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.

Oh, God, somebody said "leafy"! Now I'm going to have to stand in a bucket and sing Jerusalem..........

Pass me a naice slaice of hem, would you?

Nit is absolutely right about the tutoring. Of course it's buying an advantage, there's no other way to characterise it

But other people also have advantages, a while ago on another thread like this someone was bitterly complaining about tutors, and it turned out she was a teacher but then said weakly, oh but its not fun teaching my own, but of course I help them.

Well she would have a massive huge advantage to someone with zilch teaching experience.

Nit is absolutely right about the tutoring. Of course it's buying an advantage

It's not buying an advantage any more than stocking up with GL Assessment papers and doing lots of timed tests at home is buying an advantage.

Yes, I agree that both methods of prep are buying an advantage over those who don't have either. Which is why I always argue that the feeder schools in selective areas ought to be able to be more involved in preparing their children for the test, and administering it, instead of pretending that it isn't their concern. I'm sure there are also parents who would want nothing to do with the 11+ under any circumstances. Fair enough. They could opt their children out.

In my area, anyway, you are left to your own devices, and it is doing a huge disservice to children whose parents are either not savvy enough or engaged enough to prepare them for the test.

Nobody 'actively wants their child to miss out'. Obviously . And yes, children whose parents are able to tutor them are giving theirs an advantage too. But is it so hard to understand that some children don't get either?

"You cannot create a non tutorable test.

So you have to set up the state sector to help those children like Philo, to get in and try."

So - if the cost of an education at a private prep is around 12 - 14K a year, and the average spend in a state school per pupil is £6700, how will we equalise the spend?

Seriously - state schools can't compete. My nephew has just got into a super selective grammar after 3 years at a good prep school. Tiny classes, loads of one to one attention, lots of extra TIME because of a longer day, writing clubs etc. PLUS five hours a week of private small group tutoring. State schools are dealing with the fact that children in private schools are not only getting more teaching time in school, but are also often getting private tutoring outside of school. How do they bridge the gap?

Whatever state schools offer, no matter how good, people with money will buy something better for their children because that's how competition works.

"It's not buying an advantage any more than stocking up with GL Assessment papers and doing lots of timed tests at home is buying an advantage."

The test for the super selective grammars in our area involves writing an essay, usually a story. The children are given about an hour to do this. The maths is level 6 - not usually covered by state schools even in top sets until the middle/end of year 6.

"It's not buying an advantage any more than stocking up with GL Assessment papers and doing lots of timed tests at home is buying an advantage."

Yes it is. I don't understand what's so difficult about this. There is a test. It is possible to teach somebody how to pass the test. Some people can do this, some people can pay others to do it, others can do neither of those things. The first two groups have an advantage over the third.

Right. I'm going to ask my eternal question over again. People now acknowledge that state selective education is unfair to children from disadvantaged backgrounds and are trying to find ways to even out the unfairness.

Why not just get rid of the system that creates the unfairness? Why do people think top set children need to be educated in a separate building? I am aware of LaQueen's views and experiences, but she does seem to have been uniquely unlucky.

Hak I think a thread like this is always likely to pull in the grammar-fans, but the top set thread today certainly suggests that many people feel differently and have experienced comprehensives as attended by children today very differently, from which I take heart, but wish there was more crossover between threads!

I'd like to see super selectives widen their access in a similar way to Oxbridge.

Get out there and sell the idea, plus contextualised offers.

Perhaps they do the former already?

That would make the admissions process a little fairer and the cohort a little more representative.

I know. I was starting to doubt myself a bit, but the top set thread has reassured me......

I do wish people would say why they support grammars though. The only possible reasons I can think of are fear and snobbery, but I know nice people who support them, so it can't just be that............

Hak crossed with you.

Well a similar question for you...

The most selective universities have a disproportionate number of advantaged students in them. The admissions process favours them.

Yet I'm sure you wouldn't want to close them down or make them less selective. I do recall you being rather happy at the prospect of your DD applying to Cambridge .

