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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

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

908 replies

var12 · 10/09/2016 17:33

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

OP posts:

Mistigri · 12/09/2016 10:12

I'm just glad we didn't have to make this choice :-/

DD is bright but "original", very creative, doesn't have much truck with pointless rules or doing stuff for the sake of it. A school that aimed low would be disastrous for her, but I doubt she would fit into a grammar either.

A grammar school would probably be a reasonable fit for my DS, who is academically able, likes a calm and ordered learning environment, and is very compliant.

Original poster

var12 · 12/09/2016 10:16

compliant - yes, I suspect that along with intelligence, this is a key characteristic for getting the most out of a grammar.

OP posts:

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 11:34

"but BertrandRussell you said that you sent your DD to a grammar. Why did you do that if you are so fundamentally against them?"

I am not specifically against grammar schools. I am against the selective system.

My dad was a "top set" child. The "top set" was in the grammar school.

pleasemothermay1 · 12/09/2016 11:37

Well we know jermery corbyn didn't have such worries his child went

Diane abbots kids went private

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 11:38

"and, after listening to Ed balls on the subject last week, why would anyone ever tell any child that they are failures even once, never mind repeatedly? If that was what happened in the 50s and 60s, then it is definitely not what would happen today."

You are 10 years old. There is an exam. At least some of your friends have been told that it is very important. You already know that the grammar school is where the clever children go. You take it. You do not get into the grammar school. In what way are you not going to feel, to a greater or lesser degree, a failure?

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 11:39

"Well we know jermery corbyn didn't have such worries his child went "

What does this mean?

MaQueen · 12/09/2016 11:39

Bertrand why on Earth is it despicable to want your children at the type of school I have described?

Surely, most parents would want their child at a school like that?

Bobochic · 12/09/2016 11:43

Why are you so frightened of failure, BertrandRussell?

mathsmum314 · 12/09/2016 11:49

comprehensives are already selective, grammar schools would at least be honest selection.

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 11:52

I am not frightened of failure. Learning how to fail is an important part of education. I am fundamentally opposed to publicly labelling a 10 year old a failure. Particularly when there is no chance of having another go.

MaQueen · 12/09/2016 11:53

multivac I don't care if you think my observation of 'uncouth parents hooting and roaring in the reception area' is "cringegingly condescending".

It happens. I have worked in many (non grammar) schools and witnessed it happening. And, no, I absolutely don't want my DDs at a school where that happens on a regular basis, and I make absolutely no apologies for that.

Or, are we meant to take the ridiculous 'only on Mumsnet' view, that sending your child to a school with 'hooting & roaring parents', and where the police are called in to school, and where lessons are routinely disrupted by pupils is somehow 'character building' and 'preparing them for the real world'?

Well, thankfully it isn't anything like my DD's 'real world' or their school friends.

And, if the very best you can manage is to voice a faux concern about 'potential eating disorders' in single sex schools, then that's pretty feeble.

PerspicaciaTick · 12/09/2016 11:53

Yes and No.

Bobochic · 12/09/2016 11:54

Life is a competition, Bertrand. All DC need to learn that failure is an integral part of learning to win.

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 11:56

How are the kids who pass the 11+ going to learn that vital lesson? Or is it only vital for the also rans?

Bobochic · 12/09/2016 12:05

All the DC who go through 11+ are going to see the win/lose mechanism in action. Grammar school isn't the be all and end all. It's just an academic education for academic DC.

MaQueen · 12/09/2016 12:06

Bertrand it's amusing that you won't 'stoop' to answering my questions because you can't but are happy to slyly refer to my posts, indirectly. Rather passive aggressive that.

Anyway, IME children already know if they're 'one of the clever ones' long before they sit the 11+.

I have worked as a TA in primary schools, and the pupils have a pretty accurate idea of where everyone is, academically, in relation to everyone else in their class.

Long before the 11+ both my DDs had had plenty of 'failures' to experience. Whether that be them failing to get on the school Netball team, or failing to get the lead in the Nativity play, or coming last at sports day.

I think you are projecting your own (clearly intense) bitterness and horror of failure on to others, who are probably far more phlegmatic about the 11+.

And, I speak as someone who knows 100% that she would never have passed the 11+ (hopelessly crap at maths), but it has never, remotely made me feel like a 'failure'.

I just don't have that sort of brain. When the DDs and DH are talking maths, I just acknowledge that my brain works differently to theirs.

WorkAccount · 12/09/2016 12:08

there is a grammar school in our town (our nearest school) . I am trying to send my son as not sending him to the best school out of principal is cutting off his nose to spite my face.

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 12:09

"All the DC who go through 11+ are going to see the win/lose mechanism in action. Grammar school isn't the be all and end all. It's just an academic education for academic DC."

So the children who pass learn that "failure is an integral part of learning to win" vicariously? You can't possibly be serious!

MaQueen · 12/09/2016 12:11

Bertrand grammar school kids will also learn about failure. They might not hit their tracking targets, they might not make maths top set when they fully expected to (looks at DD1), they might not make the orchestra, or make House Captain when they campaigned hard and dearly wanted it (yes, DD1 again...).

Bobochic · 12/09/2016 12:11

MaQueen - you are absolutely right that DC know exactly where they sit in relation to others from a young age, and on multiple dimensions!

MaQueen · 12/09/2016 12:19

Of course they do bobo and anyone who has worked in schools (unlike BR) will no this.

Occasionally, you might get a very clever child, fully expecting to pass the 11+, who fluffs it on the day. But, I suspect most of the ones who fail probably knew it was a definite possibility.

But, that doesn't mean you should stop children having the opportunity.

mathsmum314 · 12/09/2016 12:21

Where I live children that go to the under-subscribed comp already know/act like they are the thick ones and the children in the oversubscribed comp know/act like they are the privileged clever ones. How is that different from an 11+ grammar?

Within my average comp, in the top pathway children already know they are the clever ones, and at the bottom, the thick ones. How is that so different from an optional 11+ impacting them.

This idea that children are moved up and down sets all the time is quite strange to me because but I don't hear of it happening ever much in practice. The classes most children are in, are the same for 5 years. Apart from those that leave/join the school in year.

CecilyP · 12/09/2016 12:24

Life is a competition, Bertrand. All DC need to learn that failure is an integral part of learning to win.

What on earth does that even mean in relation to the 11+.

BertrandRussell · 12/09/2016 12:27

"Bertrand grammar school kids will also learn about failure. They might not hit their tracking targets, they might not make maths top set when they fully expected to (looks at DD1), they might not make the orchestra, or make House Captain when they campaigned hard and dearly wanted it (yes, DD1 again...)."

The ones who fail the 11+ will get all these "failures" as well. But they will also, at the age of 10, fail an exam that will make a significant impact on them that they can't have another go at. Off the top of my head I can't think of another example of a failure like that in the life of a British school child........ Or in the life of most adults,naturally.

CecilyP · 12/09/2016 12:34

And, I speak as someone who knows 100% that she would never have passed the 11+ (hopelessly crap at maths), but it has never, remotely made me feel like a 'failure'.

But presumably, regardless of what you 'know 100%' you didn't actually take the 11+, so you obviously couldn't feel like a failure for not passing, because it simply wasn't part of your consciousness at the time. This is adult reflection - not the genuine feelings of a 10 year old child. However, as you were crap at maths, would you have been more than happy to go to school with the children of the uncouth parents?

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