To think we need more grammars

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I went to a grammar school that was and still is massively oversubscribed. I feel like given how popular it is there should be more like it because I’m sure many bright children are turned down. I believe the school has great results not necessarily because of great teaching but because pretty much everyone who attends has a strong work ethic (less disruption, parental support, competitive spirit amongst peers). For part of my education I also attended a non selective school and I found it tough because it was very uncool to work hard. If you didn’t want to be a loser who got bullied you had to be disruptive, skiving, smoking weed in lunch breaks rather than attending clubs.
I struggle to understand why there’s so much anti grammar school feeling and reluctance to develop more of these schools. Surely it gives children from working/middle class backgrounds who want to work hard the opportunity to be in an environment where they can do so without being bullied for it? Would be interested to hear thoughts on this

Totally disagree with you op.

We live in a grammar school area and my dcs all went to one. I would by far have preferred them to go to a good non-selective school but these rarely exist in selective areas. Generally the brightest children with the most supportive - or perhaps pushiest - parents are creamed off to go to grammar school. Grammar schools attract the best teachers because behaviour tends to be better. So parents will coach/have their children coached for the 11+ out of fear more than anything that their dc might end up in the local failing, understaffed non-selective where standards of learning and behaviour are poor.

There's always the risk that grammar school results can look good because they have bright children, so don't need to try so hard. You need to look at their value added scores and compare them with the local non-selective.

And finally, the 11+ is brutal - marking children as failures at such an early age. I know young people who did spectacularly well at the 11+ whose academic success has then petered out (looking at you ds ..) and others, who failed the 11+, who have gone on to achieve tremendous academic success - albeit against the odds.

I think they should be scrapped completely.

OP, I live in a grammar county. When my dc are asked where they go to school you can see people judging. I try to avoid stating where my dc go to school for precisely this reason. Setting and/or streaming within a school doesn’t have this impact. Nor is there such a massive sense of failure at 11.

What about children who work really hard but simply arent clever enough to pass the entry test for a grammar school? Not everyone in lower sets is disruptive and lazy.

Removing some of the kids who are well behaved makes everyone else even more likely to be unmotivated and not try. There might be 35% of a school who work hard and it can be tough for them. Imagine if 30% of the kids went to grammar school, how much harder it would be for that remaining 5% to make any progress whatsoever. They would end up getting caught up with everyone else's bad behaviour and fall off the radar.

I agree with others that what is actually needed is more funding to support families and students who "dont want to work hard and never will". Early interventions, mental health and family support etc. Better behaviour management policies. Smaller class sizes.

YANBU I went to grammar school & there were plenty of girls from less affluent part of town. However I think maybe boundary is wider now.
However I think the issue in the UK is our obsession with grades in academic subjects - this comes from parents.
We need to provide a decent other option like other Scandinavian countries, Germany. There is nothing wrong with not being academic. Just celebrate the positive so if your child can't do GCSE level physics then they may be brilliant at something else like cookery, woodwork. Many parents are unwilling to push vocational things
FWIW the teaching at my grammar school wasn't great.

Can we start with enough secondary places, in appropriate towns, so that all students can attend a school in their (nearest) town.

Our council currently busses kids from our town to the three nearest towns, creating a ripple effect, because kids in the local villages who used to get a place on distance now dont, because our town is closer.

100 kids in this area couldn't be given an offer on national offer day last year because there simply want a place for them.

So, my vote would be for sufficient, suitably located, places is appropriately funded and staffed schools. Once we have that, we can start looking at gesmars etc, but lets get the basics sorted first.

Mushy wow, that is interesting. I don't really have a good word to say about Ds's school either. Everything they do is 'a show'. Shiny nice website, lots of promises at meetings. The headteacher is obsessed with how many he sends to medical school. Behind the scenes though things are pretty awful. A culture of violence and bullying and nobody seems to care.

