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.

Level 6 on Maths SATs is an indicator of attainment thus far. Attainment=/=ability.

You might be more adequately convinced of this if you find some secondary maths teachers, buy them a few drinks, and ask them to be frank about their feeder schools. If I found a comp had an intake of which 20% had level 6, my first thought would not be, "ooh, peers with academic ability" but "wow, what's happening at that primary school from whence they came?"

Hak peer influence is part and parcel of civilised society.

That young people become influenced by their peers is not a flaw.

Just as an aside. A bit of statistical pedantry, really. (As a change from the usual grammar pedantry so loved on mums net.) So people don't start using "outlier" in a slangy-way that sounds like a real clanger to those in-the-know.

By convention, statically, an outlier would be in the top or bottom 2% of a standard normal distribution. That is the extreme tails of a "bell curve."

So for something like scholastic aptitude/IQ, which follows a standard normal distribution. The vast majority of people would be clustered around the middle in a big buldge. At the two tail ends there would be data points that vary by 2 standard deviations from the mean.

Here is a nice picture and explanation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68–95–99.7_rule

queen and what would be happening at the primary school?

Sorry to sound a dunce, but am clueless about these levels.

What I gather is that level 6 is an unusual attainment level (in year
6). Is that because it's high? Because most kids aren't taught to level 6?

Holiday thanks for that.

When someone first used that term for my DS I was affronted. It seemed like a pejorative term.

However, I then started to work at Oxbridge, and there, colleagues used it simply as a descriptor. Sometimes in respect of intellect, but sometimes simply to mean a person whose situation was very rare IYSWIM.

What I hate in these debates (on which admittedly I mostly lurk) is when people say you shouldbe happy with the comp because their child has the option to go to a top comp in the best part of a highly middle class town... Ignoring the fact that that is very much the exception

By convention, statically, an outlier would be in the top or bottom 2% of a standard normal distribution. That is the extreme tails of a "bell curve."

So if only 2% achieve level 6 and 2% is the cur off point for 'outlier' then is any child who achieves level 6 an outlier (taking out those who are not really level 6 but achieve it only on an exam)?

They were being taught by someone who could actually teach maths. As in someone with good subject knowledge themselves. Or possibly someone who was really good at spoon-feeding, but that's a debate for another thread. Like I said, the teachers at secondary schools, particularly the ones with children themselves, have opinions on the teaching of their subject at the feeder schools! Primary teachers are humans, after all.

Morning Word - am going to try to stay off here today, but would appreciate it if you could have a look back and see that I did not say I was bored by your response - I agreed with a lot of it, in fact.

Please don't impute some kind of personal issue to what I post - if I query something you've said, as I have with many posters, it's not because I am waiting to 'leap on' you particularly. And if I countered some of your wishlist for state schools with other points, it's not that I'm 'finding reasons to disagree': I just disagree. I don't have to try .

verycold to be fair, some of the comprehensive supporters send their DC to fairly average schools I think (average here not meant to be an insult, but a discriptor of a school that is in no way unuaual).

However, what I find odd is that because they like comps, and their children are thriving in them, they seem to want to insist that everyone else's would too. And that the opportunity to go elsewhere should be shut down.

I mean I really like super selective schools (oh you don't say WF ) but I'm not going to insist that anyine attend. I'm not proposing to make them compulsory and that teacher will find me at her doorstep, 11plus paper in one hand, machete in the other...

I'd just like to extend the option...

And I suspect I'm not alone as all super selective schools are over subscribed, no? Build them and they will come etc...

I think it's a question of achieving critical mass for children at the upper end of the ability range. For example in a comprehensive where 20% of children arrive with L6 in Maths that's clearly the case, but as has been pointed out it is very far from the norm.

In my area there is a comprehensive school locally that offers around 60 selective places. All children in the borough take a test in Y6 at their primary schools and the top 60 scorers (who have put the school on their CAF) are offered a place, regardless of distance or other admission criteria.
The remaining 170 places are offered in the normal way. Last year they had 2740 applications for 250 places.

Presumably children at the school who didn't make it into the initial selective places will still be able to move into the top sets if they simply had a bad day when sitting the test. Likewise, children who scored well in the test due to over-tutoring (the test is VR/NVR) can also be placed in sets appropriate to their true ability once in the school.

Other schools use the results to operate a fair-banding system.

Could a system like this work nationally? No need to put DC into different buildings and consign them there based on one test at age 10/11, flexibility to move between sets as they develop, but a means of creating a critical mass at the top end of the ability range?

"When someone first used that term for my DS I was affronted. It seemed like a pejorative term."

