Priority admissions to grammar for free school meals

[polycomfort]

I'm pretty much not a person to start hand-wringing over low income families getting breaks. Happy for people less fortunate to get the odd leg up. Fine.

But I'm really angry to have just read that the local grammar school has just started giving priority admission to children claiming free school meals. I understand they get an extra £900 per child so I get that there is probably a financial benefit for the schools themselves. But I've been practicing with my daughter every evening (can't afford a tutor) using books I've bought cheap on Amazon and was thinking she might be just about good to go after lots of effort from both of us and now I'm just thinking what's the point? There are 20 applications per space as it is, and now just because I'm not poor she has even less of a chance. We don't have a high income but I work full time and so she doesn't get free school meals. For my efforts I may end up having to send my really rather bright daughter to the crappy (and it is crap) local comp even though she may be brighter than a child whose parent doesn't bust a gut to work every day of the week.

I don't think it's okay for grammar schools to be crammed full of wealthy kids who could go to private school, but couldn't they do a household income cut off rather than using a free school meal as the criteria? Then all the kids who can't afford to go to private school could be assessed for grammar school. I don't see why kids from the middle income should be penalised.

I live in Scotland where there are no Grammar Schoolw, so very naive.
What I do find hard to believe is when parents mention the good grammar schools full of " good well motivated children" or the dire comprehensive.! Surely there must be other options?

If someone is motivated and bright then there is no need for them to be with 'like minded peers' or in a school where 'parents value learning'. My dh went to several of those 'awful' comps (so feared by many on this thread) with knives and violence and drugs and below par results.. Didn't seem to prevent him from being good enough results to go to a prestigious uni though? Good teachers help kids reach their potential not uniforms, or a highly selected group of peers. That Australian researcher who carried out a massive metaanalyis of all the studies on school attainment found that good teaching was the single biggest predictor of success. And there are good and bad teachers in all types of schools..

I have nothing against super selectives - many don't bother doing the exam because they don't want to travel and you never get more than about 2 children per primary school in. It doesn't make any impact on the comprehensives.

Thank you Hettie, from personal experience its not something I will be risking.

But thanks for your personal projection

Thanks Tiggytape for explaining. Where we are if you live in the catchment, you are entitled to a place at your catchment school.
In the bigger cities it does lead to some very expensive housing near good schools. I'm just very lucky I have 3 excellent secondary schools!

Don't believe a word you read, Doublethecuddles. Many equate comprehensive with bog standard whereas many are excellent. Over 90% of children in England go to a comprehensive and do really well.

I also think, doublethecuddles, that parents (consciously or unconsciously) stress the benefits of their own choice while making other options sound less attractive, because we all want to justify our own choices IYSWIM?

(There is a wonderful poster in one of our local grammars, which I use when teaching my class about the use of half-truths in persuasive texts - it talks about the school's 'excellent GCSE and A-level results' and shows a table of comparisons with 'other local schools' ... missing out the 2 best-perfoming comprehensives, against whom its results look distinctly less impressive....)

We all do it, though perhaps less blatantly.

A lot of comprehensives are good including the ones by me but that means that a lot of people with children have moved to be close to the schools and houses in that area are expensive. We would only be able to get into comprehensives miles away that aren't so popular due to less good results/reputation.

"Thank you Hettie, from personal experience its not something I will be risking."

We have developed this mindset where a comprehensive school is something you will or will not "risk". Or as other mumsnetters have said in the past "I couldn't throw him to the wolves a comprehensive"

I blame the Daily Mail. I think. Or something. Or Gove.

But in actual fact over 90% of us 'risk' comprehensives. We have nothing else ( very thankfully ). I can't understand the amount of posts on MN about grammar schools when there are a mere 163 in England.

Some comprehensive are really bad though Hakluyt e.g a few years ago some people in my area were offered one where only about 25% of pupils get five A* to C grade passes at GCSE.

Yes of course some are bad. However, it's interesting tthat the catchment of the bad ones seems to be entirely made up of mumsnetters!

Hakluyt Maybe it's because this type of thread attracts the mumsnetters who live in areas with really bad comprehensives though.

My salary is paid through Pupil Premium money. Some of the children I teach because they are PP children are VERY bright. I am employed to help fill the gaps with PP children who are behind, and also to extend the PP kids who are ahead. Pupil Premium is about helping children who are disadvantaged in this particular way to achieve their potential, whether "behind" or not. The majority of my pupils are behind though, and have gaps in their learning which are related to their circumstances.

I can think of at least five children I teach who, were we to live in a grammar area, would be well placed at those schools, but their home circumstances would make that WAY more difficult for them. My own DS1 struggles hugely at school and would not pass an 11+ test, but does have a very supportive background and has all the advantages that confers.

We have developed this mindset where a comprehensive school is something you will or will not "risk "I blame the Daily Mail. I think. Or something. Or Gove.

Hakyult I think your comprehensive skills throughout this whole thread are dubious.

If personal experience translates to you - as Me reading a Paper then deciding not to risk it, well.

The FACT is, people do live in areas with failing comprehensives that do not to justice to the children they are supposed to educate. For whatever reason. Its a FACT. It therefore is a risk to send a DC into one. People have risked it and people have DC who have failed and cocked up their whole lives. Quite a big risk IMO.

The thing is, beyond, that the attitude of 'don't want to risk it' still applies where comprehensives are genuinely excellent.

I live in the catchmen of a truly excellent comprenehsive - the sort of school that people on here complain that families spend lots of money to move close to. It has better value added than any of the grammars, excellent 'absolute' results, high % of high achievers, Ofsted outstanding, green, leafy, Oxbridge entrants, all the markers.

I have still been told, in entire seriousness, by parents that they don't want to risk their child going there because it is a comprehensive.

It does, at times, feel totaklly irrational - a fear of the name, not a fear of the thing itself. I sent DH round the grammars and cmprehensives - I wasb interested in what he thought, as he doesn't have 'inside' knowledge of education and is privately educated throughout.

He felt that the comprehensive was as he would expect the grammar to be, and vice versa. But some parents don't even visit, because of the comprehensive label.

I wholeheartedly support this measure. One of the very few things that brings me comfort in government spending is to improve the lot of disadvantaged children.

"People have risked it and people have DC who have failed and cocked up their whole lives. Quite a big risk IMO."

Children also attend private/grammar school and sometimes do really badly there too. Usually they're 'caught' before they can actually fail exams and offloaded to the nearest comprehensive to bugger up their stats rather than staying to let the side down.

It happens. I know plenty of privately educated under achievers looks in the mirror.

I also know that eating disorders are rife at some high octane girls schools.

Are those risks you've ever considered in relation to private schools?

Really clever and hard working children who are well supported rarely bomb in any environment.

Sadly, there are parents on mumsnet who view a failure to get 4A's at A level and get into a Russell Group Uni as a proper tragedy. Perhaps that's why there's so much angst on here about this issue.

" People have risked it and people have DC who have failed and cocked up their whole lives."

The sort of people who think of it as a "risk" are unlikely to have children who will fail and cock up their whole lives whatever school they are at. The children who fail and cock up their whole lives are those who are unsupported and disaffected.

Anyone would think from this that all grammar schools were good!

I love the sentence 'Hakluyt I think your comprehension skills throughout this thread are dubious' - MN at it's funny best!
translation 'you disagree with me'.