"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?

So if both types of schools are state funded, why would the grammar in the quoted example have £30k to spend on sports but a state modern wouldn't (according to that poster)?

Sprink, there's often a very high amount of school fund expected from each parent, together with more money raised by parents' associations etc when the demographic of the school is wealthy.
(My old school also used to get donations from a former headmistress who was from a wealthy family - she kept it quiet but I was told by someone in the know that she had funded the swimming pool and the new science block!)

Several years ago we chose a private school over a GS place.

Our reasoning was mixed. First, DD did not like what she had seen of the GS at all and bloody loved the private school.

The opportunities were far better at the private school ( well they would be for six and a half grand a term ).

We could afford it.

And yes, leaving a decent state school place to someone who couldn't afford it did enter our thought processes. But didn't drive them.

Agree with what Aeroflotgirl said.

Sprink because without outing my location grammars have differing statuses and therefore receive different amounts of funding from the state. Hence why some have fees/school fund of £100 per annum and others have £3000 PA.

Oh good Cathaka, I was worried I would offend a lot of people, but that is just the way I feel. Opposite ends of the scale but both have different needs. Some kids in grammar schools mabey have Aspergers themselves.

Also like a PP said there are some very generous parents who advertize that contribute. Last year in assembly pupils were asked if anyone was willing to donate £4k for a new kayak thing. The next week the said kayak arrived with the pupil's name emblazoned on it. Past pupils (who are now mostly very elderly) also donate large items of science equipment or bequeath money in their wills.

dolka and countess, that makes sense, and I had wondered that it might be down to financial support from parents.

The discrepancy due to status differences in government funding just seems wrong (said by someone who lives in a massively underfunded county, for no reason other than "history").

But the £100 v £3,000 per annum difference is downright upsetting. If I were a decision maker I couldn't look a child in the eye and tell them they were worth £2,900 less than another.

I begrudge the phrase 'didn't have tuition, and got into GS on her own merit'.

Both our DDs had tutoring, and are now at GS. They are doing very well academically all on their own merit because they certainly haven't had, or needed, any tuition since.

In the schools around here basically the half dozen kids who were on the top table through primary were the ones to also pass the 11+.

They were already the cleverest kids in Yr 5, and tuition just taught them technique and timing.

GSs aren't full of average ability pupils who were boot camped through intensive tuition. They're full of above average ability pupils who go on to get excellent GCSEs without any need for further tuition in the vast majority of cases.

"Of course there should be grammar schools for those who are highly academic,"
I can see, although I don't agree with, the argument for separate schools for the highly academic. I can see no argument at all for separate schools for the top 25%.

"They're full of above average ability pupils who go on to get excellent GCSEs without any need for further tuition in the vast majority of cases."

Just like the top sets of comprehensive schools. Which is where those kids would be in a non selective LEA.

We don't live in a grammar area but siblings do. Three out of four of their kids didn't have tutors and got in. The fourth was tutored by the first (now a high flyer teacher at a school in deprived area).

I always find that it is the parents of children who have failed the 11+ who are the most vociferous in condemning grammars after the fact.

It happens quite a lot around here.

"I always find that it is the parents of children who have failed the 11+ who are the most vociferous in condemning grammars after the fact."

Really? I find it's usually people who like justice and fairness and understand how the system works.

As an 'on the breadline' family with dc in the grammar system all it takes to pass the test is to be an old sats level 5/6 in year 5 and involved parents who will sit with and work with the dc on exam practice and mop up areas they've not been taught.

You don't need an expensive tutor

I do get cross at this "all you have to do is buy the books" line.

Yes, that is all you have to do. If you can read and write yourself. If you have the money for the books and the time and energy to work with your child. If you have somewhere to work. If you know that's all you have to do. And if you actually have the inclination.

The books aren't that expensive
Practice papers are provided by most schools (usually past papers)
Time and inclination is down to the household really but isn't that the case for everything?

And if you haven't the time and inclination to take the test you really aren't grammar school material

"And if you haven't the time and inclination to take the test you really aren't grammar school material"

So if you are poor and come from a family which isn't in a position to help you, you are not grammar school material unless you were incredibly self motivated at the age of 10, but if you come from a well off supportive family it doesn't matter how motivated you are, you will be given the coaching you need?

We are poor. We work. My dc wanted to go so we made damn sure we supported them. A lot of state primaries won't support the 11+ any more and this is wrong because this is where children from our background with less supportive parents miss out

But you can be as smart as anything but lazy as hell. No amount of support will be enough for those types

Confucious I think what Bertrand is getting at is that just buying the books is still discrimatory. Some parents just might not give a stuff, might not have or want to spend the cash and their time on helping their kid to get to Grammar.

At just ten it isn't the child who hasn't got the time and inclination to take the test is it? So a really bright child wouldn't have a chance.

It is discriminatory because a really bright child might not get the chance, unlike when I went in the 70s, we all got the same prep at our village primary, the same as when my mother went in 1951 from what was a very very poor family after my Grandad died in the war leaving her mother with six children. Mum was very bright passed the test and sailed through school. Everyone had the same chance to prepare.

We have bought the bond ten minute tests, DD does them and we go through any she was stuck on afterwards. If we couldn't be bothered she would go in blind and who would go into an exam blind?

Oops very slow typing!

The books aren't expensive but not everyone will be able to support their children through them. The vocabulary in the VR ones isn't always easy and the NVR questions can be very hard, but techniques can be taught to make them a bit easier, which again not all parents will have the ability to do. For example the ubiquitous paper folding or dice questions that always seem to come up.

The books might be too expensive if you were relying on a food bank to feed your family, couldn't afford the bus fare into town, didn't have a credit card or the Internet to order from home though, all relative isn't it.

There is absolutely no way my Grandmother could have bought books for her children but they all went to Grammar apart from one who had a childhood full of surgery.

'Really? I find it's usually those who want justice and fairness, and understand how the system works'

Like I said, upthread, parents of a child who has failed the 11+ try and make a righteous sounding virtue out of what is actually a disappointing necessity...