"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?

I remember having this discussion with someone years ago. I went to grammar school and said how I thought the 11+ system which we had in NI at the time was fairer than the English system where parents can purchase a better education for their children either by sending them to private schools or by moving to an expensive area where they are in he catchment for a better school. My friend had been to a private school and said that she would never have passed the 11+. She felt she had so many more opportunities because her parents paid for her to go to a private school. If they hadn't been able to she felt she would have ended up with fewer qualifications and fewer opportunities career-wise. She said she thought an exam is no fairer than paying your way in to a better school. Both are a little bit unfair if you think about it.

" get into a Grammar, where they would still have to mix with the unwashed poor."

No chance of that in a modern grammar school. Maybe in the Golden Age when barefoot ploughboys went off to Oxford courtesy of the grammar school.......Oh, wait. That never happened!

...trying to pass a test just to get into a Grammar, where they would still have to mix with the unwashed poor...

No unwashed poor here, I'm afraid. But did that ever really happen??

DD is at grammar and we are ... um ... surprised at the number of children from wealthy families. It's certainly opened my eyes. I don't know why I'm surprised, though...

My husband went to a grammar school and his parents were working class rural poor who had him when they were 18 and 23. They did evening and weekend potato picking work to pay for his uniform, for example.

However, this was in the 1970s when all children took the 11+ and no one was tutored for it. It was still a divisive system of course and the modern comprehensives are on the whole so much better than the old non-grammar secondary schools/tech colleges.

I read, a few years ago, that the Kent grammar schools were looking to tutor-proof their entrance tests. I wonder how that's going ... do you know Bertrand?

People who check out of the state system feel less invested in it & are prone to not giving a toss if the state system is terrible for others.
People who must use state system are suddenly very invested in making sure their local school is a good one.
So for that reason I disapprove of private ed.
I also disapprove of grammar system, as it happens, but on a 'moral' basis, I would choose grammar over private for reasons I gave.

To forestall an exodus North, I live in the NW and there aren't any GS hereabouts where the chances of getting in are 50:50 ( there aren't very many of them). OTOH the one my DD goes to has a deliberately inexpensive uniform (no blazer, no daft rules about coats, but still manages to look smart).

To be fair, in NI, although there were definitely a good lot of middle-class pupils at my grammar school, there was a mix of backgrounds. I'd say maybe 50/50. I think it's because, when I was at primary school, all pupils did the 11+ unless they opted out (which was unusual).

I know though that very few middle class primary pupils ended up at the local high school, even if they didn't do well in their 11+. Some went to a Steiner school and others to a boarding grammar school which allowed pupils with lower grades as long as they boarded for the first year. There were a couple of private schools (though I don't think I know anyone who went to them). Of my friends I met in England I would say the majority of them went to some kind of private school, which is strange.

I don't think my friend is a snob at all.

I've not heard that perspective before - that if you've the money, you absolutely should use private education.

Whether it ever happened depends on the grammar. My dad went to one in south Yorkshire and there were plenty of miners' sons there as well as children of the local doctor, shopkeepers etc. My mother's in Twickenham was posher on average but her friends tended to be working class.
By the 80s when I was at a grammar school in Essex, girls who were not solidly middle class were a tiny minority.

"I also disapprove of grammar system, as it happens, but on a 'moral' basis, I would choose grammar over private for reasons I gave"

I used to think that. But now I think that grammar schools are more divisive. At least with privwte schools it's upfront- no money=no place.

The same applies to grammars, but it's much mor subtle, and infinitely deniable. As will be witnessed by the flood of denials which will follow this post.......!

I went to Grammar school (not fee paying). I had no tutoring.

Mine was generally children from very ordinary families Countess.

In fact I know someone who hated GS, left after O levels and did A levels at the local sixth form, straight As and a scholarship to Oxford. Her mum worked in the village shop. Exception I know but much easier to get into GS without hundreds of pounds spent on tuition back in my day.

Only read the OP, but we have 2 selective entry grammar schools in our area and based on my experience this actually equates to "my DC took the entry and didn't make the grade, so I am backtracking and sending them private".

