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

Of course there will always be inequalities. But the problem with the grammar school system is that it is an institutional inequality. Built in. We want our state institutions to be as fair as possible.

Or at least to aim to be as fair as possible. Not to entrench inequality.

And it should never be, as it is in the town near me that the grammar school and the high school are a mile apart and serve the same catchement, but one has less than 1% Pupil Premium children, the other 37%.

Local superselective has over 25% from private primaries.

The easiest way to check is by looking at the DfE Performance tables.

If you look at GCSE results by prior attainment, the gap between the sum of low + medium + high attainment pupils and total pupils = number of pupils without SATs results (either from private primaries or arriving from abroad after the end of Y6: in grammars, which tend to have low pupil mobility, the largest group will be those from private primaries)

I personally think it is nasty to say children of 11 should be excluded in this way, as well as totally unworkable. To say to an 11 year old - you did better than someone else but you’re not allowed to go because of who your parents are, honestly I can’t believe it’s being suggested.

The background a child comes from - not just in terms of income but in terms of having decent and supportive parents - has a huge influence over a child’s education and life chances generally. Grammar schools are a small part of that.

There is all kinds of shit within the state schools. Children who are predicted a D will be given a lot of support to get them up to a C to get better A*-C ratios (or 9-4 these days). Gifted and Talented Children get additional support, as do those with EAL etc, but those children without letters after their name who are coasting towards a B or whatever get left behind. Focus on that if your intention is to help disadvantaged students and not bash the middle classes.

I wonder how the parents of kids who have tutoring or are at private schools got to where they are? Is there ever a conception that maybe they also worked hard passed exams and had family members work to help them with exams? I went to a state grammar where 2/3 of each year where from the roughest council estate in the county that were riven with problems related to them troubles. It was in one of Northern Ireland’s 67 grammars that have helped haul thousands of children out of poverty, have them a fresh perspective and has led to academic overachievement versus the rest of the UK. I understand that England’s grammars May not be the same but for many people from home it’s a system that works and continues to reduce rather than increase social inequality.

Tbh, I would entirely support a system in which a parent has a binary choice, under most circumstances:

• to attend a private school and then remain within privately-funded institutions for the remainder of their education (and pay different university fees)

• to attend a state-funded institution and remain within the state-funded system for the remainder of their education, including lower university fees.

Anyone needing to transfer between private and state (with the exception of SEN pupils transferring to Special Schools) would have a similar status to current 'late / in year applicants' whenever they applied - ie they would only be given a place once all places have been allocated to those moving from other state-funded institutions.

This will lead to many 'lower grade' private schools withering on the vine, as most parents won't wish to risk e.g. future divorce, job losses etc. The few very high quality ones would survive because the funding for those tends to come from those with an income that can survive such things - and they could, as now, boost academic resultas by giving generous scholarships that fed into university as well.

But then i'm a bit of an educational idealist!

We have a handful of grammar schools. How about we get rid of faith selection first and help a LOT more children before worrying about the tiny amount of schools selecting on ability.

Comberbird,

My parents are products of post-war grammars which dd exactly as you describe (my mother in particular was from an exceptionally poor and ill-educated family - my grandfather was taught to read properly in night school as a late teen).

Current English grammar schools are not like this - I have yet to find one (and I look at the figures a lot) where their % of deprived children in any way reflects the area that they serve.

So a child eg whose parent dies and they can no longer afford fees is thrown to the bottom of the pile?

I’ll tell you what really won’t help he already underfunded state schools. Putting all of he privately educated children into state education and completely crippling the system.

can'tkeepawayforever Using your example though that the grammar school should be representative of the catchment area the grammar near us would have to turn down non white children.

Our nearest grammar is in a white middle class town. Only 2/3 of the places fill with catchment children passing. Many local kids don't sit as there is an ofsted outstanding comp with fantastic results in a stunning country location. The other 1/3 places (50 kids a year) coming from out of catchment get places solely on score. The surrounding areas are deprived ex mill towns with high muslim populations. Most of the OOC places go to these muslim children.
As a result the grammar definitely doesn't reflect the make up of the catchment area.

