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.

Super: 10 years before all those families who leave big bequests and endowments for their alma mater start to do the same for their d state school!

Wouldn't that just create greater inequality in state schools? Presumably the inner city comps are unlikely to receive many bequests and endowments from parents or former students. London might have a more equal spread of class and wealth in state schools but the rest of the country isn't like that.

Why do bright children need to be separated from their peers in separate institutions, when a comprehensive school is able to set for all subjects, so that bright children can be educated alongside others achieving at the same level?

sorry comps - some of them cant cope with bright kids no matter what demand is.

beloved

so.....locking all disruptive and low achieving children in a cupboard for the entire year so as not to slow the pace of learning for the clever kids.

^ are you saying that all state primary dc are disadvantaged by this?

Thats Good Miele. The problem though in kent is /was ? strictly not allowed for state primary schools to 'help' children with 11+ exams...

The school that caters for the children left after the high attainers go to grammar school is not a comprehensive. And it may have results that look"crappy" (hate using that word about a school) but may be very good indeed considering the intake. 30% A*- C would be pretty bad, for example, for a comprehensive, but would look entirely different for school with no top 25%.

I would like a level playing field where all children got to do do 3 of each practice tests to get the idea and then that was it- the actual test. That would really sort out those with ability.

"This at least would be a start in trying to readress the issue of the small numbers of poor children in grammar schools."

No - it really doesn't 'redress' anything.

Children at our local private prep schools are educated for 6 years in classes of 15 - 20 well behaved children, almost none of whom has intensive need for behavioural or learning support. They have a longer school day, have access to Latin, debate and chess clubs, and have input from educated parents at home, who will discuss current affairs, play puzzles and board games with them, and give them access to activities like learning an instrument which hugely improve learning and processing speeds.

State schools can't even begin to compete with this, regardless of how many 11+ sessions they offer to poor pupils.

A comprehensive is both schools under the same roof with the same uniform.
No one has yet told me a reason why my non academic DS can't be in the same school as my academic DS- I really wish they would.

You could give those at private school a handicap to level it.

"
A comprehensive is both schools under the same roof with the same uniform.
No one has yet told me a reason why my non academic DS can't be in the same school as my academic DS- I really wish they would."

They can't. Because there isn't one. At least, not one most people would be prepared to put into words.

Haklyut: it's not about "catching oik" what a horrible sentence! I've been to two open days at our grammar school and all the children I met had a real thirst for leaning. They were genuinely grateful and proud of the school and of what they were achieving. At the comp the children showing us around (presumably the pick of the bunch) were lazily spoken, disinterested, and not at all proud of their school. That's not about not wanting my dd to "catch oik". I don't want her thirst for learning squashed by kids who prefer to "be cool" or who have no direction. Our local comp is particularly bad. A lot aren't.

Yep- grammar schools are good at PR!

And the other school wasn't a "comprehensive"

"sorry comps - some of them cant cope with bright kids no matter what demand is."

Yes - the comps with very few high ability children.

Would want to point out to you that private schools employ teachers from the same teaching pool as state schools. They train in the same institutions and teach the same syllabi.

In fact when I did my teacher training, the most dynamic and able teachers ALL went into comprehensives. The ones who gravitated towards private schools tended to be the ones who couldn't cope with classroom management challenges and the workload that comes with teaching in the state sector. Clever children in private schools, where there is a critical mass of able kids, can almost teach themselves, given the right sort of stimulus and support.

This was the case at the private girls school I attended as a child. Terrible teaching, but fantastic results. It was almost impossible to fuck up, given how motivated the children were and how small the classes were. My sister got a A (no A*'s in those days) in physics after spending 2 years as one of a class of 4 who were doing the subject. Imagine that - three lessons a week over two years with only four clever children. The teacher was a flake and a drinker, but still somehow managed to deliver the syllabus. And all the girls did really well.

The idea that state schools can't cope with really clever children... Is that because the teachers aren't bright enough to deliver the syllabus, or because there simply aren't enough children working at that level to provide the sort of academic dynamic that clever children need to really fly?

Beloved. The answer then is to limit 'prep' school numbers int to grammar schools to a maximum of 15% going down eventually to 7%-10% . The other meausure would be to make it a legal requirement of 5% FSM at any grammar schools if only 2% FSM passed the 'pass' rate for FSM Children would go down accordingly make sure that 5% of a grammar school were always FSM eligible children. That could be made a 'legal' requirement of any grammar school. This rule could also apply to children with SPLD such as Aspergers/ Dyspraxia/ Dyslexia.

poly I had a similar experience to you: went to grammar open evening and the hall was packed and silent for the headmasters speech with lots of people asking questions at the end.
Went to the comp open evening (yes it is a comp because the SS grammar is not in same catchment) and the hall was fairly full for the headmasters speech until he opened by saying he was going to speak for around 30 mins, at which point more than half of the people got up and left. What kind of people looking for a school can't even be bothered to give up 30 mins to see what can be offered to their children for the next 5 years?

I had a similar experience to poly and Super. It's not 'PR', it's the whole ethos of a school that you can't fake for an Open Evening.

Poly - if your local school had a representative intake of all the children in the area you would have met as many bright and articulate children on your way around the school as you would have met thick and uninterested kids.

Social, financial and academic selection creates a polarised school system that disadvantages the majority. Why are you supporting it?

Family members have gone to prep school and private school - left without any qualifications - 4 went to grammar - left with a work in bars/ resturants etc 1 went to comp 11 a cant get a job - life is about oppourtunity, hard work and luck.

It's quite difficult to be proud of your school when everyone keeps telling you it's "crappy" and you're only there because you're not good enough for the grammar school.........

Exactly Super.

I think everyone is switched on enough to not need it spelt out that teachers in private and grammar aren't better than teachers in state schools. My mum, oldest friend, aunt AND brother are all teachers. Mum and aunt have taught on both state and private, and brother and friend have only been in state schools but friend was privately educated herself. Friend is an absolutely incredible teacher - it's a real calling for her. But she is constantly frustrated by her school as even the most bright, capable pupils don't improve because they are terrified of being seen to not be "cool" amongst their peers.

I don't want my dd to go to the grammar because of the teaching. I want her amongst the best of the best so she strives to be that too. Which is what she's doing now with the practice papers. She's working really hard and I don't want that to go to waste so that someone less bright might get her spot just because they have poor parents.

Beloved... Because I'm not idealist enough to want to use my child's future as a social experiment. Whatever your ideals are, surely you'd want to give your child the best opportunity of success over putting them in a pool of hundreds just to make the point that you don't support an elitist system?

Poly- what is your definition of a "crappy" school?

Kids all smoking right outside, always stories in the paper because someone's been excluded for drugs, or weapons, poor grades, high exclusion rates, faces from year 11 hanging around two months after they've left school with pushchairs..

I guess I'll leave my job and home school.. At which point I'll be eligible for free school meals

"Whatever your ideals are, surely you'd want to give your child the best opportunity of success over putting them in a pool of hundreds just to make the point that you don't support an elitist system?"

My dc will be going to a great comprehensive which takes children from across the ability range, and teaches them well.

If they can't thrive in that sort of setting that's due to their own failings, as plenty of other children at this school appear to do extremely well.