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).

I have experience of Scottish private schools too- and now NI grammars. Private schools in Edinburgh are no where near on a par results wise. Yes, the private schools are lovely but honestly, if I was doing it again I would send them state and pay for tutors. There is a lot of fur coat nae knickers!!

I am not objecting- I use them!! Great positive stories and better quality of education than in one of the top Scottish private schools. BUT, if my children were at a local secondary I would be unhappy. The issue is the disparity in resources available.

Just make all schools better, and give every kid a fair chance
That's all that needs to be said really (thanks to the poster who said it, whose name I didn't copy).

Do you genuinely not understand why people are against a system with baked-in inequality, where a large number of children are consigned to a poorer quality education by dint of their family's lack of wealth?

Parents wanting the best of what is on offer for their children is normal and caring.

I don't like two tier schooling, which grammar schools bring. Failing the 11+ when it was universal scarred those who failed for life. I am happy for there to be sets in schools for subjects, especially English Language and Maths.

Results always come top in discussions of this issue, but you can't discount the social aspect, when it comes to the kids' wellbeing.

I went to a super-selective secondary (not in UK) and some of the kids there were extremely bright and off -the-charts nerdy. They would have been eaten alive at an ordinary school, their lives made a misery from bullying. They also would have been bored academically and probably would have underachieved thanks to being mocked for being so clever.

Grammars and super-selectives can be a nurturing environment for clever kids in a way that a huge comprehensive might not be.

We also have what could be seen as super selective in NI. Children's scores in the test are ranked- it isn't a pass or fail. Several of them are so over subscribed you need to score extremely highly and only take say top 10% if that. But I wouldn't say they are specialist schools for the ultra bright due to the amount of tutoring that goes on!

But we have 5 tier schooling already, you're forgetting comprehensives, SEND schools, schools for those with challenging behaviours who have been excluded from main stream education and private schools along with Grammars. 6 tiers if you include music schools. 7 if you include sports schools.

As someone who went to a comprehensive, got straight A's, a degree and a Ph D from a Russell Group uni, I'm going to disagree.

There's bullying everywhere, and I don't think my school experience would have been enhanced at a Grammar (had the option been there). And knowing other kids from different backgrounds (and interests and abilities) was a positive

Subject setting and a breadth of options is what allows kids to thrive

Back in the 1950s when my working class mum took the 11+ there was no widespread tutoring and the whole class took the test on a normal school day. Now in the same city you have to be in the know as to how to register for the test with the LA, primaries won’t tell you. Everyone sitting the test are tutored, and there are primary schools specifically set up to get kids through the 11+. Grammars are not the tools for social mobility they one were.

I think if those factors apply then a grammar likely wouldn’t be the best fit anyway, especially your mental health point.

Have posted this on other recent school threads, data comparing a grammar school and state secondary in a town, one has 5% FSM pupils and one has 26%, no prizes for guessing which percentage relates to which

Many people only get exercised by fairness when it’s their own kids they feel are being negatively impacted. However, they’re never willing to level down their kids to those who have it harder than their own.

If the government declared all schools should have the same environments, building types, access to open space, quality of teaching etc as the lowest sink school in the country, in order to make things ‘fair’, they’d be grabbing their pitchforks.

I have no problem with super selectives - they do not have a detrimental impact on other local schools, and provide a suitably challenging education for the very brightest (although I think a great deal could be done to assist access for those from less privileged backgrounds).

I have huge issues with the Kent system, even though I am a product of it and went to Kent grammar. When the top twenty per cent are creamed off, it has a direct impact on the other eighty per cent in many ways.

Children feel like failures at 11 - my sister has huge self esteem issues as a result of this. Her best friends and her siblings all passed the 11 plus, but she didn't. She's spent her life feeling she's the stupid one (she isn't), and had a much tougher time at secondary school. She came in to her own academically later - she just wasn't there at 11 - but that feeling of not being good enough has never really left her.

