To think that condemming the grammar school system , because it cannot give 100% of pupils a brilliant education is wrong.

[sunshield]

I was watching the 'Secret life of the Grammar School' on BBC four last night and it occurred to me that the majority were successful because of a grammar school education. The debate on grammar schools is centred around the 75% or so who don't pass. The ideology expressed from many, is that if 100% of children can't get a highly academic education either though ability or resources than no one should have the chance. This is surely wrong and ultimately does not do the less academic any favours yet it significantly reduces the chances for bright children, who may need a structured and highly 'disciplined' environment to achieve.

I know many people on this site will disagree with this post and will cite the excellent 'comprehensives' their children attend. The truth is the best comprehensive schools are 'covert' grammar schools operating a more 'acceptable' form of selection .

The grammar school system needs to be applauded for its contribution to the United kingdom from politics , commerce to science and engineering . There is no part of life in the UK that has not been influenced or improved by grammar school educated people.

However, if you read the constant 'diatribes' of people on the left you would believe that grammar schools are worse than 'public schools' in their effect on society. Grammar schools have provided the backbone to society for over 70 years. I believe that it is morally wrong to prevent academic children from all sectors of society a 'grammar ' education just on the basis of it not being available to all.

Engineers are certainly undervalued in this country - the fact that people don't realise it's an eight to ten year training for Mechanical Engineers, Civil Engineers etc. who want Chartered status, bears this out. Even in the old days i.e. 50s, 60s engineering apprenticeships used to require a good clutch of O levels and a five year indenture, so you wouldn't qualify until you were 21 at least.

Yes, there is a lower level of qualification i.e. craft engineering, which doesn't require A levels/degrees - but in other professions we wouldn't give them the same name. We don't think Teaching Assistants are qualified teachers (accepting some qualified teachers do work as TAs); we don't think Health Care Assistants are trained doctors.

I don't care about the "background" of the children DC goes to school with in terms of money or class but I do want her to go to school with the majority of children wanting to learn and the parents valuing education and I feel that that will be best served at Grammar.
Of course there are children at Comprehensives who want to learn and who's parents support that but there are also a lot at Dc's state Primary who rarely do homework and who seem to think that working hard and enjoying school is totally lame - and this school is in a relatively " good" area.
I don't want DC's schooling to be disturbed by children who don't want to learn and achieve, I want her to be in a peer group where there are aspirations.
Again, I'm not saying DD can't and won't get this at Our local Comprehensive but I believe that it's more likely at Grammar and as she seems to be academic enough to get a place ( and more importantly wants to go there) she will be trying for Grammar. I doubt and hope she won't just be surrounded by only naice white middle class children there but even if that's the case she will have a range of friends through out of school activities anyway.

In a grammar you are more likely to have a 'good' background.

So for the vast swathes of the country with not a grammar in sight no-one has a 'good' background? Please don't tell me you are serious!

I haven't RTFT so there's a likelihood that someone has asked this but I wonder what would happen if the bottom 20% were creamed off and went to a school that focused for their needs in the way that grammars focused on the top 20%?

OP I think that the people from grammars who became successful would have still been successful if they'd been at comps.

I've read comments on other threads that absolutely flame anyone who expresses disquiet at the idea of a disruptive child being excluded - there was on fairly recently where a child was spouting racist crap obviously picked up from their home.
The argument was about moving a problem rather than seeking to fix it. Which is all well and good but the child who needs help isn't going to be moved to a grammar. And the other children who are in the same class simply have to endure it.
We need to build decent structured education for children who continue to be disruptive and don't pass them around comps in the hope that something positive will rub off. And this is what makes parents turn away from comps - pity the children who are not disruptive but who are not academic high flyers. They and their parents are expected to "lump it".

Well , considering that the "top" 25% do more or less exactly the same in a comprehensive as they do in a grammar school, probably not much...........

I think that we should be more concerned about the lack of special needs education.

Where we used to live, the primary school had a special needs unit which was in high demand. The nearest secondary school that offered special needs education was 50 miles away. If I recall correctly Katie Price's son travels 80 miles to his local special school because a nearer one shut down. These are staggering lengths of time for a child to travel daily.

tuskerful

Of course, these were the majority of children I went to school with and those of 2 of our 3 dc.
the answer isn't to remove grammar schools but make more available imo.
We just fall into catchment for one grammar her and yet over the border in cheshire there are many.
None of the parents look at this school, in fact I'd say from experience they don't even know we are in catchment.
It isn't really a practical journey every day but could just be managed from here.
There are bright children my dd's best friend is Mensa material as her mum and sd before her. She is being brought up to be good at childcare and encouraged to be a mum when she is older.
I have tried to drop hints to my friend but it is just a different culture, if I push anymore we will fall out. The child got 6's in her SATS and is amazing at Maths, she asks for workbooks for fun
In addition, only one of our dc would have been bright enough to pass the test, I don't believe others shouldn't have the opportunity because he didn't.
Both our older 2 dc ended up with mediocre at best ds1 school was a renowned for it's social problems.

I think, to a certain extent, it's luck of the draw. You can be challenging and come from a monied background. You can be challenging and highly academic. ou can be challenging and pushed by your parents (there might be a genuine causation correlation there). You can be challenging and good at jumping through the sort of hoops that lead to grammar school. Equally, you can be lovely and quiet and non challenging and well behaved but not academic, possesed of monied or pushy parents, or good at jumping through hoops. My most fesity child is at a grammar, my least prima facae challenging child is at a comp.

I've been thinking about this all morning.

