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.

People with their kids at grammars assume that the great grades are due to the school rather than that the kids would have got those grades almost anywhere.
The statistics do not support the view that grammars improve overall results
ie
those kids do not do better than they would have done if they had lived in a comp area.

FWIW DCs school has kids every year who get the sort of grades that the superselectives shout about. Not many of them (because its a comp) but a few. It is not possible for those kids to have done better than they did elsewhere.

wordfactory
I totally support setting - so kids are working with their peers - but their peers may not be the same people for all subjects.

Before the specialisation that comes with A levels and beyond surely its best to have the widest range together so that kids experience diversity before they head off into their ivory towers.

20 Sept 14.16 I said

"....one is not 'pushed' at grammar school. One is just swept along with all the others." If you have been to a grammar school, you know what it's like. If you have not been, you do not know.

HolidayPacking says:

"They also need learning situations where their peers inspire and motivate them. It's not good for them to always be the clever one. Having other kids around who "give them run for their money," helps them to expand their horizons and keep a good pace too."

Well said. Holiday.

Quite, TalkinPeace.

It's not exactly the same, but I know of private schools independently approaching secondary school pupils to offer them with scholarships for sixth form after GCSE results day.

Massages the A-level results for the school two years later wonderfully, that does!

The statistics do not support the view that grammars improve overall results
ie
those kids do not do better than they would have done if they had lived in a comp area.

What statistics? How can anyone possibly know how an individual would have performed, had they been educated elsewhere?

I find it interesting that there is a grammar school which gets what by any measure are fabulous results, but which is on a notice to improve because of the complacency and the the "here we are again" nature of the teaching.

If you take the top set kids and look at their results alone of course the results look good anywhere. Even at my ds's secondary modern whose results this year we will draw a veil over have some stand out performers.

What statistics? How can anyone possibly know how an individual would have performed, had they been educated elsewhere?"

Obviously you can't know how an individual would have performed. But you can know how a cohort performed.

those kids do not do better than they would have done if they had lived in a comp area.

I repeat, how can you possibly know this?

"give them run for their money," helps them to expand their horizons and keep a good pace too."

So the needs of the cleverest (a small group) to be educated within a cohort of other extremely clever children should take precedence over the needs of a much larger group of clever children to be in classes where there is lots of stimulating thought and discussion?

MrsMcRuff
The DFE statistics that show that grammar counties do not so better overall than non grammar counties.
Therefore there is no advantage to the grammar kids greater than the deficit to sec-mod kids.

I have no idea how my child would have done at a grammar, but its unlikely to be better than she and her friends at their comp did because their grades were fab.

MrsMcRuff - I think the term is 'value added'.

All schools have to provide information on this. They look at the SATS scores that children arrive at the school with, and what they leave with.

Over all, very high achieving children don't appear to get a massive boost in terms of GCSE grades over similar children at well-run comprehensives.

talkin I agree with that for the majority of kids.

My DD has thrived in a mixed ability school.

She is in top sets for most things, and apart from two subjects has a good peer group in those sets. In maths she is not in the top set and finds it much harder than her other subjects.

I am happy(ish) for her to transfer out of the school for A levels to a super selective.

DS however is a different kettle of fish. He wouldn't have found a peer group in most top sets. Especially not in his best subjects. The only way to provide him with anything like a collegiate atmosphere was a SS.

Now mini thinks it would help other pupils to have him around. But I'm unconvinced. He's quiet. Super chilled. Not a child to share his ideas willingly. Rather not draw too much attention to himself.

He needs and wants to be part of a like-ability gang. It's only fair he should have that.

Wordfactory
Out of interest : If you had lived where I do would you have
moved / sent him to private / coped ?

bearing in mind that he sounds very like a couple of the lads in DDs year who took a while to get to know but did really, really well at GCSE

Talkin I don't know to be honest .

Fortunately for us, his school is a. on our door step and b. we can afford it .

If there were not a super selective day school nearby (state or private), then how would we have proceeded?

We didn't want DS to board and he didn't want to!

DH and I often wonder what we would do if we were suddenly skint (I was once told on here that this was terribly sad but unless you've been poor I don't think you can quite understand that it's a fear that never altogether leaves) and not being able to pay school fees is always at the top of things that we'd be most fucked off to lose ....

Would we have moved?

Dunno.

I don't get terribly attached to places. We've moved a fair bit. London, Paris, Chicago, London (different part), Home Counties, back to London. Now split our week.

But we've never moved for school. Always because of opportunity IYSWIM.

Would we have coped? Lord, I should hope so. Worse things at sea and all that...

What about if you could not have afforded private ?

Would you have altered your employment location choices to fit around his needs - which of course is still only an option for the very few

Good question talkin

Knowing what I know now about super selective education and having experienced it as such a positive, it would be very hard not to do whatever was necessary to access it.

That said, my ability to work is so flexible, location is not part of the calculation really.

Maybe I would feel different if what I did was very location specific?

I ask because so few people have the option of choice .....

I bought my house pre kids without a single thought about schools.
The fact that my catchment school was already in the bottom 18 in the country back then and has consistently stayed in the bottom 30 never dawned on me till DD was looking at primary : and by which time DH had started working in education.

Would I have moved to here knowing what I now know? = not in a million years.
But I cannot afford to move so I have coped.
As do more than 90% of the population.

Grammar / selective schools are great for those that can get their kids in by tutoring and having the time and resources to get through the tests and afford to get their kids there.
But they cannot be good for social mobility and for seeking out hidden gems of kids : for those very reasons.

"Not a child to share his ideas willingly. Rather not draw too much attention to himself."

Unless he goes into research - and even then - he's going to be disadvantaged by an inability to work collaboratively with a wide range of people. Maybe attending a comprehensive could have helped him with that.

"He needs and wants to be part of a like-ability gang. It's only fair he should have that".

Why does the state have to provide a school for your son which is allowed, by dint of its admissions process, discriminate against difficult to teach children and disruptive children, when it has no obligation to do that for the vast majority of other children, who arguably have more need of a peaceful learning environment as they have fewer intellectual resources of their own to fall back on?

Sorry Word, I thought your ds was at grammar school. I see that he is at a private school.

Don't be silly mini he's only just 15! .

DH is quiet. Shy even. Hates drawing attention to himself... he's the managing partner of a City law firm ...

"Correct Hak. The 10A type thing or even the 7A type thing only happens once in a blue moon."

Those are entirely normal grades for a whole bunch of kids every year at our local comp - even in an area with some residual superselectives.

Grammar / selective schools are great for those that can get their kids in by tutoring and having the time and resources to get through the tests and afford to get their kids there.
But they cannot be good for social mobility and for seeking out hidden gems of kids : for those very reasons.

Yes but they used to be used to these reasons to seek out hidden gems maybe its time for state schools to start looking up and not down and supporting bright children, all one or two of them in each year.

beyondrepair
What makes you think they do not?

I wouldn't personally equate 'difficult to teach' with 'didn't pass the 11+', but that is obviously the situation the poster is talking about: schools where the highest achieving pupils have been removed. Which can't be very pleasant for those left.

Yes but this is the point, one would imagine that every single child from middle ability was being removed and only leaving DC with issues of whatever sort, behavioral, low IQ, and so on.

But this is not the case, plenty of children with high ability will be at comps and secondary and all the bog standard school.

If they are not doing well its not because a teeny tiny fraction of DC are going elsewhere.

Its because the school is failing them