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

It’s parental choice @BlackBarbies whether a child sits 11+ or not. I don’t recall doing any prep in school for it, and a lot of children didn’t sit it. Only two from my year went to grammar. Many who did take it and passed didn’t end up grammar but went into the “grammar stream” of the linked comprehensive school.

@Ratatouille1 it's crazy I know kids at prep who are tutored in addition from yr 4 just to secure a place.

It’s also not a simple pass/fail - a child can achieve a score high enough to be considered grammar ability but the school may only take those with higher scores. It’s a pretty brutal system for those who just miss out.

I went to Grammar school the same one my parents went to

To add to the private grammar school debate - that used to refer to the sort of education offered, more about academics not practical education, so selected by academic ability and pushed what we would now think of as core subjects. This is how you’ve got private schools still calling themselves grammars, they were just calling themselves something that summed up what sort of education there were offering. (Most predate state grammars being a thing.)

When I passed the 11+ in 1955 Grammar schools were the only way a poor child could get an academic education should that be where their aptitude lay. There used to be a fantasy that to be academic was in some way superior to being technologically or practically gifted. However the whole system disregarded the premise that equal means the same. The closure of the grammar schools deprived many children of opportunities which were, once again, reserved for the very wealthy and the very few able to get scholarships to public schools. I grew up in a NE mining town on a council estate. I have a degree and had a successful teaching career which would have been impossible without the grammar schools.

I went to a state grammar school - I never knew coaching your kids to take the 11 plus was a thing. When I took it in 1989 our primary school did not tell parents when we were taking it - we were all just ushered in to the school hall one take to "take a test".

In my view if your kid has to be tutored to pass the 11 plus then perhaps a grammar school is not the right place for them.

Was it better? hmmm, debatable.

My brother went to the local comprehensive. I think we all had a decent standard of education. Facilities both schools were meagre and run down (this was the fag end of the Thatcher era when a lot of state services were threadbare and run down).

My school was definitely pushier, grammar schools can be very brutal acdemically - you are pushed to pass exams, results matter above all else. We had exams at the end of every acamdeic year. Less than 50% in any subject an conversations would be had about whether it was the right school for you. Another issue is the academic route after school is seen as the only viable route.

I did four A Levels and went on to study a very academic subject at a Russell Group university whislt my brother got 2 A Levels and went an ex polytechnic and did more practical course. Decades later we are both settled in good jobs we enjoy so I am not sure it made much of a difference in the long term.

I did, however, thrive in a single sex, academic environment and as the school offered Latin and Ancient History and I was one of the few state school kids on my university Classic courses. An opportunity I would not have had, had I not have gone to a grammar school.

In my town there is a fee paying Grammar school that has both primary and secondary schools. Not sure if you go to the primary whether you still have to pass the 11+ to get in for secondary I would assume so but will be better prepared.
There are a few paying and non fee paying grammar schools in our local city. The non fee paying schools have kids travel for miles and it’s competitive to get in with regards to scores. My niece goes to one in Devon catching a bus from her village and it’s a bat shit long day for her.
Grammar schools are also still often split into boys and girls schools with some integration.

In Kent (including Bromley and Bexley for example) you can take take the exam in school time and your state primary might practice with the kids but you don't have to - you can apply for non selective schools so you can just bypass the selective system. You then get a score which will entitle you to apply to a particular school or schools - but you will still have to meet other criteria (like distance etc - normally only a v few will score so highly they can literally pick which school they like).

I'm in Croydon so not far from you, and many kids here go to private primaries and are prepped and tutored from little to pass the 11+ so they get into 'free' grammars in neighbouring boroughs for secondary - where I am they're split between Langley Park in Bromley and Wallington Boys/Girls/Wilsons in Sutton - both only a bus ride away. I'd be royally miffed if I actually lived in either of boroughs and places were being taken by 'out of borough' kids BUT I don't believe with the system and my DCs are all in bog standard non selective secondaries.

I believe some of the further in the county grammars in Kent are easier to get into as you aren't competing against so many people 'gaming' the system as in London- you'd be saving at least £20K a year here in school fees by going grammar rather than private hence people getting so fierce about it.

That’s all really interesting. I mean it’ll never apply to my kids as they’re 11 months and 22 months. We don’t have any grammer schools in our area so they’ll just go to a standard secondary school. It’s just interesting to know what happens in certain places of the country.

When people are commenting about prep, what does that mean? Like the preparation leading up to the exam? I wonder if kids ever feel pushed out if they don’t make it into a grammer school but some of their friends do, seems like a set up that can cause a bit of division

Conversely, we have a school near us called "Townname High School", which is actually a grammar!

