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 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."

That was the lie used to persuade people that closing grammars and converting all schools to comps was a good idea. It failed miserably in a lot of places where the "comp" turned into a crap sec mod rather than the top grammar it was supposed to be. I know, I attended one. It had been a highly regarded grammar but converted to a comp the year before I went there. My parents fell for the lie that it would give a "grammar" experience to all! In fact, it was an absolute hell hole and ruined my education (and several friends) who, like me, would have hoped to go to the grammar as we were "top table" at primary. Bullying was awful (not just names, but physical abuse, property theft, etc), teachers were dropping left right and centre with nervous breakdowns as they couldn't control the pupils from the estates. It's now just limping on in special measures and is widely expected to close next year due to very low pupil numbers (nearly everyone in the town buses their kids across the county border to a more highly regarded comp in the next county!).

OP, even if grammar schools didn’t exist, some comprehensives would be better / more desirable than others by virtue of their catchment area. Some people could afford to pay inflated house prices to live near the excellent schools, some could not. Some could afford to tutor, some could not.

I’m my experience (with 3 DC who have gone through independent preps in London), people in the private system tend to stay in it after 11 plus. This can be due to various factors -

1. State grammar school 11+ exams are different to the independent 11+ exams - eg grammars put much more store on VR / NVR as a measure if aptitude. In the independents, they are focusing on short story writing, maths, comprehension passage technique and interview techniques. Whichever “path” you go down, selective independent or grammar, it’s an arduous process and most people don’t want to do both.

• For instance, one of my DC is in a prep in zone 2 in SW London. The nearest grammar would be the super selective Tiffin out in Kingston. There is a whole tutoring industry around getting DC into that school and it’s mainly state school parents who pay thousands for the “right” tutors, etc etc. It’s a racket. If you’re going for the top independents, you can’t engage with all that as well - it’s one or the other.

• No school can get a child into a school that is beyond their academic ability. Nor can any tutor. When it comes to 11 plus, they have to pass and it’s as simple as that.

• I was in with the prep head at my DC school yesterday who showed me the guidelines they use to recommend future schools. If you are going for “top” schools in our area, ie. St Paul’s or Westminster, you need an average CAT score of 135. Preps know your child’s CAT scores because they test twice yearly so these are tracked throughout primary school. All the prep in the world and / or tutoring will not get a child with a CAT score of 125 into one if these schools. It will be the same with the grammars, according to whatever CAT scores they are looking for. So state or privately educated, it won’t make much difference. You are more likely to be guided towards suitable schools if coming from a private prep though.

• Grammars dint give a hoot where pupils are coming from. They are all about results. They want DC with the highest CAT scores as these will be easier to teach and that will be that.

I am a socialist and I went to a grammar school. My kids are following suit. None of us believe in the grammar school system, we think it is unfair. I think the problem is best solved by abolishing all grammar school. They are elitist and divisive.

The grammar schools in my area (Bucks) are stuffed full of middle class kids who either went to private school or whose parents paid to have them tutored for the 11+ or spent many hours tutoring them their selves. Probably fewer than 1% are there due to their ability alone. Private school kids have an advantage because they are allowed to coach for the 11+, state schools are not.

To divide kids in this way at 11 is wrong imo. The grammar school kids develop a sense of entitlement and only tend to mix with a small subset of society, and the other kids feel second best.

I think the answer is to have comprehensive schools for all, with streaming in all subjects. Then the kids are mixing with other kids from all walks of life in their form time and at their breaks, just like real life, but are taught according to their abilities. My DS for example is a whizz at maths but terrible at languages.

Children can change. With a comprehensive system it is easy to move up and down between the streams, but not easy to change school. One day’s performance in a test that bears no resemblance to what you learn at primary school can have a really big effect on a kid’s life, and that doesn’t seem fair to me.

They're not tutorable to a pass mark for every child but I was able to take an average child who absolutely would not have passed coming to the test completely blind and tutor her to a pass mark in 4/5 of the grammar schools in the area. I used a mix of skills and money not available to all carers and therefore children so this is obviously very unfair. Prep schools in our area are all geared towards the state 11+ or part of all through schools with their own 11+ exam and intake.

