To wonder why priority isn’t given to state school children when allocating grammar school places ?

[Hermanhessescat]

I don’t live in a grammar school area but there is back door selection by affluence (one of best secondaries is in a nice leafy suburb) or by religious belief (equally high achieving secondaries are c of e or Muslim). I have no personal experience of them apart from the fact that my DF attended one in the 40s, enabling him to leave his deprived hometown and go to a fairly prestigious uni.
Many posters in the past have talked about sending their dc to private preps then trying for a state grammar at 11 which surely puts said children at a huge advantage due to smaller classes, better facilities and active preparation for the 11 plus.
How come the grammars don’t therefore give precedence to state school educated children who pass then allocate remaining places to those who weren't ? Or have a slightly lower cut off point for those children who attended schools in particularly deprived areas ? I appreciate that’s probably a fairly simplistic idea and prepare to be flamed

selection by god, gonads or gaming a test has no place in state funded education
all schools should have equal admission criteria
and then funding be allocated (as it largely is at present) to focus on need and thus even out inequality

the amount of the education budget wasted on selection tests and systems and admissions and appeals

would pay for thousands of teachers

@ F1annelsheets I can’t afford to send my child to a decent (I.e. average) state school . I can afford private school. The real scandal is that some disadvantaged parents have no choice but to send their kids to a disastrous state school. Every child should have a chance

sonyaya,

do you think that would be at the expense of the most able students excelling

The thing is, my own experience both in terms of my own family and the schools that I know well, the limits that good 'true comprehensives' put on the attainment of the most able are very small, at least in terms of GCSE and A-level results.

The picture in terms of access to the most elite universities is more complicated - a mixture of lack of applications (the 'not for us' syndrome), lack of experience from the staff in terms of personal statements and university entrance exams, and lack of explicit coaching in e.g,. interview technique and those particular university entrance exams.

At the moment, the inequality of intakes 'masks' the true quality of schools (I have heard at least one headteacher splutter about the idiocy of an Ofsted / DfE -inspired 'partnership' with a local selective school, trying to help him to manage an intake with 45% SEN ..).

If instead of arguing about selectivity, we looked at where really good practice was - and looked at what works in schools with similar intakes - then that could significantly improve schools where there IS an issue with the performance of the most able, especially when all schools have similar proportions of such children. Coaching for, and sharing knowledge of, the entrance procedure for the most selective universities would also be an area to work on.

then funding be allocated (as it largely is at present) to focus on need and thus even out inequality

Funding would be even better if it was more evenly distributed geographically, though. I am entirely happy to acknowledge that the costs of teachers and premises in inner London mean that those schools need more funding. i am slightly less convinced that there should be thousands of pounds per pupil difference between pupils on either side of a county line....

"F1annelsheets I can’t afford to send my child to a decent (I.e. average) state school . I can afford private school"

So all the state schools within striking distance of you are "disastrous"?

If you can afford a salary’s worth of fees you can afford to buy into a better state area. 1k a month extra cash you must spend on fees would double the mortgage on a 4 bed detached house in a pricey area.

@BertrandRussell only the 2 I could get in. The 4 I couldn’t get in (maximum distance for non siblings as 350m and 420m) are good. But houses within 400m of these schools cost A LOT more than my house. And next to no wrap around care, so one of us would have to reduce working hours. I’ve done the maths, sending our child to state school would leave us at least £6000 worse off per year...

cantkeep
Totally agree with you about random geographic variances based on how chummy the leader of the council is with the relevant PPS
its utterly wrong.

A clear admissions procedure
A clear funding formula with a transparent weighting based on (say) Land registry average for an XX mile radius around the school
plus pupil premium
and it would fluctuate slightly each year but would be
transparent, accountable and understandable

Without all the daft admission systems, the number of LEA staff needed around the country - who could be redeployed to schools - would plummet
why do London Boroughs with 80 schools have the same admin resource as Hampshire with nearly 600 schools
BUT
It will never happen as it involves removing Academy chains and their asset stripping
from the State system

Bert, I think the poster is also confusing 'outcome' with 'progress'.

If 90% of the intake was below average on starting school, then 30% average or above at the end of KS2 is very good progress.

If on the other hand, 90% started at average or above, 30% average or above at the end of KS2 represents very poor progress.

I wonder whether the poster did in fact visit all possible options, or simply couldn't get into the preferred (high results, privileged intake) school and then went for private school instead?

Thanks. You’re right about masking quality - whatever the quality of education at somewhere like Eton, they’ll always get good results because of the intake I would think (not saying the education there is bad, I’ve actually no idea!)

I guess I’m just thinking as a society we need people to excel. Just one example - my friend’s son is having pioneering surgery which will hopefully save his life. We are all just happy there is someone clever and educated and excellent in his field that this can take place, and less concerned about whether he had an unfair advantage in getting there.

I am all for trying to bring those towards the bottom as high as possible but not at the expense of holding back those at the top if that makes sense and that is one of my concerns about your suggested way forward so interesting that you don’t think this would happen.

I may have commented already but I said my kid to a prep.
Yes they are coached for the 11 plus - that’s no secret.
I frankly think my kid should be at the bottom of the list when allocating grammar places (assuming a pass).
Having said that the majority do go on to attend fee paying secondaries. But I agree there is a class size advantage. And part of the selling point of the school is the entrance exam results.