I have 2 kids at a comp in top sets and I honestly believe that a grammar school wouldn't be any better than their excellent comp. (Am I deluded?)
The only lessons that aren't set are arts like DT, PE, RE , MFL and social sciences like History. The only subject where I feel they miss out on setting is MFL. My dd told me that at the end of y7 there were people who couldn't pronounce "ich" in German.(They'd pronounce it "itch")

Re behaviour, ime, in an all-ability school, the top 50% and the bottom 15% are fine. It's that 35% in the middle that causes the problems. And I'm not surprised.

With the focus on 5 A-C GCSE's as a benchmark of success, it's tough on those who are being set up to fail. Surprising but true - when we switched from 'O' level/CSE to GCSE, we were told to think of the average grade as a D. Yet Nicky Morgan has just raised the bar and set the target at 60%, regardless of intake.

That 35% do not have special needs. Most of them are in 'the average' band. They're doing well if they get E's and D's, especially in the more academic subjects. But from their and the school's and the govt's pov, they are failures. There's v little chance for them to shine at the things they are good at. I think I'd kick off, too.

They're not stupid. Jamie Oliver was in the remedial stream. They'd have been superstars in the old Sec Mods, when the 11+ was universal and practical subjects were taught to a high level. But even technical subjects have been turned into pseudo-academic ones, where skills aren't taught or valued and it's all about reading and writing.

Enderwoman - I agree. MFL for all serves no useful purpose, just makes the non-linguists feel more inadequate. Put them in Germany and they'd pick up the language in no time. But in a classroom from a book, no chance.

This has probably been said, already, but, if grammars didn't exist, wouldn't those able to afford private education (but not private schools) simply hire tutors? Absolute levelling doesn't exist; there are only degrees of it.

If there were fundamentalist educational egalitarians out there, wouldn't they be outside Finsbury Park railway station teaching free algebra?

"The intake of grammars has massively changed in the past 10 years. In Kent anyway, there is a big mix of black African, Tamil, Indian, Sri Lankan and far eastern students. Definitely not all white."

Gosh, really? Which grammars are those?

"The intake of grammars has massively changed in the past 10 years. In Kent anyway, there is a big mix of black African, Tamil, Indian, Sri Lankan and far eastern students. Definitely not all white."

Gosh, really? Which grammars are those?

St Olaves, Dartford boys and girls, Wilmington boys and girls, a fair mix also at Judd.

Far from being all white the Berks grammars are all Asian. Very close to 100% Asian in some of them (which does not reflect their ginormous catchment area)

It seems line the vast majority of whites near the M4 corridor do not want a grammar education for their DC.

One thing that stands out between Grammar schools and modern schools, is the way the pupils walk !.

You can almost always tell who goes to a grammar school and who goes to a modern school by the way the modern pupils seen to walk "down at heel" wheras the grammar/private kids seem to walk with a swagger.

This was the one thing my mum used to bollock me about "you may go to a modern school and have zero interest in academia but I will not let you look like one of them". My sisters who were taught by mum commented that she would often pull her students who let their shoulders drop and remind them that they were grammar school girls not "holligans or slobs".

I expect to be argued with by this comment. However picking up the girls today it is more evident today that which type of schools kids attend . This can be seen be something as superficial as how they walk , or whether they are wearing a blazer . It is very sad but undeniable, that such things are important in the world today.

I seem to be misunderstood in several posts.
Engineers is the one that has caused most problems as if I don't understand that it takes high grades and a lot of years at university. However if my washing machine breaks down I need a washing machine engineer. They are of vital importance to me at that moment and they are still called engineers.
I don't think anyone gets muddled between a civil engineer or a heating engineer or thinks they are equal!
I was serious when I said that grammar school pupils were more likely to come from a 'good' background. They have the pick of pupils whereas a comprehensive takes everyone. It is very true these days when parental support gets the place. This doesn't mean that 90% of our children have a poor background! Where there are no grammar schools all those children with supportive parents are in the grammar school. I certainly phoned up if my DCs had disrupted classes and it got sorted. My unacademic son has just as much right to have calm, focussed lessons as my academic son. A good school, with good management makes sure that all children have a good learning environment.

I went to a sec modern and we walked perfectly normally! I did not change it in any way when I went to the grammar and was still
perfectly normal!

People get such stereotypes! At my sec mod we were not allowed to eat in the street. If you walk up Guildford High Street at morning break time you will see Guildford grammar school (independent school) swigging from pints of milk, eating doughnuts etc and it looks dreadful!

Don't think the difference in pupils attitudes/ appearance is exclusive to grammar areas. My areas fully comprehensive but you can still see differences between them in public. Admittedly only a small minority of pupils but if there's loud swearing and shouting/fighting/ trouble at certain public spaces several schools pupils pass through at home time you can pretty much always spot it's the same two schools every time. And their catchment area covers the same demographic as other local schools that don't have groups of pupils behaving like that regularly in public, nor do I believe the other schools don't have an equal number of antisocial pupils. The only difference is that the other schools don't allow it

St Olaves, Dartford boys and girls, Wilmington boys and girls, a fair mix also at Judd

Really? I went to a kind of 'sister' school to St Olave's for sixth form just seven years ago, and it was very much white middle-class.

My girls certainly don't walk with a swagger!!! They can barely cope with not tripping over their own feet let alone walk with a swagger. My DS does not walk down at heel. He jogs/trots everywhere, even when carrying his saxophone. Always in a hurry that one.

A lot can change in seven years Tuskerfull.

DS sat the St Os test in Sept 2014, and at the time we went I estimate there were about 700 children there, of which less than 25% were white.