To not understand this? From a school? Giving bad reviews is illegal isn't it..

[Momasita]

So my dd needs a head teachers reference to help with grammar school application and the head doesn't give them?
She or her staff mark the tick box stuff, Wright numbers... On how eligible dd is but the part of the form where she needs words.. Is blank?

How is this legal?
People warned me about this... And I thought to myself.. Dd has such glowing reports our head couldn't possibly leave her box blank!!

Now other parents come out of woodwork to nervously say... She doesn't belive in grammars and she won't help. She has been over heard sneering at parents who tutor etc.

I'm just astounded. How is this even legal??
My dd form teacher... Who also happens to be the heads daughter has told us she hopes the form helps??

I'm thinking.... No! Of course leaving heads comments blank hasn't helped.the review panel will have minuets to sift through hundreds of applications and they will be full of in depth heads glowing reports!

I can't get my head round it. I also rang the office and got a nervous... We don't know much about these forms....

I still don’t understand how this would be illegal.

I think there's two things going on here.

A mother who wants the best for her child.

A mother who will criticise a professional and make unreasonable demands to get the best for her child.

So you are in grammar school territory, op, so that headteacher may have lots of references to do. As well as her daily job. I think she's completed her professional responsibility for your daughter's next steps.

Now you have to stop complaining and do your bit. You are that mother who wants the best for one child. A professional headteacher wants the best for, say, the sixty in Y6 that she's got. Your daughter has YOU. There's great advice here about what you should do next. I would be straight onto that forum. I would be taking her school reports to a photocopier today and getting duplicates of her Y4 and 5 reports. On Monday I would go in to school, or write a letter, asking for your daughter's top pieces of work in English language, literature, maths and science. And one other academic subject; potentially history. If those could be available to you on Tuesday, then you'll photocopy them and include them in the pack you're preparing for her appeal.

Undoubtedly teachers do have a responsibility for every child's next steps. However, not instead of the parent. In my opinion, her views in grammar schooling are irrelevant. She probably has that view too, but has given her high opinion about your daughter by ticking the boxes. Completed her responsibility.

As for private schooling comments above, and clientele, that's what you pay for. You aren't paying into that system, therefore you pick up the extra work I've suggested above. State school teachers are not less professional; rather they are dealing with the masses. Classes of 30+, oversubscribed year groups - teachers doing many jobs. There isn't the budget to have an 'extra' teacher to teach when others are being deployed to write a reference when your daughter will access her right to an education anyway.

Comprehensives can be very lovely.

I think it makes sense for them to have a blanket policy of not writing a reference. There will be some children where an absolutely honest reference will be completely negative and then those parents would argue with it. And I’d guess some parents would argue with positive references that they felt weren't positive enough. And it would cause endless hassle for the school with parents insisting on the reference being changed/wanting to meet with the HT to complain/blaming HT if child doesn’t get accepted to the school. Schools have better things to do than that.

The way education is set up in England, a favourable reference accompanying an application to a grammar school might as well be an application to university.

Thats totally untrue sorry math you clearly know very very little about the uk education system

Grammer system doesnt even exsist in most areas

Unless your talking about oxbridge goimg to state comp is not a barrier to going to university

Don't you just love a pushy parent? Bet the head teacher adores you, OP.

Dd passed her 11plus but didn't get a place because here places are allocated on distance. So catchment changes every year and dd's year was the only year when kids from our village didn't get a place.

Primary head wrote a reference for the other kid in the village but never did for dd. Said she would but never returned my calls asking about it and then we had to submit appeal paperwork.

Always annoyed me. We didn't win appeal. Other kid did and they lived further away than we did!

Yes definitely illegal, phone 101 I'm sure they'll be able to advise!

It is not illegal and you are not a client, you need to lose that chip on your shoulder.

You have been given good advice in this thread. Attach copies of all your daughter's reports. Most likely the school will have had dealings with your daughter's school and may know that the head does not comment.

Perhaps what is wrong here is that the grammar school asks for references. It should be down to the entry exam and any other clearly defined policy such as distance from the school or siblings.

You're missing the bigger picture here, the Head completed the form, just because she never wrote what you wanted her to write is her prerogative.
Your dd never passed the exam in my book that would mean she's not suitable for the school, end of.
And you are wrong about doing what you client demands, any good florist for example would persuade a client to change their mind about having ugly flowers as if the flowers don't look good its their reputation on the line. Which is exactly the same as the head teachers reputation if your daughter is not suitable for the school.
You need to get over yourself, if it meant so much to you, you should have gotten a tutor yourself, instead of moaning about the ones who did.

When is the deadline? I thought it was 31 October for all schools in England for Sept 2019 entry (willing to be corrected). TBH a late application is way worse than no reference from the HT.

Redyoyo what about kids who are ill on the day of the test or have a family crisis going on at home, should they be condemned for the next 5 years to a school that doesn’t suit them based on one test on one day? That’s what the selection review / appeals system is for.

And do you actually think it’s right to get a tutor for the test? So the grammar schools are full of middle class kids whose mummies and daddies can afford to pay for tutors? And the poor kids don’t get a look in?

Kumquat No i don't think its right that people get tutors to help pass the test, but i am not the person moaning about people getting tutors to pass and for what its worth the tutors don't sit the test.
Personally i think all kids should go to their catchment school, but that ships long sailed.

How much difference des tutoring actually make? You can't buy brains.

How much difference des tutoring actually make? You can't buy brains.

You can buy exam technique, experience of the types of questions that come up, confidence, improved vocabulary etc etc etc.

It’s incredibly naive to think that tutoring makes no difference.

Kids who are heavily tutored through 11+ invariably struggle at grammar schools because they frequently just aren't that academic at that age. Some kids find their "thing" later in their school career, and sail through uni degrees, when they just couldnt hack the 11+. Its not wrong, its just different.

That was the point I was making, funny. It seems pretty pointless to pay for tutoring to pass the 11+ only for the kids to struggle afterwards. Why don't primary schools in grammar school areas teach to pass the exam, they always did when the whole country had the grammar system.

Why don't primary schools in grammar school areas teach to pass the exam, they always did when the whole country had the grammar system.

Because that’s not the point of primary school?!!

It should be if the area is in the grammar system. And it always used to be.

It should be if the area is in the grammar system.

It absolutely shouldn’t. It should be about giving the children the best education possible, which categorically does not include tutoring for a grammar school exam.

Because they’d be teaching an entire cohort to pass an exam to get into grammar, when the whole idea of grammar is that it is selective and inevitably anywhere between 98% and 60% of pupils will not get in.

What a total waste of time it would be to train the majority of children in non verbal and verbal reasoning techniques when the test and grammar places are intended for a minority of pupils.

If the best education possible in an area is in a grammar school, the primaries should absolutely be educating pupils to pass the 11+. It's what every primary in the country used to do, which is why those of us who went through the system can spell, use correct grammar and do basic maths without a calculator.

(Percentages vary on the type of grammar - I.e. we have a couple of “super selective” schools nearby in a generally comprehensive school area rather than a standard grammar/secondary modern set up).

Well the schools are teaching those skills blueladt, it’s the national curriculum. Which is vastly different from the structure/content of grammar tests (that I have seen) which are generally heavily weighted towards non-verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning I.e. nets of shapes, spot the difference, what would be the next image in a sequence, bovine is to cow as feline is to xxx).

The way education is set up in England, a favourable reference accompanying an application to a grammar school might as well be an application to university

Err... why?