If state grammar schools were for only state educated children…

[Rosaluxemberg]

Do you think it would help social mobility ? And that children on FSM or from very disadvantaged backgrounds who showed academic promise could gain entry with contextual 11 plus marks (like Unis).
To me the fact that privately educated children can benefit from 7 years of great education, with small classes, lots of attention, and to cap it all, preparation towards the 11 plus just seems so unfair and defeats the whole objective of it. Maybe there’d be more mixing of kids as middle class parents had to decide which path to take.
Who knows ? Any thoughts ?

Looks like only 3% of the school child population crosses from private primary to state secondary.
So they can hardly be taking up that many places.
What about all those in state primary with private tutoring? How are you accounting for them?

Just get rid of grammar schools altogether, and you don’t even have to mess about with contextual offers. Which aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but rendered unnecessary if you remove grammars. Huge swathes of the country don’t have them.

Every to local catchment as a default (EHCP needs considered) and all schools adequately funded to have teachers and resources to teach to all abilities.

That’s an awful suggestion. If kids need to move from private to state and grammar schools happen to be an option in their area then so be it. They’re citizens and their parents are tax paying just like anyone else! Also, unless they’re specifically prep schools aiming for the grammars, the teaching tends to be very different from what’s actually required for the 11+

Grammar schools are state schools. The parents who privately educate pay their share of taxes. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to use state schools if they want?

Given only 4 to 4.5% of DCs in England are at Grammars I think there are a whole lot of bigger issues for schools - school funding, SEN, teacher attraction and retention to name but three - to be addressed first.

Definitely not! State schools are for everyone. I do agree to some extent on the grammar schools having catchments to serve the local

I support levelling the playing field. I do not support deliberately disadvantaging children which is what you are proposing.

Grammar schools giving contextual offers would be disastrous for those children. The teaching moves at a faster pace and the children who don’t have the capacity quickly fall behind and struggle. Even those who get in on appeal after narrowly missing the 11+ are more likely to end up struggling, with mental health issues, absenteeism and being terrified to go into their classrooms. I saw it all the time working in a grammar school.

I agree. It's not a level playing field when children with a priviledged primary education and 11 plus coaching are competing for grammar school places with children from a disadvantaged background. A system which accounted for context would be much fairer.

I really, really hate the suggestion that it isn't already a level playing field, or that fsm pupils should gain advantage to 'level' it up.

I suppose it depends where you are talking about, but for Bucks, it is a pretty level playing field and does help social !ability/mixing, far more than abolishing grammars would be.

My DS went to grammar school. At the time I was a single parent on benefits.

18 years later I have a DD at grammar school. My husband works, I haven't since just before COVID due to ill health.

Neither of my DC were tutored, I just couldn't afford it either time.

I actually felt embarrassed yesterday as I went to one of DD's friends house and they lived very differently to us (we live in a social housing house), but the kids don't see it).

I don't think they're perfect, but if they were abolished the rich wouldn't mix with the poorer, as they could move nearer the best schools, leaving those unable to afford a house in the sink schools.

It would be fairer if out of catchment children, who have been tutored, were not given places, as it's the amount of OOC children, who have high marks, which push the marks up, leaving children in catchment who may have managed to pass if the score hadn't been pushed up by the OOC kids.

But it's not true that poor children, or children that have not been tutored cannot pass, my two are testament to that (DD actually went to a primary that was in special measures and is one of the least wanted schools in our town, so she never benefitted from a good primary either).

We live 15 minutes drive from a very good grammar school, and I'm grateful they don't have a catchment area as we wouldn't likely be in it, although we are definitely a reasonable school journey away. It means we can have a fair shot at it when the time comes. The secondary schools otherwise aren't anything special. I've been told my son is quite gifted in maths and I appreciate that he can try for somewhere that might challenge him. We can't afford tutoring but he likes to do maths for fun so I'm hoping that will carry him through.

And to make it a proper level playing field then are you suggesting parents paying for private education should then get a reduction on their taxes which they have to pay for education even if they don’t use the system ? Or would you think that was unfair and they should continue to subsidise state education even if they don’t use it ?

It's been a long time since I lived in bucks but when I was at school there, nobody I knew had tutors and the children who were naturally extremely clever went to grammar school.

