"tutoring for grammar school is cheating". AIBU to be fuming at DSIL's attitude?

[twiceupinarms]

namechange coz as much as I don't care if she reads this, I don't want her to know my normal nickname.
I am getting my DD tutored for grammar school. DSIL thinks it's cheating if she can't get in without being tutored and will therefor struggle when she gets there. for fucksake, the exams are not based on school curriculum - it's like being a brilliant footballer but been trialled to get in the team on your ability to tie your laces. fucksake.
Anyone else encountered this attitude?
Oh I can add hypocrisy to the list? Her DD audtitioned to go to Stage Boarding School. Did she do any practice/preparations for the audition? Only 9 lessons a week, every week, for 6 years.

AIBU to be cross?

I think that transport costs and probably uniform costs will definitely put a lot of low income families off grammar schools. You have to pay for transportation yourself (unless it's the nearest secondary school). Many children at dd's school have to pay more than £500 a year for a bus pass.

No Julia. My education hasn't gone any further than a few vocational diplomas. My suggestions are just that, based on being a parent, working in a primary school, and having children in a SS GS and a comp. And are only in response to the implication that I must think that children on FSMs can't be clever enough for GS.

seeker - in your opinion the 11+ is biased against poor kids because their parents don't know how to Google "free 11+ papers". But that doesn't stop you accusing clouds of saying that poor people are too stupid to get into a GS

Classic seeker.

MTSgroupie I think it's precisely because I'm a competent public speaker - I addressed an audience of 400 a few days ago - that I thought the head's address, given to parents and children interested in sixth-form entry was conventional and unimaginative. In her place I'd have said that the school (like any decent school whatever it's name/brand/status) would do its utmost to work with the parents and the children themselves to help them fulfil their individual potential. Pupils might go on to be scientists, artists, teachers, academics, pubic servants - whatever. The point is that that they should leave the school with knowledge of their particular gifts and ambitions, as well as a sense of how these might be realised. It was this idea of, 'We are all the leaders. The rest can be the followers.' that jarred somewhat. I felt that some rather unintelligent assumptions were being made

"Whatever it is, it is within their own control. It is not the fault of a grammar school when a parent can't or won't do what is needed to send their child there."

No, it's not the fault of the grammar school. It is the fault of the system. You agree that some parents can't do what is needed to send their child there- and those parents tend to be the poor and/or disadvantaged. How is it fair to have a system that a bright child may not be able to access because their parent can't/won't do what is necessary to get them there? Particularly when they whole point of grammar schools used to be, among other things, to give bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds a step up out of disadvantage?

MTS- fair enough. You know best.

frauMoose, I haven't come across a grammar school yet that doesn't come out with this "you are the elite" "you are the leaders of the future" stuff. Heady stuff for a 10 year old. Guaranteed to make for good relations when they meet their old Primary school friends on the football pitch!

I think that transport costs and probably uniform costs will definitely put a lot of low income families off grammar schools.

London = free oyster for all children upto 19.

School uniform - only extras between the GS and the comp is the GS prefers sports shirts to be monogrammed - therefore 1x rugby shirt, 1x tennis whites = £4 extra.

There is no swanky uniform.

Guaranteed to make for good relations when they meet their old Primary school friends on the football pitch!

Still all play cricket and football together, there has never been a social division.

Plenty of poor people at DS2s GS, plenty of parents on low incomes. I do not wear this elite shite.

I think this was covered earlier, a high proportion of DS2s peers are of West African origin, some born here, most emigrated one way and another. Most (not all) do not have professional parents. Work ethic you see, these are the parents who don't mind being cleaners and burger flippers because honestly earned is good money, and spend that money on music lessons and language lessons. The majority live, housed, on an absolutely cruddy council estate in Thamesmead that is due for demolition. They tend to speak a lot of languages fluently, native Yoruban or Ashanti, German, English and learn French at classes, plus what school throws at them, usually Spanish or Chinese.

So please, this whole elite stuff goes right over my head because it is at best projection on what someone thinks a GS is like.

As I said earlier, regardless of current occupation, many immigrants are well educated.

And, almost by definition, many immigrants are highly motivated, determined and forward thinking. And have had to learn how to deal with a complicated foreign system.

How is it fair to have a system that a bright child may not be able to access because their parent can't/won't do what is necessary to get them there

We allow anyone that wants to to be able to have children, so it automatically follows that some children will have parents that can do things that others can't, and vice versa.

By that argument, no one should be allowed to help their child do anything that might give them an advantage over another child. You are basically saying that as parents we should all conform to the lowest possible level of achievement just in case a poor child is disadvantaged by us just doing what comes naturally.

You should also try to recognise that, oddly enough, some poor children have advantages that wealthier children might not have. Some children will have large families and benefit from all the wisdom and experience that goes along with a big extended family. Some might be brought up by a single parent that has no family at all. Some might have the benefit of having a SAHP that devotes time to their primary education, some might have parents that work too many hours or who just don't want to put the time in.

The education system is not there to compensate for what children do or don't have provided by their parents. It is there to educate. As long as it does that, I can't see why there is such an issue.

Particularly when they whole point of grammar schools used to be, among other things, to give bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds a step up out of disadvantage?

Personally I think it would be unfair to have an education system that is weighted in favour of any group of children, rich or poor. Why should any child be entitled to more from the state than any other child?

