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

Bertrand less unusual the more rural you get

It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to do it, I suppose, by doing research along the lines of:

'we analysed data on a large sample of kids scoring around the passmark for the 11+, some of them state educated, some of them private. we found that the state educated kids in the sample tended to earn about X percentage points more in GCSE exams than the privately educated ones'.

following this type of research it'd be possible and not unreasonable to, crudely, deduct X points from the 11+ scores of privately educated kids in the future, then you'd be, crudely, comparing like with like.

but, of course, the will to do something like this isn't there at all - parents, governers, & heads of GSs are about as far from being social justice warriors as it's possible to get. It'd have to be mandated by government, who probably always have bigger fish to fry.

Indeed. I was speaking to someone this week on I think around £400k a year and she has chosen a state comp for the child on leftist principle whilst dirty little capitalist I relieve the state of the cost of my children's education to ensure there are more resources for those who actually need it.

answering for others
-annual fee private pre-pre: £12 000, including breakfast club and after school care (no holiday care).

• additional mortgage for a house in catchment of good primary school: at least £60 000. then add breakfast club, after school care (if you get a place - they have 20 places for about 300 kids), tutoring, extra sport : a lot more expensive (but you can say that you send your child to state school). this is surrey.

Not all private schools prep for 11+.
Not all private schools are better than state schools.
Some parents at state do far more in terms of 11+ specific preparation.
Just because you're at a state school doesn't mean the parents don't read to their kids, take them to ballet or rugby or drama or whatever.

In terms of DC from deprived areas, yes I think there are some things that could be done to level the playing field, but around where I live you couldn't tell which kids go to private or state - the families/kids are often completely indistinguishable.

Seems obvious that state-school children should have some points tacked on.

Two children having identical scores, one from a private, the other from state, the former will be less intelligent on average than the latter.

add on to my post above: due to basically no wrap around care, you also need a part time working parent (who needs their own car to provide transport to sports etc). we can afford private education on 2 salaries, we can’t afford the loss of half an income, an additional car, higher mortgage, tutoring and sports club fees etc (see above)

Impending I really don't see why that should be. Some state school kids will be more intelligent than some private school kids - and vice versa. A sweeping, unqualified statement like "will be less intelligent on average" is just not very intelligent, frankly.

The qualifier is 'average'.

I'm surprised that someone who could get the highest score in the country on an 11+, and who takes an interest in education to the extent that they would post on this thread, could not work out the various factors that might depress 11+ scores amongst state-educated pupils vs their privately educated counterparts. On average.

MorbidlyObese (I feel terribly rude calling you this) - I know Eton and Harrow, the former quite well, and it's simply astonishing to me that anyone would argue that it's all bangers and clipping coupons that gets anyone there.

You might have a point at a bog standard prep.

I'm not a hand-wringer, by the way, I just think it's smart to adjust scores to better reflect the actuality so that we're not penalising kids from state schools. Which is exactly what we're doing if we ask them to perform as well as the kids from the prep.

I agree with your second paragraph, Morbidly, but I still think that it's right to discount the preps' scores.

Priviledge is not just about money, the children of the squeezed middles you refer to are enormously privileged just to have parents who have the chutzpah and prioritisation to considering seeking a private education. That alone reveals a slew of indicators that will confer enormous advantage over even their wealthier state counterparts.

Hardly anyone leaves our children's private schools in London/outer London for state schools as the private academic secondary schools are the best in the country, better than most state grammar schools. It tends to be people who have fallen on hard times who would do it. That will not be the same outside Loindon. I would estimate about 1 a year leaves for a state school at 11+.

It would be a bit crude to sift grammar entrance based on which school you went to - eg posh primary in an area with £1m house prices or private prep or our local hindu primary school I think the only one in the country. I believe years ago girls did so much better than boys at 11+ when my parents did it (they went to state grammar schools in the 1940s) they had to give boys extra credit to ensure there were equal numbers of the genders as girls mature earlier and did better in the exam and if they were not careful it would just be mostly girls getting in so they did some fixing of scores to ensure there were about equal numbers.

DD's private primary fees were under £6000 a year. I've just checked and they are £6380 now. That's a year not per term. There are no private secondary schools in the town.
4 from her class went to state grammar in a nearby town, 2 went private schools elsewhere in the county and the rest to a faith comprehensive.