Disagree with you strongly OP. We need fewer grammars not more. Preferably none! These days it's not deserving, bright, hard working working class kids who get in. It's mostly middle class kids whose parents want to save on private by toting kids up to the eyeballs. I've seen it. Many moons ago at an open evening for Tiffin I asked several boys whether they'd been tutored, expecting them to say they had for a few months, and back came replies saying they'd had 3 years of tutoring at primary level. Well no wonder they got in!
We moved out of a grammar area in the end and went to a company where both DC ended up with stellar results and uni places. I wonder if they'd have passed that 11+ though, with no tutoring? Of course I'll never know.
Grammars skew everything. Awful.

I live in a grammar school area and it means the other schools lose out. The other thing is why do you imagine there is no bad behaviour in grammars or that bullying doesn't happen in grammars. Being bright, being academic doesn't mean you are some sort of saint.

My kids have experienced both things in grammars.

For those who are against would be interested to know what you think about the situation I described where a pupil who wants to work hard ends up in an environment where working hard leads to being bullied and excluded socially.

Ok, but how about a child (e.g. yours) who may be hard working, but not pass their 11+? Maybe they missed by 0.25% like my next door neighbour. How would you feel about being in the grammar system then?

Obviously, you don’t just get grammar schools as they, by nature, are selective. You get both grammar schools and secondary moderns as a package. What if you child didn’t get in to grammar? What if they were ill on the day, froze due to pressure/anxiety, what if they were sensible and hard working but not actually that academic or high achieving?

I get the feeling the OP feels her child would obviously pass the 11+ so none of this would be a problem. There are always some surprises though.

I did read that for every child that fails their 11+, that brings with it two people (both parents) who are in favour of a comprehensive system!

Disruption does have a detrimental impact on those who want to work hard

So why should my hard working but not academic child have to put up with a school with a higher proportion of disruptive pupils, when it could be argued that she needs if anything less disruption to help her in class?

You can't compare schools 20/30 years ago with school now.

Hants has a fully comprehensive system. I am so glad we live here. It means all children have an equal chance of a good education, irrespective of their ability. It means children of organised middle class parents can't tutor them age 9/10 to get them to grammar while children of poorer or less organised parents miss out.
You can be a late developer and do well. You can be top set science and low set English. You can do 2 MFL at GCSE even if hopeless at maths.

There is a whole industry here based on getting kids into grammar school. There are children who have years of tutoring, children who have tutoring several times a week, summer schools to prepare for the exam and mock exams that children attend. Back when my children went to grammars there was often a bit of tutoring, my kids had none, but summer schools and mock exams were unheard of.

For those who are against would be interested to know what you think about the situation I described where a pupil who wants to work hard ends up in an environment where working hard leads to being bullied and excluded socially.

If all the bright and highly motivated pupils hadn't been hived off into the grammar and independent schools, that hard-working child wouldn't have been in a tiny minority and would have had other hard-working pupils to hang out with, so it would have been hard for them to have been socially excluded.

Bullying should be stamped out, promptly and effectively, by the school and schools should be adequately resourced so that there's enough staff time to deal with it.

All a two-tier education system does is hive off bright kids and write off the rest, before they've had a chance to achieve their potential.

Disclosure: my secondary education was in the independent sector, on a scholarship.

I went to a grammar school. Luckily where I live there are also several very good state schools and I’m sure I would have been fine there.

Honestly there are more pressing issues. Improving the quality of state schools across the board, and improving specialist provision, are both much more pressing.

What we urgently need are more specialist schools. There are thousands of children in the U.K. with an EHCP and no school place at all. Thousands more who should have an EHCP but don’t. Kids who are getting a couple of hours tutoring while they wait for a place. Parents having to give up work and home educate because otherwise their already disadvantaged child won’t get an education at all. Parts of the country where there’s no suitable specialist provision at all for their children. Kids being sent out of county for specialist schools, sometimes having to be residential pupils because of the distance. Schools so oversubscribed they could be filled five times over.

