BBC2 documentary Grammar schools who will get in? Why wouldn't you try?

[Whatatadoo]

Watching the documentary last night and thought the grammar school came across really well, the secondary modern not so good. Just wondering why, if you have the opportunity you wouldn't try for the grammar? I know all schools should be equal but in reality they're not. Why wouldn't you want to give your dc the best possible education if you had the chance?

I went to grammar but dc1 didn’t get in and I doubt other dc will go even though we live in grammar area. It’s superselective and a lot of the kids that get in have been tutored for years. They continue to get tutoring throughout school.
I have friends who’s kids go there and they they say the teaching isn’t actually very good. They seem to rely on pushy parents and tutors to get the good results the school is proud of.
I did/will get tuition for my dc for one year. It really helps to boost their maths and English. Dc1 started secondary with a sound base due to 11 plus tuition.
Thankfully, the secondary schools in the area are quite good.

Full of tuitioned kids with rich parents and kids from private primary who are tutored to pass the exam.

I don't know what some people think tutoring is. It's not force-feeding 11+ papers to hapless children for hours on end. In my case (and I'm certainly not rich), it was a means of getting my 3dc to focus for an hour a week and have some practice. It would have been a frustrating, stressful business to try and get them to do it at home without the particular discipline which a tutor can bring. It wasn't at all intensive - during Yr5 (term-time) they all went for 1 hour a week to a tutor who held sessions with groups of 6 - 8 children, and I was lucky if mine managed to do 1 paper in between sessions!

It's the biggest myth that you can tutor a child to pass the 11+. This was sadly demonstrated by some of the children in last night's programme. What tutoring (or practicing at home, if your dc will co-operate) does do, is to give a child the confidence of walking into the exam room knowing they're not going to be faced with anything they haven't encountered before.

State Primaries have, in most cases, opted out of giving 11+ practice, so a lot of parents enlist the help of a tutor, because they don't have the confidence that they can 'tutor' their dcs themselves. Name me any other exam/test which your dc would take without having had any proper practice? As mentioned above, Private Primaries are fully geared up to giving 11+ practice at school. My state-educated dc and their peers, unfortunate enough to have an excellent Grammar vs. under-performing alternative schools, were left to their own devices, so I am not going to be ashamed that I paid £15 a week for group tuition, to save myself the angst of trying to corral my dc at home!

We're in that position. We live in a grammar area with secondary moderns.

We don't believe it's a good system but what else are you going to do? DS was bright and capable so it would have been wrong of us not to give him the chance.

He passed. He did have a tutor for year 5 but to be honest didn't put that much effort it. He's bright but lazy.

He now goes to a single sex school and who knows whether we made the right decision. I certainly don't think it's a magic path to success.

I have observed a few things though

• yes there are some rich kids there but not as many as you think. However they probably all have parents who were prepared to make an effort to apply/prepare them etc which is already an advantage
• everyone had a tutor or some tutoring at home (usually by parents who were teachers). It's inflationary. So not everyone who has a tutor will pass but those who don't are likely t be beaten by those who do. DD is in year 4 and loads of her friends have a tutor already (we don't)
• I would say the school has better diversity. There are a lot of children from ethnic minorities and children of immigrant parents.
• one of the main advantages is the peer pressure of other children. DS was always in trouble at primary for playing to the crowd but now the crowd want to do some work. I don't think it's the quality of teaching that is better - it's this.

So all in all, I am aware that my son has advantages that are unfair but I wouldn't be willing to deny him those because of its unfairness.

Exactly that watcher

My 4 kids go or have been to grammar school with just practising papers by themselves.We are a poor family, but my eldest is now 22 and earning nearly £50k. So ime grammar schools are great for increasing social mobility

I’d be interested to know the SpLD, ASD etc... application and acceptance numbers for grammars.

Both my kids go to Grammar, both chose that path knowing it was very academic and would demand a lot from them (3 pieces of HWK a night as opposed to 3 pieces a week at the local secondary)

I don't doubt that this is the case, but a GCSE is the same whether achieve in a comp or grammar. Why do grammar school children need so much more homework than the comp children? Children from comps still achieve the top grades.

Barbie222 i was comparing practising past papers with having a tutor not just the classroom teacher. The home school reference was made to highlight the point that teachers have an effect on learning.

Carycach100 but your children are clearly bright. As a rule comprehensives in areas with a grammar school are below average because the 'best' kids and the richest kids are creamed off. Children who end up there have automatically got poorer life chances. Your children did ok because they were bright, take a less bright child from your socio-economic background and they would do better without the grammar system because the comprehensive is more likely to be a good or outstanding school. Social mobility isn't just about clever people from working class backgrounds. Those who struggle at school deserve the opportunities too.

I went to grammar school but was mixed ed.
I wholly agree with them. But if there was a really good school on area I may be persuaded otherwise but those schools aren’t common so if I could it would be grammar all the way

I live in the area where this was filmed. I didn't watch because I loathe the grammar school system.

As I've said on another thread tonight pretty much the only kids who pass here are tutored, or privately educated. Or both.

And the non grammar alternatives are poor. In my DS school, top set maths, half the class didn't even take the higher level paper. They do 8 GCSEs not 13 like the grammar. 1 foreign language. No encouragement to achieve.

@Baroquehavoc I don't doubt that this is the case, but a GCSE is the same whether achieve in a comp or grammar. Why do grammar school children need so much more homework than the comp children? Children from comps still achieve the top grades.

At my DD's Grammar A*/A in GCSE was 43% compared to a 22% national average (local Comp does not give this figure).

