To wonder if there are supporters of grammar schools who didn't go to grammar schools themselves

[WildebeestH]

Just that really. The only friends I have who support grammar schools went to grammar schools themselves. I'm intrigued to know if there are many people who support them having not been to a grammar (or other selective) school and if so why?

Tw1nsetAndPearls my children's school has changed their admissions policy so pp children have a lower qualifying score.

The Sutton trust has told grammar schools to do this. To be cynical grammar schools also need to attract more pupil premium students to get more funding.

Kids not dragged down by the dregs.

My child didn't go to the local grammar - she isn't a "dreg"

I genuinely think that my children's school reflects the area where it is BUT it is in a very affluent area. The school raises huge amounts from parental contributions which it is very upfront about but not in a pushy way. The comp where I work pulls from some v affluent areas (and some considerably less so) but doesn't ask for parental help despite there being many who would give if asked.

We have gone through the 11+ as this is where we've lived for many years pre kids - I wouldn't encourage anyone to move just for a grammar though.

My main objection though is to schools like Damd Alice Owens which came to be comps but are imo much much more selective then the Bucks grammars.

As I said earlier people who believe grammar kids are all beautiful behaved and studious are sadly deluded!

StarUtopia: what will you do if your child does not get into Grammar?

It happens, you know. Bad day on the day, unexpected numbers of competition, just not quite as bright as you thought, etc.

The Sutton Trust makes a point of saying that some of the highest achieving comps are no more socially inclusive than grammars.

The data is against you, Olly in your claim that the make-up of grammars reflects the local area. Even if it is true for your area, then it's certainly not true nationally.

TestTube not to mention that the 11+ is unreliable and routinely puts kids in the wrong schools.

noblegiraffe I wouldn't dream of commenting nationally just speaking for one school.

Also there's a huge difference in super selective schools to a county like Bucks which is opt out.

I know, but one school shouldn't form opinions in general. Like saying that the top comps are really socially selective when you actually mean 'I can't buy a house next to the London Oratory', and the data on the top 10% of comps by attainment shows them on average to take far more poor kids than grammars.

Agree totally and as I said up thread I don't agree with grammar schools. I was just giving my experience of my children's school, and the pupils at it as a balance to many of the comments posted here about the children who attend grammars and the parents of those children.

Yes, noble is right I wasn't implying that all high achieving comps are socially exclusive but there a handful that are.

Oh, not dregs lady with a name change? There can't be two of them, surely?

Olly, what are the actual %PP?

They're on the Gov.uk website if you look at school performance tables?

It can also be worth looking at the %PP for the primaries in the area as an indication of whether there is a 'PP deficit' between the area and the specific school. If what you say is true, the upper, grammar and local primaries will all be the same within a % or two.

So for our local 'green leafy' comp the secondary is just under 10%, the nearest primaries are around 4%, around 5% and around 15% - so it looks as if the school reflects its surrounding area

For the nearest grammar, the PP is

Olly- what %age of PP children are there at your school?

I do wonder whether fsm is a good marker fir discussion.
Having lived up and down the country, I am struck with the demographics of areas.
For example we used to live in a very educated area, every single mum I knew was a graduate etc. The incomes of families were not dissimilar ( judging from houses cars etc) to where we live now. However I would say that the majority of mums I know, are not graduates.
I can't help thinking it's no wonder that one school out performed the other and its perhaps an unfair measure for schools to be judged on?
Just a thought.

"I do wonder whether fsm is a good marker fir discussion"

It certainly isn't for people who support grammar schools!

But your point is well made. Privileged children do better at school than disadvantaged ones. Maternal lack of education and parental poverty are the two biggest markers for academic underachievement.

The point some of us are repeatedly making us that poor children do not get into grammar schools, so the argument for social mobility fails at the first hurdle.

Headofthehive,

I agree that full demographics of each school would be more useful for comparison - unfortunately, only PP is published, so we have to use it as a crude proxy for relative deprivation.

Of course, it is entirely possible that a school might have 50% PP children and 50% extremely affluent, or 4% PP but everyone else in the band just above, but we don't have the data to show that - and anyway IME both those scenarios are relatively unusual.

If you asked me to rank local schools based on their %PP or the general privilege / deprivation of their intake, it would pretty much give the same ranking, if that makes sense?

I agree that maternal education would be the other useful piece of data to have for each school, and to measure progress against, but it isn't published anywhere public that i know of?

However, I would also suspect that ''parental poverty' and 'maternal level of education' are also not independent variables - so very high %PP is also likely to indicate low levels of maternal education - simply because, at a first approximation, highly educated people tend to earn more and thus are less likely to be below the FSM threshold [NB: This is a statistical, not an individual point: of course there will be extremely wealthy women who are poorly educated, and very poor mothers with PhDs, but statistically level of education and level of education are linked]

but we don't have the data to show that

We do, on a national level anyway. The proportion of pupils from below median income families is fairly consistent across all schools. Where a school has more deprived pupils, it's the number of families above the median income that is reduced.

However, if we are thinking of things to replace the 11+, I reckon "children with HE/FEd mothers" would produce pretty similar results. And would be less subjective than my equally accurate lunch box contents/brand of coat/first name assessment.

I agree bert
Strangely this thread has made me miss teaching...How strange!

What saddens me is that we haven't got any new ideas for the best way forward.

We had a Sec Mod/Grammar split for approximately 25 years, and the system was on the whole regarded as a failure. Notwithstanding that there were some good Sec Mods. There were also mediocre grammars, but we didn't hear as much about those.

Now we have mostly had Comprehensives for 45 or so years which have in many places been good, (but you wouldn't know from MN) but in some places, yes, they need to be improved.

So what do we have the Govt. suggesting? Go back to the model which failed in the 1960s - when at least those who left school at 15 could reasonably expect to get a steady job which paid adequately.