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.

Studio Schools tend to do Btecs which no longer count - because they are small and are aiming at "creative careers". They may also overly attract students who weren't doing well at their previous school.

When the league tables first came out - my old school was pretty much at the bottom nationally and was only achieving about 15% getting 5 GCSEs.
In my LA only one school gets below about 40%, and that seems like something odd is going on as it got 14% in 2014 but much better every year before.
The LA where I grew up, the worst school now gets 39%.

www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=135661&superview=sec

I picked that school from the link supplied by teacher, Oasis academy at media city (Salford).

21% overall getting 5 A-C, but only 57% of high attainments getting 5 A-C. The school is an academy, but I don't see why we should be expecting any less from academies than we do from any other school. I would expect more than 57% of high attainments to get 5 good GCSEs including maths and English.

In that Salford school 59.1% have been eligible for FSM in the last 6 yrs.
It tells me that education is failing the most disadvantaged children. Putting a grammar school there would take hardly any of that percentage but would be loved by the middle classes of the area who would take the places!
Much better to improve that particular school.

I don't think a grammar in that area would be helpful. I don't think a lot of parents in that area would bother to apply for grammar school. The ones in that area who are bothered already have their children sit for schools in neighbouring trafford where some places (a very small number) go out of catchment to children who score very highly on the entrance exams. Even given the high Pupil premium numbers (which is very high across lots of Greater Manchester) the school should be capable of more than 57% high strainers getting 5 good GCSEs. Saying it is a performing arts specialism school doesn't eradicate the fact that they still have a duty to provide a good broad academic education.

And that area of Salford doesn't have many middle class parents to Hoover up grammar school places (if a grammar school was introduced). The area doesn't need a grammar school as a token gesture, it needs it's existing schools to improve and serve its pupils well.

"Much better to improve that particular school."

I think that is the important point for the entire thread.

If poor schools exist - and are genuinely poor schools, rather than schools doing very well with children who are low attainers on entry - then they should be improved, rather than further undermined by having another school cream off their most able children.

There are very good comprehensives, in all types of area (honeypot schools in privileged areas may have the most 'excellent looking' results, but there are many other excellent schools within the comprehensive system). The comprehensive system is well able to oproduce excellent schools that cater for all abilities of children - my own children are L5 / L6s, and are thriving in a comprehensive in sets of similarly academic peers, while within the same school low attainers make brilliant progress from lower starting points.

Rather than change the system, we need to focus our efforts on improving the less good schools within it.

I think if tnere was a good grammar in Salford a lot of parents from outside would opt for it- doing absolutely nothing for the pupils of Salford!

I completely agree that the focus should be on improving the poorer schools. Attacking the grammar schools that are serving their students well is not helpful to anyone, but shifting the attention onto schools that need to improve might be.

Children do not go to school to improve the chances for other children, and no child should be prevented from achieving that extra half grade for the sake of other children, who have their own parents and teachers who should be getting the best out of them.

It is wrong to try and make grammar school parents feel like they are part of the problem when they are just trying to do their best for their own dc within the boundaries of the system they have available to them when by far the biggest difference could be made by those parents who don't do their best for their children.

I think if tnere was a good grammar in Salford a lot of parents from outside would opt for it- doing absolutely nothing for the pupils of Salford!

I finally agree with you on something.

Even though Trafford which is a few miles away has grammars and take a few out of catchment children, the numbers coming from Salford is really tiny and isn't the reason that Oasis Academy is poor. Oasis hasn't had it's brightest few percent creamed off by grammar schools, it simply isn't educating its brightest students effectively. I would rather we concentrated on improving all schools and ensuring that they all help every child maximise potential instead of focusing on the 163 grammar schools and the effect that this has (because it is a really small number in the grand scheme and they are not going to go away anytime soon).

Super / Ptolemy

In many ways I agree with you, and would say that IN MANY areas, the grammar schools are not the main part of the problem.

However in fully-selective counties like Kent, they ARE part of the problem. the 'other' schools are very unlikely to be able to improve significantly while a quarter of the higher-achieving children are in a grammar school - you are basically asking an athlete to run faster while tying one leg up.

