"I could never send my dcs to grammar school....

[winkywinkola]

...because I think it's unfair on all those children who can't get in because they couldn't afford tutoring for 11+. But I will send them to prep and boarding school."

I was a bit perplexed to hear this from a mum at the school gate. Aibu?

And It is absolutly bloody outrageous to suggest that respect and manners are the preserve of grammar schools.

"The mindless mindset of 'must go to university' is incredibly limiting"

Just hilarious. Only on these ridiculously partisan threads will certain people insist that a university education will (bizarrely) limit someone's opportunities.

I tend to find that these sort of people like to trot out the 'Well I went to the University of Life, me' yes, only because you couldn't get into university

Again, as happens so often on here you get embittered posters trying to make a smug sounding virtue out of what is, actually, a rather disappointing necessity.

University seems like a great option to me Bertrand?
So many course possibilities to choose from within that - I'd find it hard to feel that not going was the best option for either of mine, but then at 17 and 14 they're both looking on it as the natural next step for each of them. I'd agree with others that an expectation of Uni seems pretty positive to me.

I also believe academic expectations are higher at grammars. You are constantly surrounded by (virtually) everyone committed to taking A Levels, and going on to university. It's just a given.

There won't be any dissenting attitudes toward higher education from other pupils, or parents.

My SIL has never got over the fact that my DNs failed the 11+. Ten years later she still does her very best to make out that my DNs 'dodged a bullet' by not going to the grammar, and never has a positive word to say about GS...instead she asserts they are souless exam factories filled with overwhelmed, stressed pupils teetering on the verge of a breakdown.

Okay...so why did she do her level best to get my DNs into the grammar, pray tell? It isn't compulsory to sit the 11+ where they live.

It's just sour grapes. Pure and simple.

No dissenting attitude from us because DS1 chose not to got to uni. He had a place at Loughborough, he deferred for a year then didn't go. DS2 is currently at uni and has just finished his first year on a First.

"I'd agree with others that an expectation of Uni seems pretty positive to me."

Of course it is. But there are lots of other positive paths too. For a while my grammar school educated dd wanted to be a saddler. And I was very pleased that her school encouraged and helped her research how do do it.

Well university isn't for everyone. But to imply that a university education is somehow limiting is just arrant nonsense.

Bertrand - yes it is a good school. An exceptional school. And it does have working poor families (my own dc being a case in point!!)

The point of setting the bar high is to show children who have breezed through primary school never or rarely getting things wrong that it's OK to fail, it's OK to get things wrong, that everyone has something they can't do.

You clearly have an agenda and will argue the sky is green and grass is technicolour if a grammar school dare suggest otherwise

Mine don't go to grammar though but fortunately for them to an outstanding faith secondary. Similar attitudes prevail I think.

I didn't say a university education is limiting. I said that focussing on university as the only way is limiting. Interestingly, the Head of my dd's grammar school agreed. His line is that if you had a particular interest you want to pursue or a goal in mind that requires a degree then obviously university is the way forward. Otherwise there are plenty of other paths to follow.

You can't tell me that the pupils stuck in the bottom sets for their entire school careers aren't going to be aware that they are the very lowest, academically?

As someone who for some subjects was in the bottom set I was very aware.
I cant see the difference in streaming in a comp and thereby separating the top from bottom, to simply having a different school. i would have thought its the best of all worlds?
You can then concentrate all resources on those who are not the top set.

dc who can and want to work, and enjoy it should be catered for. Comps are in many cases letting these pupils down. By letting them down your cutting them off from top roles in business and the government. Give them a chance, cater for everyones needs.

Bertrand, I cant understand how you, with a child who has enjoyed a grammar education would want to deny the rest of us one? It beggars belief

Or perhaps you pulled her out? Stopped her from going?

I have always been opposed to selective education since I worked for the Department for Education in the 70s and 80s. My opposition was theoretical until I found myself living with children in a wholly selective LEA. After practical experience my opposition became stronger and better informed.

There is no "the rest of us" because the vast majority of the U.K. offers non-selective education.

But not enough to remove your child from the school though. Hypocrite much?

Nowhere to remove her to!

Of course you could remove her, by moving to a county without grammar schools. Our friends lived in Kent until their eldest failed the 11+. Their SM was shocking so they have relocated to a different area.

Not necessarily an easy thing to do, obviously, but surely it's a viable option if you don't want to totally sacrifice your morals and ethics?

Or just not send her to the grammar in the first place, even though she passed the 11+?

Otherwise, yes, it does rather smack of hypocrisy.

Well, quite, mintjulep.

We are constantly lectured on here how comps are heavily setted, and that the top set can move as fast as a grammar top set because they aren't held back by less able pupils, at all.

Infact, apparently, the comp top sets barely rub shoulders with the lower sets, at all...

So, my question is, does it matter one jot whether the comp top set is actually housed under a different roof, and is called a grammar school???

"It really is hard to explain just how different the education received is to a comprehensive school unless you go see for yourself!"

I have been lucky enough to observe normal lessons at both our local SS grammar and our local comp as part of training.

When comparing those two schools - and I appreciate that it is only a comparison of 2 schools, not 2 schooling systems - I agree that the education provided was very different.

Had i delivered ANY of the lessons i saw at the grammar - bearing in mind that the teachers knew we were coming - I would have been graded, at best, Requires Improvement, and probably Inadequate. Pupils sat in passive rows to be told what pages of the textbook they were working from, and the teacher then sat at the computer doing something else while the students worked through the exercises. The only variant was that in Science they were doing an experiment from the textbook, and in history they were doing a worksheet. Students were mainly silent.

In the comprehensive, students were working round tables, or in pairs. There was some direct teaching (including a variety of practical, visual and text stimulus), a lot of group and individual discussion and questioning, and then varied independent work including research, differentiated both by level and by support. Teachers were engaged with pupils throughout every lesson, there was a low buzz of talk about the task.

Both schools thought that they were demonstrating 'good practice' to us the grammar asked us to list 'all the excellent things that we saw in the lessons that we could take back to our own schools'. The comprehensive asked us 'What do you feel worked well for the students, and what would you suggest that we could have done better?'

MaQueen,

Again, because pupils are not equally able across the board. In a comprehensive, children who are in top set for 1 subject but need significant help for another can move between sets with great ease. If the set they need is actually in another institution, not so much.

I know that you don't believe that such students exist, and that all can easily be stratified universally into 'able' and 'not able' - but as I said, at least 1 in 6 of every class I have taught, and often more, are individuals whose ability is massively different just between Maths and English (and includes many of the brightest in each subject)

My brother did the 11+ and went to the grammar school.

I did the 11+ and then went to the local comp.

My brother went to a polytechnic that pretended it was university and had a heady career in marketing.

I won a national scholarship for private university tutition that made my CV interesting.

Dh went to the local comp and left school with an o-level. Hung around on a bloody great big ship for a bit. He now owns 3 factories the thick bastard.

Education and school are not the same thing. The right system for the right child is always better than the "right" school. If we invested more energy investing in more options for our children then we wouldn't lose them in the system due to shoving them in the wrong place.

So, my question is, does it matter one jot whether the comp top set is actually housed under a different roof, and is called a grammar school???

Yes it does.
Because 11 is too young to finalise the 'stream' that a child is best fitted to.

My eldest started secondary (comp) firmly in the middle set, now at 14 he will start his GCSEs after summer & is too set with predicted As & A*s if he carries on progressing as he is at the mo.