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).

My dd is boarding partly as a result of us being in a grammar area, as I explained she was bullied in primary and refuses to go to. For me it means I can work abroad but it also gets better results that our grammar, so the sacrifice of not having her at home makes more sense. She is thriving and loves it.

I would also love to have been able to have a school for her locally that had the normal amount of bright kids in, who had not been stuffed into a ridiculously snobbish school and told everyone else was stupid. I wish she hadn't been made to feel "other" because she is dyslexic. Now I am going to be asked for an extra £10k pa, in effect because of a system that only the rich support is on my doorstep, when I am actually not costing the taxpayer anything. It is their kids milking the state system for a selective single sex institution that keeps them away from the poorest. It's ironic to me in the extreme.

Something that hadn’t been recognised is that grammar schools may actually be taking away the chance to find new skills in an academic child. Maybe they have an aptitude for dance, or photography, or hospitality that aren’t even in the curriculum at a grammar. At a good comprehensive your options could include choosing Latin, Engineering, photography and dance if you wanted to give yourself real breadth (example only as I know a lot of schools limit actual options to two or three but you get my point).

At my grammar the options were so vanilla.

Completely agree. The subjects on offer at the comprehensive my kids went to were so much more varied. They had much better opportunities to try new things than I did.

@PrimitivePerson "Once again, grammars remove choice. If you fail the 11+ you can only go to poorly performing schools."

Probably not poorly performing. But they are schools which can't achieve the high grades that schools are judged by, because they don't have the cohort of kids that can get those high grades. So they can look poorly performing while getting their kids the best grades they can get.

It shows how little you know about grammar schools and tha you can't tar them all with the same brush

True. And the flip side of the coin there is that grammars get superb results because they won't admit anyone who can't achieve them, and frequently exclude kids from sitting exams if their predicted grades aren't high enough.

This is not my experience of grammar schools at all!

It's my experience.

The curriculum was very narrow and the teaching was gruesomely dull and uninspiring, pretty much all by rote and with a really excessive amount of homework, really limiting the possibility of kids having hobbies.

There’s a lot of rubbish written on here. Your one experience of grammar or hearsay does not mean all grammars are the same. Schools vary as do private schools, as do comprehensives. Never have I heard of children being excluded from sitting exams because they might not have high enough grades…

This whole thread is a masterclass in Drawing Sweeping Generalisations From One's Own Personal Experience

How long ago though? Not my experience at all, very varied and with a huge number of clubs and societies to join.

Those are not grammars but very good comprehensives. London does not have that many grammars and I don't know what school Kier Starmer's kids go to but some of those stats quoted are consistent with top comprehensives in affluent areas in London, with tiny catchment and expensive houses of over £2m for a 3 bed terrace. What is the solution to that - eradicate wealth??

Yep. Exactly.

Refusing to let less able children sit exams is a widespread problem with selective schools and has been for years. It's recently been reported in the media.

Are you sure that is how they are now?

Again, that is not my experience at all.

"This whole thread is a masterclass in Drawing Sweeping Generalisations From One's Own Personal Experience"

Actually, most of it is a masterclass in drawing sweeping generalizations from mostly second hand experience from at least 25 years ago.....

Eradicating the super selection and selection in schools would mean all kids benefit from the same facilities and options.

It happens all the time in grammar schools, and if you think it doesn't, you're very naive. They try to keep it quiet, of course.

It's appalling. All the objections seem to stem from ye olde grammar schools or yore.

Well, yes, quite - though Labour hasn’t outlined a plan like this? What you’re describing would have a good chance of creating socioeconomic mobility, which would no doubt be of value to society. What Labour HAS outlined absolutely will not have this effect. If they have a hypothetical 6 billion £ coming, why hasn’t such a plan been outlined? I’ll tell you why, because private school parents and a piddling amount of VAT was a nice marketing campaign with a simplistic tagline. Severe Brexit vibes from most of the threads on these topics.

I don't think hating a system which tells you you're worth no more than selling yourself on the streets, and barely even that, if you're not getting 4 A* grades at A Level and going to Oxbridge to do a STEM degree is dramatic.

I got AAC at A Level and was actively told by my head of 6th form I did not deserve a place at any uni because my results were so terrible and I should have been ashamed of doing so poorly.

No, I refuse to ever put any children I have through that!

What do people think of grammars with no geographical area?

We're a 10 min walk from QE Boys, one of the most super selective schools in the country on account of the fact that you can apply from anywhere. 3,000+ sit the test for 180 places. Traffic on the test days is hilarious (I can only say this bc I walk my son to primary so don't have to be part of it) and the usually-quiet-midweek high street is suddenly full of out of town parents milling around.

As a result there isn't a boys-only secondary that local boys could reasonably expect to get into. This isn't necessarily a terrible disaster, evidence seems to suggest that boys do better in a mixed environment etc, but it does take away that choice. The original girls' grammar went comprehensive a long time ago and is a good (but not outstanding) school.

Do we think grammars (insofar as they should exist at all) should have priority areas or should anyone be able to apply from anywhere? As has been pointed out in previous posts, priority areas tend to mean higher property prices which are out of reach for some families, so just a different form of selection. Which is the least worst approach (assuming grammars aren't going to shutting up shop anytime soon)?

As a smart, awkward kid (turns out I was autistic) who went to a rough, poorly performing comp, I would have said exactly the same thing about my school days (just switch “grammar” for “comprehensive”). Just goes to show how our own baggage influences our decisions when it comes to choosing schools.

I sent my mini me to the grammar school.

No catchment doesn't work, it exhausts the children. A lot of super selectives now have catchments as a result.