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 hear you OP but think it's more about discipline and behaviour than aptitude. If you have a school with lax discipline then aptitude falls foul.

Soffy, having x number of hard workers, bright dc in one class won't shut the mouth of the damaged disruptive child. Their presence won't take away that child's issues and make them behave.

It will simply mean more dc are adversely affected.

Secondly if your dc has learning need then usually smaller classes help not larger ones with more teaching differentiable going on.

There is simply no need for any secondary modern to be crap.

Putting children into 1 school may bump up figures that's all. It won't have to magic wand to stop bad behaviour.

Absolutely not.

I live in an entirely selective county so it's grammar or upper.

It's an awful, divisive system - selection at 10/11 is way too early and the pass rates for affluent vs less affluent parts of the county make it very clear that it is much, much harder for disadvantaged pupils to get in, however hard they work. Odds are stacked against them, state primaries can't prepare children, so if your parents can't afford tuition, you are up against children who have had tuition and/or been to prep school. It's not a level playing field.

Fortunately there are some really good uppers but the children all talk about 'pass' and 'fail' whatever language parents use and friendship groups are broken up.

The answer is to invest in good comprehensive schools for all.

We live in a grammar school area, the poorer kids, even if they are bright are at a disadvantage..state schools do no preparation, unless the parents are clued up the kids have to muddle through. So the kids who may benefit are behind the indie and more middle class kids to start with. Natural intelligence doesn't guarantee understanding requirements/questions in the tests if they have not been encountered before.

There is no guarantee of better behaviour or higher expectation. A friends DS went to the grammar after scholarship at a prep. His mum expected him to be stretched and behaviour to reflect the 'status' of the school. The heavily tutored kids struggled to cope, disruption was constant low level. The school expected all to have computer access, (late 90s/00s) which poorer kids didn't at that time. She had to book time at the library. He left at the end of year 7 to go on another scholarship to a mixed ability indie...was constantly top there and behaviour much better. He gained top grades. Being poor from a single parent family didn't hold him back at the indie.
My own DC were at indies (scholarships/bursaries) similar to a grammar and some of the behaviour was...interesting...there too the only difference was parents could buy their way out of it

In my world fantasyland there would be 4 levels of schools, ALL properly funded, equal status

1. Academic schools based on test/interview/school reports aimed at academic study to prepare for university, doctors, vets, scientists etc
2. Technical schools that mix academic/trade to include apprenticeships...electricians, plumbers, nursing, computer/tech etc for those who are bright but don't want pure academic route aiming for uni/or straight into business 3)Vocational schools providing a core education and practical skills, lower level apprenticeships
3. Core schools, basic education and life skills alongside employment

All from 14-19, overlap of core curriculum between 14-16 to allow for later development and maturity.

There should be the opportunity to leave for employment and training mix from 14. I don't see the value of keeping uninterested kids in school. Nursery education 4-6 Primary schools from 6-10, Middle school 10-14.

Now back to reality...

It’s very tricky. I was the bright kid in a thick class where it was uncool to try at anything. I still managed great grades / uni / career / but I had to keep my head down and hide my grades from friends, and it wasn’t much fun to spend years like that. I’d have loved a grammar and even more would have loved knowing at least one other naturally academic child. I felt very ‘different’ and ‘weird’ until I managed to leave at age 16. (Turns out I just had zero in common with classmates.)

That said, where they get very difficult is where one sibling is grammar suitable and another is not, and their sibling relationship gets permanently damaged at a young age by one going to the ‘not good enough school’. I’ve seen this happen and the resentment was still playing out very late in life, the grammar system played a part in ruining that family. Also, children change. So perhaps streaming, with movement up and down depending on needs, is best.

I do think it is not ok that bright children who want to learn at a high level are forced to share a classroom - for years - with those who are incapable of or unwilling to study at similar levels. (That’s also a recipe to have all the best grades/jobs taken by private school graduates, even more so than already happens.) And equally it’s unfair on the struggling students who need to be doing something more vocational.

I’m not convinced that grammars are the answer but I think they’re probably the least bad option on the table.

I've seen two families ruined because the local comp couldn't educate their child.
Very bright dc came out with nothing.

I’m not convinced that grammars are the answer but I think they’re probably the least bad option on the table.

No they aren't. A good comprehensive that sets pupils by ability for each subject are a better option.

Bright children can succeed anywhere. If they don’t it’s usually more about parents than schools.

Cold I agree there should be more variety of schools and your system sounds like Germany.

However your system also segregates dc away from higher education.

No one should be cut off from it.
There are many reasons dc don't do well at school and lots of them are reasons that can be addressed and some are not.

YABVVVU.

a number of others have covered the key reasons why grammars are bad. @BlouseAndSkirt does as good a job as any.

grammar schools were always a bad thing, that's why they were all but eradicated back in the baby boomers' day, but the case for having them now is far weaker than it was when they were scrapped, due to:

(1) GCSEs - love or loathe them they're by design a very inclusive qualification [at the cost of being too easy for the most academic & too hard for the least], all kids almost without exception do them, so it's not like there's a need for different schools preparing kids for totally different paths; and
(2) The twin growth of inequality [of £ but also of knowledge, contacts, etc] & the private tuition industry, which combine make a mockery of the 11+ as anything other than the bluntest of blunt tools for measuring academic ability.

