to ask would you send your eldest Dc to a grammar school?

[var12]

Hypothetical question... if there were grammar schools in your area and your DC1 was offered a place, would you accept it?

There's a grammar school in my town and if my children pass their 11+ they would go there. Why not?

If it were a choice between a grammar or the school I went to as it was then, I'd go with grammar every time. My school focussed a lot on the middle-ability groups with the top/bottom sets being ignored. I'll always wonder what I could've achieved had someone taken an interest in me long enough to realise my issues. I was the "good"/"clever, if only she'd try harder" one with undiagnosed ASD who was never really taught how to learn.

The trouble with all schools really is that you'll never know if it suits your child until they've tried it. If they don't get on well there then you're left with the dilemma of deciding whether it's worse to leave them there or create all the disruption that comes with moving schools.

Yes. DS and DD are both at single sex Grammar schools. It was their choice to attend as both also passed for a mixed Grammar school too. Both DV are in the right place for them and are flourishing. For both I think it was being single sex that made the schools attractive more than them being Grammars.

Luckily where we are there are also excellent Secondary Modern schools and a couple of Comprehensives over the border. Both DC have friends at all of them. The grammars are both far more ethnically diverse than the local area so both DC have friends from a variety of cultures which would not have happened at our closest local school.

The system was divisive in Y6 though. Poor DD had every one of her friendship group go to a different school (5 different schools!). About half of the class went one to one Grammar or another. The other half were split between two secondary mods, two comprehensive schools and a catholic high school.

Multivac - I know!
I was thinking why no politician has tried to reintroduce grammars before and I was wondering if its because half the population are against them on principle and the other half are at risk of turning against the idea of grammars (and the politician that introduced them) if their children and grandchildren don't get in?

One thing for sure, if a very high % of people wouldn't use them no matter what, then the grammar schools that might open will not have enough pupils to make them viable.

I would if I thought he would thrive (he's only 10mo so not sure yet) - although I am completely against selective education. I actually think grammar schools are generally good for the kids that go there but bad for those who don't and society as a whole. However, I would do what I thought was the best for DS in whichever system we were in.

I don't think there'd be any trouble filling them, var. The ones that already exist have a high proportion of children in them whose parents oppose the system in principle but, understandably, aren't prepared to 'sacrifice' their own offspring to their principles.

I like to think that grammars haven't been reintroduced as yet because politicians have looked at the evidence, learnt from the past, and realise that they aren't the best way to address the problems that certainly do still exist within our education system. Perhaps I give them too much credit...

DD has just started at a grammar school. I know that selective education isn't ideal but I did not want DD to miss out an opportunity to fulfil her potential if it was there for the taking. The school is also 3 minutes walk from our front door.
Will I send DS there? I'll make that decision in 3 years time which will depend on what will suit him. I'll only put him forward for the exam if he wants to do it and he has a good chance of passing. There are other good schools in the area we would be happy with too - including the local comp.

In a heartbeat.

My children go to a grammar school so not hypothetical for me. The school is what some people call "superselective" though and as not everyone who could get in takes the exam, the other schools are comprehensives rather than secondary moderns. I would have been happy for either of the children to go to the local comprehensive but there was no guarantee we would get and we could have been offered a failing school.

Yes I would send my DC to a grammar school. We don't have any nearby and all of the high schools are diabolical. I really don't care what statistics say about no evidence of social mobility. If you live in a deprived area and attend failing schools any other option for even a minority of students in that area is a good thing.

Well, if the NHS introduced another hospital stream, one for the healthiest patients who have the least need of care, to be determined by a physical examination it would find enough patients.

This hospital wouldn't deal with long term diseases such as diabetes or depression and could instead focus on giving really healthy people more support. They could slim down to a BMI of 20 from 22. They'd be given aerobic classes and strength training that simply couldn't be done with the less healthy. The money that other hospitals have to use to treat long term disease could be used for laser eye surgery and gold teeth.

Would I enrol at such a hospital to give birth? Probably, if I got in. I would still be opposed to opening one.

I thought "polls showed" that a majority of voters are in favour.
I am very opposed.
We don't have grammars/a selective system locally.
If we did have 'em, I would let my DC choose whether to try for a selective space, and I wouldn't foist my moral principles onto DC either, in helping them decide. But I would feel both disgusted that I was compelled to be complicit in such a morally repugnant system.

My parents faced this decision around 30 years ago. They were passionately opposed to selective education but they had two very academic daughters and we lived on the doorstep of one of the most successful super-selectives in the country.

