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

I think we need to get rid of grammars all together. We live in a non grammar area, so no 11+ stress for us, thank god!!

Both dds love their school. It’s a bog standard comprehensive in a fairly rough area, but for the most part the kids are happy and hard working. Of course you’ll always get those who cause trouble, but they’re not seen as cool. They’re seen as the ‘bad kids’ and they are only popular with the other bad kids, while the rest of the school think they’re mad.

It’s honestly so different to when I was at school. I hate to think how things could end up if they suddenly introduced grammars in our area.

You’re joking right?

In the olden days, potential pupils would be selected by primary teachers, told weaknesses, put forward... Helped.

So instead of striving to get as many of our pupils to expected standard as possible, those of us who work in year 6 should be helping those who are already advantaged by being above average ability to get into grammar schools?

I think you've taken what I said and run off into your own woods.

What do you think about the finding the Sutton Trust (charity charts social mobility) that it's logical that few poor dc get into the grammar because they get no help, no assistance at all, no pointers... Nothing?

That's completely unfair to bright kids who simply don't stand a chance to reach their potential when every day they are surrounded by disruption.

The bright children and the ones who don't want to learn are not often in the same sets.

That's not,

Huge problems stemming from primary, mix of funding, lack of education in teachers (not necessarily theirs fault) and culture. Failing dc from the young ages.

Feeding dis engaged often bright dc into secondary, playing up.. Muddle along dragging everyone else down.

Putting quiet dc into those classes isn't going to help.

Many dc have poverty of aspirations, so do their parents. I've witnessed this a great deal even in our very middle class leafy primary school... I find it stifling.

Personally we need to tweak teacher training, recruitment, salary etc... To even begin to tackle the problems.

Wibbly what about the dc who are also bright but don't want to work because they have been failed in primary school.

I would like SEN provision to be properly funded.

Not rtft so not sure if being mentioned. We don't have grammar schools in Scotland yet % wise per head of population we have more graduates and better positive destination statistics for all pupils.

My DS goes to our local, big comprehensive and is predicted all A band 1s in his National 5s ( GCSE). He also, as pp have mentioned , has a rounded view of life after being around all sorts of different people. It's been nothing but a good news story for him ( and his brother 13).

Hazy teachers in our school don't even know what sen are.

We need radical over haul.

I might write to lobby dom about it 😂

TABU
1.Grammar schools don't add value: Kent as a fully two-tier county does not have better overall results than similar counties with a comprehensive system. The results of a Grammar reflect the selective intake, not the teaching.

1. Grammar schools do not aid social mobility. There is a wealth of evidence about the disproportionately low numbers of Pupil Premium kids in Grammars and the high ratio of middle class kids / wealthier kids
2. Why separate out kids at 10 years old? Excluding late developers, typically summer born boys, those who are extremely good at maths but less good at VR? Selection is an imprecise science. Since in a full grammar area typically 75% go to 'high schools' (secondary moderns) that is 75% of kids potentially denied the opportunity to do triple science, further maths, 2xMFL, however their ability might develop by Yr 10. That seems a very bad use of our potential talent to me.
3. Why do kids of different abilities need to be kept in separate buildings?
4. A good comprehensive sets and has kids learning at the right pace for them. Very bright kids will be in top sets with other bright kids...just like at a Grammar
5. You cannot compare what happened in comprehensives even a generation ago with now. The ethos amongst kids is different, behaviour management is different. In the several secondaries I have experience of, it is not cool to be underachieving, it is cool to be clever.
6. Not all good comprehensives are good: they need more work, more teachers, more investment. Any comprehensive CAN be a good school, enabling every child to achieve their own best whatever that may be.
7. We need investment in education for all abilities, not just 25%.

My kids are kids that would have got into Grammars in Kent, they are high achievers in the top set at Comprehensives. The last thing I want is for the Gvt to get distracted from the parlous state of education funding overall by re-introducing Grammars.

PuttingouttheFirewithGasoline
Ds's school is apparently an 'inclusive school'...it even has a resource base. In reality it ticks the 'inclusion box' but that is all it does. We do need a complete overhaul, which includes more specialist provision. If I haven't been broken by the constant fight for an education for my child, and could get a bit more sleep...I'm up for a revolution!

Blouse no. 2
Has been addressed.

Of course their is no social mobility anymore... No one can help poor students get in one. That's the feeding system not the grammar.

The bright children and the ones who don't want to learn are not often in the same sets.