Non-selective secondaries, with all-subject streaming introduced at the end of year 7/beginning of year 8, is vastly, vastly better at identifying the brightest & best, since:

(a) streaming decisions are made based on the evidence of an entire year during which all kids [average age 11.5-12.5] have been taught the same, not a single one-off exam sat by kids [average age 10.5] regardless of background [including private prep etc] & which is only taken seriously, or indeed taken at all, by kids with the pushiest parents; and

(b) streaming decisions aren't then set in stone - you have 'promotion' & 'relegation' of the strongest & weakest in every set without needing to move schools etc.

look at northern ireland and kent today - are they utopia of high standards, social mobility, etc [a clue for those unfamiliar with either - they're not].

Next LEA along is a Grammar area. DS is a Grammar Reject by half a mark, though would have needed a bit higher than the pass mark as out of catchment.

A few months later he got a 6 in the SATs reading paper . He has had a very respectable set of GCSE mock results last term and has just scored highly enough to be called for interview at very selective 6th form where he will need 8/9 ps to take up an offer should he get one.

We did look at the Grammar recently for 6th form and he absolutely hated it, can see why as they were incredibly up themselves and you would never know they came out with ‘Requires improvement ‘ a few years ago after Ofsted went back in after low results. It’s basically where children go after private prep school and the lack of private schools locally reflects that so it’s hard to see how it improves social mobility here. Don’t know what’s happening now but lots of people who would have traditionally gone stayed within our local system and the numbers who went went from the best part of a class to just a few in DS’s year.

I'm staggered that 37% of posters have voted in favour of grammar schools.

What's the betting that none of them have children in a secondary modern?

I voted against and I have children at grammar school. I just think it's a really shit and divisive system which wrecks friendships and divides kids into thick/not thick at an age where their brains are barely developed.

Plus it is hugely weighted towards people with money (as evidenced by the plethora of kids who were at private preps). It's private school lite.

@puttinhoutthefire. IME, the naughty kids tend to be in the lower set. My point is there should be less streaming so those kids are diluted. Its alot easier for 30 naughty kids across a 210 year group to be managed when there is only few in each class.

It wouldn't make any difference to class sizes so I dont quite get that point .

The bottom is lack of control by teachers and an automatic assumption that children like my daughter deserve less than another child just because they aren't as 'bright,.' Is my daughter just collateral damage in your way of thinking ?

And yes smaller classes would help my daughter, but that doesnt happen. The classes are the same size whatever set you are in.

@Soffy - it is unfortunate that there are naughty kids in your daughter’s class. Ideally she shouldn’t have to put up with the naughty kids.

Smaller class sizes for lower sets may reduce the number of naughty kids the teacher has to deal with. Perhaps also having the correct 1-2-1 support for those that need it too

@PuttingouttheFirewithGasoline - if you don’t go to uni at 18, doesn’t mean you are cut off from it. If you come out of the core skills stream and want to do a levels and uni, we should have a mechanism to do this - like people who want to switch career, adult education.

I do not think gcse is a very useful qualification - there is already segregation into foundation and higher tier. If you struggle with maths, why learn trig? Better to have a qualification like functional skills that can rigorously test arithmetic - which is the skill level required for the vast majority of jobs.

My daughter is in an inner city state secondary. She wants to work hard. She's in top sets. She doesn't get bullied and she's certainly not excluded socially. It probably depends on other factors not just the child's desire to work hard but the school manages that behaviour extremely well.

I went to a grammar and I assumed my daughter would too. We have a 2 stage exam set here and she passed stage 1 not stage 2.

What became clear through the process was that actually from a mental health pov I suspected grammar may not be the best fit.

She needs to know she is doing well to give herself confidence - she is bright but I knew that in reality she would be lower sets in a grammar as she would not be spending all her time outside school studying as many doo.

The one thing I do believe though is that not all children are academic.i think that as long as all your code skills are covered it is better to offer vocational subjects that interest children and give them a clear career path after school than force them into gcse history for example which they will probably disengage with.

A secondary near me does do more of this - they had a full size catering kitchen and also offer construction at gcse level.

OP imagine being one of those kids who gets left behind at age 11 because you didn’t get into grammar school. Your preferred system says it’s ok to just accept that these kids will go to a less good school and that it’s ok to teach them from age 11 that they are one of the rubbish ones. Imagine growing up knowing you weren’t good enough.

The solution clearly isn’t more grammar schools. The solution is better inclusive state schools where kids with aptitude are well supported and those less academically gifted are given other ways to thrive.

Segregating children is never a good thing.

Also, grammar schools are full of kids who have had private tuition to pass the test. They massively favour the wealthy and not necessarily the gifted. Lots of kids struggle once they get there because they never should have passed the test.

The system is not fair.

My daughter is in an inner city state secondary. She wants to work hard. She's in top sets. She doesn't get bullied and she's certainly not excluded socially. It probably depends on other factors not just the child's desire to work hard but the school manages that behaviour extremely well

This is our experience too.

Many people seem to equate ‘good comprehensives’ with ‘naice’ leafy areas and bad ‘local comps’ full of ruffian thugs in the middle of estates. It isn’t that simple.

user - it’s an interpretation that if a kid doesn’t get in they are rubbish. It’s like sports teams or auditions for choirs. Perhaps it might help to fund secondary moderns better than grammar schools? A lot of the academic stuff does not need a lot of equipment - whereas wider range of practical classes (alongside academic classes) might be more expensive.

They also seem to regard grammars as devoid of bullying, disruption and mediocre results. That isn’t true either.

Both my children got into different grammars (although we pulled one out as her’s was an exam sweat shop). They went to grammar as our comphrensive’s are dire. I am actually anti-grammar schools because I don’t think they help enough children from poorer families - there is too much tutoring going on of kids whose parents can afford it (including us). The idea was nice but in reality the system is broken. I think the government should invest in its comprehensives - it’s the best way to capture bright children whose parents can not afford 11 plus tutoring.