They chose the local comp. It's my view that DSis and I had a fantastic education at that school. We were stretched academically and encouraged to fly. We both came out with better grades than our respective friends from primary, who went to the super-selective, and we both ended up with good Oxbridge degrees.

I firmly believe that bright kids can be taught well in the comprehensive system. I also believe - because I've seen it happen - that some kids only blossom several years into the secondary system, when it's too late to pass the 11 plus. And others, who are pushed at primary in order to get into the grammar, just end up miserable and struggling because they can't keep up. And then, what about the others who are tremendously talented in one area of the curriculum but decidedly average in others?

Segregating kids is not the answer. Good differentiation and flexible setting by ability is helpful, however.

My dd is so-called gifted and talented in all things academic. Not so for art and PE. I would never want to send her to a selective school and deliberately chose to live in an area with no state selectives (can't avoid the private sector!). So in answer to your question, OP, no, I wouldn't choose a grammar for my DC.

I would and did on the basis that it was the best fit for my DC1 of the available schools at the time.
I have never heard a convincing argument for keeping grammar schools or expanding their provision. State education has been rapidly improving and I am utterly disheartened by thiese proposed measures . I am a great believer in well funded comprehensive schools. However in the case of my own child; bright and motivated and happy with single sex schooling I had to choose what was best for her and that was a standout grammar where her peers were like minded
and the school had the cream of the crop as far as teachers were concerned. Her option was second rate and so I put her opportunities before my politics. I am unapologetic .As far as social mobility is concerned ; more than half of her friends had been to private junior schools and the rest had been at desirable primaries . Almost all her friends parents had further education qualifications.

I live in a town with separate boys and girls grammar schools.
My best friend and I were the only two kids in our class of thirty who failed our eleven plus. Very awkward the next day!
My dc1 went to the local grammar, the same one that I failed. Dc2 didn't take eleven plus, dc3 ( the brightest kid) didn't pass, dc 4 not taking it. We are lucky though and have other good local secondary schools in our area.

Are you confusing 'grammar' with 'selective independent', concrete? Grammars are state schools; there are no 'fees'.

Multivac, yes it seems I totally was! We just call them all grammar schools around here!
My view of support is the same though. DD did get into the local grammar schools and would have happily gone there if she hadn't passed the exams for her current school.

Probably not - although I come from a country (Holland) which has academic selection, albeit in a very different format. I don't like the way things re set in stone at 11 in the UK. I also get the impression that a lot of grammars are single sex, and I would never send my DDs to an all girls school.

Fortunately we live in a comprehensive area and they are both doing extremely well at our local comprehensive. It isn't true that all comps focus on the C/D borderline, ours doesn't allow anyone to coast.

One of my DC went to a grammar the other two went to comprehensives.

There's a lot with hindsight I wish had happened with their education, but I wouldn't change their schools.

I don't agree with grammar schools, I think they should be getting rid of the ones we have not creating more of them. Faith schools should go too.

If I lived in a grammar area I don't think I'd feel I had a choice, I couldn't stop them going if they were offered a place. I am very glad we don't live in such an area though (and my children are too old for changes to be relevant).

The decision is made much earlier than being offered a place though, as I understand from friends the decision usually happens about 2-3 years earlier when the tutoring starts.

Yes!

I grew up in an area with no selective schools, but close to the local authority boundary where there were grammar schools. I passed the 11 plus but my mum chose not accept the place, and instead I went to my local comprehensive. She says she has no regrets regarding that decision.

I grew up in Kent, so no choice about taking part in the selective system.
eldest and youngest child in my family went to grammar, middle child did not. so horribly divisive.

years later, we relocated to the North. We ended up choosing our precise location because this area has fully comprehensive education, and the next door borough has the selective system, which I didn't want for my children regardless of whether either of them would pass the 11+.

I actually passed the 11+ in 1978 and would have gone to grammar, only my Dad decided not to accept the post offered to him at the end of his secondment at the University of York and instead return to his post back home. My parents had no choice, the nearest secondary modern was beyond dire. The school issue played a large part in them choosing to go back home, they decided the Dutch education system was better and more equitable despite being selective.

There are a lot of teachers who seem to be idealogically opposed to grammar schools - maybe the majority.
(I don't think I am imagining this. Am I?)

So, if one child in 6 went to a grammar, would there be a problem with finding teachers willing to work there given that there's a teacher shortage and the schools up the road that served the other 85% would be making job offers too?