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

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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.

I've just had another look at the girls' grammar school statistics. Only 51% of the students got A/As in Maths GCSE last year. 100% of the top set got them in my DC's comp in the years they sat their GCSE Maths a year early and they went on and got A/As in Statistics the following year.

My children were never used to provide a good educational example to anyone, disaffected or not!

lavolcan I think you massively over estimate the abity of tutors to get below average children through the 11+. They aren't magicians. They can only really teach technique and timing. They don't sell IQ. Unless the child has the natural ability there's not much they can do. They don't have magic wands.

I admit that a small number of average children pass the 11+ with the help of tutoring but struggle to keep up once at grammar school. They have to have extra tutoring and support through out their time at school.

But they're in very much the minority. They have to be. Because there simply aren't enough tutors to tutor shed loads of struggling pupils in all their subjects all of the time.

Thousands of grammar pupils all needing extra tuition in 8 or more academic subjects for years and years. Can you imagine?

No. It just doesn't happen. The vast majority of grammar pupils don't struggle and they don't need any extra tuition once at the grammar. They are fine because they're academically able.

Our DD does her homework plugged into her iPod with one eye often on the TV. She still gets decent grades across the board. And there are plenty of girls cleverer than her and getting better grades than her in her form.

They do in the comprehensives that I know .

I was replying to the post of 13.33 which was a good explanation of a good comprehensive.

meh but what if a top set child doesn't want to participate in any of the after school activities? Or would you make it compulsory for the high achievers to participate?

And even if they participated how would their involvement in say, an after school football club motivate disaffected pupils to work harder in their maths lesson or spend longer on their science homework?

Sets aren't used for every subject in every year in comps.

Bright kids will be in tutor groups with the less academic. They will do lessons like technology together, where the bright kids will be able to learn from the example of the more practical kids in useful life skills PE, Art, Drama will all be opportunities for the boffins to mix with the plebs. Top set is hardly an ivory tower.

I think you massively over estimate the abity of tutors to get below average children through the 11+.

I would love to see you post that statement on one of the many tutoring threads on MN whorgasm.

I don't really understand the question. Extra curricular is done because you want to do it. My sons were in the cricket team/ football team etc. If they are playing competitive fixtures they take the best at sport and not the best at Maths.
If they want to be in the school play they audition - same for the orchestra. Are you seriously saying that only the highly academic are good at everything? Why on earth are they joining the hockey club to motivate disaffected pupils? I assume they join because they like netball.
If someone isn't very good at maths it doesn't mean they don't have a work ethic.
My non academic son isn't stupid or disruptive - he has always been well behaved with a great work ethic. He had lots of friends in the top sets, still friends today. His wife has a good degree from a RG university- she did. It 'marry down'!

Sorry - did not marry down. Autocorrect puts in random full stops.
If they don't want to do extra curricular that is their loss. No one will make them.

Sorry again - join the hockey club because they like hockey- not netball!!

You're saying that a potential doctor would gain better understanding of future patients by being at a comp as they'd spend time with all comers. But academically the potential doctor wouldn't share lessons with them. So you're solution was to have them share after school activities. But what if the potential doctor didn't want join in?

So how would a comp education make them more founded and better able to support all types of future patients?

And my point about academically gifted pupils motivating less able pupils in comps was aimed at posters who seem to think grammar = educational apartheid.
And that keeping all the academically able children under the same roof as all and sundry benefits the less able and the disaffected.

They don't realise than in a properly settled comp the very able would have little influence on the less able. No shared lessons. Different homework. A different academic world entirely though still under the same roof.

Same at the other end of the spectrum with my friend's ASD son. Ostensibly in a main stream school but with hardly any interaction with other pupils, apart from those also with ASD. He rarely shares lessons with the NT pupils. Avoids the dining hall and libraries. Mainly works under the supervision of a TA in an empty classroom.

Different schooling entirely though still under the same roof.