I went to a Grammar school. I honestly don't think I would have survived in the local comp. I was quite a dorky looking girl and think I would have been picked on there. My best friend went to the comp school and it always sounded a lot more wild than my school. We had hardly any bullying, no scandals with drugs, smoking etc. Not saying that the local comp was rife with these however my school was just quite quiet as it was strict.

I didn’t know until into my twenties, they are not a thing where I grew up. We had several schools around called grammar schools but they were all just regular private schools

To add a further layer of complexity to this – not every area which has grammar schools administers them in the same way. For example, Buckinghamshire runs an 'opt out' system, so while @slamfightbrightlight is technically correct that it's parental choice, in practice in Bucks the vast majority of DCs sit the 11+.

Furthermore in Bucks if you get the qualifying score you are guaranteed a place at a grammar school (though it may not be your first choice). The so-called super-selective grammar schools do indeed take the DCs with the highest scores, but again that's not how it works in Bucks.

No idea about the prep, I definitely did not do it! I now can't even really remember what the test comprised of. I vaguely think it was some sort of logic style tests perhaps?

In my area grammar schools were single sex, so out of a primary class of 35 or so, only about 3 girls in my year went to the same school as me. It was a bit of a threshold moment and I did feel that It made me grow apart from the majority of kids I had previously up with. It didn't help the main Comprehensive school was about 4 miles away from the grammar school so we out of towners had to get a different bus to the grammar school.

I wonder if kids ever feel pushed out if they don’t make it into a grammer school but some of their friends do, seems like a set up that can cause a bit of division

It was the opposite way round for me - ostracised towards the end of year 6 because I wasn’t going to the Catholic school with everyone else and went to grammar. We all got over it though!

Prep schools are private (fee-paying) primary schools. So parents will pay for private primary schooling in the hope their child will pass the 11+ and save them the cost of private secondary schooling.

And there’s a whole industry in 11+ tutoring outside of school!

I live in Bucks and secondary education here is 100% selective - it is all grammar schools and upper schools. All children in a Bucks primary school are entered by default for the 11+ which they take in early September. If you don’t want your child to take the 11+ you can withdraw them. If you achieve the qualifying score you are deemed selected for grammar (the schools do not give priority to score you are either qualified or not - admission is then by catchment area etc).

whilst there are many fantastic upper schools (in old money secondary modern) there are also some who have a chequered history.

Unlike some areas where children travel huge distances to school the Bucks schools are local - at the school my children are / were at they typically offer to 3 miles in distance.

I did not grow up in a grammar county so this was all new to me. People get v uptight about it in year 5! My children are / were at grammar (it’s actually the closest school to us) and they have enjoyed it and achieved well. I think they would have been equally happy at our upper school. The main difference is the grammars only really offer traditional subjects and generally have better music / dance / drama opportunities.

Genuine question - how do these intensively tutored kids get on once they get to grammar school? Does the tutoring continue? They can be pretty unforgiving places to kids who can't keep up with the pace.

If you grow up in an area with no grammar schools like I did, the whole thing is a bit baffling. As you can tell from this thread when independent / private school have grammar in the name! I’m in Se London @BlackBarbies and my children won’t do the 11+ at their state primary. Some parents opt to do it though, and usually get a tutor. Some kids travel to the Kent grammar schools from south London.

I was also brought up in SW London, and I didn't know that the Tiffins were 'grammars' until I was an adult. I just knew they were Kingston schools that people said were hard to get in to. It wasn't until I met my DH, who was brought up in a selective area, that I actually understood what grammars are. If you aren't raised in a borough that has them, they aren't something that necessarily cross your radar.

The only grammar schools I know are fee-paying and they also do the 11+ test for places, although recently one was advertising that you don't need to sit the test now.

Theres a couple of grammar schools nearby according to the list posted above, one was fee paying until 10 years ago though so no one would necessarily know.

In all honesty from what I’ve seen some have a miserable time - it’s no fun struggling along at the bottom.

Private schools that have the name "grammar" in them aren't actually grammar schools as grammar schools are state schools. Some of them will have retained their name when they abolished the 11 plus in many areas in the early 1970s. Also, when they abolished direct grant schools some went into the private sector & some became state schools. An example of this is Haberdashers (the girls school) which went from direct grant (Google it!) to private, whereas some of the other Haberdashers schools went into the state system.
The entrance exams for private schools is often called the 11 plus, but it isn't really it's just shorthand for an entrance exam into private senior schools.

I think they should be phased out. Even if I was inclined to send my child to one there is only one in my county and it is more than an hour away.

There’s nothing fair about the selection process when some children are exhaustively prepared for it by tutors and practice papers and some children get nothing. Lots of children who would certainly be bright enough will probably never be considered for it because their parents don’t think grammar schools are for them.