@ F1annelsheets houses next to these schools are more expensive because they are next to these schools (for the same size house about £60 000). By coincidence, there are also less terraced houses next to these schools, but mainly semis. So, most houses are about £100 000 more. this is in the southeast, our current mortgage is high. A years school fees including wrap around care is £12 000....
No decent wrap around care at state schools mansone of us would have to reduce working hours. No way I would get a significantly higher mortgage on a significantly lower income...

The aim should be to improve the test to maximise the chances of selecting on natural ability alone

The trouble is that there is absolutely no such thing as «natural abilityalone». All ability is, to a large extent, a product of learning and children who are brought up in more educationally stimulating environments have more ability than children who are brought up in less educationally stimulating environments. Children are born with variations in academic potential but this is really hard to isolate.

Hmmm I don’t buy it. Surely an extra £100k in house price would only be around £500 a month, half the cheapest school fees. And no wrap around, really.Unusual in a high earning dual income area.

Sonyaya,

I think - for what it's worth - that it is the education of the 'very slightly below brilliant' in schools with very few high attainers (ie less than that in the population as a whole) due to intake that can be compromised.

The genuinely extraordinary will succeed. regardless, but the 'slightly below brilliant' will benefit from subject availability, specialist teachers used to teaching e.g. Further Maths. A-level MFL etc.

This is offered in good 'true comprehensives' with wide ranging intakes, but not in schools where for reasons of demographics or through proximity to a selective school, the intake is skewed towards the lower end.

That's why I see equalising intake as much as possible as really important.

Just because a parent can afford a private prep doesn’t mean they can afford a private secondary (the costs vary wildly between the two).

I appreciate that some children having advantages because their parents can afford tutors/private prep...etc is unfair but at what point do we accept that we don’t live in a communist society and that life in general is not really fair?

It’s not limited to secondary schools, it’s also about unpaid internships, summer programmes abroad and being subsidised to live in cities like London when you’re struggling on a graduate wage. Trying to roll out complete equality during younger years would, unfortunately, set a lot of children from deprived background up for a large fall when they came out of the other side and realised life is far from a eutopia of equality!

The miniscule school catchments and insane house prices are solely a feature of massive cities
in fact I believe its only parts of London that have the problem.

The failing is in supply, not demand.

Since the advent of Academy schools, LEAs have not been able to open schools where there is demand and that idiot Broon made them sell off the sites during the population slump of the late 90's
London LEAs cannot provide enough places so they rely on private schools and folks leaving London to handle the pressure.

If there was a consistent, coherent admissions policy, school catchments would flex to ensure that every child got into a school near them
and places would be provided in kilter with more houses being built
and funding follows the children

it all comes down to political decisions by eejits like Gove
and will only get worse over the coming years of austeity

Trying to roll out complete equality during younger years would, unfortunately, set a lot of children from deprived background up for a large fall when they came out of the other side

So you are saying that children from deprived backgrounds should be given a poorer standard of education so that they 'stay in the box they are born to' and don't have any aspiration to access the jobs that are 'only for the likes of us'?????

Words fail me.

@cantkeepawayforever yes we visited them. I know teachers in them. They do an amazing job. They also have no time whatsoever for ok behaved kids. They firefight left right and center. A quiet, shy child would get no attention whatsoever , and they actively told me to not send my child there - not enough resources to do anything with kids who do not show problematic behaviour, they are left to their own devices.

I THOUGHT we had left the Victorian age, in which people should not try to climb out of their allotted station because 'it will only lead to disappointment.'

Every parent does the best that they can for their child. The state also does the best that it can for every child. I don't think attacking the choices of other people is a particularly kind thing to do. I think that instead of attacking the choices that people make for their children and then suggesting penalizing some of those children, that we should look at every way we can to help the most disadvantaged children. The university that I went to years ago offered lower entrance grades to bright students from the local area, which was disadvantaged. However children shouldn't need to apply to grammar schools to meet their potential, all schools should be able to bring out the best in every child, and comprehensive schools are much improved on what they were years ago. Often the problem with comprehensives now is that children are under too much pressure to succeed. However comprehensive schools aren't always good or always able to meet children's individual needs and I don't think most parents who choose other options are motivated by giving their children an advantage over others but are motivated by helping their child to be the best that they can be.

yura
My kids went to comps and my DH has worked in hundreds and hundreds of schools up and down the country
they actively told me to not send my child there - not enough resources to do anything with kids who do not show problematic behaviour, they are left to their own devices.
I call bullshit

Every parent does the best that they can for their child. The state also does the best that it can for every child.

No. I do what I can for my own children, while as far as possible ensuring that it does not actively create disadvantage to other children.

So I read with my children, and have books in the house, and enough food, and involve them in extra-curricular activities. However, I do try hard to make school choices, and lifestyle choices, that do not actively disadvantage others. I cannot avoid 'passively' disadvantaging others - for example I send my children to the nearest state schools, which passively disadvantages those who live further away who do not get those places because my children have them. I drive a car rather than walking everywhere, which does contribute to global warming but means I can work (in teaching, a public service).

But I do not see that I have a right to help my child be the best that they can be at the active expense of others.

This is not 'virtue signalling'. It is simply that it is often stated as a truisim that 'all parents do the best that they can for their own child', and there are those of us for whom that has a very distinct caveat about not disadvantaging others.