Yes, random is right. Those of my children in preps in the past (the boys) had the same system. They didn't even really know the school was doing that test but it gave the school the ability to help pick the right next school for the child and it tends to work very well although it is very hard to persuade some fee paying parents their child is not very bright at all and might thrive at a not very academic private school.

Most children in private prep schools are not planning to go to state schools ever so they will tend to be in a school for girls where the girls leave at 11 or boys with boys leaving at 12/13 for private schools. The only time we did tutoring was for daughter 2 who was at a school (Kensington Prep) which went up to about age 12/13 and she went to her final school (NLCS) at 7+ entry - in those days that school did not start at age 5 (which it now does). We thought it was helpful to practise a few bits of things with a tutor. Whether it was necessary or not I don't know. She would probably have got in at 7 without it.

The state primary school I went to was 1 form per year and very pleasant, so the rich parents sent their kids to it, tutoured them for the 11+, and if they didn’t pass fee-paid them anyway.

The way the 11+ worked here is as follows:

Cream of the crop (5%?) offered a free place at single sex college which is mostly fee-paid to.

Next bracket (or any of the 5% who didn’t put the single sex college as a choice) offered a place at mixed-sex Grammar, which has no fee-paying

Everyone else, fee-pay to college or go to your catchment state school.

My dad got a pass to college. He was bullied by the rich fee-paid kids for being a poor kid who passed to get in. My younger sister got a pass to college, she got bullied by the rich fee-paid kids for being a non-rich kid who passed. 40 years apart and different schools, you’d think classism were still a thing.

My dad, despite being one of those rags-to-“riches” neglected estate kids with talent was pleased when the 11+ got done away with.

He said that as we all went through school, you could see the system being gamed with tutours more and more, while the estate kids got left further and further behind.

Hopefully as well, the state schools will be mopping up more MC kids whose parents may have been able to tutour but not commit to college fees, so that local politicians feel more pressure to keep the state secondaries in good nick.

Why shouldn't any school select the pupils they want, who fit in with what a school is all about.

Don't worry since 98% of the educational elite believe in inclusion of everybody in one school, there would still be 1000s of the beloved comprehensive schools around....

The suggestion grammar schools should be represented by demographics related to locality is obtuse. The only reason for doing such a thing is to attempt to placate the liberal minded..

I disagree Randomhere. Almost all of the children I know from ds primary were tutored for the top London independents (and mid tier) and for the Grammars, my own child included. They are different systems but with many of the super selectives now having second stage Maths and English tests including written comprehensions, it's almost the exact same process. The ISEB pre-test is very similar to a CEM exam. My son sat for WUS and the first two stages required the exact same preparation as for the Grammars. The only difference in my opinion is the interview for the Independents but I always felt that was a rubber stamping exercise if you had a child that did well in the exams.

Anecdotally, a lot of those children did not get a high enough score for the Grammar schools or super selectives but did get offers at schools such as City of London Boys and Girls for example.

Comperhenves fail the brightest children because all children would ethier need to be put into different sets (big no no on mumsnet) or have the time divided in same class were there progress is limited by the slowest or by yhe average child.

I would like sets and work done to remove the stigmastism of the bottom set.

“Comperhenves fail the brightest children because all children would ethier need to be put into different sets (big no no on mumsnet) or have the time divided in same class were there progress is limited by the slowest or by yhe average child.”

Most comprehensive schools set. What has led you to believe setting is a “big no-no” on Mumsnet?

worridmum

It's quite difficult to understand your post and I'm not sure I've fully grasped your meaning, but in my dc comprehensive schools the children are taught in sets and the brightest children get excellent results (eg. two girls got 12A* in my daughter's year). The great thing about these schools is that the not so bright children do extremely well too, generally making great progress because they have teaching geared to their needs. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the naturally gifted, the hard grafters, the average, and below average ability children cannot be educated in the same school.

sorry been up most of the night one of my twins was ill.

What i meant was a few weeks ago in a thread there was a concenus that using sets was a damaging thing (for people in the bottom set) and that classes in a comprehensive should be sort in the same class and only a bad teacher that cannot teach to mutilpy abilities in the same class is a bad teacher. (despite it being nearly impossable to teacher a class well and strecth all students when have such large varying abilities).

