Contempt for Grammar Schools

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Yesterday’s thread regarding the exclusion of private schooled children from state grammar schools has really highlighted that many people dislike grammar schools (and even more so private schools and the parents who can afford it).

AIBU for completely not understanding where the contempt stems from? There is dislike of the parents who explore this as an option for their children (many are characterised as elitist), the parents who can afford tutoring (which in many cases focuses on becoming accustomed to the test format), the children who go to grammars, I have even seen teachers accused of choosing the easy route.
There is not nearly as much dislike of sporting schools, creative arts or technical schools. If there is a school which caters to a child’s particular strengths or interests, why is that considered bad. Where possible all counties/cities should have a varied range of focused schools.

Please explain why you are opposed to or support grammar schools?
(I totally understand that the 11+ / selective tests has a negative undertone for those who “fail” — but is that not on the parents/primary schools to positively frame the experience regardless of their child’s score).

Historically they widen inequality (1/3 of middle class kids went to them, where 1/30 of working class kids did, due mainly to the availablity of places in different areas)
These days I'd say they have a similar but slightly watered down effect in the areas they still exist. GCSEs mitigate the effect somewhat, but they do have a detrimental effect on surrounding comprehensives.

@StormingNorman The contempt only comes into play when DC don’t secure a place.

Ah, the "only people bitter about failure hate grammars" argument.

Nonsense. Some of us have actually looked at the issues, and there's absolutely no justification for spending public money on a system so skewed and unfair, that actually doesn't work.

If you want an elite education for your kid, you can bloody well pay for it as far as I'm concerned. I went to a grammar, and I saw how patently unfair and utterly wrong it all was. No way was I putting my kids through that - they all went to a comp and all did really well. They had a far better education than I did.

Yes interesting.

I have a theory that grammar school kids may actually be less rounded individuals as adults than privately or comp educated kids. Private schools don't just concentrate on grades - they provide loads of soft skills and extracurricular stuff, as well as usually having all the other subjects such as arts to produce kids who have a wider background in cultural and social skills.

State grammars simply can't afford to let their kids do arts and other subjects which round out a human being. Our local 'they move to be in catchment' one has drastically reduced arts subjects in recent years.

Comps too get to do more arts subjects (in personal experience) and have wider subject choices. Plus the students in a decent comp without grammars creaming off the clever kids get to understand a bit more about the ful spectrum of people in the world

@StormingNorman
"The contempt only comes into play when DC don’t secure a place."

Absolutely not true. If you live in Kent, you have no choice. There are no comprehensive schools.

That's the thing - in grammar school areas, you don't have comprehensives, you have secondary moderns. They're the schools that no-one wants to work at, no-one wants to send their kids to, no-one wants to fund, and make no provision for gifted late bloomers.

Comprehensives are just that - they're comprehensive! They cater for a wide range of abilities, and pupils are often in classes at different levels in different subjects.

Nope, out in the regions, grammars co-exist with comprehensives as there's so few of them.

I believe there is still the odd area where there are lots of grammars which may have "sec-mods" alongside them, but that's not the case in most counties.

I think you're actually wrong.

The authority where I went to school had 2 grammars (one boys, one girls) and ALL of its other schools were Secondary Moderns.

As someone who teaches in a Grammar, you have to understand they were not intended in their modern incarnation to stand alone - they were one of three types of school in the Tripartite system.

Tripartite is a brilliant idea, but was badly implemented and run, leading to the division we now have.

Under Tripartite you have Grammar Schools for the academic, Technical Schools for the scientifically inclined and Secondary Modern for the practical.

At 11 you would be streamed into one of these, but crucially re-assessed at 13 and 16 to see if in fact you should be in another stream.

All 3 types of school would have excellent teaching and facilities, where the Grammar may have a language lab, the Technical wonderful laboratories and the Sec. Mod. state of the art workshops etc..

The idea is fantastic, but in typical British fashion it was f++ked up royally, very few Technical Schools were ever built, Secondary Moderns were poorly funded, Grammars got all the cash.

In theory, when Tripartite was abandoned all three should have gone, but Grammars generally survived and slowly the others became comprehensives.

Not all people are the same, and deserve great teaching and facilities in their area of interest, that breeds first rate professionals in all areas - but the normal thing happened and the grease monkeys of this world got looked down upon (incredibly wrongly) and the practical skills were never properly funded, rarely well taught.

Sad tale really🙁

Well it’s true!! At my daughters grammar the top performing children are not from families originally from NI!

