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).

We weren't even told in advance when we'd be sitting the exam, which was supposedly an anti-tutoring measure, but I don't think it made any difference. We just arrived at school one morning to discover all the desks had been moved, and told "you're taking the 11+ today".

Those are the parents that need support. The ones who don't know the system but want to know it.

Absolutely, and a lot of this is down to what happens in the first three years and language development.

@Overthemenopause Nothing to do with smartness in this case. All to do with socio economic class. Shoes, coats, lunchboxes, first names......

Which is why the free childcare is a thing and why children from low income households get extra hours (which the middle classes hate).

Absolutely- but it really is survival of the fittest and those from less advantaged backgrounds are already on the back foot.
In my daughters prep class half were getting extra time for 'processing disorders', diagnosed privately. Miraculously they all got grammar places.

You mean the kids of households who value schooling?

We are in agreement partly then! It was an abstract aptitude test focusing on problem solving, finding patterns in shapes basically. There are loads of examples on the internet.

It should be every child is screened for dyslexia/dyspraxia/dyscalculia as part of the school screening tests the nursing teams do but it will never happen due to resources. Plus they don't want to mass screen because it will throw up huge numbers of children who need help.

@Trixiefirecracker " My children’s grammar has a very diverse mix of students and has given children from lower income brackets a chance to move forward."

What % of FSM kids does it have?

I know that’s the case in Kent but it certainly isn’t where I am. Most state schools coach for the exam, in fact two that I know of have completely separate classes in year 5 so they have effectively decided in year 4 who stands a chance!

@Overthemenopause do you think pupil premium funding isn’t required then (comes hand in hand with FSM). Do you think the statistics are wrong? That disadvantaged children get the same results as children from high income families. That many of them need intervention work (not all but many).

Because the statistics from our local schools show that disadvantaged pupils are indeed disadvantaged

It's very much needed for equitable access to education. But equitable access means helping them to have access to all educational pathways in their area, if they're in a grammar area then the schools should be supporting their bright FSM children to pass their 11+ no?

Or you could argue people patronise poor people by telling them their attainment will be low because they happen to live on the sink estate. It's been said a lot on this thread but success is really frowned upon in this country. When I was at primary school my teachers didn't adapt their language to the age group they spoke fluently and using complex words and phrases, it was down to us to say we didn't understand and to ask what they meant.

"My experience with my children was that education is dumbed down (we aren't in an affluent area) and put in our boxes, there was no academic challenge it was all very much "you're poor, your kids won't thrive, we expect them to behave like little shits, we'll treat you as such". It's an attitude I'm reading on this thread too. Know your place poors."

That's all totally irrelevant from our last points though!!

You said there are children that are not clever, that are being tutored to be 'up to scratch' - whereas a naturally bright child would grasp it with ease. So, surely that benefits the rich and not the poor. It's nothing to do with us dumbing the poor down - it's about creating a level playing field where less well off children go into an exam with more affluent children and they have the same chance. That cannot occur when rich parents pay and pay and pay for tuition and preparation. It's a disadvantage and is not equal.

It's always going to happen, I don't blame parents for doing so - but I cannot stand this inability to recognise that it is not equal!

As if not telling the kids in advance would be an anti-tutoring measure! My best friend at primary school had spent several hours every Sunday for the previous 4 years doing 11+ style practice questions.

Meanwhile, I had missed the one single practice exam that had been done in school due to illness, so I turned up without the foggiest idea of what to expect. Spent a while trying to understand the bizarre format of some of the questions, which were different from anything that I had ever seen before. And failed to make the grade.

As it happens, I'm glad that I didn't go the the superselective grammar that my friend attended because, in the end, I think I had a much richer experience in my comprehensive, met a much wider range of people and gained a much better understanding of society as a whole. It did knock my confidence a bit at the time, but ultimately, I did better than most of the grammar kids in my exams, went on to Oxbridge etc and didn't look back. Pretty much the same thing happened to my dsis.

Unfortunately, I know others who didn't fare so well in that system - including people who both did and didn't pass the 11+. I was lucky, firstly because I had clued up parents who thought that the whole system was bollocks and didn't allow either of us to feel like failures, and secondly because my parents were able to get me into a school that was much closer to being properly comprehensive than the nearby secondary modern school which regularly lost out on most of the brighter kids to the grammars.

I'm going through all the local comps and comparing FSM %'s against the grammars (boys grammar and girls grammar). So far, even the lowest comp's FSM percentage is three times the Grammars.

It's also shocking comparing them just by reputation. 3 "Good" high schools, and one "outstanding", so none of them are bad schools. Very diverse area, with none of the schools being in a poorer area. The one with the best reputation (which my sons are at) is 17% FSM. But the one with the poorest reputation (this is literally only a reputation thing as it's a good school) is 33% FSM. And compare these to the 4% FSM at the local Boys Grammar / 7% at the Girls Grammar. The lowest, which is the school that actually crosses a border to a less financially diverse area is 12% FSM.

Grammar schools are a ridiculous anomaly that are ruthlessly exploited by middle class parents to the detriment of the wider population. Same for religious schools as well.

It’s a scam to get the state to pay for something that poorer families are largely locked out of.

It's not patronising to suggest that a parent with limited education themselves, three jobs simply to make ends meet and a crowded house is unlikely to be able to support a child practising for the 11+ as well as, say, most of us on this thread could.

The grammar school near where I grew up has 2.7% of children on free school meals. Compared to a county average of just under 19% FSM and a national figure of just under 24%. It is absolutely not a level playing field, and everyone who lives in that county knows it.

As such it should be down to the schools to support them to create an equitable access to local school provision.

And it is sad but true that many parents in this country do not value education. White working class boys historically have the lowest attainment rates.

You just need to read the posts from teachers in state schools. Yes funding is dire and needs to be improved but parental attitudes need to too.

The reason funded nursery places for some 2 year olds were first introduced was to help children in certain demographics to help them get a good start in life so they would hopefully be starting school not too disadvantaged.

With grammars mostly full of children whose parents have paid for tutoring or prep school, it's a great idea that has become corrupt, and will absolutely not have the brightest children attending, just those from better off families (vast majority). Our primary school didn't offer any coaching so the kids from poorer families didn't stand a chance - only the very exceptional ones. Most of the intake was bang on average, just coached in how to take exams and had covered all the curriculum privately. Then the parents feel all smug because they are saving thousands on private fees.
The unfairness of the system has stayed with me for years (although we were outside the system having to go with boarding options).

@Overthemenopause pupil premium funding isn’t enough to help all pupils. More needs to be done with parental attitudes and resources at home. How do you expect schools to do this with limited resources and staff?

As I said earlier you can't parent the parents. A societal shift is needed but that's not on schools to manage. The reason grammars are full of migrant (typically Asian) children and middle class children is because they are groups that value education, these children are shunned in comprehensives because they don't fit in with the kids from households where you're seen as a snob and mocked if you speak well or have a wider vocabulary.

How do you explain my 16 year old then who wasn't on "top table" in primary but just averaged over 80% in his maths A level mock and got 9s and 8s for gcse?