"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?

nit I honestly don't know how much social mobility can be helped by any type of education.

When Blair was campaigning for education x 3, I backed him all the way, convinced that the comprehensive model would significantly help social mobility.

I thought that amount of cash and will would achieve great things.

Blair was wrong and so was I. Comprehensives have not helped social mobility. Not at all.

So where do we go? I'm not sure in truth. The Sutton trust says disadvanataged students perform beter in grammar schools than in comps and who are we to argue?

And years down the line,I can see that my own son is faring absurdly well in selective education that we can buy, and it seems churlish not to allow DC with a similar intellect not to be able to access something similar simply because they are not as rich...

If we get rid of selective state education, won't that be just another thing that we leave for the posh boys to enjoy and benefit from?

Word, I completely agree with you, I thought a large amount of cash into education would improve things as well. But it didn't, which reinforces the point that education needs to be driven by parents as much as it does by schools.

Yes. When I was convinced by the model, I didn't have DC and naivley believed that the state could have an impact.

Now I have DC I can see how flawed that idea is. School, whatever the model, is only half the picture. And school, whatever the model, probably cannot cure society's ills.

Now I'm not even convinced that should be its function. It's probably far too much to ask and when one overloads a system it tends to fail in its primary function. Perhaps better to let schools get on with the business in hand?

A lot of countries have better social moblity that the UK. I believe the biggest issue is that some schools have a disportionate number of low income or SEN children or both. To improve social mobilty we need to avoid gettos of povety in our schools.

Many comprehensives are not comprehensive. Selection by house price is common. We need to ensure that all schools have good social mix and a good range of ablities. The comprehensive system collapses when there are not enough children to run a top set or there are more children with special needs than the school has the resources to support.

I believe that having a set number of places in ablity bands (Ie, 20% of places for chidlren with 5B or above and maybe so many places for children working at level 3) , possibly prioritising pupil premium children in admissions might ensure a better social mix in schools.

To be honest there is never going to be social mobility while the movers and shakers continue to be (in the main- before anyone tries to prove me wrong by coming up with exceptions) white men who went to public school and Oxbridge. Not private school or "Indy"- public school. And only about 5 of them. People like that appoint people like that. And in their minds, comprehensives, secondary moderns, grammar schools and most private schools are all much of a muchness- places that other people's children go to. I think that's something us enthusiastic anti private education people sometimes forget- there may be good reasons forgetting rid of St Custards and Miss Joyful's School for Young Ladies, but changing things at the top isn't one of them. Their alumni have no more chance of getting to the top than the alumni of Bash St, Grange Hill or the Mary Seacole Academy.

And actually, I don't think there is much appetite for social change in the UK. I can't remember who said it, but somebody said something like "The British dearly love a toff". We've always liked to know out place. And it must be true- I can't think of any other reason for electing David Cameron!

morethanpotatoprints your son is a great success story - but one thing leapt out at me - superhead - if only all schools had one! And you didn't rate the school enough to send your second child there either

Superheads are usually put into dire and failing schools. Then they leave and are placed somewhere else. schools tend to have a 7 year cycle of ups and downs. For a while you can improve it, then the natural catchment area catches up with it again.

I shoudn't be replying: I need to go to work and it's going to annoy me not to carry on with this!

Word, one of the things you often say you like about private ed is choice: indeed, you chose selective for one child and not the other. So by 'extending that opportunity to the less well off' you'd also be extending something you didn't want to lots of the not well off, who also may not want it!

Also, children like my daughter who were born the year Blair came to power are only now taking their GCSEs. Isn't it a bit soon to cry failure? Especially as its not as though the comprehensive model got rolled out everywhere under Blair anyway?

Well the fist conmprehensives were set up after the second world war, no?

So I think they've had a decent run for their money.

And I don't buy the idea that the model can't properly be tested unless all schools are comps, so ti can't be said to have failed. Because a. there are plenty of schools that don't have large numbers of local DC being filtered off and b. it will never come to pass.

Can we really have a country wide education policy based on a model whose efficacy can never trully be tested?

And the Labour administration did get a really fair crack of the whip. The monety was there, but more importantly the will was there. And social mobility decreased... I mean how much longer and how much more money can you throw at a model that is no longer fit for purpose?

And I'm not saying the GS system is a panacea. It has problems. We all know that. But surely we can come up with somehting!

I think where I am from (NE) we have had just about only comprehensives (with very few in private schools) since about 1970 when comps came in and direct grant schools even disappeared. I suspect although I have not checked that that area continues not to do too well in exam results. There seems to be some golden glow issued forth from the SE which means whatever school you are in - inner London comp, state grammar, Catholic, Muslim or private school your results will always be better than the NE. I suspect the golden glow is a mixture in the SE of money and hard work and immigrants who work hard at school and people from the NE moving to where there are more life chances int he SE - so i a sense a flight of brains and the harder workers.

[Just had a call from an adult daughter to talk about apostrophes.. laughing as I type... now I know my work as a mother is complete... and she even referred me to an award in London for the worst grammar which apparently London Underground often lose]

I think social mobility is higher i London than anywhere else in the country, no?

And London is awash with schools of every possible type.

But of course there are other factors at play; work, money, immigration etc

Which does make one think, that perhaps schooling isn't a driving factor in social mobility. Maybe that's just wrong thinking. I used to believe that education was the main factor, but I really am changing my mind!

I'm not so sure. My parents' social mobility was achieved through state grammar schools (in the NE) and presumably parental support as well.

