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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

999 replies

sunshield · 02/07/2015 10:54

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.

OP posts:
TheHormonalHooker · 10/07/2015 16:21

I don't understand why posters say that comps don't cater for the academically able. They do. DS1 scored 100% in some of his GCSEs, he got all A*s and As, he went to a comp. He was the top performing boy, but he certainly wasn't the only child to come out with grades like that.

In DS2's year a girl got 13 As and a boy got 12 As. She's off to Oxford this year, he's off to Cambridge.

DS2 got 10 As. It wasn't rare.

LaVolcan · 10/07/2015 16:21

But in the old days, didn't everyone take the 11+? Although, if you got into the B stream, or one of those schools which only ever had one or two children passing, so that you knew that your chance of passing was zilch, then you must have been mightily p'd off.

It just seems utterly weird of Kent, almost as if they are saying "we have a selective system, but well,maybe we don't. We won't let our children prepare for it - not even the 'top table'." Shouldn't the test be based on the curriculum?

I can understand it when primary schools won't coach for independent school tests.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 10/07/2015 16:23

My kids aren't off any scales, but they're bright girls - I don't think they've been failed by comprehensive education, though I do think that one of them in particular is just to type to have got very stressed by maths at 11+ and at best had an unpleasant year 6 followed by a grammar place - at worst, failed it.

Although now she loves maths and is doing really very well at it.

RashDecision · 10/07/2015 16:29

I agree the system is ridiculous. That independents can clearly teach it and state schools can't, yet it is supposed to be open to all the bright kids, be they privileged or not. Nuts.

Yes any parent can technically tutor themselves but as has been already mentioned they have to be motivated to do so, have then time and patience, and be relatively literate themselves to navigate the practice papers etc.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 10/07/2015 16:31

I guess the problem would be that then year 6 classes in Kent would be doing totally different things from year 6 classes elsewhere though, wouldn't they? And children whose parents just didn't want to put them in would really have a wasted year. Plus by spending a year coaching, primaries would be tacitly nailing their colours to the 'grammar' mast.

RashDecision · 10/07/2015 16:32

The new test in part ( Maths and English ) is now supposed to be curriculum based. This makes up 2/3rds of the score, with the remaining third being reasoning, which is mostly practice.

It's an improvement on the previous test, as that was all about practice/tutoring and the Maths was Y6 stuff which children hadnt learned in school!

BertrandRussell · 10/07/2015 16:33

Something like 5% of the country's secondary school kids go to grammar schools. Are they the only ones happy, learning, working hard, achieving?

WhoreGasm · 10/07/2015 16:34

"that they are failures at 11 with doors closed to them"

I don't see them as failures. Plenty of other ways to be clever in life without being highly academic.

For these children grammar school simply isn't the right environment for them. In the same way that an academic child might well fail to succeed at a more technical/vocational school because they just don't have the right aptitude/attitude for those subjects.

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 16:38

That is my experience of comprehensives TheHormonalHooker . A boy in my DS's class got one of the highest scores in the country in A'level Maths for his year. No one was struggling to teach him!
Highly performing pupils are not the rarity that some people seem to imagine.
A recent report says that able pupils helping the less able is not good practice- perhaps it will stop now. I will try and find the link.

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 16:38

But they are failures if they are highly academic and failed the test!

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 10/07/2015 16:40

I don't see them as failures. Plenty of other ways to be clever in life without being highly academic

yeeeah.... doesn't quite sit right for me, that. Not failures, just 'unlucky' not to have passed? Or is it only unlucky if you were a very near miss, but if you miss by more, you've probably got smarts in vocational subjects, bless you.

Lurkedforever1 · 10/07/2015 16:41

Because hormonal it's not just about GCSE grades, as more than just I have said it's a case of being challenged and being able to go at a speed that suits them. Which again I don't feel is just a problem for those in the real genius bracket

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 16:44

They are also seem as failures by the ones that passed. Someone wrote recently that a sec mod boy was ridiculed on social media because he turned up at a meeting about Oxbridge entrance at the grammar school. There seemed to be no understanding that he was actually invited or that he was probably out performing all but the very top in the grammar. He was 15/16 yrs and yet he was stuck with a very out of date assessment. Why on earth wouldn't he be aiming for Oxbridge if he was able and wanted to? Hmm And why would anyone find anything remotely odd about it?