I didn't pass so I went to the secondary modern where I was one of I think 4 in my year group of 240 who went to university. I was considered "academic" because I was quiet and did my homework so I had to do double science and a humanities subject for gcse. I failed both. The students who were considered non academic were allowed to do more "fun" subjects like child development business studies (which was boring but you got to go on trips to Cadbury world and Disney land paris).

I don't know many people in bucks anymore but most seem to have a tutor.

No. Selection at 10 does nothing to help social mobility- and no tinkering at the margins will make any difference.

I agree with you as far as it goes. But it would be tinkering around the edges.

The most important thing for social mobility is not necessarily a hand up for the lucky few. But good general provision for everyone.

So decent well funded schools, proper SEN provision, funding for extras like music, art, school trips, smaller classes, teachers who are well paid and supported etc....

And on a wider level: The availability of well paid jobs, social housing, libraries etc.

Looking at periods where there's been relatively easy social mobility between classes. That tends to coincide with periods where working class living standards are increasing, on the whole.

Which makes sense as there's less distance to travel.

Round here it would be hugely levelling the playing field. A super selective grammar entirely filled with children sent to private schools for the cheaper years or very tutored children. Lots of privates set up for it and a weighting towards private at primary.
However, it wouldn’t work the same in somewhere like kent. You’d be disadvantaging some children for very little gain for others.

If there where no state grammer schools, but all schools where well funded and had good SEN provision.

It's ridiculous that we have some very small pockets of grammer schools left in the UK. Most areas did away with the grammer schools in the 70's and I don't see what good keeping them in some areas has done.

A bit like the middle school areas which have slowly been being removed over the last 10-20years the same should really happen to the grammer schools. ALL schools should be good schools.

Interestingly reading the thread- our super selective grammar wasn’t an easy intake when I taught there briefly on cover 10 years ago.
Progress 8 was impossible, all high achievers on paper so everyone had to get the highest grades. However there were a not insignificant chunk not working at the levels expected, really really well tutored to tests in a way that didn’t translate well to class. Academic and bright, but not the top end. More middle achievers.
There was no money for LSAs as pupil premium was pretty much zero, so support wasn’t easy to give. Budgets were tight.
I even had a boy get in who was certainly at the lower middle level of his class in primary. Mum was a tutor and did well. On the old SATs he needed support to get level 4, barely scraping it in English.
This is the extreme end of when it doesn’t work, if there’s one grammar for multiple London boroughs for example. Ends up all ‘chalk and talk’ because there’s no funding for much else, no support if needed, and an artificial cohort

For grammar counties, not sure. For super selectives, absolutely not, it’d just lead to more/earlier tutoring/trying to game the system while attending state schools.

My SIL lives in Kent. They sent DNiece to a private primary because they felt it would give her more chance of getting into a grammar school.

Whether it did or not, I have no idea, but the majority of girls at her grammar school had been to private primaries. And a lot of the girls who hadn't were bullied by "Queen Bee" types who'd been to the more expensive private primaries.

Here (Birmingham) a certain percentage of places are reserved for pupil premium children who only have to achieve the minimum qualifying score to get a place. 25%? Not sure on that.

So for example, the qualifying score is 205 but non PP children generally need to get in the 230s. I'm not sure how the PP children achieve a place if it's oversubscribed, by distance or by highest score and working backwards.

Also they're overwhelmingly Asian. I'd say 80/20 Asian / white & other. And whilst of course many Asian families are wealthy professionals and business owners, they may only be first or second generation immigrants so assisting social equality in other ways.

Grammar schools through one off exam and private schools requiring fees can only help a tiny minority of pupils from low and medium income families.

This is why we should abolish grammar schools and curtail the private sector and make sure comprehensives are providing proper opportunities to stretch their pupils and give them confidence.

I didn't even realise till I came onto Mumsnet that some aww re as still had grammars, and the 11+. Terrible idea to judge kids at 11.

Absolutely this. Grammar schools should be abolished.

Checking data for one town with a grammar school and secondary school, one has 6% FSM and one has 27% FSM, no guessing which is which

No. Plenty of parents of kids at state primaries are paying tutors from year 4 onwards to try and grab their place.

The segregation of kids at 11 is so flawed, pointless to keep tinkering around the edges with convoluted legislation to protect a tiny niche sector.

Concentrate on resourcing good education for all in well run comprehensives. Plenty of those are making a genuine contribution to social mobility and the prospects of kids whose parents would never have afforded tutoring, or those who matured late, or didn’t quite make it on the day in the one-exam gamble.