to really regret the whole grammar school thing.

[newrecruit]

DS1 is in year 4 (DS2 in year 1).

I went to a girls grammar school and loved it. So when we moved out of London one of the reasons we chose this area was the schools. I don't think we are super selective (don't quite know what that means)

However, I was explaining the schools to him this morning as we drove past one and had an impending feeling of doom.

He's bright but can't be arsed. Resists pushing and I am against tutor on principal. I don't think he'd suit an all boys school.

What have I done! We should have just moved to a comprehensive area with a decent intake.

Some parents are already talking about tutors and its 2 years away. I want to hit them quite hard.

Please pile in and tell me to get a grip.

LaQueen, not a modern experience (was 30+ years ago) but that was certainly my experience. I had to spend a lot of my time at school fending off bullies when I just wanted to be left alone to read. There were some good things about a fully comprehensive education but on the whole I didn't have the maturity to deal with the crap that went with it.

I'm always vaguely envious about people who still know people from school. I have not kept in touch with anyone from any of my schools apart from the very last lycée where the bullying was a bit less acute. Mostly I just try not to think about my school days. It was not a happy time. I never wanted this for my children and on the whole they've escaped it.

I went to a girls grammar and was still teased for being a swot.

None of my older siblings and my parents had no qualifications. I certainly appreciated the chance to not be embarrassed or ashamed of my cleverness.

We have such an anti-intellectual culture still in this country. I'm not sure the grammar system helps that, as it reinforces divisiveness, but it certainly helped me as an individual.

It's not my experience that top set children get a hard time - in fact, they are often also the 'popular kids'.

Nit, at primary school or secondary?

However that's probably one of the reasons I'm more ambivalent about it for DS1.

We do prioritise his education, both have degrees from good universities and try to encourage hard work.

I kind of assume he'll be fine.

He's a bit of a wild card so my main worry is which way he'll go. Grammar school could be just what he needs or could knock the spirit out of him.

I think he needs girls around to soften the edges but is also incredibly easily distracted.

I must remember he's only 8!

Both - my dc are now in years 9 and 13.

(sorry - that post was in reply to Duchesse)

But as a TA, did you get much work in the top sets? It's generally my experience that TAs in secondaries are used more in the lower sets.

I certainly don't expect my children to be 'lauded' by those in lower sets - that would be peculiar! I don't expect them to be bullied either, and they're not.

Some interesting experience on the thread about this.

Hak this policy of prioritizing FSM kids is brand new. Most schools who are doing it have only started for the cohort taking the test now, so of course there won't be results yet. Rome wasn't built and all that. The same with the CEM tests. The results of mixing up the type of question and not releasing past papers won't filter through for a while. I've seen a paper in the course of what I do and would say they do seem capable of doing what it says on the can. It's a holistic approach which needs time.

What did you think of the top set attitudes to bottom set?

Molio- only one Grammar school in Kent has added FSM to its over subscription criteria. As far as I am aware, only 35ish grammar schools across the country have done the same.

The jury is still out on the new test, obviously. And anyway, as I said, there is an issue with getting disadvantaged children even to the point of taking it...

Hakluyt 2014 was different to 2015 which will be different again to 2016. I don't know the exact figure but you can easily go to each of the 164 websites :) In any event, that's more than 20% of grammars adopting the policy in the space of two years, many of the leading grammars included.

Hakluyt the reason for going for these CEM tests is to get people to understand that children don't need to be tutored, so money isn't required. The whole thing is about encouraging the children who've been scared off by the whole tutoring/ middle class fandango to come forward. Prioritizing FSM children also sends out the message that grammars are for all comers, regardless of background. That's the whole point!

I thought it was generally thought that the new "tutor proof" test was a bit of a failure in it's attempt to be more inclusive-am I wrong about that?

I linked to an article from the guardian (somewhere early in the thread) which showed that more private school kids and less state school kids are passing the new 'tutor proof' tests than the older style tests.

Hakluyt the reason for going for these CEM tests is to get people to understand that children don't need to be tutored, so money isn't required.

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/16/state-school-pupils-worse-tutor-proof-11-plus-tests

I have copied the link again which appears to show that these tests are doing anything but getting people to understand that children don't need to be tutored and that money isn't required. If anything the opposite is true.

Certainly in Kent, which is the county I know about in detail, adding FSM to the oversubscription criteria would make very little difference- because generally, there are enough grammar places to go round.

And I don't think, in my experience, it's the idea that you can't pass the test without tutoring that puts disadvantaged families off- it's more fundamental than that.

Missunreasonable you linked way back up the thread to that article which shows very little indeed. It's too early, too small a sample to be indicative of wider trends and fails to analyse all sorts of other economic factors which are very likely to still be at play in the early years of using the CEM tests. It's way, way to early to damn the tests, which have been years in development. But of course there are all sorts of entrenched interests (the tutoring classes, the anti grammar brigade, other providers etc) who will do there best to claim they don't work.

Hakluyt it's been identified repeatedly as a part of a major disincentive to application by the people who do the research. It's all part of the wider 'middle class' culture surrounding grammars and very important indeed.