I'd like to see super selectives widen their access in a similar way to Oxbridge.
The thing is that superselectives in many areas would have catchments larger than the 6th form colleges.
Part of school is making friends - not easy when they live miles and miles away.
Let alone the carbon footprint of more kids travelling further to school
remember that outside London we pay for buses so car is often cheaper

We are in Lincolnshire.DS1 in year 11 at superselective but there are ones that aren't and a really good comp or 2 .Have no idea how ds2 will fair he is currently in year 3.Don't really have catchment areas here so more choice if you can get your child to school.

"And while my point about buying a house in the area of a top comp is dull, but valid."

Shall I start another thread?

Is your child in the top set of a comprehensive school and not bullied? Is it because you bought a house in the catchment of a "leafy top comp"?

But didn't you buy a house which would enable you to access a grammar, Lq

Yes, you're right: there is such a thing as moving for catchment. It doesn't mean that anyone who supports comprehensive schools, likes the one their children are at, or thinks grammars are bad, did that. It doesn't mean that all schools doing a good job are in areas where houses cost anything like as much more than other houses as the equivalent of a set or two of school fees.

Suddenly saying 'ah but, leafy comps, ah but, moving for catchment' in the context if the discussion being had and the questions being asked is just a bit daft.

word I am surprised to hear you say the admissions processes of top universities favour advantaged students! As I recall, your line is that the universities are doing all they can but can't be expected to compensate for the crap advice sixth formers get from state schools etc?

Let's just not dress it up as giving them confidence and familiarity

Just what exactly do you think goes on in tutoring, nit? They just practise questions similar to those which are likely to be in the exam.

They will thus become familiar with what is expected, which will hopefully give them some confidence in what is a very stressful situation for a 10/11 yr old (majority will be 10 in our area, I should think).

They are at the exam venue for almost 4 hrs, sitting 3 papers. This is just for an ordinary grammar, not a super-selective.

I agree with TheWordFactory I think grammars should be like charities, forced to widen entry and show their benefit to the whole community to get state funding, so contextualized offers, going into local primaries. For a reason I just don't understand, but may be a legal one, our local primaries don't ever mention the grammars- they just tell everyone about the one catchment comp. Parental choice hasn't quite made it into their thinking- hence it gets left up to parents to find out the options, hence this favours the sharp elbowed middle classes (of which I am undoubtedly a member).

I went to a bog standard comp and quite large chunks of mid-level children were badly served, for example, not getting the basic five GCSE's/O levels (yes I am that old) to go on to further study. The very clever ones did fine, but were traumatised by being picked on endlessly for being clever (or 'posh' which was the equivalent. Lots of other children were written off with no decent vocational education and I'm sure they felt just as much failures as if they had been attending a secondary modern (given most schools are completely oriented around getting GCSE results still anyway).

I don't love grammars, and would love my children to attend a fully comp school in which academic and other types of achievement (e.g. DofE awards, acting, art) is valued but all my experiences and my friend's talk tells me there aren't any around here so I will be sending mine to a grammar if they get in.

One thing does puzzle me though, for those fully wanting a comp system, surely we have so few grammar schools now, why hasn't social mobility increased?

Talkin I didn't mean widen catchment.

I meant widen access so the schools would still cover the same area, but children who would never dream of applying, or wouldn't likely pass the test would be given offers.

Just like what we're trying to do at Oxbridge.

Children could be subject to a similar flagging system and sufficient flags would prompt a contextualised entrance test.

Could work.

I think there are other educational issues I care more about than the survival of grammar schools. I'm concerned about the role of faith schools in a multi-cultural society, their discriminatory admissions procedures and the way in which they may reinforce inequality. I am concerned about the rapid spread of academies, including the forced conversion of schools into academies - and the way in which such schools are tied into commercial interests, and are not properly accountable for what they do. I am concerned about the money that's been lavished on free schools in areas where they aren't needed. Grammar schools seem to me part of a much wider pattern of fragmentation and division, in an increasingly unequal society.

Confidence and familiarity are obviously a result of effective coaching, yes, MrsM. But stressing abstract personal gains can be a way of downplaying the concrete advantages which parents pay for.