To wish the extra funding for grammar schools was £500 million rather than £50 million.

[letstalk2000]

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/government-gives-16-grammar-schools-in-england-a-share-of-£50m-funding-pot-to-expand/ar-BBQqmk6

Instead of just 16 grammar schools sharing the pot of £50 million . It should be the full 164 of grammar schools hence the £500 million requirement.

Grammar schools as the flagships of the state education sector should have all the resources they require . In order to ensure a world class education is available to those that can make use of one.

I am not stupid and realise to make statements like this on here puts me on par with Nigel Farage or Katie Hopkins in the hearts and minds of the cohort which inhabits this parish !
However, I have a belief that if you have limited resources available you should make sure what you have got does not get wasted; i.e. put it in to areas such as selective education.

After all there are only about 220 good secondary schools in England with 164 of them being grammar schools. The other 56 being de facto grammar schools despite posing as comprehensives. This proves you cant be successful if you are all things to all people !

BorisBogtrotter
and a "Top comprehensive" would be one that was good or outstanding

In fact, the Sutton Trust report you linked to ('Gaps in Grammar') only compared GCSE attainment at the top 200 comprehensive schools with163 grammar schools;

Figure 7: % achieving 5A*CEM in Grammar Schools and 200 Top Comprehensives, 2014/15

From the report;

Figure 8 shows 98.4% of high attainers in grammars achieving 5A*CEM. Across all mainstream non-selective schools 90.4% of high attainers achieve the same, but in our group of top comprehensives, the results are almost the same as grammars, at 97%
From this analysis, it is clear that the highly able perform just as well in good comprehensives as they do in grammars

This comparison is too crude - it gives no greater weighting to a grade A at GCSE than a grade C*

Independent school league tables show the percentage of A*/A grades (7s/8s/9s) achieved - which is what high attainers at KS2 should be aiming for.

The Sutton Trust report also states this;

72% of high attaining grammar school pupils achieve the EBacc, while 43% of similar students in the EBacc early adopters do Nonetheless, the gap is narrowing compared to comprehensives as a whole, pointing towards an area for improvement in non-selective schools

The Sutton Trust regularly criticise the social composition of 'top' comprehensive schools:

www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/top-comprehensive-schools-socially-selective-grammar-schools/
www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/85-of-top-comprehensives-with-best-gcses-are-socially-selective-but-schools-where-pupils-make-most-progress-are-much-less-so/
www.suttontrust.com/research-paper/selective-comprehensives-2017-state-school-attainment/

Gives no greater weighting to a grade A at GCSE than a grade C.

Blast.
Gives no greater weighting to a grade A star than a grade C.

Some posters have suggested that grammar schools have higher than average numbers of pupils with SEN without an EHCP. This is harder to fact check - but if it was the case then you would expect grammar schools to have higher than average numbers of exclusions based on government data.

I think there is some weight to the first statement. My own DS passed the 11+. He has Dyspraxia and Dyslexia but, because he was achieving well at school, had no real support from his junior school and certainly not an EHCP. Academically he is bright but he struggles with other things kids his age can do easily, related to his Dyspraxia particularly. Because he gets no help at school, we have tried to teach him mechanisms to help / cope with his difficulties where possible. His older sibling is at the same grammar school and I know of several friends with similar issues also without an EHCP. I know that this is anecdote not data but it certainly supports the position I believe.

With the exclusions comment I don't think it has to mean that, it depends entirely on the nature of the SEN. Generally DS is extremely well behaved at school as he has an inherent need to please people, especially teachers, his issues do not mean he is a child likely to be excluded on grounds of behaviour.