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?

"I guess one of the issues is that teachers have mostly never experienced life outside of the academic sector, from one side of the fence or the other, so it would be unfair to ask them to prepare pupils for the workplace as they couldn't know what employers need and want"

Oh the "real world" argument, always a load of tosh whenever its brought up. A school is a workplace so for one teachers know what it takes to hold down a job, a huge number of teachers have also had other careers, all teachers will have had jobs outside of teaching even if its just part time ones.

Teachers don't know what employers want? Meaningless dribble.

So you can on,y know about, or teach, things that you have personally experienced? Seriously?

No not personally experienced but you can't teach it if you don't know about it, and most of them don't. Nor do they attempt to find out.
If I am wrong tell me how many people who direct teaching policy regarding this have met with the fsb or CBI in the last year?

The fact that smallpox would even reference teaching as a job that would give insight into the world of work outside education says it allabout a closed mind (as does her attitude to more able students - they don't exist apparently)

You're just making stuff up now, var.

Don't understand- sorry.

"and most of them don't. Nor do they attempt to find out."

You have no evidence of this and its a sweeping generalisation. Argument fail.

"If I am wrong tell me how many people who direct teaching policy regarding this have met with the fsb or CBI in the last year?"

Do teachers direct policy? Or is it the DofE and government? And I'd imagine that the skills shortages we do have are being addressed. I note with some amusement that the CBI are being wheeled out as experts here.

"The fact that smallpox would even reference teaching as a job that would give insight into the world of work outside education says it allabout a closed mind"

Well teaching is one of the most real world jobs you can get, alongside working at the client facing ends of the NHS and Police. Not only do you have to learn excellent people management skills, organisation skills and work in a target based, time constrained industry, with limited budgets and large levels of accountability. In fact that wide variety of transferable skills that teachers have, and the environment that they work in makes it extremely "real world" far more so than say sitting in an office, or running a shop. The constant refrain of real world is little more than an ad hom attempt to try and discredit teachers, its not accurate.

I also didn't say that more able students didn't exist, I did say that in my career the extremely able to student who doesn't need to develop any area of their studies is very rare, and that a lot of the stretch and challenge needs to be student led rather than teacher.

Your brilliant children must be a product of their schools Var, they certainly don't get their intelligence from their mother.

I think it's difficult at times with the comp system. My oldest DD attended a small comp but the reality was that she was nòt able to do the option choices that she wanted as too small cohort, plus things like an orchestra was almost non existent as too few players. The focus of the school seemed to be lower ability children, smaller sets, extra lessons. However I felt the input into these lower ability children did not actually get a great return. DD2 "benefitted" from this, but I didn't consider it to be a huge benefit overall.

To go back to the original OP I hate the whole idea of grammars, so no. I'm just hoping I get the DCs through school before our Tory-dominated council introduces the buggers here in East Yorkshire.

My children are not brilliant, they are not even exceptional. There will be children like them in every school in every year. The system let's them down.
Individual teachers do not make the system but some don't even try or even see the limitations. Small fox I can see why you went into education and I do not think it was for the benefit of others.

So your average kids do averagely in the system?

Funny that.

I have read this thread a bit but not every single post. I am not bothered either way about grammar vs comp. I am not sure it makes a jot of difference to where they end up in life. I know people who went to grammar schools who haven't achieved that much at all and people who have gone to comps who have been really successful. At the end of the day, how good you are in a work environment doesn't always reflect how well you do at school.

"My children are not brilliant, they are not even exceptional"

Bollocks. You have already said one of them is in the top 1%.

Var, You have still never explained what you want from a school.

My kids Schools' have provided:

Lessons that have prepared them for exams.
Extra curricular activities that have aided them in developing beyond the curriculum.
A warm, caring and fair environment that has helped them develop as decent people.

You seem to want something more than that, but I don't get what or how you want it.