Sonyaya,

Any parent, before embarking on the 'private schooling for life' system, would have to decide whether their funding was robust to adverse life events - or insure.

If n ot, they would sensibly choose state. That's the aim of the change- which would be in combination with effective admissions areas that ensured all schools in an area had equalised SEN, PP and different socio-economic bands.

Comberbird that's a great user name!

Effective catchment = total area it serves. Not 'the area immediately around it'/ Might be a whole county.

It'll be interesting to see how the apparently uncoachable tests pan out over a few years, and whether grammar schools really do have a greater diversity of students as a result

Not bad yerself Giant Banger!

I read that in your post. It’s still penalising children for choices their parents have made, and very probably at a time of great upheaval for the child eg bereavement, divorce. These are children. I really dislike this attitude of is ok to dick over children if they could be construed as middle class. ALL children deserve to be treated with compassion.

Just make the argument to abolish private schools if that’s the end game and cut out this nasty in between stage.

In addition to which I maintain that screwing over all of the state school kids as long as the private school kids get screwed over too is a terrible idea. Unless you have an idea as to where to find the funding and capacity for these tens of thousands of extra state school places.

The catchment area is big but largely rural. The OOC places go to anyone solely on score order so county as a whole is irrelevant. You can get a place from anywhere iin country if you score highly enough.
Grammar town is 97.1% white, very unfair on those already excluded from the faith schools to then say they can't even try for the grammar.

Quite a few Grammar schools are now changing to a priority for pp applicants, it can't hope to address the inequalities, but it is a step in the right direction. Looking at the 11+ forum, it looks like QE in Barnet (Britain's 'top' state school) is courting the heads of the local preps.

Re PP Some of it is lack of ambition from parents who have always been alright doing service level jobs. I’m from a council estate, my parents live in the shittest council estate the area.

Huge reverse snobbery, apparently I have ambition above my station, 11 + is not for the likes of us, it’s for middle class parents. I’ve had loads of digs including family, “we did all right” bus drivers, shop workers, factory workers. Nothing wrong with that but I wanted more for me and wanted more for my child.

There is also a perception that all private school children are from wealthy families, they are not. There is a big mix and in some cases other family member chip is and burseries and scholarships are offered.

I know a mum of a very gifted child, she refused to consider Grammar because she said he’d do well in any school. He will but why not look at all options available?

I’ll tell you what really won’t help he already underfunded state schools. Putting all of he privately educated children into state education and completely crippling the system

A good start would be making the private schools really private: no charitable status; their teachers not allowed to be part of the state's teacher pension scheme. The private system massively piggy backs on the state.

capacity for these tens of thousands of extra state school places.

Well, I suspect there will be quite a lot of empty private school buildings available... If tens of thousands of children move between the two systems, then the buildings that they used to be in, ideally adapted for schooling and with lovey facilities, will be empty....

Dixiechickonhols

I’d be interested to know which school you’re discussing! Is it co-ed?

The buildings may be empty - as are plenty of other buildings - but the state won’t own them. So they would have to be purchased or rented. The staff would have to be paid. It doesn’t begin to address the problem.

I don't believe they can make an uncoachable test. Just like anything if you practice you will speed up and speed is key in 11+.
Vocab was a huge part of English and VR so children exposed to high quality conversation and guided to read the classics will always have an edge.
The system needs to ensure that the test only covers work that a state educated yr 5 child will have covered. The 11 plus near us requires a child to have covered the yr 6 maths curriculum 3 weeks into yr 6 so unless a child has been taught this by a tutor or parent they have no chance of passing. I do wonder if the trend for kids not to be moved up to next years work and instead extend the existing work hinders wheras in the past there was probably more flexibility and a bright child would be moved up to do maths with class above.