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 ?

The attached doc mixes up fees re day and boarding.
( Some fees quoted can seem lower also as some schools include meals in the fee whereas others add it as an extra cost )

However
Day fees are, for example
Eton £48k
Brighton £21k - £30k yr7-11
Concord £18k

Never mind Grammar school, or not.

ALL schools should be properly funded to provide decent and solit education for all. Buildings that don't fall down, smaller class sizes, well qualified and motivated staff, etc. Many parents want to send their kids to private school, or Grammar schools where available, often at huge distances from home- for one reason only : no place at a good local school- not out of elitism.

Where local schools are excellent, with all the above- the vast majority of parents would not wish to send their children, at huge cost and sacrifices for many, to a private system. Same for health care.

There are specialist schools for children with difficulties and extra learning needs. I don't see why there shouldn't also be specialist schools for children with extra learning needs that include being bright enough that the lessons catering to the middle and to bringing up the struggling students to minimum standards waste their time and education and potential.

There should be more grammar schools just as there should be more SEN schools.

They should be restricted by exam not money.

@CakeTastesBetterAsBatter You do know that comprehensive schools have sets, don't you?

@CurlewKate Yuo. Went to one. Was a monumental waste of time for the majority of it. States schools cater to the middle.

This isn't true. I went to a secondary modern school in 1970 and was placed in the top stream. We absolutely were able to take O'levels (the lower streams took CSEs)

I unfortunately dropped out half way through my A levels (which I still regret) but many of my peers went on to university.

State schools absolutely do not ‘cater to the middle’.

Thanks for clarifying regarding my link to school fees @IAmNotASheep

About your question on types of schools. I think but I'm not sure that 'high school' is just a term some people use for any secondary age school?

Secondary moderns were where those who 'failed'* the 11+ went, when the UK had a full grammar system. Often kids at secondary moderns were put in for CSEs rather than O Levels, but some did offer the option of O Levels.

Comprehensives were the replacement when the 11+ system was scrapped in most areas. I have older friends who went to state comps before GCSEs were introduced. Maybe depended on individual schools but my friends said some kids did O Levels, some CSEs, and some did O Levels in some subjects and CSEs for other subjects.

*Imo the idea that the 11+ was something to pass or fail, and the notion that vocational abilities, jobs, and schooling was/is lesser, is where the system went wrong in the UK.

I mentioned the German model earlier on this thread. It's imo how we should've approached it. Equal value given to vocational schools, and opportunities to move from a vocational school to their version of grammars at a later stage (presumably can move the other way too).

@SabrinaThwaite my states school was one of the best in the county, I was in top set for everything and got top marks all the time and I still think they mostly wasted my time on boring easy lessons because they didn't have enough people right at the top to bother to make the work more challenging. The kids at the bottom of top set would probably have been left behind.

The point of grammar schools should be to avoid this problem by allowing different lessons for kids with different learning needs.

Plenty of state schools stretch the more able kids.

Maybe your ‘best in the county’ wasn’t one of them.

Grammar schools are state schools.

I went to an excellent grammar school. It took 60 kids a year from the town (higher social deprivation, mainly working class and lower middle class), 30 from outside (wealthier prep school kids).

When I was about halfway through they opened the boundaries, the working class and lower middle class kids were squeezed out, car park suddenly filled with range rovers. Lots of my peer’s siblings didn’t get in.

so I get that people pay tax and should have a choice to go for an excellent free state school, but it felt pretty shitty when people buy those places with years of prep school and tutoring that others couldn’t afford.

@CurlewKate I still went to Cambridge to study hard sciences and they would consider that the marker of their absolute success. There no metric that wouldn't have marked me as being a sign of how great they were.

They weren't. You can't teach 30 kids with different abilities and teach all the children. You'd need extra teachers or different classes.

I'm pointing out an example of how even very good state schools can't logistically take account of the brightest pupils because of the distribution of abilities across 30 kids in a class. The only way to do this is having schools that don't cater to say the lower ability levels so that the lessons can be more focussed on what the pupils can actually do.

Some places don't stream at all and really leave kids behind. Do you think that's a good policy?

I'm advocating for more streaming being beneficial.

@CakeTastesBetterAsBatter "States schools cater to the middle."

Simplistic question, I know-but are you suggesting state school kids don't get top grades?

Maybe before we go any further, we should define our terms? There appears to be confusion happening. Grammar schools are state schools. Comprehensive schools do not routinely teach mixed ability classes. The school that the majority of kids in grammar areas go to is not a comprehensive. Setting and streaming are not the same thing. Kids in comprehensive schools get good grades.

Yep, we live in Bucks, our oldest is in year 3. We were looking for a tutor for next year, nearly all the ones I contacted said 'no spaces' I was surprised, but apparently the best tutors need to be booked by start of year 3 due to so many people wanting it.
We are in area for Beaconsfield High, so there is a huge amount of pressure to get in there as one of the top schools in the country (apparently). Oldest was in reception when we moved from London to Bucks, grammar schools seemed so far off it didn't even enter our thoughts.

I don't think they should bias towards a certain demographic, bit I do think that somehow there should be more equal access to tutoring, to level the playing field. Not sure how this would work though in practice

Grammar schools are state schools and as such all pupils have the right to attend. Closing grammars or private schools will not improve social mobility as much as people hope. Whether you like it or not, right now state schools are not equal. To close the gap there needs to be changes made to the curriculum, some parents need to show greater responsibility, SEN provision needs to be looked at and everything needs to be funded at the appropriate levels.

They'll go where they're told and be grateful for it, @twistyizzy . If they're not happy with the sink schools, then they can go to the gulag. It's all the nasty little private school children deserve!

This kind of bile is almost like a David Walliams caricature of a child-hating villain. How depressing that someone this spiteful has any kind of power over children's futures, working in school appeals.

How dreadful, to imagine the middle classes rubbing shoulders with the great unwashed! It’s akin to child cruelty, expecting them to utilise schools that the majority of children have to use!

Enjoy your little fantasy of 'taxing the ever loving shit out of the wealthiest families', 'rinsing them for every penny' and sending the kids you clearly despise so much to 'sink schools'.

Your contempt is disgusting.

This is what I think really. Judging kids on how they perform on one day when they’re 11 seems ridiculous.

As is yours, for the schools the overwhelming majority of children in this country need to use. I haven’t suggested a new, inferior type of school for ex private school children, just the schools 94% of children are using right now. Die mad about it, as the kids say :)

Agree@strawberrybubblegum
It’s disgusting and it shows what Labour voters have become!

@CakeTastesBetterAsBatter
”They weren't. You can't teach 30 kids with different abilities and teach all the children. You'd need extra teachers or different classes.

I'm pointing out an example of how even very good state schools can't logistically take account of the brightest pupils because of the distribution of abilities across 30 kids in a class. The only way to do this is having schools that don't cater to say the lower ability levels so that the lessons can be more focussed on what the pupils can actually do.

Some places don't stream at all and really leave kids behind. Do you think that's a good policy?”

This is the very reason why we began prepping for the grammar exam. In year 4 DC began explaining that they would complete their group A (top set) work then they would help the child sitting next to them who was in group C. The teacher would spend most of their time helping the children in the lower set, while DC would just sit there and try to occupy themselves. How is such an environment beneficial to both ends of the spectrum. In the end we moved to a primary school that had streamed classes for Maths and English.

Most parents who advocate for the grammar school system have observed the impact streaming has on their own children in primary school or they believe the environment fostered in grammar schools would better suit their child.

I don’t however believe grammar school should be restricted to children from state schools only. The standard of teaching should be raised across the board regardless of the type of school with the support of engaging parents.