You are right, there were supposed to be three types of school, Grammar, Technical and Sec. Mod., most counties only ever had Grammars which mainly existed from before LA control as church schools, and new build 50's Sec. Mods. RAAC concrete and Asbestos included for free!

‘Swinging from the lights’ in Ni means misbehaving!

And yes- it tends to be the white boys who have the behavioural issues. Hence why I stand by my point that there is no great desire to chance the status quo in NI as the system is working for the pushy middle classes.

Yes there are….
i live in Kent. There are loads

We have no grammar schools here. Our top kids do very well and all those with supportive parents also seem to thrive.

I grew up in an area with grammar schools and as my mum taught there I opted for the local comp. I got straight A grades at GCSE and good A levels despite mixed ability classes. I also did loads of extra curricular stuff and my school always thrashed the grammar school at sports!! 😀 I was given sporting qnd extra curricular opportunities at the comprehensive that the grammar didn't offer.

I don't mind grammar schools but know kids can do well comprehensive schools too.

Indeed my Dad is 82 out of six siblings only himself and one of his sisters didn't pass the 11+ my Dad was unfortunate in that his family emigrated from Ireland to Manchester when he was 11 just a few months before he took
the 11+
His brother who went to one of Manchester, s top Grammar school admitted my Dad was probably the most academically able of the lot of them but because of the disruption in his education to a totally different system he had no chance of passing the 11+
Apparently he would od stayed in at his primary school but his Dad was friendly with head master of a brand new secondary modern school so got him a place there ,where he did achieve a few olevels .

One of the views I find really insulting, and it's been repeated on this thread several times, is the implication that Sec Mods and comprehensives are full of feral children who will wreck Sebastian and Ffion's educational outcomes given half a chance.

It's extremely patronising, snobbish and prejudiced, and the idea that less-academically-able kids are all thugs has some horrible logical conclusions, the worst of which is that anyone who fails the 11+ actually deserves a really bad education.

In any case, the grammar school I went to was awash with thuggery and bullying that the staff didn't give a shit about. They thought it toughened us up.

Our state primary told us dd should sit it. I hadn't tutored her and we didn't realise until they made us take a CATs score she might pass (she was quiet in primary and found boys very loud, also has dyslexia). She managed to pass it but thanks to the way she had been treated by many peers who had been tutored since the early years in primary didn't want to go, still doesn't.

We took it because the school asked us to and to boost her confidence if she did pass, also for her to know that the nasty girls calling her "thick" and their parents blaming me as a single parent for not tutoring her for the reason she "probably wouldn't get in" were all just snobs. The school got to put her on their brochure as a number of the ones who passed. Personally I thought it would have been more impressive if they highlighted that she was only 1 of 2 who passed without any tutoring, but hey.

Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

I don't have contempt for any individual (pupil, teacher, or parent). But I do have an issue with selective education. It widens inequalities. This article explains some of the issues OP.
https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/impact/does-the-grammar-school-system-increase-inequality/

@Catgotyourbrain "Yes there are….
i live in Kent. There are loads"

There're aren't. Kent is a wholly selective authority. That means there are no comprehensive schools. As my children would say-prove me wrong.

…but the ethnic children that don’t go to your child school swing from the lights. Riiiight.

This is the attitude I absolutely hate. So your precious kids that get into a grammar school deserve to be apart from feral kids who run riot, but other kids don't!

It's a really nasty way of viewing the world.

I don't understand @CurlewKate
I've just searched secondary schools in Kent and plenty of schools that aren't grammar schools come up. https://webapps.kent.gov.uk/KCC.SchoolSearch.Web.Sites.Public/SchoolSearchResults.aspx

Comps aren’t necessarily full of the academically less able either.

Exactly! That's the whole point!!!

One of my friends from my school days is one of the best-known and best-paid legal brains in the country, having been to Oxford, and she was at a comprehensive up to her GCSEs. She went to a girls' grammar for A-levels, but I think that was mainly because her previous school didn't have a sixth form.

I'm terrified of how high-powered she is these days!

That may well be, but it's a narrow view of what a "good outcome" is for a child. Maybe those kids got the same letter grade as they would have at a comprehensive, but they also got to learn Latin, or philosophy, or something else not on the comp curriculum, which they might have quite enjoyed.

They might have found big groups of geeky friends happy to play euchre or discuss 1970s sci-fi. They might have had an absolute blast travelling around to play in chess tournaments. They might have sat around every lunchtime having in-depth debates about late stage capitalism, which would give them the confidence to express themselves articulately in later life.

There's more to life than grades and results!