You may not have to pay more for transport/uniform in London but that certainly doesn't apply to grammar schools in many other parts of the country.

In our area, school buses to grammar schools can cost over £500 a year. I spent less than that on a tutor! We also have to buy uniform from a specific shop and we consequently pay a lot more for it than we would if we could get it from the supermarket etc.

"By that argument, no one should be allowed to help their child do anything that might give them an advantage over another child. You are basically saying that as parents we should all conform to the lowest possible level of achievement just in case a poor child is disadvantaged by us just doing what comes naturally."

No, I'm not! As I have said before, the answer is obviously properly setted comprehensive schools. If you look at the results produced by a grammar school and it's associated secondary modern, they are broadly the same as a comprehensive is a similar area- except that middle ability children do better in the comprehensive. So there is no actual advantage to the grammar school system, and many, many social and psychological disadvantages. The grammar school types will do just as well in the comprehensive. And the borderliners can move up and down as they develop or peak.

The answer isn't obviously comprehensives at all.

Don't you realise how big a comprehensive school has to be to be able to accommodate proper setting?

There is no advantage to children who are currently thriving in a GS to having a purely comprehensive system. There might be an advantage to some children, but then a grammar system has an advantage to some children.

Anyway, if you think there's no advantage to a grammar system, then it follows that you don't think there is an advantage to a child from going to grammar school. So which is it?

You are quite simply wrong in saying that 'the grammar school types will do just as well in the comprehensive'. Sometimes they won't. So what is it that makes you want the system to be detrimental to them but advantageous to others?

The "super selective" grammar schools don't have an associated secondary modern. The other schools are comprehensives.

At least you have chance of getting into the grammar school if you don't have much money. You can only get into some comprehensives if you can afford to buy an expensive house very close to the school.

"You are quite simply wrong in saying that 'the grammar school types will do just as well in the comprehensive'. Sometimes they won't. So what is it that makes you want the system to be detrimental to them but advantageous to others?"

They do in the vast majority of LEAs that don't have grammar schools!

Of course they do just as well in the areas that don't have grammar schools-the top sets of comprehensive schools are the same.

I think my reservation about the grammar school my daughter attends is that I don't think they actually value education!

They provide a very well-tailored service (or factory?) for ambitious, competitive parents who want to hand their children over at 11 and have them extruded again at the age of 18 with a string of As and A stars, and a place at a Russell Group university - preferably to study some conventional subject that will lead into a professional career.

Whereas I think of education as a process of cultivating an ability to think, to explore widely, to be willing to ask awkward questions. There is a sense in which all these activities are regarded with extreme suspicion at my daughter's school.

On the positive side the pastoral care is good, it is efficiently run, the facilities are excellent, and there are some very likeable teachers.

You don't know that seeker because a comparison can't be done. How can you prove that a student with a B in a comp wouldn't have got an A in a grammar school? Or vice versa?

How can you prove that the 15 yo who has started smoking or taking drugs would have done exactly the same if they had gone to a different school?

You can't.

School is not just about a teacher delivering lessons and takings exams. There is so much more to it than that, and you are deluded if you think grammars and comps are the same. All comps aren't even the same. There are wildly different standards and levels of pastoral care. Schools don't all have the same ethos, the same intakes, the same attitudes, the same problems, the same strengths.

One size does not fit all when it comes to education.

Still don't understand why A pupils can only work with other A pupils. Particularly in something like maths, where there is always a range of abilities even among the "best". The A ones will get the As at a comprehensive- and might well do it early too- for all the good that will do them!

We have grammar & secondary modern here.

DS is only in Year 2 but it's a dilemma I've thought about. DH is dead against tutoring but EVERYBODY does it here. I don't want DS to lose a place to a less able but tutored child.

The whole thing makes me and I wish we had moved to a comprehensive area instead.

I should add I hadn't thought about a tutor now ...... In a few years time

So you agree with proper setting but don't understand why A pupils are better off working with other A pupils?

You really don't see why there is a benefit to learning with people that have the same level of ability, and the same attitude to work?

In our area there are no grammar schools and the comprehensives are excellent-all the DCs go to them- so of course the top sets are those who would be in a grammar school if there were any. Those who wouldn't have been good enough for the grammar school won't be in the top sets. They wouldn't regularly send DCs to Oxbridge and the best universities to study Maths if this wasn't the case. DS did a science subject at a RG university-he got an A for maths at A'level to get there-of course his top set wasn't pulled down by weaker pupils-weaker pupils were in lower sets.

At our GS, the children are already the top 20% brightest pupils, and then there are 5 sets for maths...so the top maths set is the best of the best so to speak.
The top 20% are in the comprehensive-there is nowhere else for them to go-unless private and there is little point if the comprehensives are excellent.

"School is not just about a teacher delivering lessons and takings exams. There is so much more to it than that, and you are deluded if you think grammars and comps are the same. All comps aren't even the same. There are wildly different standards and levels of pastoral care. Schools don't all have the same ethos, the same intakes, the same attitudes, the same problems, the same strengths. "

I think you'll find that applies to grammar schools too!

And you said yourself that an individual might get a B who would have got an A. You then said or vice versa. So why not provide the best school for that B to get an A? Why does the system have to be geared to the needs of the "top"?

You wouldn't think that there are a mere 164 grammar schools in UK, educating a tiny percentage of our children.