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.

That's the odd bit, I do live in a Grammar school area, we have a high school and grammar schools. The secondary schools are and were just called secondary schools.

whatever5 an eligible score is an eligible score. Any kid with an eligible score should be fine.

How do you or anyone else know that kids with a lower score than previous entrance score will fine? In the past grammar schools have asserted that children with those marks will struggle. They only seem to have changed their minds now that they want to tick the box showing that they have increased the number of pupils on FSMs. Why do you assume I'm "protectionist" - the new rules don't effect me or my children. I just think that genuinely disadvantaged children won't benefit from this. I also think from my experience of grammar schools that children who get in with much lower marks will struggle.

What I find interesting about this debate is the insistence that grammar school education isn't suitable except for bright children WHO ARE HARD WORKING.

What about very bright children who aren't hard working? It seems to me that there are many like this.

Will their needs be met in schools where many other similarly bright (but more industrious) children are missing from the cohort?

In an area with many grammar schools, where do the bright but dreamy/rebellious/distracted children fit, if they aren't suited to schools which expect large amounts of homework to be done to a high standard and all exams studied hard for?

One of my DC in particular was a real clown but still got in, he's just left and he's done fine. You really don't need to be that hard a worker but you do need to be bright. None of mine have had vast amounts of homework either. They have to do what's given, but it isn't overload by any stretch.

Queen the main reason is that the SATs don't test potential.

tiggytape I'm not sure how your long explanation is relevant to what I was trying to point out.

Having read this and the recent long thread about Trafford Grammars I want to weep for the poor children

Tiggytape, you said: The odds are quite low for anyone lacking natural ability to get into a superselctive.
If 2000 sit an exam, about 1/3 to half are deemed of selective ability so the weakest 1000 children get rejected outright.
Then of those 1000 that pass the test, only the top 200 or so get in (or top 300 - 400 when you consider some will not put the school as a high choice on their form). To be honest no amount of tutoring is going to take a weak student and propel them into the top 400 students out of 2000 (generally) very bright children.
Tutoring is more seen as fine tuning. It fills knowledge gaps (for example the Year 6 maths stuff) and it teaches children to read what the question asks, not waste time on questions that carry little weight, to tackle long tasks without freaking out, stamina to get through an arduous exam day etc. It isn't about taking a middle ability child and getting them into grammar school, it is more about making sure a top set child doesn't lose out on a place due to a silly mistake that costs them by 2 points (as can happen and does happen every year - there is little if no difference between those who narrowly pass and those who narrowly fail).

This is exactly what I mean! Surely you can see that those parents are therefore buying an advantage over other equally able children from poor/unsupportive backgrounds by the mere fact of doing that?

The most egalitarian possible system would be one which tested skills that cannot be tutored at all.

"To be honest no amount of tutoring is going to take a weak student and propel them into the top 400 students out of 2000 (generally) very bright children."

If you were given 300 A and A* grade GCSE essays, you'd really struggle to put the writers in clear ranking order of intelligence/ability.

Why is it that 11+ examiners are seen as possessing some sort of super human ability in doing something like this, when even an experienced GCSE or A level examiner would struggle hugely with this task?

Tutoring does make a difference to bright children at this level of competition.

"Tutoring is more seen as fine tuning".

How can covering the entire level 6 maths curriculum (necessary to stand a chance of getting into one of the super selectives near us) be seen as 'fine tuning'?

I have read several essays where the most deciding factor of any child's academic achievement at school is the educational background of its mother and/or the number of books in the family home

LaQueen This got me thinking, so I'm going to start a new thread on AIBU on the subject. I would be really interested to know more if you feel like contributing..

How can covering the entire level 6 maths curriculum (necessary to stand a chance of getting into one of the super selectives near us) be seen as 'fine tuning'?

Maybe it should be seen more having to pay to fill in gap where state has failed

"The most egalitarian possible system would be one which tested skills that cannot be tutored at all."

The most egalitarian system would be one which didn't separate children into groups permanently at 11 according to whether they are considered 'bright' or not. Particularly as there is no reliable way of testing for potential at this age.

"Maybe it should be seen more having to pay to fill in gap where state has failed"

Al - my dc's school cover the level 6 curriculum with the top sets, but not until the end of year 6. How can this be said to be 'failing'?

I can absolutely guarantee that if all the state schools took time out of their day for children to do more maths and English (maybe they could drop music or art from the curriculum to make more time from it) that the private sector and tutors would start routinely teaching GCSE level maths to 11+ candidates in order that they could rise above their state school peers. Where would it end? With a system like the one they have in Korea, where children do 13 hour days at school and the suicide rate among under 16's in one of the highest in the world?

And for what?

