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 ?

Surely removing the 11+ defeats the whole purpose of grammar schools? They're meant to be selective, by academic ability.

This quote from your 1st link highlights the real issue.
More generally, I recoil still at a system which essentially labels the majority of 11 year-olds as failures.

That's the problem. The German model doesn't, from what I understand, label vocational and less academic ability as failure. They're simply different but equally valued abilities.

The grammar system in the UK went wrong because the 11+ became something seen as 'passing' or 'failing' and secondary moderns came to be seen as lesser.

What should've happened instead imo is equal value placed on vocational skills and training and opportunities, with the 11+ something simply to determine which type of equally valued school would best fit each individual child. (Also needed flexibility to move between academic and vocational schools at later stages if appropriate for the child).

Surely removing the 11+ defeats the whole purpose of grammar schools? They're meant to be selective, by academic ability.

The thing is, you have conflated two different things, assuming that the 11+ is a good measure of academic ability.

It’s pretty obvious that this is not the case:

• In many areas, the 11+ is a measure of Verbal Reasoning / NVR, which does not correlate particularly strongly with academic ability across curriculum subjects.
• It is coachable, so it is not a measure of underlying ability.
• It is dependent on previous education, so it is a measure of to an extent of training / education not ability.
• It is not reproducible - slight variation in tests will order candidates differently.
• It is a single measure on a single day - the headteacher appeal mechanism in grammar counties is testament to its known problems as a selection tool

The 11+ is a ‘good enough’ test to select some of the more generally able / amenable / easy to train / advantaged children within a cohort. It is NOT a good measure of actual academic ability.

"More generally, I recoil still at a system which essentially labels the majority of 11 year-olds as failures."

10 year olds, actually!

@cantkeepawayforever That suggests the issue is less the idea of different schools (which should be equally valued) catering for different abilities, academic or vocational, and more that if that's the case then the 11+ might need to to tweaked.

Also why allowing movement between academic and vocational schools at later stages, if appropriate for a child, is a good idea.

I was talking to a friend this morning. She went to a grammar in the late 80s. Out of area but she lived close to the border and it was nearer her home than many comps in her area. Even then some parents paid for tutors to prepare for the 11+. However is that because the 11+ was by then no longer universal and only some grammars still existed? I understand from my FIL that when he went in the 50s tutoring wasn't a thing. Although he was working class and grew up on a social housing estate so perhaps middle class parents did have tutors? He can't remember if state primaries prepared kids for the 11+. Maybe someone else here knows.

In the early 1960s when I started school, it was in Wiltshire. But then the family moved to rural west Cornwall where there was no Montessori option, and everyone went to the local primary. At six, my reading age was three years ahead. But every class did the same work and everyone sat the 10+, then the 11+. Three or four of my year passed (out of about 37) but the senior schools were merged into one comprehensive school.

I sat the scholarship exams for a boarding school (father in the navy) but didn't succeed because I had no knowledge of how or what to prepare, but was awarded an assisted place to ensure continuity of education.

I think part of the problem on threads about grammar schools is that many posters are talking from either personal or second hand or imagined exoerience from a long time ago. A time when secondary modern schools produced blue collar workers, grammar schools middle managers and private schools the officer and professional classes. The clever child of the footman at the Big House being lent books by the vicar to read by the light of a candle end Rich man in his castle, poor man at the gate. All that sort of thing. NOT EVERYONE before you come at me. But there is a lot it rose tinted retrospecttroscope viewing going on.

Half agree.

I agree with evaluating children but I am also somewhat opposed to have the 11+ as the measuring stick as it is limiting.

A better option would be to maintain the core subjects but make them elective GCSEs. So everyone has to be taught the subjects but the focus is on GCSEs the kids actually want to do. That would enable more enriched GCSE choices and you could for example have a child electing to do Design Tech, Modern Art, Fashion and Retail and not worry so much about having to sit a biology exam.

Sutton trust: more outreach work needs to be done because it's too reliant on parents at the moment.
Go back to mix of the old system.

Sorry, but no. All main subjects are 'setted' to ensure this is not the case.

@fungipie Sorry but yes.
I was streamed in those sets and most of school was an utter waste of my time. I could have been backpacking around Europe or something else far more enriching for years and scored the same results.