Removing superselectives need not be a priority. But removing fully-selective systems should be, if all the schools in such counties are to be successful.

I have been saying this all along, Superexcited, I haven't changed!
The number of grammar schools is minuscule and not an option for about 98% of parents. I can't see why they get so much time on MN. They won't come back. Sadly I don't think they will get rid of them either.
We need to improve all schools and not separate at a ridiculously young age.
I don't know Manchester at all, but I could look at the school results and know exactly what the housing is like in each area- this can't be right.

Everyone is going to do what's best for their own DC - that goes without question but however you look at it dividing children up based on a test they take at 10 or 11 is wrong and unfair.

If grammar schools were slowly phased out then the local secondary moderns would slowly improve. The stress and expense of the 11+ would dissapear. It would also be a big plus environmentally - its crazy that some kids have to travel so far just to get to the right school.

When I'm prime minister grammar schools and religious schools will both be banned and children will go to their local school. Local schools will cater for all abilities (just like they should be doing now)

Teacher, I agree that fully selective systems aren't ideal. It dies seem like they separate too many children, and taking away a quarter of a cohort is just too much.

But I don't see why certain schools need more high ability children to be able to do their job properly. Having more HA children might mean that the school gets better results overall, assuming that the school can cater well for those HA children and they still achieve their full potential, (which they might not if research has shown that they could lose as much as half a grade) but is it really going to make that much of a difference to the MA and LA children? They are still going to be in different sets or streams, they are still going to have the same teachers and the same parents.

And even if it would make a difference, is it really better to limit one child's chances to improve those of another child's? The first child might still do well, but they are still a child who deserves to reach their potential, and while the second child obviously deserves to reach their potential as well, it is not the job of other children to facilitate that.

Mehitabel I don't know the Kent system. I do know the trafford system and it has quite a few grammar schools which take mainly from catchment but some from out of catchment on a superselective basis. It isn't a full 11+ system as parents have to apply to sit an exam at each school. Lots of parents don't bother as the secondary schools are very good overall (better than the most of greater manchester despite the rest of manchester having comps and no grammars). What is it that sets Trafford apart from other grammar areas? Why are its secondaries so much better? Trafford is reasonably middle class but it does have pockets of deprivation and several quite deprived estates. I would happily have my children attend grammars or most of the secondaries in Trafford.

I have nothing against super selectives. We have them in our area but only a handful do the tests because the local comps are so good that they don't want to travel and leave friends. Many of the real high flyers opt for comprehensive rather than the exam. I don't even think of them as being part of the system.
Kent is the old system of divide all at 11yrs. Quite wrong IMO.

Ptolemy, I do think that the absence of virtually all the HA children for the other schools in fully selective systems does make a difference, particularly to middle ability children and higher ability children who for whatever reason fail the 11+:

• Teachers. Really expert subject teachers, with good qualifications in their academic subject, may choose not to teach (or there may not be the funding for them to teach, if the numbers taking their subject e.g. a second language, is very small) in schools that have no sixth form, or schools where they feel that their 'subject expertise' may not be fully utilised. In a comprehensive school, with the full range of ablities, such teachers will teach sets of MA or LA children as well as HA ones, and may well improve their results.

• Subjects. A MA child may well have a specific ability in languages, for example, ior in science. In schools with no HA children, there may simply not be enough children per class to offer e.g. 2 languages, 3 sciences.

• Aspiration / later development / labelling as a failure. A MA child in a comprehensive can aspire to reach the top set, and has never been labelled a 'failure'. That is not true of a MA child in a school where the HA children are simply elsewhere, in another building.

Fair points. So then what can be done to ensure that those HA children don't lose the half grade talked about earlier?

I think the question is, do these HA children lost half a grade (is it half a grade per subject, btw, or half a grade overall?) in ALL comprehensives, or just in less good ones? So could the achievement of HA children become part of the 'bringing all comprehensives up to the standard of the best' which we have been talking about?