This has a knock on effect on mainstream provision and funding - schools having to spend a lot of money and resources on those children who really should be in specialist provision but the LA trying to keep them where they are. EHCPs being deliberately vaguely worded so that schools can use an individual’s funding to plug gaps elsewhere in the budget.

Having seen the appalling state of the system, I can’t get too worked up about the lack of grammar schools. We need to be funding all schools properly so that all children have the opportunity to achieve their potential. At present the most disadvantaged children are often written off before you even begin, and like most things this is highly dependent on where you live, what’s available and your local authority’s willingness to provide it.

For most parents, your child starting school means visiting some, applying and maybe your child taking a test if it’s a selective school. If you have disabled children, it’s a constant battle which is supposed to take 20 weeks, but in many cases can take upwards of 1-2 years to resolve including taking your LA to a tribunal. It’s a brutal process and the children are suffering as a result of it all.

So no, I don’t think opening more grammar schools is high on the list of priorities. Yes, it affords more opportunities to a small selective group, but what about everyone else? The problems you describe in your OP are what need to be tackled, the answer isn’t just removing the top 5% and putting them elsewhere.

I don't think we need more grammar schools. It's hardly promoting equal opportunity for all is it?

Surely it gives children from working/middle class backgrounds who want to work hard the opportunity to be in an environment where they can do so without being bullied for it?

What about children like me, who didn't get into the grammar school, ended up as one of the brightest in a secondary modern and spent four years of my life dumming down so I didn't get bullied. It was hard work watching every word so my vocabulary wasn't mocked.

Yes, I did OK even so. I would have done much better, and been far happier in a comprehensive school.

I still live in a grammar area and have chosen to send my DC to the comprehensive in the next town. One was offered a grammar place, the others not a chance in hell. Why should they, with their good work ethic and supportive parents be tested as 2nd class citizens because they are of average academic ability?

Having said that, the grammar schools in my town take such a small % of children that the "secondary moderns" are now more like comprehensives with out sixth form.

@OP ok so we build more grammars. What you think then if your DC's didn't get in and ended up at the secondary modern. Your probably bright and hardworking kids who maybe had a bad day when they sat the 11+, or were ill, or who didn't quite meet the academic standard anyway. They'd be in a school that contained the opposite of the brightest and the best (supposedly) so you'd expect the behaviour issues that you mentioned in your OP to be worse. Would that be acceptable to you?

YABU saying some children don't want to work hard and never will. Have you thought about why that might be? Whacking them all in some shit hole school while the elite get a decent crack at education is hardly going to remedy the situation is it?

A straight answer if you please OP: under your proposal, what do you suggest for my average ability DD who wants to work hard without being bullied?

I agree with the pp who said that the system needs overhauling with schools given much more freedom to design their curriculum to offer a broader range of subjects to suit their clientele. I also believe that if you go into a KS1 class, you will find very very few disengaged 6 year olds. We need to do more in the early years to support and encourage pupils of all abilities so that they are not turned off from learning by 11 and thus then reduce the liklihood of disaffection and disruption.

I think also that secondary schools finish about 2-3 hours too early. I work at a private school where teaching goes on til 4.30, then it's standard to have activities til 5.30-6.00. (we don't get paid more than state colleagues, though I know most private schools do). The local state school finish before 3pm in some cases. If funding was available to employ more teachers to staff the longer days, schools could offer more sport and activities, not have to start GCSE courses in y9 in order to cover the 2 year course that they can't fit into 2 years currently and solve a lot of social and childcare issues by occupying teens in a positive way for a proper length day. Maybe then schools would be more positive places for more pupils and again, disaffection and disruption would reduce overall. My school is not selective, we have some very weak kids, but they are supported whilst the clever 'nerds' find their crowd and their talents appreciated.

@TheoneandObi, IKWYM.

My SIL had the last laugh. She didn't tutor her daughter, although DN was in private primary. Another primary mum told her, in no uncertain terms, that her DD would never get into (Prestigious Independent Girls' Grammar school) without tutoring.