BertrandRussell · 10/07/2015 16:49

"
I don't see them as failures. Plenty of other ways to be clever in life without being highly academic."

Ah, yes. So good with their hands, some of them....

Since when by the way, has been being in the upper 25% been "highly academic"?

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 16:50

Yes - pat them on the head- they got one mark less than the person who passed - last year that mark might have actually go them a place, depending on numbers- it might have got them as a place if they were a boy but 'there there you can go and be practical'!
My parents were told that about my brother- apparently he was 'good with hands' something that might have been encouraging had he been any use with them! Fortunately a supply teacher went up to them and showed them a story that he had written which he thought was beyond the level of many 16yr olds. He did prove to be academic - just a little later than 'average'.

Lurkedforever1 · 10/07/2015 16:53

The highly able aren't that rare, but if you're in the top 2% or so then by sheer definition there's only 2 of you for every 100. Take level 6 sats for instance, isn't it around 8% or so that get it in maths at ks2? How much effort or challenge do you think the top 2% needed to put in compared to the less able? You could say they all got level 6 maths anyway how great, but hardly stimulating for the top 2%.

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 16:54

The reason that I can't stop posting, when really I shouldn't waste time on it, is the really patronising way that 75% of children are written off. That and the fact that apparently those who are wrongly placed are 'unlucky' and you have to expect a few to be 'unlucky'.

TheHormonalHooker · 10/07/2015 16:54

Well, Lurking having had 2 kids go from 11-18 in a comp, I can say they were challenged and went at a speed that suited them.

Mehitabel DS2 got one of the highest marks in the country in his Sociology AS exam last year. Going to a comp hasn't held my children, or any of their friends, back.

WhoreGasm · 10/07/2015 16:56

"Since when by the way, has been being in the upper 25% been "highly academic"?"

Well, they're certainly more highly academic than those in the lower 50%. But I actually think grammar schools should only cater for the top 5-10%.

I agree, it's unfair for children who only miss by a few points, compared to previous years when the pass mark might have let them in.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 10/07/2015 16:59

50% = 25% = 75%. What about the missing 25? Are they definitely good with their hands, or could go either way, or what?

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 10/07/2015 16:59

Sorry - 25% + 50% = 75%: forgot my shift key there!

TheHormonalHooker · 10/07/2015 17:06

The reason that I can't stop posting, when really I shouldn't waste time on it, is the really patronising way that 75% of children are written off. That and the fact that apparently those who are wrongly placed are 'unlucky' and you have to expect a few to be 'unlucky'.

I completely agree.

Lurkedforever1 · 10/07/2015 17:16

Well hormonal we'll have to agree to disagree, maybe your comp was better than mine (likely) or better than my dds state offer. But it wasn't my experience nor is it that of the most able at any of the comps my dd had a realistic choice of.

LaVolcan · 10/07/2015 17:21

The reason that I can't stop posting, when really I shouldn't waste time on it, is the really patronising way that 75% of children are written off. That and the fact that apparently those who are wrongly placed are 'unlucky' and you have to expect a few to be 'unlucky'.

Yes, I'm the same - why do I waste my time posting? It's no good telling some on MN that most areas of the country don't have grammar schools, aren't clamouring for them to be brought back, and that their comprehensives aren't failing the top sets, or the others. That children do go to RG universities/Oxbridge (essential in the MN stakes), from comprehensives. It must be because their school was 'leafy' or they were the odd exception......

Mehitabel6 · 10/07/2015 17:27

Grammar schools get way too much importance put upon them on MN when they are irrelevant to most people.
I did a quick search and see that 2 years ago Justine said that MN had 600,000 members and 20 times more lurkers ( and this was before penis beaker) - based in that there is very little interest. The same core of us keep it going with the occasional person popping in.
If it was a burning question I am sure that more would join in - especially as it is on AIBU. I suspect that more than 75% wouldn't want grammar schools because they want their children to have all opportunities past the age of 11yrs.