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.

Hak I'm a supporter of selective education but I don't like the model in Kent. It's the old model I know, but my own view is that it takes too broad an intake. I also think there's a case for re-modelling education for the equivalent group who are academically at the bottom, who might well be far less frustrated and far happier with a different type of schooling altogether.

These discussions tend to leave out the ability of teachers. Most good teachers would be able to teach downwards, to the least able in a comp, but there isn't an infinite supply of teachers capable of stretching the most able, so there's an argument for concentrating those teachers where they're most needed. Kids won't thrive if their teachers are significantly more limited than they are themselves, certainly not once they're getting towards sixth form.

Please will people stop saying bog? It's really dismissive and disrespectful.

Well in theory comprehensives can only be thus if there are no other options.

If every child attends their local comp, the theory goes, there will be consistency of provision and cohort.

Except of course that's not the case.

The school where I'm governor, is a comp. No grammar schools nearby, and a vanishingly small number of kids go private. Yet this comp isn't in the same ballpark in terms of cohort and provision to the one teacher describes.

Of course there's violence in schools. I am a school governor and I have been involved in excluding children for violence

Interesting so why on earth have you been so rude and belittled the experience of other people who have also experienced it as teachers , TA or pupils?

Sorry Hak no offense meant,

I am using it a term to cover all the varieties of normal schools as previous poster was getting confused.

Bog as in Bog standard, average normal every day school.

I could replace the word 'bog standard' with 'mediocre' if you like, I went to a medicre comp that doesn't bear much resemblance either to the ones some people's children now attend (it was actually way below average in terms of results even in the days before league tables).

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/04/comprehensive-schools-failed-working-class

Excellent article.

Grammar schools, introduced at the end of the second world war, offer this opportunity. These institutions, before they were snubbed by our political elite, gave working-class kids the opportunity to climb the social ladder.

They have been demolished, though, because of one fallacious objection: that they segregate pupils at an early age, thanks to the 11-plus examination, but comprehensives do not. Really, the comprehensive school system is just as bad, but without the impressive results. In the 1960s, for instance, when grammar schools were popular, it is estimated that Oxford University took more than 60% of admissions from state-schooled pupils. Now, decades on, the prestigious university only takes 58.5%, according to 2011 figures.

The working classes have been educational guinea pigs of our political leaders for too long. It is time that they are given a school system they deserve.

The data of this failed egalitarian project is disturbing. Ofsted, England's schools watchdog, revealed last year that just 60% of white British boys on free school meals reached the expected level in English and maths. Wendy Piatt, director-general of the Russell group, has successfully identified the issue. She rightly points out that the real cause of the under-representation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds is "under-achievement at school and poor advice on the best choices of A-level subjects and university degree course".

Parents (and presumably their offspring) want the option of Grammar schools. In Essex there are 4 applicants for every GS place, so thats approx. 30 more GSs 'required'. Are you saying that they are all misguided Hakluyt et al?

: "Why are we still making only limited progress in widening access to higher education to young people from poorer backgrounds?" It seems that Willetts has come to the same, deluded conclusion: schools should not improve their performance, but universities should lower their grades.

Universities lower grades, rather than onus on schools to increase performance.

that's

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).

I know most comprehensives set! I'm talking about adopting the partially selective model everywhere so that a critical mass of very high ability children can be educated together in one place alongside a more comprehensive intake (to allow for movement up and down over the course of secondary).

"Interesting so why on earth have you been so rude and belittled the experience of other people who have also experienced it as teachers , TA or pupils?"

I haven't. I have challenged those who paint comprehensive schools as seething masses of vice and violence. I have pointed out that our experience of education is very different to that which our children are experiencing. And I have particularly challenged those who say that bad behaviour is only present in schools which have lower ability children in them, and that the only way for high ability children to thrive is to segregate them from the majority of their peers.

Maybe it's harder to develop a school 'ethos' if the intake is comprehensive (so by definition broad). Does ethos play any part in why we choose the schools we do? Should it?

I was one of the kids who went to the bog school and got excluded for carrying a knife. I carried a knife for protection and I was prepared to use it if required. I was top of my year group for most subjects and I had to survive school. Quite a few of the children carried things that they thought were needed for protection regardless of what set they were in. This was a girls school BTW , so not really comprehensive, but as close to a comprehensive as you can get.
I'm not silly enough to think that grammar schools are exempt from knife or weapon carrying children but I do think it is perhaps less prevalent based on the area where most for the children come from (the GS catchment is quite wealthy and doesn't have a gang culture).
The comps in the area where I now live are very different from the school that I went to and seem to have significantly less problems with violence and gang culture. I have worked in some of the schools in the area that I now live and they are worlds apart from the schools in my old area (which still have lots of the issue that they had when I was at school).
Based on my own experience (I know anecdotal stuff is hated on here, but still) I do believe that not all comps are similar and some do have significant violence problems and any parent who has experienced that will be more likely to seek something else if it is available.

In my post above: catchment was referring to the grammar schools nearest to me BTW; not necessarily all grammar schools are in wealthier catchment areas.

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)?

Yes, if the national curriculum level test results at the end of year 6 fall into a pattern of standard normal distribution. (They likely do, but I don't know it for a fact. I also don't know for a fact that 2% of the children nationally attain level 6, I am just taking an earlier posters word for it.)

But that wouldn't necessarily mean that the child is an outlier in terms of scholastic aptitude, which I think is what most of the posters mean when they talk about children who are "outliers." Basically, you have to think: outlier in terms of what criterion?

The group "Kids who attain a high level of math knowledge by the end of year 6" probably overlap a great deal with, "Kids who are in the top 2% in terms of aptitude," but they aren't one and the same. (Like we've been saying all along in this thread, some kids reach their potential while others don't.)

Finally, I am a little embarrassed now because I've set myself up as some font of statistical wisdom. I haven't had a stats class in over 20 years, so feel free to second guess me!

Thanks for sharing the article Beyond, it's interesting.

I don't think getting level 6 in a test on a day particularly in maths necessarily makes you an outlier at 10, even though it does put you on the outlier bit of the SATs bell curve.

That's exactly what I said Hak.

Oops, sorry, is it? Should read properly before I post!

By the way, the Ian Silvera article is a comment piece- just like the posts on here except published in a newspaper rather than on Mumsnet. He isn't any sort of education expert- he's just like us. I could link to similar comment pieces saying exactly the opposite- but I can't see the point. Anecdote is anecdote, whatever side it comes down on. Once you've had a couple on each side, they don't contribute any more to the argument. Unless, I suppose there are an absolute flood on one side and only one or two on the other.....and even then you need to look at where they come from and why and vested interests.

Any response to my partial selectives point anyone?

Missunreasonable, I hope you ensure your children are suitably armed and trained to use their chosen weapons if required.

I must have missed during a crucial bit of baking, Marni- I'll go back and look.

200 cupcakes!?!

Can we assume you're a dealer and they're not for personal use?