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.

Wordfactory
Here's a scary thought.

Your kid is on the bell curve. At the right hand end but firmly on it.
If he came to DCs comp he's be in the top set for everything but not at the top of the top set for everything.
The fee paying selective schools justify themselves by saying that your kids are exceptional.
They might be but chances are they are no more so than another 10-15 kids in a 300 cohort comp.

The fact that state kids do better with the same grades once they get to the top unis is proof that bigging up their egos about how clever they are may not be best in the long run.

DD did 13 GCSEs in one sitting and got A or A* in all of them without tutoring : I cannot see why that is something comps should not be allowed to offer to the whole of their top sets.

Yes, I think this is insightful.

Perhaps less about the actual selection process and more about the style and tenor of the school?

"If he came to DCs comp he's be in the top set for everything but not at the top of the top set for everything."

Exactly. Same here.

(Actually, most of the children in high sets in grammar schools elsewhere in the country might well not be in top sets in DD / DS's comp .... it shows how 'malleable' that idea of 'so able that they have to be educated separately' actually is. If you live in kent, you think that if your child is top 25% they must be educated separately. Locally, it is closer to 0.5%)

teacher I'll be frank. I'm not au fait with NC levels and what have you .

However what I do understand is that a SS takes the top 3-5% of ability. In your average comp that would be, what, 5-7 pupils per year?

In some comps, it would be a tad more, in some comps it would be zero.

Let's say 5.

Is a comp really going to run a set for 5 pupils? Is it going to invest in special resources for those 5? Teachers? Books? Equipment? Should it? Wouldn't it be more efficient to spend resources on the huge group that make up the majority?

This thread makes me enormously glad that I reluctantly followed my dh's lead and emigrated to a country which is much less affected by class issues and to a town where virtually all the schools are not only comprehensive but do not stream or set and yet somehow manage to achieve good results (according to international scores). I have a super bright child and a very hard working child and they both enjoy school, and achieve well without being social outcasts. Last year dd was awarded a special prize for academic achievement and yet could also be good friends with the daughter of an alcoholic who has just been taken into care and failed a class or two. It is perfectly possible!

Word, nationally, c. 2% of children get Level 6 maths. So children who sit in the top 2% nationally - superselective ablity in your estimation - actually form over 20% of the cohort at DS / DD's comprehensive. Is that clearer?

"If he came to DCs comp he's be in the top set for everything but not at the top of the top set for everything."

Exactly. Same here

How do you know? Do you know Word's DS?

Well, the top of DS's Maths set, for example, is within the top 0.2% or so of ability, statistically speaking. It is entirely possible that Word's DS is of this ability - i know that happygardening's DS, fior example, would fit into that definition - but it is not guaranteed simply because he attends a GS that he would be within that ability band.

So, Word, it is absolutely worth the school investing in the education of a grouop that is over 20% of its intake. But equally, since several of that group struggle in English, they have the facility to cater for them in much lower sets, which a GS would not be able to do.

I would like to ask you a question. What value do these schools provide to society by selecting the best (prepared and hothoused) and making them better?
It is a perverse system, if they are surely as good as they claim to be then let's see them take mixed abilities children and return some value to the taxpayers.

talkin you are spectacularly missing the point .

It doesn't matter to me if my DS would be at the top of the top set! Or second or third or even fifth!

I don't want him to be in such a small cluster! Why is that so difficult to understand?

I want his ability to be normal. Normal is good.

You can be as snide as you like about selective independent schools. It is water off a duck's back to me . If it makes you feel warm and cozy, fill your boots .

Well no, it's not guaranteed. But it's not guaranteed that he wouldn't be either which is what Talkin said and you agreed with.

And he's not at a GS.

because they were seen as such an issue in non-selectve comps

Really?

I thought stabbing was mentioned in passing along with other worrying behaviours?

It was Hack who singled out stabbings.

KNIVES IN THE PLAYGROUND

It is shocking that the innocence of childhood schooldays has been threatened by a plethora of violent clashes between school pupils across the Country, particularly in recent months. Playground ‘Knife Crimes’…alarming parents and teachers alike!

A knife incident happens every 25 minutes - 4 in 5 offenders aged between 12 years - 20 years and a third of victims aged between 10 years - 17 years!

A MORI Survey for the Youth Justice Board found that 29% of Secondary School-children, along with 57% of those excluded admitted to routinely carrying knives. Correspondingly, our Hospitals report a rise in ‘stab wounds’ particularly among young males! Knives and the reasons for carrying them, is a self-perpetuating, dangerous trend with horrific consequences. Here are some of the reasons given for their use:-

Fear and/or self-protection/defence.
To steal, by threats to harm (often to fund a drug habit).
Harass, intimidate or even for ‘kicks’
Peer pressure.
To command ‘Respect’ and status

Ds's (very high) ability is absolutely normal in his comp. As is DD's, slightly lower but less spiky, ability.

In DDs group two kids got the Hat in Further Maths which makes them in the top 1000 candidates in the country : they coped with being in a comp.

Then again their parents could not afford private selective or boarding schools so they had little choice

Talkin, your dd's school sounds very good. We have a couple like that near(ish) me, but in the closest two schools it is quite rare for anyone to get all A* and A at GCSE. I think one did this year, a couple of years ago none. So the outliers would definitely vary from school to school (a bit like the old G&T designation).

Beyond,

How many of those attacks were in school? Or should we consider, given that is the incidence of knife crime 'in the wider environment' how FEW knife incidents there are in schools?

I don't want him to be in such a small cluster! Why is that so difficult to understand?

Its hard to understand what they want or what they think it will do but I think they want your son in the cluster to help the dis advantaged children who no one else, with authority, training and so on can reach.

Your shy son, can apparently

Beyond- I would really like to respond to you- because you have mentioned my name several times- but I'm really sorry, I don't understand your point.

I have no idea, I am just proving to Hack in particular that violence does exist in schools.

there seems to be a block there that violence in schools doesn't exist

Frogs, I agree that it varies from school to school. 35%+ of GCSE and A-level results at DD / DS's comp were at A or A. All A / As is quite common - the ones mentioned individually were all students who got all As, or 9 out of 10 A and 1A.

I don't understand your Hack.

You have written off the need for Grammars, but then you have said the 75% left behind...do not like the building .

People have mentioned their personal experience with low level and more extreme violence and you have belittled and written off their experience then implied they are trying to tar all schools with having problems.

I am proving you with some more concrete data on violence in schools.

Violence does exist in schools. Our local boys' superselective has quite a name for it, for example. Much less so in the comprehensives.

Word
I have no axe to grind on people who choose private school : I went to private.
You are a tad disingenuous when you talk about your child being at an SS without making it clear that it is not a state school.
But genuinely, I very much doubt that he is as far ahead of the curve as you have been led to believe.
Not a personal point : I'm sure he's very bright and the school is well resources and he will be well connected later in life
BUT
kids from poor families will never be able to benefit from SS schooling for the logistical reasons I outlined above.

BTW Winchester boys are more defined by wealth than extreme intelligence : that is why half the kids from one of the local prep schools go there. Some of the local kids who go there are distinctly average when they revert to the 6th form college after a few years.