And bottom sets are damaging and should not ever be used. (even if not named bottom set) and people were saying that classes should be mixed as well otherwise it was education apartied.

I am sorry for the poor spelling i am dylesxic and it gets worse when i am tired and my husband again has stolen my laptop for a work function so i lack my dyslesica software.

Ah. Sorry to hear one of your twins is ill.

Have to say that a MN consensus there should be mixed ability teaching across the board in all comprehensive schools is a new one on me!

"What i meant was a few weeks ago in a thread there was a concenus that using sets was a damaging thing"
Really? And because of that sets are officially a "Mumsnet no-no?"

Incidentally my kids walk half an hour each way to school and back. They are reception and y3. It's really not a terrible trauma that means you have to spend tens of thousands of pounds on private school instead*

Super. Except that has no bearing as it was 25 minutes by car along a dual-carriageway. You might have been totally happy doing that every morning. We weren’t. We wanted her - amongst other things - to have local friends.

Be all means cut options for families, but please do something to sort the selection process for primary places first.

Oh, I didn't realise that it was harder for kids to sit in a car than to walk

What a fatuous statement 🙄 you don’t understand why 25 minutes to get their in time for school, drop child and 25 minutes back isn’t necessarily doable? Not to mention we would have needed an additional car.

How many children do you have

One

and what do you spend annually on school fees?

Nothing, she’s at a state grammar

But just as a figure, we spent less per month on primary education than the difference between our mortgage payment and what rent now costs in the area due to the excellent primary.

Are you also penalising people who can afford that rental?

Anyone can go to church, even if they find it distasteful, to secure a faith school place if they want to enough, as many a regular churchgoer is well aware

Not true if you are not Catholic and the nearest state school is Catholic.

I've got a much bigger problem with faith schools being funded by the state than grammar schools. Even with tutoring, the kids who go to a grammar school must have some brains so they are achieving something by themselves. If you are really not very bright all the tutoring in the world won't help you.

But a child who gets into the local faith school is doing so purely on the basis of their parents' faith. Not right at all and not allowed in an employment context except in very limited circumstances. So we protect adults but not children from religious discrimination.

You were in a very unusual position if the only primary school with spaces was 25 minutes drive away.

I went to the local "bog-standard" primary, then grammar school, then taught in both state and independent schools. (For context)
I see where PP is coming from, but in practical terms, how can the local grammar school differentiate between state school pupils whose parents are "doing all the right things" like providing a secure, stimulating home environment, plus a bit of tutoring to polish up examination technique, and classmates without these advantages? Would you expect a scoring system e.g. "Child A is at a pleasant selection-by-mortgage state primary, while Child B is doing their best at Bash Street"? Both state primaries, after all.......all they can do is try to make test "coaching proof" and this seems nigh on impossible.
I always felt committed to the state system, as it educated me, but ended up in the independent sector, as I became too well-qualified and experienced, i.e. expensive; to be honest, it felt like "ratting out" at first, but I had a living to earn..... I noticed, on Open Mornings, how often parents asked me how long I, and other staff, had been teaching there; stable staffing, as opposed to endless churn. Sadly, it's one of the things that money can buy. Even more sadly, so many offspring of teachers working in state system themselves, including two Ofsted inspectors, ended up in our intake!
Of course, it's desperately unfair; the greatest investment we can make for society is our children.

I live in a grammar school town. Wonder if it's the same town as a poster above? Ours also lowers the 11+ score requirement for pupil premium children, and most of the kids at the grammars are from local state schools (I have 3 DCs there in different academic years and amongst all their friends I don't know any that aren't).

Not all private school children are more advantaged than all state school children, so denying grammar school places to children from private schools, whilst allowing entry to privileged state school children would be unfair.

The accepted measure of disadvantage with regard to schools is Pupil Premium. To set a lower pass mark for PP children, recognising their disadvantage is fair, and I understand many Grammar schools do this.

Just because you can't afford (or don't wish to afford) private prep school doesn't make your child "disadvantaged" or in need of extra entitlement to a Grammar school place! Many, many well supported children from affluent, bookish middle class homes attend state schools, and it is in fact these children, in the highest numbers, who are heavily tutored and unfairly advantaged to gain places over less advantaged PP children, rather than a few prep school kids.