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 think the issue is that these two are inextricably entwined

I don’t think they always are

Problem easily solved by having more grammar schools.

Is the probalem easily solved by having more secondary moderns to serve the 'other' 75% who, even in fully selective counties like Kent, do not attend grammars?

Or should we have 100% coverage of grammars and call them comprehensives?

(Essentially, in a fully-selective county, for every 1 child attending a grammar school, 3 attend secondary moderns - with much higher percentages of deprived pupils, much higher numbers of SEN pupils, and often a restricted range of core academic subjects - e.g. chance to do 3 separate sciences, or 2 MFL. Is the 'benefit' for the 1 worth the disbenefit for the 3, especially the 1 or 2 of that 3 who are of ability practically indistinguishable from the lower end of the grammar school intake. We have to remember that the 11+ is both fairly inaccurate and not very reproducible in who it 'passes' and who it 'fails' on a given day)

Is the probalem easily solved by having more secondary moderns to serve the 'other' 75%

Just have grammars open up around the country to serve 5-10 of the more academic population and the other 90% can still be comprehensive. Sorted.

'Comprehensive' = 'taking all abilities, in line with the make-up of the area it serves'

Minus 10% of the most able does not equal comprehensive....

'Comprehensive' = 'taking all abilities

Well that's a stupid idea. How is it cost effective to make every school have the facilities to serve a multitude of different abilities?

Why would you want to make the most able in our country progress at the same pace as the average child?

A comprehensive model only works for the average child, its a bad idea for a progressive country that wants to invest in its brightest and best. But I guess everyone is equal at the bottom, so result.

Walking,

Comprehensive just means 'taking every child', not 'treating every child exactly equally'. It just means that exceptional mathematicians who are poor at English - or vice versa - don't get 'stuck on the wrong side of the dividing line', because provision for them at their own level in sets or groups is available within the same physical institutions.

Fully comprehensive counties with the same socio-economic makeup produce the same results as those which are fully selective - whereas if grammar schools were better, surely the selective counties would produce better results?

Is the probalem easily solved by having more secondary moderns to serve the 'other' 75% who, even in fully selective counties like Kent, do not attend grammars?

I have no problem with this, actually I would say let grammar schools take the top 30% of the ability range. I say this because I am not a virtue signaller like most on here.

amongst the so called Secondary Modern schools , there will be schools that are exceptional (operating within a selective system). The simple reason is because they themselves are selective by virtue of location.

Selection is the key regardless of whether though ability or location . Only the socialist interpretation of nirvana refuses to acknowledge this.

If children were equally able at all subjects, and progressed exactly linearly from their starting points in all subjects, there would be some sense in stratifying them at 11 into different institutions (if a good test to do so, that was accurate and fully reproducible could be divised)

In reality, of course, children can be of high ability in some subjects, lower in others, and progress in leaps and bounds or slowly over a particular period.

A strictly segregated selective system doesn't work in this messier reality. The most able 10% as measured by the 11+ at 10 are not necessarily the 10% best achievers at 16, 18 or 21 (as shown by the fact that a highly selective grammar school, which is said to take top 1-2%, throws out a number of children at 16 because they don't get good enough grades). A flexible, setted comprehensive system enables children to be in totally different sets in different subjects, and move between those as they progress swiftly or need more help

We are a minimum wage family. Working class. Neither educated beyond GCSE.

Couldn't afford tuition. Tutored DS1 myself and he passed and got in.

It’s mainly middle class or private who got in. Whilst I don't think the system is fair, the alternative schools are horrendous and DS1 is with lovely boys. I did it for circle of influence not necessarily education.

I really want him to do better than me.

I think socialists despise the grammar system because, they worry children will be less open to indoctrination about the unfairness of the system ! Therefore, less likely to vote for the labour party....

Those given the opportunity to be saved from the chaos of schools such as 'Marlwood' or any everyday comprehensive school...

The North London Girls Consortium (this is a group of some of the top London girls schools) have changed the 11+ to an online test which you cannot be tutored for; they said quite rightly that children were being put under intolerable amounts of work and stress.

Hahahahaha. There is no such thing as an untutorable test. Seriously.

You can base a test on "critical thinking skills" or whatever as much as you like--pupils who get extensive help at home with the basics will still do massively better on the test than those who do not, because critical thinking skills are built on a solid foundation of basic skills.