DN got a fully-funded place at the PIGG school, not just because she is very bright, but also because she had read widely and excelled at swimming and music as well. Her friend whose mum spaffed shedloads of money on tutoring didn't get a place, because she'd been so intensively tutored she hadn't had time to do much else, and the school prides itself on turning out well-rounded young women as much as on its academic success.

It’s a fair point that if most of the hard working and motivated children end up in selective schools then that won’t be good for the hard working children that are left in non selective schools. On a personal level though I can’t help but feel glad that I was moved into a school where I was able to work hard without being made to feel bad about it.

The interesting twist in my own story is that the non selective school that I went to was actually private (I had a scholarship)! Despite that in my class of 11 students there were 2 who were exceptionally bright and 2 (including me) who were of average ability but fairly hard working.

My DS attended the Secondary Modern all boys school in our area .He missed the 11 plus by a few marks .Rather worried, had heard bad things about the School .However he absolutley thrived there ! Passed all his GCSES with top marks and also enjoyed the male bonding .He took his A levels and went to a RG uni . Got an MSC now working in Industry .He has done as well if not better than some GS boys !

I live in a grammar county, went to grammar myself, work in one now and my dd will start in one in September.
And yet I hate the whole system. In my day there was no tutoring, I just did a practice paper or two. My daughter was t tutored but she and I had to do some intensive practice over the summer. I will get my son tutored to try and avoid the situation of him being in our local sec modern. However it’s not fair. Why should he get an advantage over other children just because we have money? It’s wrong but I will obviously do the best for my child. I hate the whole situation!

I’m assuming this is a wind up, or the OP is a goady poster who has absolutely no idea that good comprehensive schools exists, and doesn’t care if an 11-year-old thinks they are an educational write off. Or she is Theresa May who now has too much time on her hands now that she no longer has a job.

I struggle to understand why there’s so much anti grammar school feeling

Really?
For someone who has enjoyed the “benefit” of a “grammar school” education you have a very narrow view of life and clearly don’t understand how a comprehensive school system works

Surely it gives children from working/middle class backgrounds who want to work hard the opportunity to be in an environment where they can do so without being bullied for it

So, the answer is to get rid of all grammar schools and improve the comprehensive schools

For those who are against would be interested to know what you think about the situation I described where a pupil who wants to work hard ends up in an environment where working hard leads to being bullied and excluded socially

And bullying and being excluded socially doesn’t happen in grammar schools either? In a good comprehensive school, the children are put into sets for each subject, and the more academically able children aren’t necessarily bullied for being clever.

I think a better solution would be to redesign education so that all pupils can find their place within it, and feel valued and successful in a way that prevents the disaffected attitude you describe

Well said @reefed sail. I agree with all of your points as well @Strawberryshotrtcake

We do not need more grammars, we need properly funded state education
No. What we need to do is to properly fund normal comps so that the children from deprived areas have a real chance to break the cycle of deprivation through education

And these ^^ above all.

but aren’t they ignoring the fact that some children simply don’t want to work hard and never will no matter how much teachers try to encourage them?

So, you think it a good idea to put the poor performing, unmotivated children into a “sink school” where they can be forgotten about? What about children who come from deprived backgrounds or children from dysfunctional families, or children with other problems? Why should they be denied a good education because you think it is a good idea to cream off all the “clever” kids to schools that attract the “better” teachers. And quite frankly your comments about drugs are naïve. Drugs are even more rife in schools with affluent pupils. You really are shooting yourself in the foot every time you post your ignorant shite.

DD went to a comprehensive school. The GCSE pass rate was between 72 and 80% including English and maths depending on the cohort. This might not look great against a grammar school, but it was a truly comprehensive school with children of all academic abilities. Their A level results put them in the top 10% of KS5 providers in the country.

YABU saying some children don't want to work hard and never will. Have you thought about why that might be? Whacking them all in some shit hole school while the elite get a decent crack at education is hardly going to remedy the situation is it?

Keeping the 5% isn’t going to help them either? Do you really think having a streamer class of bright kids working hard is going to change their attitude to school?