99% got A-C grades whereas the local Comp was 29% A-C grades.

So yes children from Comps do get top grades but the numbers above show more kids at Grammar get top grades compared to their peers at the comp. Now of course it's because they've been "creamed off" to Grammar on academic ability at age 11, but also because they are then pushed, pushed and pushed some more when there. It's hard work academically and only for those who it's suited to and have the discipline the knuckle down and get on with the work.

I live in Thanet Kent and hate the grammar system we have here. About six or so kids in each class seem to pass, it's so unfair to have such a big decision made age 10. The grammars are like mini private schools, and with a few exceptions the parents are very middle class.

@VelvetSpoon No encouragement to achieve.

Can I ask why you think that is? Is it the school? The parents? The pupils? Society? Or something else?

Selection deems kids failures at 10.

The non selective schools are just focused on crowd control, stopping fights, and to a lesser extent just getting slightly more kids than last year to get a C at GCSE.

Ds2 was discouraged from doing higher maths paper because his teachers felt he should be 'satisfied' with a C. Even though he got an A in his mocks.

Some parents are also not aspirational, but I do feel most of it comes from the school. And the whole ethos in the borough that makes it clear to the ones who didn't pass that you're not clever enough and you're going to the shit school not the wonderful grammar

Now of course it's because they've been "creamed off"

It's everything to do with only taking the cleverest children with parents who value education.

Those top say 20%, will still receive good grades whether they go to a comp or a grammar.

Children at dc school get nearer to three set of homework a week and many still obtain good grades because they are cleaver and have supportive parents. (And have good teachers).

I live in a grammar area and we have friends in both schools. Funnily enough I know two sisters who are separate by one year and the child at the comprehensive has higher expected grades that her "clever" sister. Now with hindsight we can see that grammars suit some children better than others. Hothousing a child gives no advantage. My ds failed the exam whether he would be better at a different school is debatable but they certainly see high achievement from this comprehensive school. Grammar tend to get the early academics

I went to Townley and I don't agree with the grammar system. The pressure was too much, year 7 was hell with the amount of homework. I really felt the options for subject were limited, for example everyone had to do double science at GCSE, I hated it and so performed poorly. The same with A Levels no English (just Lit) and Theatre Studies instead of drama. I also really don't feel there were more opportunities avaliable apart from more trips abroad. I was in the bottom set for everything and felt left behind. My parents had me tutored in Maths for the 11+ which I feel is wrong, because if I wasn't academic enough to pass it on my own I wasn't academic enough for grammar school, but at the time in Bexley the comps were poor (which I think has a lot to do with the grammar system) so I understand why they did it. I also agree with pp who said Erith vs Townley isn't a fair comparison. Finally I should add that I didn't recognise any of the staff including the head so things may have changed and I'm sure many of my classmates loved the school.

I didn’t put my dd through 11+ as I was completely certain that a single sex school would be the wrong choice for her. I also ignored the top 10 selective state school as I loathe the admissions process. Luckily DD didn’t want to go there either!

I chose a school that I felt confident would be the best fit. Isn’t that just what we all try to do? I certainly don’t feel I’ve let her down by not sending her for the 11+.

*We chose not to send our children to the single sex grammar in the next town and instead they outstanding compehensive school in out village.

I think the pressure of the grammar school and the test would have been counterproductive and I didn't want them to go to a single sex school.

They have not been any less successful but have had a wonderful well rounded education.*

^This

Girls may have better academic attainment, but there is more to education than this. The local girls grammar to us would lose a fair few girls in sixth form as they decided they wanted out of that atmosphere.

Of course, if you don't have a good comprehensive it's a harder question. That's why I don't think we should have grammars: they drive down performance in surrounding schools.

The non selective schools in Bexley are still poor. They are much worse than comps in an 'average' area.

Some years ago I was looking to move to Chelmsford. Whilst there are grammars there, the non grammar alternatives are generally high performing. Their results were significantly better than our local schools.

I am in two minds about the Grammar system. We are in a Grammar area with two super selective and although we're not aiming at those two we are still hoping our son will go to another Grammar in the area. So like everyone else we've had to buy into the system that exists and tutor him privately (he also works every day on papers at home - happily, I should add, as we are not forcing any of it on him). But we started at the beginning of year 5 and were surprised that others are starting earlier. So we have just booked our 7 year old in too from September. My 10 year old has come on massively since starting this extra work, even if he is in a non Grammar but Grammar stream.

As a rule comprehensives in areas with a grammar school are below average because the 'best' kids and the richest kids are creamed off
See, I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with your point. The 'best' kids shouldn't be prevented to going to a school where they will have a higher level academically in order to maintain a good level in the local comp. Of course everyone wants what is best for their DC. The academic ones shouldn't be dragged down for the sake of less academic ones.

@teentimestwo I was at school in the 80s/90s and I’m not in any way advocating the grammar system. I’m completely against it. It did benefit me, personally, but IMO it’s a completely divisive system which benefits the already wealthy. When I went to a grammar school, I was surrounded by girls who had been to prep school. My experience was that grammar school was full of rich kids who had been prepped for the 11+.

I think it's a myth that some children are over tutored and struggle at grammar school. It's an argument that crops up all the time to back up how evil grammars are but I don't actually think anyone has evidence of this.

If you invested properly in education and made all comprehensive schools equally good (not equally average, but really good schools) then you would do away with much of the demand for grammars and public schools.

Unfortunately the huge variation in the quality of comprehensive state education from postcode to postcode means that many parents stuck in an area with a failing school and no other options will be desperate to get their child into a grammar.