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Original poster

Priority admissions to grammar for free school meals

999 replies

polycomfort · 02/04/2015 14:58

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.

OP posts:
Hakluyt · 05/04/2015 14:39

"My GS educated child isn't benefitting from an inherently unfair system"

Yes he is. It may be the best school for him and it's not his fault, but the system is unfair and he is benefitting from it.

Hakluyt · 05/04/2015 14:43

Marynary- they are quibbling. The automatic assumption is that it's people gaming the system- because then you can be legitimately angry with them. And feel aggrieved and hard done by, and not ashamed of being jealous of children whose lives are, compared to theirs, unimaginably hard.

Beloved72 · 05/04/2015 14:52

Smoke pole - where would you put my three children? DD would have sunk like a stone in grammar - she has had behavioural problems and has no work ethic. However, she's ferociously bright and is in top sets for English and maths at a comp which regularly sends kids off to RG universities and Oxbridge. My middle child is a talented musician and effortlessly good at maths. Both he and my youngest are struggling writers but are very very good at maths. None of my children are 'grammar school material' but are extremely bright and need education which can cater for their need for lots of stimulation and academic rigour.

If you had your way the children who are both very bright and able to effectively apply their learning to the school curriculum would be completely separated off from the rest of the school population. What sort of provision would you see for the very clever kids like mine left behind in comps? Are you going to make a case that they don't need an academically rigorous education? That they should be steered towards vocational learning?

Casuallyvacant · 05/04/2015 14:53

Nicola Sturgeos said that an education shoudl be on one's ability to learn and not to pay.

Whcih cuts both ways. A Grammar school place should be offered exclusively on merit.

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 14:53

Of course they are benefitting from an unfair system. They are getting the teachers who want to teach 6th form for a start. They have all subjects open to them, they are not going to be told they can't learn Latin.
Other people's perception is also hurtful. You should try being 11 yrs old at a secondary modern telling people you want to be a doctor or a lawyer- you get a sceptical 'can you still do that?'!! And you are not even a teenager!
I bet that people on here with children in grammar schools who have no understanding that the 'failure' at 11yrs may become a really high flyer who will do much better than their 'success' child- despite being handed a huge handicap at 11yrs.

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 14:55

A grammar school should be offered on merit- not to those whose parents can afford tutoring, a private prep school or lots of practice papers.

Marynary · 05/04/2015 14:56

Hakluyt Maybe some people are quibbling for that reason but not everyone is. I personally would think it was a good thing if genuinely disadvantaged children (e.g. those from poor performing primary schools or with unsupportive parents) were able to take advantage of this but I just doubt that is what has/will happen based on my own experience of who was eligible this year.

Hakluyt · 05/04/2015 15:01

"Which cuts both ways. A Grammar school place should be offered exclusively on merit"
OK- how do you organise that?

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 15:02

There is also the children's perception of passes and fails. I think it was Hakyult who told of sec mod pupils being ridiculed when they turned up to a meeting they were invited to in the grammar school about Oxbridge entrance, as if they had no chance of getting there and were silly to even think about it because they failed tests taken when many of them were 10yrs old!
As they become teenagers you get those in the boy's grammar going out with those in the girl's grammar - not even thinking of the other secondary schools- when many of those children are much cleverer by 14/15 yrs.

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 15:03

Sorry Hakluyt - got the name wrong.

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 15:04

You can't give places on merit- such a test is impossible.

EatenEasterChocsAlready · 05/04/2015 15:46

beloved where are your DC now and are they doing OK? If so, why are you bothered about where other people want to send their DC?

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 15:54

If an alien landed it would be very difficult to explain a system which tests children as young as 10 yrs and says - group A get the best opportunities and career choice and group B get a school without a 6th form and can't aspire to the best universities. Group A are mainly made up with children from advantageous backgrounds and Group B are made up from the most disadvantageous backgrounds and take nearly all the special needs and the children who are not 'all rounders'.
Group A schools then get get the best results and are judged the best schools and of course they, their parents and society at large think they are 'better' in every way.
Mad!

Muskey · 05/04/2015 16:04

Well put mehitabel the only thing I would change is sad rather than mad

smokepole · 05/04/2015 16:16

I wonder which group the Aliens would use to take their DNA Samples From ? ... Group A or Group B ....

LotusLight · 05/04/2015 16:28

That's the point - why did the North East abolish grammars in about 1970s but children in Cheshire or Bucks get grammars? Either the nation thinks all children should have chance of grammar school or not. I would give all parents a £5k a year voucher to use and top up at any school and ensure there were no state religious schools and either all comps or all a grammar/technical college route.

Andrewofgg · 05/04/2015 16:31

LotusLight The Labour government of the seventies made it difficult for LEAs to keep grammars and many authorities caved under pressure - those that did not did not get grammars, they kept them.

Andrewofgg · 05/04/2015 16:34

Mehitable6 How in a remotely free country are you going to abolish tutoring?

It would be like Prohibition. I have visions of educational speakeasies where tuition would go on behind locked doors.

In any case, parents - such as teachers - who are themselves highly educated and value education can create a home where educational advantage comes out of the walls.

LotusLight · 05/04/2015 16:35

Yes, I know. My year at school were offered the chance to sit the 11+ even though it would not mean anything as the grammar schools had just been abolished. But I don't see why it's right that all those children in NE England have not had grammars for 40 years and others parts of England do. We pay the same taxes throughout England.
If as a nation we think grammars are fine then let more be set up everywhere. If we don't then abolish them all.

smokepole · 05/04/2015 16:36

Lotus Light. Because the North East has been exclusively 'Labour Controlled' since the 1970s .... Actually Cheshire as in Cheshire/West/East are fully Comprehensive areas. Wirral/Trafford though geographically in Cheshire are different areas.

Andrewofgg · 05/04/2015 16:39

LotusLight My former BIL sat the 11+ because it was not certain whether the flash new Comp would be open in time for his year. He failed; the school was ready; he went to Oxford.

But as for regional and local differences; schools are paid for substantially by local authorities funded by local taxation, and I see no reason why there should not be different policies and practices in different areas.

LotusLight · 05/04/2015 17:12

I suppose people can move to areas where there are grammars if they want them - I know people who moved from near us to near Dr Challoner's in Bucks. Even so it's unfair that just because in one area the LEA supports grammars and not another you get different provision PLUS we forbid new academies and free schools from being academically selective even if the parents want that.

Mehitabel6 · 05/04/2015 17:19

I can't think that you read my post properly, Andrewofgg, I said it was impossible.
Someone wanted the exam to be purely on merit, as if that was possible.
You are right Muskey, it is sad.
They are very lucky in NE . I had the misfortune to live in a grammar school area, but I was lucky and able to move to a fully comprehensive area. If you live in Kent you are stuck with it.

Hakluyt · 05/04/2015 17:19

"we forbid new academies and free schools from being academically selective even if the parents want that."
And long may that continue.

Andrewofgg · 05/04/2015 17:23

Mehitabel6

This is what you said

A grammar school [place] should be offered on merit- not to those whose parents can afford tutoring, a private prep school or lots of practice papers.

Since you can't prevent tutoring you can't prevent it affecting the allocation of places. The same is true of practice papers. And private prep shcools, as I said miles upthread, are protected by jurisdiction of the ECtHR.