"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 is predicted to get (Not & is too set!)

YY to what teacherwith2kids is posting.

teacher does it really matter though, what method of teaching the teacher employs, or how lively, engaged and spirited they are in lessons, so long as the pupils still get excellent exam grades (as they pretty much all do at grammars, no matter how stultifing the teachers perhaps are?)

I'd still rather my

The fact is that catering for all abilities and interests is hugely expensive and inefficient.

Private schools can do it well because they have oodles of resources. But even then they won't be able to offer some things to the most able.

State schools simply do not have sufficient resources. And the most obvious place to divert those few resources is to those struggling to access the curriculum at all. After that the huge majority in the middle of the bell curve.

The most able will (should?) have last dibbs because they can already access the curriculum and do well ( enough).

The pie is only so big.

mango at our grammar, excelling pupils at the local SMs can sit the 12+ and the 13+.

My friend is a primary school teacher with 25 years experience. She says she can very accurately predict which children in Yr 2 will pass the 11+, and she is very rarely wrong.

So, I think at 10 or 11 it is fine to make the distinction.

I think it does matter queen.

We pay a truck load of cash for a private super selective when we could access a state one precisely because the day to day education of our DC matters far more than the ultimate results.

MaQueen,

What matters, to me, is the progress a child makes, and their enthusiasm and love of learning.

I know which lessons the children made most progress in....and which fostered their love of and interest in the subjects they were learning about.

Agreed teacher but there has to focus on both.

Ultimately whichever way you provide the curriculum, the public exam years are what they are and pupils should be given the means to take the most appropriate subjects and get the highest grades.

'Passing the 11+' is not the same as 'able' though, is it?

Yes, i can predict who would pass the 11+ - mostly MC, well-coached, diligent children who are pretty good at most things, don't have spiky profiles - and are often just below the top in each subject, with the top spots being taken by those with spikier profiles who would not pass the 11+.

The most able mathematician i have ever taught - Junior maths Olympiad at 11 - needed 1:1 help in English. They wouldn't have passed the 11+. Doing very well at comp - top set Maths, lower set English, making huge progress.

GetaHairCurl,

When I saw the lessons i could absolutely understand why the comp's added value for high achievers was at least as good as the grammar's -and why their added value for the middle and lower groups were so astoundingly high. Based on GCSEs, not on day to day lessons.

It's perfectly possible to have a love of learning, and to enjoy the school experience even if the teacher isn't that dynamic. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

At university I managed to remain passionate about the Gothic Novel despite the course being delivered by the world's most boring Professor...

And while love of learning and enthusiasm are all well and good, they still need to result in good exam results if you want to get ahead in the job market.

It's very hard to impress a potential employer with your love of learning and enthusiasm when you have self selected your CV into the bin because you have rubbish qualifications.

Well you only saw a snap shot teacher and it was some time ago right? I don't think you can take from that that no selective school provides good and interesting teaching and that all comps do. Even though you want to .

But that's hardly the point in many ways. If parents want to access selective schools even if they're the dullest places in the world, why do you want to stop them? Why should only the rich have that choice?

The fact is that catering for all abilities and interests is hugely expensive and inefficient.

That's true in a small school. In a larger school, economies of scale come into play - full-time SEND specialists, enough children interested in outlying subjects to be worth running GCSE courses, specialist equipment, etc.

A private school can afford to run a Latin course if two or three want it; a state school probably needs minimum twenty. Having a year group of sixty won't generate that; five hundred might.

What's best for my children might be completely different from what's best for the town/county/country I live in. What I think the government should provide, and what I choose for my child from what they actually provide, may turn out to be different. It's a very committed person who sacrifices their actual child to their theoretical principles.

I think the uber brilliant 'spiky' pupil who nevertheless struggles to pass exams due to their fascinating 'spikiness' is pretty much a Hollywood construct isn't it?

Infact, the plot of Good Will Hunting springs to mind

Grammar schools aren't filled with mindless drones. At our grammar there are plenty of colourful, dynamic characters with more than enough 'spikiness'

But that's hardly the point in many ways. If parents want to access selective schools even if they're the dullest places in the world, why do you want to stop them? Why should only the rich have that choice?

Because choice is an illusion and everyone is bounded by geography.

You don't really have a choice of a grammar school if it means three buses across town and a blazer that costs two weeks' household income.

You don't really have a choice if your creative writing is dull, even if your maths is astonishing and you'll later develop a new antiviral drug.

You don't really have a choice if the only house you can afford is in the wrong town.

And people should not be able to make choices for their children ^using tax money" that are damaging to other children.

But you chose to send your DD to a grammar when you didn't actually have to BR???

I am not confident that any comps near me are able to support their top pupils.

I would have confidence in the grammar to do this.

I have two dc, one is showing herself to be a strong all rounder, likely to pass the 11+ thus far and NO I don't even help her with HW she is not tutored ( yet). My other dc may not show such academic excellence in which case I would not want such an academic environment for her.

why is wanting and having that choice so wrong?

Teacher I have been saying for ever more that so many dc will not be all rounders and therefore not able to get 11+ so where are they?

If comps are so brilliant, why is it an issue? why do they need all rounders in them, when all separate anyway?

If comps are so brilliant, why is it an issue? why do they need all rounders in them, when all separate anyway?

Because we don't want to cream off good teachers into grammar schools where they have an easier life.

Because it isn't the job of LAs only to cater for the already-advantaged.

It's easy to come up with a hundred reasons that a grammar school is good for a particular child.

It's far harder to explain why a grammar school system (ie 11+ and splitting into grammar schools and secondary moderns with little to no movement thereafter) is good for all children.

I dont see how its damaging other dc?

The same and more could be said the other way round, if bright swat is forced to go to a school where they are in the minority and punished and bullied for being bright.> surely far more damage to that child,

so Bertrand how are you going to atone for your heinous crimes of punishing other DC by sending YOURS to a grammar school

All actions and choices impact ion someone.

And the truth is that the comprehensive model does not always offer the most appropriate education for the most able.

Now if you want to say that's okay, that it's a price worth paying so that the majority get the best education we can manage on the money we're prepared to spend... Then I hear you.

But the endless pretence that high ability DC do well anywhere is just that. There wouldn't be so much time spent on widening access schemes by universities if it were true. There would not need to be contextual offers. There would not need to be so much outreach work.

Have to agree with you mintjulep.

We have been relentlessly informed on this thread (and so many others) that comprehensives are actually bastions of academic excellence, yes?

So why does it matter if there are other bastions of academic excellence known as grammar schools?

I don't agree.

If we had proper grammar system brought back, then all primaries could set up clear systems to help disadvantaged students to pass the exam.
Far more could be done.

Of course its not fair at the moment, there are grammar areas where the state primaries have shocking entrants to the G's. Why?

It seems people are claiming these other schools are rubbish and shit, and making up excuses for them. And yet we see failing sink schools turned round, and so on. So it can be done. With so few grammars around I cant believe every teacher can get a job in them either.

We are not in a G area and yet, we have terrible comps that have been awful for nigh on 20 years.

We have been relentlessly informed on this thread (and so many others) that comprehensives are actually bastions of academic excellence, yes?

^^ and flexible enough to deal with the bottom and top sets to help each reach potential?

Quite.

I think it's more important for a government to get all its citizens to a certain level of schooling than for it to provide better schooling for some just in case, and sod the rest. And I say that as a parent of children at the top of their classes, who can't afford to go private.