"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?

What.... Academically challenge her in the dinner queue!!

Seeker I would much rather have DD go to Grammar than feel I had to put her into Private. No, not because I don't want to spend the money, but because having been to an independent myself think I would have learnt a lot more going to the Grammar. I was in the top set at my school for everything but maths and never had any drive to go to Uni. I felt it much more important to see what 'real' people did (boarding bubble for 10 years) and spent most of my 20's trying to fit in with everyone else. To me it is of no privilege to go private (the opposite actually; as explained people pooh-pooh me purely on accent and assume I have had an ivory tower life, etc), more the only option I feel left with seeing as my local schools are so dire.

But even if she isn't- your dd won't be in lessons with her, so why does it matter?

I can't see why being of lesser ability means that you are not wanting to achieve and pay attention.
All it means are that they are under one roof and can go up and down and not be sorted at a ridiculously early age. If there are grammar schools in separate buildings I think they should have the same uniform and at the end of each year there is movement up and down between the schools. The beauty of the comprehensive is that they do go up and down- and don't even have to wait until the end of term.

Do people seriously think their children shouldn't be friends with someone who doesn't academically challenge them?

Isn't that just saying the Grammar tiering is fine but let's do it on a bigger scale? Surely if you were set 34 out of 34 for everything, you would feel a lot worse?

LaQueen my very academic daughter is also a gifted musician and goes to a standard secondary school. She is predicted high grades for all her subjects, including A* in Music. She has only ever played in school orchestras, but is gearing up for her grade 8 flute exam at the end of the year. She has her grade 5 theory exam, which she took a couple of years ago. She only has a lesson a week from a peripatetic woodwind teacher, and has been learning since year 4 primary on the same basis. She is, however, very motivated and practises without any input from me. She plans to take a degree in Music and become a Secondary School Music Teacher.

I have never had to push her to do well, nor my other two children who are also high achievers. They do suffer from idiots who don't have that work ethic, but brush it off . They are very challenged by their work.
She goes to all the after school GCSE revision sessions. In fact I think she works too hard, and I worry about the amount of stress she is being put under.

The furthest I got in education was A levels, and I had a very poor work ethic. My children have not, I am glad to say , inherited that from me. My husband has CSE's and an O'level, so they do not have to live up to anything that we did.

I don't think she would have been any better off at a Grammar School.She is receiving a good education where she is.

Sorry should have said my last post was for exotic

jam but you can't that she wouldn't either.
If your local school is great and you are not over subscribed (seems to be small village schools get the best here, no wonder village house prices are so high!) then fine, but if you only have a selection of bad, you may have had a different thought process before putting her in, if Grammar is an option.

BUGGER! That was meant to be
Three tabs at once, that'll learn me.

I am interested in this idea that if a child from a disadvantaged background and her parents are determined enough, they can overcome their disadvantage and get to grammar school, so shouldn't have any special treatment or help to do it, but a very bright child needs to be isolated and protected or they might not get their A*s!

know sorry
And there was irony in that 'learn', by the way.

Of course they are on a bigger scale- I don't see why you feel worse because you can go up - much better than being told you are useless at 11yrs of age.

Well apparently Seeker that is how ALL kids got into our local grammars about 15 years ago...
Nowt but natural brains here.

But what goes up can also go down. If you have 34 sets and start in 2 and wend your way down all of your school life to 34, does that make you more confident?

There won't be 34sets! I can't see why a DC should get a grammar school place and stay there however they perform- blocking that place for a DC who would get more benefit. If they start in set 2 they had the ability -therefore to go down so dramatically means they are not using it.

But surely that would mean the kid going down gets kicked out of the grammar school and away from all their friends - wouldn't that be devastating?

I thought they get chucked out if they are persistently below 'par'?
If only the states were as good we wouldn't even have to have this hypothetical argument.

I don't mean that to say that leaving the school shouldn't happen, just that moving down (and out) of a grammar school could be much works than moving down classes in a comp

I mean 'discussion'
Let's not raise the temperature.

Why do parents use music as an argument for or against the type of school a child goes to its ridiculous.

We don't have grammar schools close to us but our county have a few. if you are academic you sit 11+ and if you pass you go to grammar if you so wish.

If you are not academic don't sit or don't pass 11+ you go to comprehensive school.

There are good and bad schools which ever style education you are going for. The high schools near us are terrible, 10 miles up the road, outstanding.

Don't you just find the best you can and support if you have to?

Personally I think limiting the amount of tiers would give you more inspiration and allow you to feel that getting to the top set is attainable than having more layering.

Yes, morethan music teachers at my school used to teach all over the local area (although possibly not for the same £) anyway, so that wasn't really a reflection on the school.

Yes it would be devastating, Dereksmalls, the great thing about comprehensives is that you move all the time- within the school.

I have children at both the comp and the grammar. I am in favour of grammar schools, but only if they take a maximum of ten percent. Any more than that and you start to weaken the opportunities for children at the non-grammar schools which are no longer comprehensive.

The benefits for my child in the comp of grammar schools existing is that most of the very able children aren't there. That means less setting is required, which means less stress over being moved up and down and more teaching of the whole form which allows the form to bond. It also means teachers can give more attention to hard working but average ability children, which they couldn't if lots of clever kids were in the class. There will always be a few parents who oppose the eleven plus and put their kids into the comp, and then spend five years demanding more setting, harder work and more attention for their 'gifted' child, who really shouldn't be there in the first place.