Just to add I am mid 20s so not that long ago.

Thumbwitches, private schools vary enormously. Some will take virtually anybody whose parents can pay the fees. Around here (Greater London) the best are highly academic and competition for places is intense, despite fees. There is often an entrance exam for the first weeding-out, followed by an interview if you passed the exam, but I have known kids fail at the interview stage. In particular I knew one who had hardly been allowed to watch any TV and who had been heavily coached both for the exam and in what to say at the interview - (including the fact that she only watched 'improving' TV progs. ) The interviewing head saw through it and she did not get a place. At the same session another child blithely told the head that her favourite programme was Neighbours - she got a place.

Personally I think it a good thing rather than otherwise that fees are so extortionate now. It means that fewer and fewer of the kind of parents who care about their children's education can even begin to afford them, and pressure from this kind of parent can only help to improve the sort of state schools that 'could do better'.

I am nearly 50 choccy, no one had tuition other than what was done in our primary schools. But there wasn't all this competition for places because there were more of them.

Generally you went to your village school and then the nearest secondary, my parents didn't pore over league tables, catchment areas and all the stuff that goes on today.

I'm tutoring my dcs myself, yes, using books.

And I can afford private education. Lots of assumptions on here!

And yet you've posted loads of times in the past about using tutors and struggling to afford private education

There are no grammar schools around here but if there were, I would definitely use a tutor.

I just don't get the angst about them. Tutors can't work miracles, so presumably if a child is bright enough to pass the 11+ even with tutoring, they should probably do ok at the school.

Well my anecdotal evidence is that Kent isn't tutor proof- the people i know having their prep school tutored are in Kent - I think tutoring is 1-2 years before the exams and tutors are turning away people.
I'm not sure what the best answer is- paying directly for private schools (and even then children have to pass exams to get in the schools and are generally tutored), paying for tutoring to get into grammar schools, paying to live in the minute catchment areas of good state schools/getting religion and still living in small catchment areas. None of it is a level playing field.
and those of you saying that you just help your children at home - this is divisive as relies on parents being interested/educated/having time and resources. A child whose poor parents don't care about education is at a disadvantage under all scenarios.

I'm a bit at loss at the idea that morally people whio van afford private school should send their dcs there.
When the usually comment is that the private school system is completely unfair and should be banned

So far from anything I've ever heard on MN about private schools. Maybe I've stepped in a different universe ...

The angst about tutors is that many people cannot afford them Worra! So poorer children, or children whose parents do not have the time or inclination to home tutor them, are not getting the chance to go to grammar school. Thereby making a mockery of the system.

Threads like this just make me so glad we have no grammar schools here. We actually only have one fee paying school in the town too - with no better GCSE or A-Level results than the excellent state comprehensives we have.

DSis lives in a different area & is currently trying to decide whether to go down the 11+ tutoring route for DN, in the hope of getting a grammar school place, or whether they should resign themselves to having to pay to go private. The catchment area comprehensive is in special measures & is the only comprehensive they have a realistic hope of being offered.

In short - living where I do, tutoring for the 11+ in order to try to send my DCs to a grammar school 1 hour away (as some do) wouldn't make any sense at all. Living where DSis lives, doing the same seems like a much better option.

Everyone just wants the best for their DCs don't they? There is no right or wrong. I'm sure you would find that plenty of parents' "moral" objections to grammar schools or paying for education would suddenly melt away if they had to relocate to a different area with a different system and a local comprehensive in special measures.

Worra, change in circumstances has meant private education is very affordable now.

I used a tutor for ds1 but for dd and ds2, I'm doing it myself as I saw that that paying someone to tutor a child when I can do it myself is pointless.

Thanks for the reference check though.

Betrand I so wish that there was a grammar school where I live.
Because I can't afford private and our local (so called Outstanding) school is completely unable to deal with a child who really able.
Grammars have a place. You see it when there is no grammar school in your area.

I would love private schools to be banned. In My Glorious Reign they will be. And so will grammar schools.