LaVolcan Fri 10-Jul-15 13:54:08
I think you massively over estimate the abity of tutors to get below average children through the 11+.

I would love to see you post that statement on one of the many tutoring threads on MN

I'd post it, because its totally accurate from my experience. I have yet to meet a below average child in my DCs Kent school who has passed the 11+ even with a tutor for two years.

The bottom line is that comprehensives MUST be made to cater for very high ability children, because they will always have an intake of very high ability children.

There will always be extremely bright kids who don't pass the 11+, for a whole host of reasons, including the main one, which is that not all parents will enter their very bright child for the exam.

And if a comprehensive can and should make educational provision for the brightest there is simply no need for separate schools.

'More grammars' will never be a sensible answer to lack of provision for the brightest in comprehensives. The answer to a lack of provision for high ability students in comprehensives is to get more high ability students into comprehensives and to provide an appropriate education for them there.

I'm not averse to schools like Graveney in Wandsworth, which are comprehensives that have a grammar stream. These schools provide children with the opportunity to move across streams during their school careers.

"I think you massively over estimate the abity of tutors to get below average children through the 11+."

The issue isn't kids who aren't that bright passing the 11+ following intensive tutoring.

The issue is that bright kids who are heavily tutored (or bright kids from private primaries) are trampling over other bright kids who have less or no tutoring and similarly bright kids from state schools for grammar school places.

nicoles I agree.

As much as I would like to see more super selectives it ain't gonna happen.

But I think we will really struggle to get comprehensives to consistently provide appropriately for the highest ablity kids where there is a huge reluctance to accept there is a problem.

It doesn't surprise me that the poster who has expended the most time on this thread denying any problem is a teacher.

Yet I don't know anyone involved in the widening access scheme who doesn't accept the problem.

It is very difficult to get schools to change if they don't want to or think they don't need to.

The issue isn't kids who aren't that bright passing the 11+ following intensive tutoring.

Really? It seems to set the grammar school frothers off, I've seen that comment a lot.

Funnily enough, I never mentioned 'below average' pupils getting in to grammar school, but if there is a heavy tutoring industry going on, then some of those getting in are probably not in the top 20-25%, more like the top 40%, and as nicole says taking the place of a child who was in the top 25% but didn't have the tutoring. I.e. they, or their parents didn't know how to work the system.

My issue with tutoring is the same as nicoles. But I don't have any belief that comprehensives will ever be made to cater equally to the most able as they do to the majority because of the funding and the time.

Certainly the kids that did best in the 11+ in DSs year and the year before weren't the slightly above average massively tutored or privately educated children.

They were the top table, who had a bit of tutoring in Y5 either from a tutor once a week or a parent.

This is a bog standard, not Oftsed outstanding, not especially affluent area, state primary. So no "trampling" going on, at all.

Funnily enough, I never mentioned 'below average' pupils getting in to grammar school, but if there is a heavy tutoring industry going on, then some of those getting in are probably not in the top 20-25%, more like the top 40%, and as nicole says taking the place of a child who was in the top 25% but didn't have the tutoring. I.e. they, or their parents didn't know how to work the system.

But that's the point, from what I've seen, you can't really work it. You can help a bright child do well in the exam, but I've yet to see one in the top 25-40% pass it.

But I've seen plenty in the top 20% fail it.

So why then are grammar schools trying to make the 11+ tutor proof? Does that not suggest that the most able are not always getting through, in favour of some slightly less able?

I have seen lots in the top 20% fail it - for all sorts of reasons.
You would assume that a young woman who plays the violin in orchestras all over the world was a sure grammar school pass. She failed. In her case it was perhaps lucky that her parents could afford to send her to a private school.
I hate tutoring because it gives the moderately above average a very unfair advantage over the extremely bright child from a deprived background.
You can't tutor a child who isn't willing to put in the work.

That is the problem-LaVolcan. People see the exam as the end when it is only the start- very sad for the child wrongly placed- either way.