Contempt for Grammar Schools

[PencilMom]

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).

But it's not the role of the bright motivated kids to bring along their classmates. Why should they sacrifice their education because less able kids need them to act as TAs?

And what if he doesn't get in?

Myself and two sisters, DH and BiL were all lucky enough to get places at grammar school and I can definitely say that for girls from a council estate the education we received was the making of us and enabled us to improve our situation in life, and that of our parents.

@PencilMom it's only certain parts of London. I grew up in south London and there were no grammar schools in my borough at all. It's such a non issue for a large proportion of the council therefore we just don't have sympathy for those lamenting about VAT on private fees or the criteria for grammar schools.

I object to some parts of the country having unfair advantage on university places because they happened to be born in a grammar area too

I think it's a British crabs in the bucket mentality, disliking anyone else being successful.
In my former communist country there are selection exams every four years - so at 11 and 15 (we start school at 7) for all state schools. So the schools are implicitly streamed.

There is also more than one grammar system in the UK. People, understandably, object most to the Kent system but fail to recognise the merits of the super selective system which is hugely successful and in terms of league tables it's these schools that frequently top them.

Then his experience of a comp wouldn’t be as awful as ours was because the level would be right for him.

There are no grammar schools in London except a few on the absolute outer fringes of Greater London, e.g. London Boroughs of Bexley, Sutton and Bromley. There are more in Dartford, which is technically not part of London, and in Kent, Buckinghamshire and Essex. There are probably more I don't know about north of the river but well out of the centre. In London proper all the state schools are supposed to be non-selective but there are, or used to be, some schools which are allowed to offer a few places to children showing talent in music, sport or a specific academic subject.

I know quite a few diehard Labour supporters living in our borough (inner SE London, Labour MP, Labour Mayor, every single councillor is Labour) who sent their children to grammar schools a few miles out of borough, rather than send them to one of the local comps. I know others who bought or rented houses in the catchments of the best secondaries, or who sent their children to religious schools or the ones that select on talent as mentioned above. All of these options require a lot of planning, time, parental support and a substantial amount of cash, so hardly surprising that the less affluent and less well educated families end up at the less popular schools with the high staff and student turnover and the narrower curriculum and less good facilities and enrichment programmes.

How the middle classes who played the system have the gall to condemn people who pay fees is beyond me. They have bought advantage in just the same way, and often at exactly the same cost, but their way is somehow socially acceptable.

I can only respond with the same reasons from yesterday- grammars look like a better idea than they are:
The idea of state grammars looks good on paper- the best and brightest of our children get access to a grammar education no matter their background.
When you pick into the sociology of it, there are problems:

1: Why are we gatekeeping the best education? Sure a high standard of education is the best thing for all children, and what are we saying about state comprehensives when we tell people they are second best, and the choice for those who weren't good enough?

2: Why are we directing the life passage of a child at 10/11 years old? Were you the best version of yourself at this age? Have you developed and grown since then? It's an overwhelming amount of pressure to put on children of that age, and there are many children who are simply not 'ready' for the pressures of academia at that age. But that doesn't mean they won't access high levels of education later, we can't write them off.

3: Children from low income, disability or BAME backgrounds are at a disadvantage with the 11+. Take a child from a very low income background and lets make the assumption that they have a high intellectual potential. That child statistically isn't spoken to or read to as much as other children, they access health services less and live in a lower standard of housing (again- all stats). They are already 12-18 months behind some of their higher income peers by 4 years old. Higher income families will do 11+ prep and maybe even get a tutor, schools with higher income families will prepare children far more for the test. Over time (by 10/11 years old), that low income child has very little hope compared to others, and now we're going to tell them that they had their chance, but they just 'naturally' weren't good enough for grammar.

I hate the hypocrisy of a lot of middle class socialists. They want socialist principles for everyone but them.

Oh and my dd (a*aa at a level, top degree) was only just reading at 10 due to struggling with dyslexia, she blossomed academically around 13 - she would have been massively disadvantaged by being dumped in the failed 11+ school at 11, many are late starters

The idea that you can plot the future educational success of children based on a closed book, tutorable exam at age 11 is absolute rubbish.

High quality education should be available to all children

well they would top them if they are taking the brightest kids....

1. It's only the best because the brightest are there, the teaching standards are no different to anywhere else in the country. Funding is also a lot lower.
2. Maybe having movement of education at 11, 14 and 16 is the better option?
3. The grammars in my area are almost entirely comprised or BAME students and are white minority schools in an area with a white majority population.