I remember. I think it was me. And I really couldn't understand why you were so upset.

nit I did look back and saw the misunderstanding was with bored/board.

As for not agreeing with me, well I didn't expect it or indeed want agreement. My point was, afterall, that as parents we're not in agreement with one another as to what a good school will look like.

The difference between us, is I'm not trying to shut down your choices...

Word yes, but I know one comp that keeps getting mentioned here and believe me it is so far away from big you wouldn't believe.... So citing it as an example that bright children can thrive anywhere really doesn't wash

"What I hate in these debates (on which admittedly I mostly lurk) is when people say you shouldbe happy with the comp because their child has the option to go to a top comp in the best part of a highly middle class town... Ignoring the fact that that is very much the exception"

What I hate is people making that sort of assumption. Based on nothing.

Bog not big!

But the fact that my LEA, for example, has only selective schools shuts down my choices........

Oh don't worry hak I was being an idiot .

I thought perhaps you were trying to portray him as a bit weird (which as yiu can see on this thread, some people will try to do). I know of course you weren't.

And I'll be the first to admit that I was feeling very wobbly about DS abilities at that time. I veered from being completely in denial to worrying that he was going to have an unhappy childhood as some bow tie wearing mathmo .

Hak but what about restriction of choice due to catchment areas?

As I say Hak I'm none too keen on what you have in Kent. It seems as rigid as the comp-or-nothing scenario.

A very big comp is more likely to have a larger number of bright children than a small one. So if you want critical mass of brighter children then bigger ones would be better. I have always been happy with classes of 25 pupils at my children's very selective privates as children are about the same level and can work as a class and if you have more bright children in a class you get more ideas whereas a class of 8 for example might well not be so good. Mind you only 2 of us did A level German and I did pretty well but it does mean you don't have ideas flowing quite so much when it's almost one to one.

In my children's selective schools they are set for some subjects. Currently I think that is in English, maths and French and also for science so for seven of their ten GCSEs they are set and that is in a selective school. My daughter was in the bottom 5th set for maths at her selective school and got an A. There are advantages of being in a group for a lesson which is at a similar level in the classroom (different issue from whether selective schools are good (my view) or bad).

Marni, I think comps do that. Quite a few are large and have setting for certain subjects and children move up and down sets (as indeed do children move up and down sets in my children's selective private school).

My issue with the current comprehensive system is that it is still completely academically oriented, so even if children who are not super-academic are not hived off at 11, they still know that the most valued thing is to get A and A* and lots of them. The second layer of achievement is the 5 magic A-C GCSE's which again, is bashed over children's heads as the only possible outcome at school. In some schools, they are still running at 30-40% not getting these, so these children are disaffected and feeling like failures within the comprehensive system itself. That's why there is still in some schools quite a hostility to the more academic children- and a constant need to belittle them and their achievements, in words like 'swot' 'geek' 'posh' 'teacher's pet' (add the f-word as you choose).

If comprehensive genuinely meant better tailoring of different types of achievement- once you got basic literacy and maths classes running throughout, and vocational education for those with different types of IQ (physical, spatial, emotional) then I would support them.

It doesn't- it's still mainly all crammed into academic achievment because that's the measures the government has set for schools, so that's what they do. So, large numbers of students disrupt, kick off, behave badly and that takes time and energy away from teaching those who are either good at or value academic study. If you watch the Educating Essex/East End programmes, I love the patience and steadiness of the teachers, but what they are doing, in terms of constant daily battles with recaltritant students who see no value in academic learning is actually quite pointless. It also begs the question of how successful our schools are if we have semi-literate children aged 14-16 on these programmes- why the hell haven't they had interventions prior to this (there was one the other day who they only just discovered had a learning difficulty)?

Greengrow-your children aren't at selective private schools, are they? Blimey, you've kept that well hidden...........

However, what I find odd is that because they like comps, and their children are thriving in them, they seem to want to insist that everyone else's would too. And that the opportunity to go elsewhere should be shut down.

Yes I find it odd too. Lots of posters very happy with Bog Schools, dc thriving, wont have a bad word said about them and yet want to shut down all other options for other parents with children who by virtue of being human, simply want a different ethos and environment.

The other very interesting similarity that is shining through is those who tend to lean towards, that other for their DC being Grammar or SS or private do have personal experience of the average BOG school, and they want something else for their DC.

The other posters however, have no experience of the Bog school themselves, and they are happy for it for their own.

Which is great.

We are all different.

In fact, I have to say these threads have been illuminating and I certainly have more faith in Bog option.