selection at 11+

[TheNext]

On Wednesday there will be about 1400 kids in my county who will be finding out that they have not passed the 11+. Another 300 or so will get a letter telling them that they have qualified, but with a low score, and these won’t end up going to grammar school. Another 900 will have “passed”, and the top-scoring 600 or so will have some certainty about which school they’ll be headed for, with 300 or so in the twilight zone, not knowing for sure until allocation day on 1st March.

For the 1400, I feel so sad. However sensible the parents are, about not making it a big thing, there are some who turn it into a high-stakes issue for their children, and this has something of a contagious effect in the playground. For the children, who for whatever reason didn’t have a champion morning a few weeks ago when they all did their test, they’ll carry that result with them from Wednesday all through their secondary education and perhaps beyond.

Hopefully most of them won’t care too much, but from the way I have heard local parents discuss it, with kids in earshot, I know that some of them will see it as a big deal, as indeed it is for those who will go to worse schools as a consequence.

AIBU to consider it wrong to impose this system on our children, relying on a single test which in many areas can’t be re-taken, and giving a large number of children in grammar areas the message at age 10 or 11 that they’re not good enough for academic education.

[Banderwassnatched]

To be fair, not everyone can pick a school. Here, we are in catchment for one school, and one only. If we don't like that school- too bad. The next one along is full. The one after that is a faith school, also full. We had eligibility for one school, our catchment school. Voting with your feet is a privilege- for some people only one school is available, or only one is accessible. It especially sucks if your kids can't get into a grammar in a selective area- the evidence suggests kids in selective areas who fail 11+ actually have lower attainment than their peers in non-selective areas. Poor kids remain disproportionately outside grammar schools, and in selective areas seem to actually be adversely affected by the existence of the grammars.

[Ta1kinPeece]

We have catchments here too
but they are very big
so even though I live a mile outside the one for DCs old school
they got in

[Banderwassnatched]

One mile isn't that far, surely?! Anywho, that's beside the point. A bit like grammars, having a choice of comps is not a luxury all families have. Some schools take pains to exclude council estates from catchment, for example. There's not just the 11+ prep, playing the post code game for the 'best' comp is privilege, too.

[Ta1kinPeece]

4 miles to the school - 1 mile from the edge of the catchment

Oh yes, Gerrymandered catchments - Thornden are the kings at that
but most of the catchments were designed by the LEA before the days of parental choice so they tried to get a mix

[Banderwassnatched]

(a cautionary tale, btw, we played the catchment game ourselves. We rent privately so chose the school we wanted and moved into catchment. It was the BEST school, going by reputation, Ofsted, whatever- the facilities are great. Over the years it has become clear two of my three kids need SEN support our 'brilliant' school is not really good at providing. But we have nowhere else to go. You never can tell!)

[steppemum]

Step- from the data. Clever kids don't do any better than they would have at a comp. I'm glad your kids are happy. My kids enjoy their comp. So following your logic, if my kids thrive at a comp, comps must be best, no?

er ... no, because I didn't say that grammars are better, I simply challenged the statement that grammars are bad for the kids in them.
They aren't.
I agree that they are bad for the kids not in them, but that wasn;t the statement I challenged.
And the data quoted didn't say they were bad either, just that they were not significantly better.

and I didn't spend any money on tutoring, so no money saved.

I do have the choice of about 6-7 comps in our town.
They are all crap. We don;t live in the grammar area, but in the next area over.
The trouble with the data is that it cannot compare the grammar I have access to with the crap comps in the town I live in. It would compare the grammar with the comps in the same area, which are all, actually, very good. If I lived there I would have a great choice - good grammar or good comp.

Trouble is, I live here, and can't afford to move there, so my choice is several bad comps, whose results are poor.
Or try for the grammar in the next area. We wouldn't get into the comps over there as they are done on distance.

I agree the system needs updating, but make the rest fit for purpose and the grammars will be unneccessary

[Ewanwhosearmy]

My 4 eldest went through the 11+ system. It meant that despite us not living in one of the nice/ expensive areas of the town they got into decent schools.

Youngest is in Y6 now, in a fully comprehensive area. She has no chance at the best schools because they are in the expensive areas of town with small catchment areas. We live in a shit area, so she gets the shit school. How is selection by parents bank balance any fairer than by ability?

[Banderwassnatched]

It's not any fairer, Ewan. But just so we're clear-

• you are more likely to get into grammar from a private prep.
  
• you are also more likely to get in if your parents are not poor- regardless of your own ability.
  
• kids who do not get in, in selective areas, fair worse than kids elsewhere who just have comps.
  

Grammar is not an alternative to buying an advantage. It is not a leveller. It is detrimental to those kids who failed to get into it.

[BertrandRussell]

And disadvantaged kids don't get into grammar schools.

[BertrandRussell]

And, actually, I am not convinced that being told you are cleverer and better than most of your classmates-so much better and cleverer that you have to be educated in a different school is all that good for the kids who pass.......

[mountford100]

nd, actually, I am not convinced that being told you are cleverer and better than most of your classmates-so much better and cleverer that you have to be educated in a different school is all that good for the kids who pass.......

Or what about being told you are no better than kid that wrecked your learning at primary school by being unfortunate to have been in his'her class for 6 years .

The reason why you should go to the same Secondary school (because you are no more deserving of a good education than then him/her )...

[TheNext]

I don’t think it’s good for anyone. The children who pass learn to over-value academic achievement and conflate it with worth. The kids who fail have a significant knock to their confidence and for five years will be putting on a blazer which reminds them that they were deemed not clever enough to wear the blazer of the grammar school.

Middle class children achieve grammar places disproportionately. Private school children achieve places disproportionately. More children will fail than pass. At 10 years old (or very recently turned 11) I cannot see how this is a good thing.

[mountford100]

The next. Obviously there are a few kids that should be at grammar schools but fail to pass for various reasons. Therefore why not have extra classes at 13/14 and obviously 16 to join grammar schools. At those ages the exams could be less about understanding sequences and unscrambling anagrams.

The exams could be about English MFL Science. N.b i notice a few grammar schools offer in theory those opportunities , but how many places are actually available at 13 or 14.

[Banderwassnatched]

Right. So, if you failed at age 11, you get the opportunity to fail twice more? At 16- what is the point, even? Aren't kids under enough pressure as it is?

[Banderwassnatched]

I think what we need to do is progress kids through education in accordance with their progress, not their age. At present we group kids by age and then move them through the curriculum- too slow for some, too fast for others. So kids who could have had Maths A Level come out thinking they 'can't do maths'. They could have, were they not set up to fail.