When there are no top sets in a school, there is nowhere for later developers to progress to. There are lower expectations of what a child will achieve. Aspirations are affected. A "them and us" attitude develops which feeds into social divide. It's a stupid, stupid system.

In a grammar school area, I expect parents to do the best for their child and hold no contempt for parents reacting to the system they are in.

My view is based on Kent specifically.

I dont see the need for them. I dont generally believe that top 30% of a test at 11 need a different building in which to study for the same subjects and same final qualifications (gcse) as the remaining 60%. I cant see that person who is in around 29% needs anything materially different to someone in place 35%. And I can't see that setting doesn't achieve similar aims. I also think it's clear that it's entirely possible to learn some subjects with people that are more or less intelligent than you. The entire school curriculum isn't academic and it does academic students good to learn art, food tech, phse, sport etc.

I also dont really see why vocational and academic options can't be delivered on one site and mixed up. Why one group can't do extra fresh, whikst another goes off site to hairdressing.

I could just about be persuaded there is a tiny group of highly academic pupils that would benefit from something different like a special need - but even those super selective grammars don't seem to actually do anything different than prep for GCSE.

This is what upsets me - it’s not equal opportunity if both the top and bottom (and SEN) are not properly catered to!

I live in a grammar school area. The other non selective comprehensives are absolutely dire. If my children don’t turn out to be “grammar school material” we will probably have to move to a different catchment area

I went to a grammar school, way before the days of tutoring tho, and it was pivotal in my academic success (now a Dr) and also there were just less ‘rough’ children. My brother didn’t and he was exposed to a much rougher school, think kids bringing in hammers to fight etc (but this was the 90s).

overall grammars are fantastic for the individual (mostly) but do not help society.

I think a lot of the contempt comes from people not actually understanding them, and in particular, not understanding the different kinds of grammar system in different areas.

There are some places where they're "super selective" and kids have to be tutored within an inch of their lives to scrape in. That's not healthy, but is inevitable when demand outstrips supply!

But in other areas, they co-exist, happily, alongside other state schools, aren't super-selective so "ordinary" kids can get in if they're more academic than average, etc.

Personally, I don't see a problem with selection for secondary schools based on academic ability. As the OP says, we don't have the same kind of contempt for faith schools, specialist sports/language/arts schools, etc.

Such a shame that grammars were demonised back in the 70s. Yes, they had problems, particularly the 11+ exam itself, and the lack of pathways between the grammars and the alternative sec-mods/technical colleges. But, I think the real problem was the sec-mods/technical colleges which had low aspirations and didn't provide a decent range of subjects/exams. We definitely should have improved the alternatives rather than scrapped most of the grammars! The criticism/hate etc was at the wrong target! If we'd improved the sec mods/technical schools, and found a better way of identifying the pupils who were suited to grammars rather than the 11+ exam, alongside better pathways between the two types for pupils who were in the "wrong" stream, I feel we would have a far better education system.

The Contempt for Grammar Schools (or Independent schools that follow curricula similar to those in Grammar schools) that I have observed in my area, South-West England, comes mainly from 2 types of parents:
Those who went to such a school, wanted their DC To go, paid for extra tuition, and were annoyed when they didn’t pass the entrance exam, or those that wanted their DC to go, didn’t pay for extra tuition, and were annoyed that the school didn’t prepare their DC for the entrance exam, so they didn’t pass it!
My DD had the tuition, but on the condition that she realised that if she didn’t pass the entrance exam, OR didn’t like the school, it wouldn’t matter at all!
So I have no contempt for Grammar/Independent schools, but also harbour no respect for pushy parents on this topic!

This was mentioned on the other thread - there should be flexibility to test and move in and out of grammars. That’s not currently possible as most fill all available spaces in year 7. I do believe there are/were 13+ test and of course the use of GCSE results to enter sixth forms attached to grammars.

My mother and her twin were born in 1928, they were brought with little money, their father had suffered badly during WW1 and had shell shock and bad shrapnel wounds, he worked on the railways, their mother was a very hardworking seamstress.