Top 1℅ isn't exceptional ...it's one in a hundred. There is half a million children in year 10 or s3. Anyway that's only for maths.

Almond pudding I have answered your question at length already.

I teach in a grammar school. I hope my children will go there as the other available schools just aren't very nice. I really worry about DC2 not getting in though. DC1 is a bloody genius and oldest in the year, so I think she'll easily get in, but it will be very difficult if DC2 doesn't end up getting in.

As someone inside the grammar system, I do believe it doesn't work. However, I am grateful to work there as I know I wouldn't be able to hack it at a lot if other schools in terms if teaching lower attained and also behaviour. Bit of a selfish hypocrite, I know...

Truthful User. Thank You for telling the truth !

Top 1 % does make you exceptional, as in not typical, even in large numbers 1% of 500,000 means that there are 5,000 people like you in your year and that you are more able than 495,000 of the rest of the people your age. Making you the exception.

I'm taking it that English, Maths and critical thinking were none of your strong points at school Var.

I think exceptional derives from "exception". There are a couple of others like DS in his year in his school alone, so he's not even exceptional in maths, and there are quite a few who are the same or better in MFL, English etc. Moreover the word you sued originally was "brilliant" which no doubt was written with more than a hint of sarcasm.

(You won't goad me into revealing my qualifications and professional experience. I'll give you this though - I've never been a teacher.)

Of course it was.

Var - 'exceptional' and 'unique' are not synonymous.

You're determined, aren't you, that a) your children have been short-changed, b) it's because more priority is given to children with lower ability levels, and this isn't fair, and c) the answer is quite simply to educate your children separately from those mentioned in point b? You persist in claiming that this can be done with no impact whatsoever on those who are left behind once your kids have been removed - despite clear evidence to the contrary, both now and historically - and you aren't ready to consider the possibility that, in fact, your children have considerably more responsibility for their own learning experience than they currently seem to be exercising.

I'd carry on the discussion in the echo chamber that's the G&T board, if I were you, where you can have a lovely chat with the parents of lots of other 'bored and unchallenged' students about how the system just doesn't care about you your children.

"There are a couple of others like DS in his year in his school alone, so he's not even exceptional in maths, and there are quite a few who are the same or better in MFL, English etc."

So he's not top 1% then. Depending on the size of the school, not even top 1% of his school.

Grammar school supporters always say that it's better for clever children in secondary moderns to stay where they are, because being the top of the year boosts confidence and gives them the best opportunity to achieve. If it applies to those children, it must surely apply to other children as well.

Or you can say to him, as I say to my ds "Yes, in some ways you are different to most of the rest of your year. You're lucky- you have talents, and therefore opportunities that they don't. It's up to you what you do with them."

I'm going to make the bold claim that the English education system has improved a lot over the last decade and a half. Purely anecdotal, but I don't seem to notice nearly so many stories of dysfunctionality or failure that people used to trot out quite routinely. Compared to NZ, a country whose education system was traditionally very strong, schoolchildren in England appear to be expected to cope with a quite sophisticated curriculum, particularly at secondary level. I get the feeling that indiscipline has reduced too - there used to be stories aplenty about anarchy in English schools.

If this is right, what has been done is obviously working, so why muck it all up with this grammar nonsense?

multivac: your children have considerably more responsibility for their own learning experience than they currently seem to be exercising.

No, I don't accept this. Its just one of the prewritten lines that gets trotted out by those who don't want to acknowledge that the status quo is imperfect. (I've heard it all before).

But since, i have't addressed before on this thread here goes:-
Learning occurs in two places: inside school and outside school.

My DC take responsibility for what they do out of school, but not in school. In school, they submit to the teacher's direction. Anything else would be anarchy (i.e. disruptive).

So, in class, its up to the teachers to devise what work is to be done and to direct the students, not up to the children to improvise for themselves.

Therefore, the issue is with what the teacher is directing, not about what happens outside of school.
HTH