It was the pupils who commented, not the teachers. The teachers knew I was ambitious but did absolutely nothing to help. I managed to acheive it but it was very, very hard. My dm describes me as 'self-taught.' She knows how many hours I put in at the library, alone.

One day my SIL text-ed me and asked for my email address. She then sent me an email to tell me that she had gone on an evening course on how to use email and thow she was now busy emailing all her friends. Don't people just sit down and do it? By the way, she is early 40s so hardly of the papyrus era.

Anyway, I have the same inward smile whenever people go on about tutoring.

For each of my DCs we spent the Year 5 Easter break going through past papers, just to familiarize them with the different types of questions. Thereafter they practiced doing the papers under exam conditions. That was the extent of their tutoring.

I group people who need to hire a teacher in with the same crowd that needs a course on using email.

It is especially funny when they come on MN and go on about how unfair the system is and how it's biased against those who can't afford tutors and how the odds favour those who have been tutored for years.

If your child failed the 11+ then why can't you accept that your child isn't as clever as you think instead of blaming the format of the test or parents who spent a bit of effort on prepping their kids?

Well my children never sat the 11+: we don't have it. I still think the 11+ is a bad system. Unles your post is some kind of personal attack on someone, I don't see your point.

^For each of my DCs we spent the Year 5 Easter break going through past papers, just to familiarize them with the different types of questions. Thereafter they practiced doing the papers under exam conditions. That was the extent of their tutoring.

I group people who need to hire a teacher in with the same crowd that needs a course on using email.^

Sounds no different from some of us who were set up on email for the first time by a family member. Whereas others with no family member to help them, might benefit from a course.

Maybe they do also do well at a comp. But, I doubt they do quite as well, as at a selective GS.

I don't know how my DS could have done any better in a selective school-he went to a RG university to do a very academic subject and it was his first choice. Had he gone to Eton he would have done the same! He was in no way unusual-he was merely one of many. Nearly all my friends have had their DCs in comprehensive schools and they are all doing very well-extremely well in some cases.
I have 3 very different DSs-the academic one, the practical one and the arty one. They all went to the same school and they have all been able to do their first option-you can't ask more than that. (no one has yet told me why they can't be under the same roof)

Totally. - are you making fun of people that perhaps are not as educated or as confident as you? So what group do you place these people in - please explain? It's perfectly feasible that someone in their 40's isn't computer literate. Not everyone has had jobs where they needed to use computers. Never used a computer at school and I'm mid 40's.

Also the whole grammar school thing is very alien to me, I really don't have much of a clue about it. Poor think old me.

See, I am that thick I don't even know how to spell it (will proof read for once).

Maybe the DC will be clever enough later. If you take my brother he was very slow in the infants-although the teacher said that once he had a concept it was very secure,-written off in the juniors ,except for one supply teacher who said that an essay of his was better than ones he had seen written by 15 yr olds, failed 11+ , did nothing much to shine in any way at secondary modern, passed 12+ -found that he loved Latin and Greek and by 13 was in the 'high flyers' set that took exams a year early. DCs don't fit nicely into little pigeon holes and it is impossible to tell at an early age.

My DS1 seemed very advanced at 2 years-he was just reasonably bright and spent a lot of time with adults.

I remember the teacher saying when he started school that it was ridiculous that a DC who could do addition in his head couldn't hang up his coat!

He was rather the absent minded professor and irritating!

Sorry-I ramble! Just showing there was nothing special about him and no way of telling what sort of education he would be suited to at 11 years of age.