But they often are too! We weren't set at all until year 9. Years 7 and 8 were taught according to our forms. Even in year 9, it was only Maths & English that were set. In years 10 and 11, there were only sets for popular subjects - for something like German, there were only 20 pupils who chose it, so only one class spanning all abilities. There was never any segregation in Games, PE, etc. So, if you suffered bullies or disruptives in your form, you were stuck with that for 5 years - no escape at all.

Hazy that's better than ours.
Ours is extremely middle class top performing leafy primary that doesn't recognise any learning difficulties, doesn't understand them and doesn't even talk to parents about them let alone facilitate help or strategies.

We need investment in education for all abilities, not just 25%

State grammars get the same state funding formula as other state schools.

It's not just funding, it's basic education in pupils in teacher training.

Brilliant post @BlouseAndSkirt

Ok, cut to the end. We can all relax because Boris is going to inject truckloads of cash into education; with an emphasis on further education.

That's your Techs, BTECS, apprenticeships.

Watch this space......

Grammers have been massively gamified through tutoring to get in. Unlikely now that a bright but untutored kid would stand a chance against a mass of kids who have been tutored in exam techniques, as well as practising similar exercises. That kid would have to be extra smart. Goes against the original point of the 11+. My mum was a clever in class, chosen to sit it, passed it and went to Grammer. No tutoring, no competition, it was what it was so she as a working class kid ended up at grammar. We can't go back to that model but we should be moving on education in other ways e.g identifying undeveloped potential. There was a peice on R4 a couple of years ago about grammar schools and the research data showed negative effect on the area as a whole, and social mobility. The individual, anecdotal opinions of 'what about the bright kid who's held back by local ruffians' may of course happen and be beneficial to a minority but not the many.

user1497207191 they may have the same funding formula, but educating bright, motivated children, a significant proportion of whom have wealthy parents, is much less expensive than providing for disaffected children, a significant number with SEN and from poor backgrounds. Equal isn't the same as fair.

YABU. I thank my lucky stars that we don’t live in a grammar area and that both my dds are at the same, good comprehensive. If we lived under the divisive system, dd1 would have sailed into the grammar and dd2 into the secondary modern. Her mental health is shot enough at the moment without being segregated into the ‘shit’ school down the road from the shiny brilliant one that her dd (and also her friends, most of whom are really bright too) would be at. An absolutely dreadful system.

Sorry - her dsister not dd!

We don't need grammars/SM in 2020 Britain.

We need massive cash injections into education, (to raise the generation who are going to Make A Success Of Brexit 😉). We need to provide the sorts of education appropriate to each pupil. We need to understand that the hard working, committed kid who just can't pass GCSE Maths and English can still be a great baker/plumber/plasterer etc. We need to realise that a DC who is a master of Physics and Chemistry doesn't have to wear a different (smarter...) uniform and attend a different set of buildings, and be taught by completely different teachers to the 'non-academic but well- behaved' future landscaper.

We need 8-6 schools, with holiday 'camp' provision.

We need early, targeted, properly financed intervention into the causes of failure at school. We need incentivised parenting classes. We need walk-away fathers parents to have to legally face up to their responsibilities.

We need for people to be far keener to opt 'in' than out.

In the late 90s, I went with my husband to his 25 year school reunion. Country Queensland, Australia. 1500 kids, some of whom had had a 2 hour each way journey to school. Loads of 'country kids.and kids from the coast attending.

We did a tour before the evening do. There were 'normal' classrooms. Then there was Home Ec. kitchen. But a proper, industrial 'prepare you for catering' kitchen. There was a woodworking room. Little hacksaws on the wall? Nope. Chuffing great gantry mounted band saws, capable of turning trees into planks. Theatre? Proper functioning one with s dance studio and all the lights.

Also, a fully working farm, where kids learned to birth cows, budget a small holding, breed animals, drive a tractor and lay a line of fencing. Award winning at state fairs.

Oh, and get people like my DH through science and into science degree courses.

Some will gasp at the 'early specialisation'. Some will stress at Ptolemy being in the same educational environment as Curtis.

No, it wasn't a socialist utopia. But the academic kids left to go to uni; the vocational kids left to go to Tech apprenticeships, the arty kids went to art school, the farming kids (those who didn't do apprenticeships) went back to their farms as able heirs to that farm.

Little old small town Australia, non socialist Australia was doing this in the 1990s.

Yes we cry for 'more grammar schools'.

@puttingoutthrfirewithgasoline. I dont understand your point about adding more children if my daughter is struggling. What do you mean?