What the heck is a grammer school?

[BlackBarbies]

Posting here for traffic!

Born and raised in South West London and still live here now. I’ve never heard of a grammar school until joining MN a couple of years ago.

Is it a primary school, is it a secondary school? Is it private or public? If it’s public, then why is it called a grammer school? Is it only available for certain types of children or something? I literally have no clue what a grammer school is so I’m happy to be enlightened!

Also, are there any in SW London? I’m genuinely intrigued as to how I’ve never come across one before

mathanxiety doesn't seem to realise that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

It has nothing to do with poverty of aspiration. Some children simply do not have the academic ability.

Don’t you believe @x2boys ?

I am in a grammer school county. And many parents move here, rent as close as possible, tutor and then take the test. Once in, buy nicer property further out.
Pretty much what we did! 😂

Exactly

and then is nothing wrong with that. They will have different strengths

And what if it doesn't work out as anticipated and your child fails to.pass the eleven p!us?
it's not that I don't believe that people whi.live near Grammar,school area,s may t try to move to the area ,I just don't think people will moved miles across the country as@mathanxiety seems to.suggest ,this may blow your mind ,but many kids do ok in comprehensive schools too.

I’m surprised anyone has to ask this question.

It's not all to do with academic ability. It is mostly to do with privilege. Otherwise the cohort at grammar schools and the schools where "everyone else" go would reflect the catchment. Which they don't. Most grammar schools have a vanishingly small % of disadvantaged children, for example. So unless you believe that poor children are innately less clever than better off ones....

Why ?
has it escaped your notice that vast areas of the uk haven't had Grammar schools since the 1970,s🤔

I promise you they do

we did
My closest friend did

if they fail, then we would have gone private but that would have considerably cut our budget for the property we bought.

my best friend would have sent to local comp. But it’s not great and she was very anxious before results!

Not really - grammar schools were originally state funded schools designed to give a good education later, (after the 1902 Education Act), a 'secondary' education when only 'elementary' education was normally available to those who could not afford to pay (e.g. the vast majority). In theory the top 25% of the ability range would go to grammar schools, though now the % taken varies widely from less than 10% (so 'super' selective) to around 25%. The grammar school name is still used by some private schools (as mentioned earlier in this thread) and even comprehensive schools (I can think of one).

Grammar schools are state. They are not private.

I was brought up in Buckinghamshire and went to a grammar in the ‘90s. When we had our children we moved away from Bucks deliberately to get out of the grammar system. Our boys have very different needs to one another. DS2 would very likely have passed the 11+ and the grammar would have suited him. However DS1 was born extremely prematurely and has complex disabilities as a result. It isn’t just whether a child is ‘bright’ enough to attend a grammar school but also whether that style of education and that environment suits them. He wouldn’t have passed the 11+, but even if he had, it would have been the completely wrong environment for him.

There are some bizarre statements on this thread.

If you're the child of immigrants with an obviously foreign surname that announces you're from a specific, despised immigrant group, or your skin colour isn't what might be called traditionally Anglo Saxon, you tend to have less sanguine ideas about your chances or your children's chances of non academic forms of intelligence getting them ahead in the UK.

Wonderfully well put, @mathanxiety.

@CatkinToadflax indeed there are. I went to a grammar school. It was probably ultimately a good choice for me, but as i had engaged parents and a supportive home environment I would have done well at a comprehensive too (my brother certainly did).

Grammar schools can be hard places, and are certainly not great for kids who would struggle to pass the entrance exam without intensive tutoring.

I was a free school meals kid and certainly don't recognise the characterisation of grammar schools as full of wealthy parents so relieved they don't have to pay to go private they donate ££££ to the school. Yes I had school friends from well off middle class backgrounds but there were plenty of lower income and poorer students - as the termly PTA second hand uniform sales attested to. Maybe it is because I am from a poorer area of Kent?

The only school trips we had were to London, local museums and one legendary boat trip to Calais where some pupils disgraced them selves by getting drunk and missing the ferry.

Grammar schools are great for the kids who get in. I'm now assuming that those who fail go to the local comp. Back in the day there were secondary moderns which taught things like cookery, sewing,typing etc for girls and TBH I don't know what they taught boys.

My mum passed the 11+ but her parents couldn't afford the uniform so she went to the secondary modern and was bitter about this until her dying day.

We need less stratification in schooling not more.

There are no comprehensive schools in grammar school areas. By definition.

Not actually true. Grammars don’t take all the bright kids so the comprehensives in grammar areas still need to be fully comprehensive (ie for all aptitude levels).

In London, where there are few grammars, there are many private schools (up to 50% of students in some inner London boroughs are in private school) but it is never said that the comprehensives in London are not truly comprehensive.

I didn't know that either op but I'm Scottish and we don't have them here. I think

"In London, where there are few grammars, there are many private schools (up to 50% of students in some inner London boroughs are in private school) but it is never said that the comprehensives in London are not truly comprehensive."

@Mirabai But they aren't, are they? If there really are areas where 50% of the cohort go private then the remaining schools are not comprehensive. Whatever they are called. But I do suspect this is a vanishingly rare scenario. Where I live, 20% go to the grammar schools. The remaining school cannot under any circumstances be described as comprehensive. And it takes the lion's share of disadvantaged children and children with additional needs.

Absolutely not true. Our town has a grammar, comp and private. Almost next to each other.

Comprehensive means that it is open to everyone, not that it actually has a full cross-section of abilities and incomes represented in the student body.

So regardless of how many local children actually attend it it's still a comprehensive because all those children could attend it.

Confusingly not all schools with 'Grammar' in the name are actually selective! A few (like the one my DS attends) are non-selective, but still have 'Grammar' in their name for historical reasons. I've resigned myself to the fact everyone who looks at his CV for the next sixty years will assume he was selectively educated and judge according, or good or ill (probably latter).

Oh, and if anyone would like me to explain why a system that selects at 10 disadvantages already disadvantaged children, I would be happy to do so.

Many years ago, when I took 11+, no one had tutoring. You simply had normal lessons in school and turned up on a Saturday morning to a different school in the area and did the tests.

It’s a London scenario so hardly “vanishingly rare”. The comprehensive are still comprehensive for all those in the state system.

In fact 20% going to grammar is the rare scenario because of the abolition of the grammar system.

Even if the grammars take 20% in your area, because the 11+ is not compulsory, there will be many grammar standard kids who don’t try or don’t get in. That’s the drawback to testing at 11 as some bright kids don’t get their act together academically until they’re older.

@Trixiefirecracker Talk to me about the economic, academic and demographic make up of the schools concerned. Start with the % eligible for free school meals.

Old-Etonian ex of mine used to say the school had given him “a very comprehensive education”.

I remember as a pre-school child standing at the kitchen window watching the grammar school girls saunter past in their bottle green blazers. I thought that would be my future. I longed for it. We moved. To an area that had phased out the grammar school. Primary school and then the comprehensive. Not bad, huge, the staff tried - I recall a whole class detention because not enough pupils had revised with sufficient vigour for a French vocab test. But my friends went to a local youth club in the evenings and my father - just couldn’t contemplate such a thing. Also, though I worked reasonably hard with no distractions or disruptions, I suspect my parents had one eye on the school enthusiasm for silo-ing non-white children into sport. So I took the entrance exam for a selective independent girls’ school and left the comp behind.

The old system involved grammar schools, and ‘secondary modern’ schools for those who didn’t pass the 11+. The point of comprehensives was to replace this bifurcated structure with one school to rule them all that would cater for every level of intellect. So, yes, by definition and intent grammar schools and comprehensives were never meant to co-exist. Just didn’t work out like that …