And even if tutoring magically vanished off the face of the earth, kids from privileged backgrounds would still have a massive headstart. Your vocabulary (for example) will be far better if you have parents who shower you in language from birth and read to you every night and take you to museums and science workshops. This makes it far easier for children to pass any sort of test.

children can be of high ability in some subjects, lower in others

How many exceptional mathematicians are illiterate? Very few. They might not like literature, they might not be poets but who the f**k cares because they are bloody good at maths and are never going to have a career in English.

It makes no sense to spend money trying and failing to make every school suitable for clever children.

Its like the state system in the UK doesn't care about making the most of its talents, within the budget it has.

As others have said, there is not much difference between parents using a private primary VS parents buying a house in the catchment area of a high-achieving state school and then tutoring on top of that.

If they are going to differentiate in terms of letting kids in, it needs to be based on things like family income/parental education level, not state vs private primary.

Problem easily solved by having more grammar schools.

I think we should do this. In fact, I think we should go one further and expand grammar schools so much that everyone is guaranteed a place at one. We could invent a special name for these new, universal grammar schools. We could call them "comprehensives."

Harold Wilson has replied I see....

Not everyone who reads to their kids, talks to their kids, takes them to museums and generally encourages them can afford tutors.
It really isn’t about tutoring.
Why should state school kids be given preferential treatment?
Shouldn’t grammar schools offer places to the kids with the most potential?
Kokeshi the new 11+ is an intelligence test, and I disagree that it can be tutored. It’s like an IQ test, it’s either there or it’s not.
I have no shame in privately educating my dc. The state schools where we live are really not up to par and if we couldn’t afford to send them to private school then we would move to an area where the state schools are of a higher standard.
I agree that state education should be of a higher standard, but it isn’t.

@Lovingbenidorm iq tests are very, very easily tutored. sorry to burst a bubble. (yes i know what i’m talking about - did my PhD on the subject)

I think the issue is that these two are inextricably entwined

I don't agree that they necessarily are. My children were at a school that was incredibly diverse socially and economically, and where the quote unquote more educated and financially able - many of whom chose this school over private schools and stuck by it through years of Requires Improvement- put enormous amounts of efforts in to improve the school and the environment and learning of all the children. Ultimately what let the school down was a system which worked towards averages and didn't attempt to meet the needs of many of the children at the top and the bottom of the scale (due to national underesourced SEN as well as the scrapping of the Gifted programme), as well as overworked and often unresponsive teachers and school management. None of which can be pinned on parents undermining the comprehensive system.

I don't agree that all IQ tests are easily tutored. There will be some children who no matter what you did to tutor them they could not pass the test (thinking of my sister who had down's syndrome had she lived to 11 for example which is obviously one extreme but plenty of other children of the 50% of the UK who can't get 5 decent GCSEs fall into that category, not purely because of poor schooling but also because they have talents in other directions).

We should however have the same system throughout the UK - either no state grammars or state religious schools or the same in each area.

I think socialists despise the grammar system because, they worry children will be less open to indoctrination about the unfairness of the system ! Therefore, less likely to vote for the labour party

Are you saying grammar school kids lack critical thinking? Do you think teachers in comps spend time going on about how unfair the grammar school system is?

I, and all my friends were grammar school, and are all Labour/Socialist.

I suspect in England poorer areas with majority Labour control are the ones who ditched all grammars in the 1970s as they were left wing and richer areas didn't

Ha Ha!! Our county is Labour, always has been and always will be. In the 60s/70s, they closed most grammars, but kept 2, both of which whose catchments included the "leafy" areas around the town hall and county council offices where presumably a lot of the councillors/council staff lived. So, as usual, the champagne socialists looked after themselves but sod everyone else. They closed all the grammars in the "Tory" areas of the county! Just like a few years ago when the Labour county council closed about 20 libraries in the county - every single one was in a Tory voting village - not a single one was closed in a Labour voting constituency. And people say the Tories only look after their own!!

Once again I am amazed by how many mumsnetters seem to live in the catchment areas of poor state schools!

Once again I am amazed by how many mumsnetters seem to live in the catchment areas of poor state schools!

“So many”?! Are we reading the same thread?