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

I'm really shocked that the top London state schools are looking for CAT scores of 135.

It's just competition. The school will have limited places so they have to select for those places. Our local grammar is the same. The actual pass mark varies from year to year simply because they have a fixed number of places, so they take the "top" x number of the various categories. They can't magic additional classroom places.

Further education and work is just the same - it doesn't matter what their basic entry requirements are - if they have more applicants than places they'll take the best according to whatever category they adopt - for some that will mean that despite having a minimum entry requirement of B grade at A level, if they have more A grade applicants that places, they may choose to change the criteria and automatically reject all the B grade applicants. Life is a competition.

Exactly. Life is all like this and after school or after university they will all be competing for jobs anyway so they might as well get used to competition early on of whatever kind, sporting musical, who is popular, who looks best, who passes exams better etc.

"Over my dead body if anyone tried to make such changes to DD1's school, which she absolutely loves, and I'm sure any of the other parents of girls there would feel the same."
Why would she love it less if it had some less bright children in it? Or some less privileged children?

impendingdisaster

I’ll repeat what I said. That doesn’t actually work as there is a good chance the state school pupil in question will have been tutored, or gone to an excellent state school. Saying “oh but on average” really doesn’t cut it because as mentioned in this thread it tends to be those state school pupils who compete with the private school pupils in the 11+.

Life is all like this and after school or after university they will all be competing for jobs anyway so they might as well get used to competition early on of whatever kind, sporting musical, who is popular, who looks best, who passes exams better etc.
D'oh

Loving the hoiked up judgey pants that seem to think that competition does not go on in Comprehensive schools.

Do get over yourselves dears.

Schools have setting and streaming and competition and inter school championships and take part in olympiads.
They just do that having not selected at the point of entry.

clavinova
My local school is a comp that has over 400 empty places.
Those 400 kids are at the same school my kids attended.
I did not move school to avoid the children.
I moved school to avoid an academy chain management system of which I utterly disapprove.

Agree with Xenia and interested in post by shearwater. All my neighbours' children did 'Kent' tests, ie Bromley, and went to grammar school without extra tuition. The fault lies with the prep/primary schools and the parents. It's not that difficult.

"Life is a competition."

So you're happy with 75% of kids being told they've lost in the competition at the age of 10?

bertrandrussell

That’s a good point. The emotional impact on 10 year olds being told they’ve ‘failed’ the 11+ is actually to me the better argument for abolishing it.

Bromley doesn't do the Kent test. It is the London Borough of Bromley and has its own selection procedure for its selective schools. If all your neighbours' children passed, that must be dependent on a disproportionate number of other people's neighbours' children failing!

Come on, Bertrand. Not passing the 11+ is not the same thing as having failed at life.

All the pupils at the grammar school I attended in the 80s were also state educated

How could you possibly know that

I did know where people had come from in my class of about 32, and none had gone to private school. Some came from private schools at sixth form level. What I am not 100% sure about is a couple of the girls who joined say in the 3rd year from other areas. But the local intake, in my class, at 11, was 100% state school primary.

All the pupils at the grammar school I attended in the 80s were also state educated
The poster has clarified that this was in Northern Ireland - different educational and Legal system than mainland UK

Different legal system? I would respectfully disagree. Same legal system (in the main) as England and Wales.

Different educational system, yes.

Scotland has a very different legal system. As does Ireland.

But anyone who does a qualifying law degree in England, Wales or Northern Ireland is qualified to practice in any of the areas.

I’ll repeat what I said. That doesn’t actually work as there is a good chance the state school pupil in question will have been tutored, or gone to an excellent state school. Saying “oh but on average” really doesn’t cut it because as mentioned in this thread it tends to be those state school pupils who compete with the private school pupils in the 11+.

In this case, the delta would be smaller to reflect that reality. It's still worth measuring and adjusting.

There's something of a perverse paradox at work here - a lot of less well-off parents might not even consider a GS for their smart kid because they can't afford the tutoring, so they'll never show up in the statistics. I couldn't worry too much about a system that might disproportionately favour state school kids over private in an effort to recalibrate this sort of bias.

Those kids you refer to are quite likely to defect to private for secondary, anyway.

Qualified to sit the institute exams or the bar exam in any of the jurisdictions, to be pedantic.

But they are eligible to sit those and practice in any of the jurisdictions if they have a qualifying law degree from England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The Grammar school test (and the tutoring beforehand) is a waste of educational funding and resources.

Getting rid of ALL state selection at 11 and focusing on

• properly funded teaching
• properly resourced schools
• good ranges of academic and non academic option
• properly funded extra curricular

would benefit every child at each of the schools and the taxpayer and the country

Giantbanger
Differences in the legal system - abortion / gay marriage / consumer rights / car insurance etc etc
And the education system is RADICALLY different than in the rest of the UK
so not relevant to this thread.

I certainly support ensuring the system is the state school system si s the same throughout the UK. It is not fair some areas have some kinds of schools and some others (within reason - probably very few areas like mine have enough hindu children for our hindu state primary school or the jewish ones etc)

I am not against selection at 4 actually never mind 11. I put all my childre in for selective tests at 4+. You do not have to present it as losing out if they get into school B but not A of course. You have a large range of academic or musical or easily to get into or whatever private schools and children tend to end up in one that suits them.

Agree 100% re education and I said so.

The legalities around car insurance are the same - you have to have 3rd party. There's a small difference around MOT testing and R plates (why doesn't the rest of the UK have R plates?!). And some differences in laws that are devolved, as indeed there are in Wales. But it is not a different legal system. Scotland has a different legal system, Northern Ireland does not.

GB is right about those points. Although we would usually put the "laws of england and wales" in contracts NI laws are very similar in most areas of law. Scotland is the outlier. Even Scotland has the same laws in many areas - copyright, data protection etc.

Xenia
Tests at 4 are purely to prove how engaged the parents are.
They say nothing about the actual child.
That is why naice private schools use them to exclude those who will not fit.

The point is that selection has no place in the State system.

Every child has a right to a state school place.
Why not achieve that with the least amount of waste on administration possible?

very few areas like mine have enough hindu children for our hindu state primary school or the jewish ones
Segregation by parental faith has no place in the state system.
It leads to silo thinking and intolerance.
Allowing children to mix with people of other faiths and cultures makes them more tolerant and willing to learn.

(Might be of hackground interest - just say list of top 20 non selective and top 20 selective state schools - most in the South East whch is the interesting point. Why? I suppose if you are from the NE as I am you might have moved south as I did to find work so we end up with a concentration of those prepared to move for work down here.

www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/bog-standard-northern-comp-then-forget-about-a-high-flying-legal-career/5068434.article?utm_source=dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%20GAZ141016

Tests at 4 are purely to prove how engaged the parents are.
They say nothing about the actual child.
That is why naice private schools use them to exclude those who will not fit.

In my experience, private schools are really not interested in courting anything beyond a normal level of parental engagement, e.g. they pay the bills and so forth.

That being said, what the 4+ actually reveals is beyond me.

It seems to work though doesn't it unless you think you could take any child at 4 and make it be very academic and bright by 11. I have not noticed any gulf between my daughter in their schools at 5 or 7 to 18 than those who join the schools form state primaries at 11+. the school found they genuinely could assess at those ages and of course most who apply don't get in and the academic ones interview the child without the parent there as they are testing the child not the parent.