Through the local grammar school the twins had a brilliant education and did well.

Myself and my brother were privately educated, our children had a mix of state schools, grammar school and public school.

Our granddaughter is at a private prep school.

We should all have a choice, I believe grammar schools created social mobility in the post war years, we need this more than ever now.

There is not nearly as much dislike of sporting schools, creative arts or technical schools.

This is an excellent point.

One thing I’ve noticed, as a parent of kids who are academically able but completely hopeless at sport, that it’s completely socially acceptable to brag about your kids’ sporting successes, but your child being smart has to be kept on the down low.

That’s not to say I WANT to brag - I really don’t - it just says a lot about our culture and the contempt around nurturing the talents of bright kids (which is often seen as negative, as hothousing etc), compared with those who sing, dance and play sports at a high level and spend virtually all of their spare time either training or travelling to tournaments.

Anyway, DC1 is at a grammar school and I hope for the same for DC2. They are both autistic and the degree of SEN support available for ND student in a cohort of academically able kids really can’t be compared with the support available within a comprehensive (who, it’s fair to say, have far bigger fish to fry than highly anxious, high masking kids)

And yet the bright and nerdy kids DS at my children's comprehensive do just fine. One of DS's friends has experienced pretty severe bullying, but he's not one of the more academic children. And I can think of plenty of people I know who faced terrible bullying at selective schools, both grammar and independent.

That would have been school dependent, because my school did large classes of tutoring sessions for those considered grammar material.

I'm strongly in favour of a school system in general where children are taught in groups of like minded peers - whether that is academic, technical, needing additional support etc. I think children achieve best if they have the appropriate teaching and support that suits their needs - whether that is more challenging work & peers who want to work and achieve that you get in grammar school - or additional support with managing SEN in a special school.

A comprehensive system, or any system which has a 'one size fits all' approach generally disadvantages bright children and any children who are not 'average'.

One of the main factors affecting teenagers is their peers - if they are in a school where the other children are motivated to learn (whatever it is, academic/sport/music/technical skills) then they are much more likely to do so as well, if they are in a school where it is 'not cool' to work hard then they will want to fit in and not work hard.

There should be more flexibility in enabling children to move schools at the end of y8.

No school system is ideal but the focus should be on improving the poor schools - not taking away excellent schools.

I don't like grammar schools because I think they create a false reality. Apologies if my information is out of date and doesn't apply now as it's been over 20 years since I left school and my dc are at school in an area with no grammars thank goodness.

Where I lived in bucks the grammar schools would top up their money by asking parents for donations. A lot of parents would send their child to private primary school and then try and get them into the grammar, so to them the donation to help find the swimming pool and other extras was a bargain. Students at the grammar school were constantly being told they were better than the students at the secondary modern. Students in the lower ability end of the grammar schools were being told they were stupid when they weren't. Students at the secondary modern were being told they were extremely clever because they weren't disruptive or violent. Several students transferred from secondary modern to grammar for 6th form and suffered bullying. Our sixth form common room and extra curricular activities had several students in them who had transferred to the grammar for 6th form but socialised at the secondary modern to avoid the bullying.

My dc go to comprehensive school. It was failing but the Jewish head has really turned it around. My dc1 is leaving 6th form college with predicted 3 A's at alevel. He would have probably passed the 11+ and gone to grammar but I'm glad he didn't.

I would much rather have decent SEN provision than grammar school. In our county the state special needs schools are for children with severe learning disabilities. Children like my dc5 who are academically very able but need constant supervision either sink or swim in mainstream or go to independent specialist schools at huge expense to the LA. Children with moderate learning disabilities are mostly in mainstream too. More state provision is desperately needed for children with the severe end of high functioning autism. I'm sure it would work out cheaper in the long run than sending some of them to independent specialist schools and sorting out the mental health of the children who end up in mainstream when it's completely inappropriate. I don't know what my son's suicide attempt cost the nhs but I think more appropriate support in school would have been cheaper.