Are we saying it's easier to change class in London / SE than it is say in the North East? Possibly. I think there are many more different types of people in the melting pop of London which is compared to many cities a nice meritocracy. There is more of a divided social strata in the North East and if you go to country areas like Devon. Perhaps the gulf between the classes appears harder to breach in other parts of England.

I suppose one example might be would my parents have moved class had there not been state grammars. My father certainly could not read medicine at first and did a science degree is that is all his father could afford. It was only after WW2 that grants came in and he could a medical degree after that - so that was state funding for education and women's rights - my mother used her teacher salary to keep him during his studies for 10 years.

My own social mobility was gained through having a mother as my cheerleader. My school (comp) did its very best to hinder me but it was no match for my mother!!! This was in the North BTW, and during the Thatcher years.

Surely it was the first secondary moderns, not comprehensives, that were set up after the War? 1944 Butler Act and all that? Comprehensives were later, and of course a lot of them were set up in the 80s when most of the tripartite system was dismantled under the Tories.

I don't know why social mobility has decreased - I'm disappointed and saddened that it has. I don't think it's decreased as a result of spending on education though! As for the question Can we really have a country wide education policy based on a model whose efficacy can never trully be tested? - how can we not, given that there is no model which has been?

For anyone concerned that too much money has been 'thrown at' state pupils, though, there may be some comfort now. My daughter did Latin GCSE free under the ISSP last year - if she wants to do AS, it will cost £5 a session. At the ends of years 6 and 7, she did AGT week-long workshops in the summer for free - if dd2 wants to do the same this year, it will cost £100.

So there's light at the end of the tunnel, hmm?

I went to a comprehensive 1989-1994 and it was dire. I can categorically say that the girls' school now is better beyond belief, and I certainly attribute much of that to money spent and initiatives in place post 1997.

Yes, I think the family has to work hard at an education as well.
Possibly why so many schools struggle as some parents think education stops at the school gates. If you have a supportive family perhaps it matters less which 'type' of school you go to.

Oh no nit, I don't blame the comp system for the decrease in scoial mobilty. I've come to the unhappy conclusion that educaion probably isn't the vehicle for change that I and many others assumed it would be. Social mobilituy happens or doesn't happen irrespective of the education systems we use. It seems a follower rather than a driver IYSWIM. So really we should leave it to its primary function and not ask it to cure societal problems.

If you read up on the history of education you will find that the grammar school system became unpopular way back in 1950s because the middle classes were growing and they couldn't all get their DCs into grammar schools and didn't want them at secondary moderns(very true today). The first comprehensives got a bad name because in 1970s, when most if them started, mixed ability teaching was the 'in' thing. It didn't work and good comprehensives will stream. They also stream for subjects which is a great help to the sort of DC who is brilliant at English and hopeless at maths and would therefore have likely failed 11+. They won't come back because the majority of parents are going to have DCs who would be in the secondary modern - they don't even like the name those days and call them 'High' schools. When I was young the girl's grammar school was called 'xxx and County High School for Girls.
You will only ever get a return to grammar schools when you can get placards with 'Bring back secondary moderns' - which is never.

Your family is the most important influence for social mobility. They have to value education and support it and get the best from it.
My family have come from a long history of farm labourers and have used education to their advantage.

That's interesting exotics. My family (working class) were madly pro comprehensive. Both my parents had had unhappy experiences in the gs system, one at GS and one at SM. But sadly my comp was awful! That said, it has improved to some extent now, though it still offers little for thw very bright.

I did very well from a secondary modern, getting to the grammar school in 6th form, but it was only because I had very pushy parents - I am very thankful they were pushy or I would never have made it.

It's interesting exotic that in middle class mumsnet world, pushy parents are considered A Bad Thing. Yet a pushy parent is often the very thing that makes a difference for a disadvanatged child!

And of course pushy parenting (or however one wants to call it) is the very thing that will ensure that education can never be the great leveller I had hoped.

Before I had DC I couldn't comprehend how differently parents parented their DC. I didn't realise quite how unusual my mum had been. But once I had my own DC I saw it evry clearly and knew I was cut from her cloth! And I can see that education simply cannot level that.

I suppose "pushy" meaning "you will get a bloody education if it kills the pair of us" is different from "pushy" meaning "we started her on Mandarin at 3- they are sponges at that age, aren't they?"

I was a bit the latter with poor dd- I am tending towards the former with poor ds!

Depends what you mean by pushy. Being an involved parent isn't pushy, IMO. But constantly elbowing others out of the way "My child first" is. My parents really weren't involved or pushy enough though. Not out of neglect, they just didn't know the system and thought I was so independent and would find my own way, when actually I could have done with them being there and sticking up for me a lot more.

depends whether you mean 'pusing forward' or 'pushing out of the way', I suppose - and on whether you're clear about whether or not what you perceive as the former actually entails the latter!

I would call myself a pushy parent in that I will get the best for my DC, but I am never unrealistic, they are all perfectly do- able things that won't disadvantage others in any way and I am always polite, friendly and supportive. E.g when dyslexic DS was supposed to do a second foreign language I got extra English help for him in that time, I got proper testing, TA help and extra time in the exams. He got excellent help in the primary school- he got it in the comprehensive because I pushed. Sad to say, those in a similar position who didn't push would have been ignored.
When DCs were disrupting the maths class I phoned up and complained and it got sorted.
That is what I mean by pushy.