That isonr thong that is ignored... buying your way into better comprehensives by having the right address. Money gets you choice.
Unless schools are allocated arbitrarily with no input from parents, that will always be the case... even in a lottery system there will need some reference to maximum travel time.

Because they're essentially specialist education centres in the same way you have SEND schools. Kent has it backwards by taking a percentage of pupils rather than treating it as an educational need.

I can't comment on Kent, but one of my children is at the hardest to get into grammar in NI- she and most of her friends are bright but I wouldn't say all exceptionally bright. This idea that grammars are specialist schools full of super high achievers isn't true. Lots of affluent kids with motivated parents who are well educated themselves.

I’m in Scotland so we don’t have them here, but I think they are a great for the kids who get in, not so good for those who don’t. I have two boys, one who I suspect would get into a grammar and one who probably wouldn’t (dyslexic). We send them to private school where they both get what they need, but we would definitely go the grammar route for the eldest instead if that was available.

People don’t like them when their kids don’t get in or they don’t have the option. Same as with private. They want a level playing field but that will never happen. Schools are mostly a product of their catchment and like it or not, money buys advantage. A private education, tutors to get into grammar, an expensive house in a good catchment etc. Then there’s the advantage of simply having educated and interested parents, which not everyone gets either.

I take the approach that I do what’s best for my kids and it’s up to other parents to do what’s best for theirs. Where we are that’s a private education. Elsewhere it could be different. Money buys choices and that won’t change.

Maybe it is hypocrisy or is it choosing from what's currently available what they think is best for their kids? If they're campaigning for more grammar schools, or ignoring the underfunding of comprehensive education then sure.

I'm not a fan of capitalism but I still sell my labour and buy stuff from shops.

Just to add to that, the 1947 Education Act raised the school leaving age from 14 to 15 and then it was raised again to 16 in the early 1970s. When it was 14, most children spent their entire education in elementary schools and many effectively left school even before 14. They got no formal qualifications and next to nothing in the way of science education, modern languages or advanced work in maths and English. The introduction of a minimum four years of compulsory secondary education from the age of 11 must have had a huge impact, even on the children who spent it in underfunded secondary modern schools.

It’s a goddamn race to this bottom in this country.

Life is unfair.

And yes I went to a grammar school and so did both my sisters.

I grew up in a grammar school system. I was very bright and went to a grammar school, so it's not a case of sour grapes. I felt it prepared me less well for the wider world than a comprehensive school, put pressure on me to succeed and achieve that contributed to mental health problems in my teens, negatively affected my primary school education, as there was too much focus on exams and not enough on leaning, caused distress and logistical difficulties in families where one sibling passed the 11+ and another didn't. It didn't serve the needs of pupils who were good at exams but interested in practical or vocational subjects. It didn't shut pupils who gifted in some areas and weak in others. It left academic late bloomers out in the cold. There was a noticeable correlation between money and 11+ success. Children aged 10 saw themselves as either failures or successes.

I now live in an area with no grammar schools, just comprehensives. My children are also bright, and go to their local comprehensive school (although DC 1 has now left and is doing her A-levels at a sixth form college which offered better specialist teaching and resources in her chosen subjects than the school sixth form does). They are getting at least as good an education as I did at my grammar school. They mix with a wider range of pupils. They have peers who able to challenge and support them at their level, whatever that level is. They have school friends with a range of different academic abilities and aspirations. They were able to study a wider range of subjects. I've experienced both systems, and much, much prefer the comprehensive one. I would actively avoid moving to an area with grammar schools when considering my children's education.

I have just had a look- it is roughly the same percentage in Kent as in NI that go to a grammar school. Definitely not all super high achievers!!

But what if he doesn’t get in not because he’s not bright, but because he has a really shitty day, flunks the test, or has a difficult time with his mental health just before the exam? I suspect he’d be fine but the implication that kids who don’t pass the 11 plus won’t mind a comprehensive because they are a bit dim anyway is completely reductive.

The single biggest factor in whether someone passes their 11 plus is whether their parents have paid for tutoring. That’s why it’s so stupid- you have kids who have been tutored for 3 years but who are not naturally that bright at the grammars, other kids who are super bright but whose parents couldn’t pay for tutoring at the comps.

Then it's that system of grammars that you're objecting to not the system with super selectives.