For institutional reasons? To facilitate academic selection at 11?

How on earth have so many children I know excelled at GCSE and A level maths despite not having been pushed and pushed further and further at KS2?

Lots of schools are un able to cover level 6 and also state schools seem to disadvantage pupils capable of the 11+ , i had read some are not even allowed to mention it

I see this as state schools failing DC from state primaries because their peers in private schools are getting more chances for more choice.

I would like to share my experience of being a very able child in a genuinely entirely non-selective system. I don't know if my anecdotal evidence is based on the teaching methods, or the aspirations of the educational establishment, but here is it anyway.

I grew up in France, where 30/35 years ago at least there were only extremely limited ways to outplay the "system" to gain any kind of advantage as we were all supposed to go to the nearest catchment school. My parents managed to achieve an exemption to this for me as I was already bilingual French/English and did not need to learn English from 6eme (year 7) by quite reasonably requesting that I do German instead as a first foreign language. Since my catchment school did not teach German, nor any of the others anywhere near, this meant commuting by bus for 1:15 hour at 6:45 am to the nearest school in a large town some way away. So from the age of 11, I was on the bus by 6:45, returning home at 6pm, to go to a school where I was so far ahead academically that I could read entire novels in English whilst following the lesson in French and still do what they requested of me with my eyes shut. This was whilst being in a class that was already vaguely streamed by ability due to the parents knowing the little trick that my parents had used. I had 1 friend for my entire time at secondary school. The rest of my year, and quite a few of the years above, picked on me for the entire time.

I was bored shitless for my entire school life, I had no friends, and teachers shook their heads and looked worried all the time when they looked at me. I had literally no idea why they did this. I always thought I must have done something wrong.

The first time in my life I felt I was with peers was when I went to Cambridge at the age of 19. I got not because I had done brilliantly at any exams (I hadn't because by then I was chronically depressed and desperately lonely) but because I had a very good mind and plenty of potential. I probably wouldn't even get in now, and tbh I would probably be dead by my own hand by now if I hadn't . It was literally a lifeline for me.

Would I inflict a childhood of incomprehension, bullying and fear on my own children? I'd have to be mad. So as soon as DS began to go the same way, I chose the chicken's way out and paid for him and his sisters to have a peer group. Broadly it has worked- all three are a lot more settled, and have self-esteem.

Would I have jumped at the chance to be more with people who understood me through childhood and teenage? What do you think?

Who gives a stuff about level 6?
they either do it in primary or secondary

School based education SHOULD be all about building up a body of knowledge by the time they leave education
why the artificial division at age 11 in some parts of the country ?

whatever5 tiggy's explanation exactly answers your point. The pupil premium children are able to leapfrog to the top of the queue after Looked After Children but are still entirely adequately qualified. No-one not scoring the eligible mark will get a place purely by dint of being in receipt of FSM. This notion of 'lower scoring' children is a red herring. Eligible = ok to be there/ shouldn't struggle.

I think the point about FSM is that there is the assumption that they might have chaotic homelives, disengaged parents or are unlikely to have been able to afford private tutoring. If they can achieve a pass mark then that shows greater potential and ability than a child with all the advantages and tutoring that gets a few more points.

But I agree, it relies on massive assumptions and stereotypes. I certainly have several friends who claimed FSM whilst separating from their partner and still receive healthy maintenance payments for example.

However, although imperfect, it's the best solution and I am rather glad it exists.

It also doesn't address the point that parents need to find out when the test is, think it's worth applying, get them to the test centre on a Saturday etc.

whatever5 tiggy's explanation exactly answers your point. The pupil premium children are able to leapfrog to the top of the queue after Looked After Children but are still entirely adequately qualified. No-one not scoring the eligible mark will get a place purely by dint of being in receipt of FSM. This notion of 'lower scoring' children is a red herring. Eligible = ok to be there/ shouldn't struggle.

It doesn't answer my point. The eligible mark for those on FSM will now be quite a bit lower than the eligible mark for other children in places such as Birmingham. Even prior to this rule, some of the children who got the lowest entry mark struggled once at a superselective grammar so there is a good chance that those who enter with even lower marks will struggle even more. Eligible never did necessarily = okay to be there/shouldn't struggle and now it is even less likely to mean that for those on FSM.

But whatever, it would if those children had achieved a pass mark without any real external input or coaching. A child who turns up and comes third in a race with no training has arguably far more potential than the Athletics squad kid who came first.

I think league tables changed a lot of this. For schools now, they are only judged on results so naturally they are going to take those most likely to get the best grades from however wide an area or narrow social group.

newrecruit That would be true if they hadn't received any input or coaching. However in Birmingham those on FSM have also received coaching for the test from one of grammar schools.