To think that if grammar schools were more available , private schools would almost 'vanish'

[smokepole]

The percentage of pupils educated in private schools is about 7% of the school population, similarly 4% are educated in grammar schools. I am wondering if there was a 'nationally' available network of about 350 grammar schools (including Boarding provision) , what percentage of parents would still use private education.

Once upon a time it was claimed [erroneously] that Comprehensive schools would make private education unattractive.

After all, the pre-existing grammar/secondary modern system had failed to have the same effect. If didn't then, why would it now?

Private education is positional good, whether state provision is better, in any form, makes absolutely no difference at all

Some people will still buy an S-class Mercedes, even if their needs are met by Ford Mondeo

Obviously no-one is prepared to look at the facts but prefer conjecture and anecdote

selective areas have better results than fully comprehensive areas, which are worse than average

Why would this matter caroldecker?

Each individual child has different needs.

Grammar schools require a particular type of child, with particular intellectual and academic needs - this does not describe every child.

However, every child deserves the opportunity to derive something useful from their time in full-time education.

Meeting the needs of academic children is NOT where Britain's education systems fail. I think that's obvious.

Even if results in selective area were better [I live in one], how would affect parental choice?

How and why would that trend be extrapolated across the entire country?

It is interesting how narrow the view here is of what makes a school have "good results". Not good outcomes for all students, just exam results.

One massive problem with grammar schools is they're not inclusive.

They're not selecting on IQ / academic potential - they're selecting on VR / NVR.

Which is a brilliant way of excluding bright students who have SEN. (A large gap between VR and NVR means a child has SEN like SpLD)

If they actually selected all the bright children (not sure how that would be possible) they'd be a much better concept.

Or if they were just chosen by parental choice, not a test. They offer an academic education and if you want one you go to one. They'd be a much better concept.

Both of those options would require them to be inclusive though.....

Private schools seemed to do quite well when the whole system was grammar/secondary modern.

How can comprehensive areas do worse than average? That makes no sense at all.

And all this this characterization of comprehensive school pupils as "chair throwers".......how is that OK?

Merry mouse - except they didn't, many smaller independent schools closed through the 70's (after the post war boomers had been though helping them limp along). Many were on their knees when grammars were scrapped and have expanded since.

In areas with grammar schools, the private schools that survive do have to have something extra to offer, normally amazing sports facilities, they can't just sell themselves on small class sizes and thinly disguised ways of saying "no thick kids".

I'm in kent, but grew up in an area without the 11+, growing up it was far more normal to do state for primary then private, now those families pay for prep then state after 11+.

There are also several large houses that are luxury flats around here that were private schools previously....

Brandysnapper, it is all about grades, isn't it?

Not about pastoral care, a love of learning, a sense of achievement, or actual knowledge.

All that counts is the cold hard grades.

Sometimes you cannot help but get swept up in the maddness of it all.

I guess other criteria are harder to measure.

My experience of private schools is early 80's sw London. Some schools had switched back to being private, but I imagine would become grammars again tomorrow given the opportunity.

However, many of the schools that are mentioned again and again on 11+ threads now were never grammar schools and just kept going.

From lurking on some of the public school threads, I don't think the posters would change their Winchester/Westminster/eton plans if grammar schools suddenly became universally available.

I don't think the call for more grammar schools is all about grades actually. I think it's about snobbery. If it was about grades people wouldn't be so panicky about it- the grades in the top set of comprehensives are, whatever the apologists say, very similar to the grades in grammar schools.

It's about keeping their children away from the hoi polloi. Perish the thought that their level 6 child should rub shoulders with level 3 child in the lunch queue..............

Nrft but my school predates grammars by hundreds of years!

Loads of the pupils wouldn't have got into grammars.

Some parents are just snobs and don't want their precious bairns mixing with the plebs no matter how smart they are. Those people are willing to pay for a middle class enclave- it has nothing to do with academic achievement.

HermiaDream I think you hit the nail on the head. It's all about the work ethos.
In my school there were no fights, little bullying, pupils were focused and eager. (Most of the time... )
My friends that went to the comp up the road often struggled against the kids that had no interest. The ones that wanted to learn did brilliantly at GCSE, but they had disruptive kids to contend with too.
The kids at the failing school next door to the grammar had to be let out an hour early so they didn't beat seven shades out of us for wanting to learn. (This is no exaggeration. )

Once again- how is it OK to characterise comprehensive kids like this? One disobliging comment about private kids at the beginning of this thread and people were talking about hiding the thread, they there were so outraged and offended. But the chair throwing, disruptive, beating up the clever kids assumptions go unchallenged.....

Once again- how is it OK to characterise comprehensive kids like this?

It's not. It's a generalisation, just the 'thick' comments about private school kids.

smokepole I grew up in one of the Lancashire mill towns you are describing. It was recently described in another thread as the most socially deprived and roughest areas the OP had ever visited. I went to a comprehensive school there. Grammars had been scrapped years ago and in there isn't a private school in the whole of the borough.
I have really mixed feelings about the arguments on here. I don't think it's right to say the children in these schools have no interest in education. I did. I have several degrees to show for that interest. Having said that, my experience of finding it tough to learn in thG environment means I wouldn't want my own dc to have to same education. I suppose I saw too many bright children fail. There was no political desire for children at my school to succeed and to be honest I don't think that's changed.

^^

I chucked a chair at a comprehensive school pupil 28 years ago!

If you are going to throw something at someone you despise, make sure its something substantial.

I have 3 A levels and a degree.

No staff on hand to witness it tho'

If a chair is thrown in a classroom, and there is no teacher or parent to see it, does it make a sound?

Hakluyt Not assumption. Experience.

the atmosphere and ethos at a grammar school both inside the classroom and in extra curricular is just different I'm grammar schools

Bodleian: do you not think that the segregation and inequality between the two anointing schools might have contributed to that situation ?

No. I lived on the same nasty sink estate as most of the kids in that school. I had to dash home and change out of my uniform to avoid getting picked on by kids that had exactly the same opportunities as me.
I wasn't lucky or privileged. I made the best of what I had. Any of those kids could have too.
I doubt anyone would send their children to a school with a terrible reputation if they could possibly send them somewhere that regularly has good results.

"I had to dash home and change out of my uniform to avoid getting picked on by kids that had exactly the same opportunities as me.
I wasn't lucky or privileged"

How did you end up in a different school?

She obviously passed her 11+ because she worked hard and was bright.

Ms shellshocked makes a brilliant point about bright children with SEN though.

A selective system should/needs to take in to account bright children with Dyspraxia/Dyslexia Aspergers . These kids who may struggle in certain areas, but given the right help and equipment would benefit massively from a grammar school. These are the children who perhaps need a focused disciplined environment more than bright pupils without their needs.

I don't think anyone has any argument with wanting bright kids to be well educated. But let's think more creatively than harking back to a system with inherent issues .

What school provision will :
Stretch and extend the brightest kids
Stretch and extend middle of the road kids
Support those who need support
Ensure a work ethos for hard working well behaved Middle of the road kids
Ensure potential is met for the 2 points below grammar qualification, the late developer , the high achiever who flunks on the day, the maths genius who is a low average at English?