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).

I agree, then it continues. Parents feel the have to tutor because everyone else does and the problem continues

They shouldn’t need to prep though! No one should be allowed to and if caught then their kids place should be taken away!

Of course that’s not going to happen but it’s a snowball effect and ultimately it’s the deprived kids that lose out

Precisely, I described the tutoring round here (super selective only) as an arms race. It really is.

It doesn't really have a "pass mark" though. I don't know about others, but our local one never refers to "pass" or "fail". Successful applicants are offered a place on different criteria, so it's possible that someone will get offered a place with a lower 11+ score than someone else with a higher score depending on their proximity to the school and whether they board or not. The application process is clearly laid out and it's made clear that the 11+ score isn't the only criteria.

From memory, it goes something like:-

1. A specific number of places allocated to the top performers within the immediate catchment area.
2. A specific number of places allocated to the top performers outside the immediate catchment area but within the county.
3. A specific number of boarding places allocated to the top performers who applied for boarding places.
4. If there aren't enough high enough performers to fill the boarding places, they offer boarding places to people within the county who scored highly but not highly enough to be given a place in the first two categories.
5. Then there are "waiting" lists for applicants who performed well enough, but not highly enough to get a place under categories 1-4, who get offered a place if other offer holders don't take up their place.

So basically, throughout each category, it's just a numbers game of the best applicant for the limited number of places available.

The school make it clear that the "pass mark" as such will vary between years according to the cohort, but it usually around the 70-80% mark. Neither the applicant's score nor the pass mark is communicated to the applicants within the results letter for those who are offered a place.

As many posters have pointed out, the 11+ includes topics taught in year six at primary, but it sat at the start of year 6, so without "prep", they'll be tested on things they've not learned at primary school at the time of the test!

That's a historical anomaly because the 11+ remains based on the teaching a few decades ago, when the subject matter had been taught at primary by the end of year 5, so back then "prep" wasn't required as the kids will have been taught the entire content of the 11+ exam at the time they sat it. Over the decades, some topics have been put back timewise in primaries, hence why there needs to be some form of "prep" for pupils to learn the 11+ content that they've not been taught at primary.

Also, the form of the 11+ exams will be alien to modern day pupils who won't have seen an exam like it by the time they are at the start of year 6, so some form of "prep" is needed to see the style of questions, exam technique, etc.

My DC passed it without prep so it can be done. Only the brightest ones will pass though without it. For the rest they have to put in so much effort.

Thinking back many pages of this thread, a supply teacher commented that they had no issues when covering lessons about (I think) diseases and treatments for wood in design technology because it was interesting and useful whereas the same group of students in a class on modern poetry was extremely disruptive.

By that measure, there are possibilities that could redress the balance on behaviour which makes teaching such a tough occupation. Perhaps, there should be more varied (and better resourced) practical subject options, even a return to the City & Guild qualification standards which were solidly respected. DT, food and home economics, childcare, construction, woodwork, metalwork, hair and beauty (as examples) plus English, maths and science to an agreed national standard. Once that was achieved, the students more interested in trade skills should be free to leave school, at 15 or 16 if they wanted, provided they were entering an apprenticeship. Rather like Germany's Technical high schools in fact.

Of course, it would mean resourcing further education much better and differently than has been the case since Blair suggested he wanted to see 50% going to university.

Lots of non-academic degrees are highly regarded: apparently graduates of the degree in green keeping for golf courses and sports arenas command high salaries and have employers waiting to hire. Arboriculture, horticulture, argicultural degrees likewise. We have lost sight of the skilled trades' value in providing necessary, satisfying lucrative work for a third or more of the population. Not everyone can have clean hands and a cushy warm office.

This absolutely hits the nail on the head. At my kids' grammar schools there are many kids who are from immigrant families, whose parents don't speak very much English and whose parents work several jobs or long hours. They prioritise education though and they parent in a way where they expect their kids to work hard. Maybe instead of trying to (as usual) drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator we can think of initiatives to help white British people to prioritise education more. I think there is a huge culture of lax/gentle parenting that is really not helping either, and it isn't the same in many other cultures.

All that you suggest is currently possible. You can leave school at 16 for a recognised apprenticeship. many schools run BTecs in childcare, health and social care etc etc alongside GCSE's and ALevels.

My dd passed but refused to go because the ones who had been hot-housed for years at her primary were so nasty and snobbish that they bullied her for dyslexia and that I'm a single parent. It's the whole attitude that needs scrapping.

You can't tell a group of kids that they're special/super clever because they got in to a specialist school when it was really money, while penalising another group for paying for education and not costing the state. You end up with far more entitled elitist snobs from grammar than the privates catering for SEN.

@RespiceFinemKarma With respect bullying goes on in all schools. Your experience is yours alone and does not mean that this will be common in all grammar schools.
Another issue I have is with the FSM being the only measure used for lower income households. There are plenty of lower income households that do not qualify for FSM who have children at grammar schools. There is simply no measure to show the income levels of those currently within grammar schools. As @Justrelax mentioned the real question should be how do we encourage those who do not value education to change their mindset. This would have a greater impact on social mobility than closing grammar/private schools.

There is very, very little bullying at my kids' schools. Standards of behaviour are really high and there's a strong focus on morals etc. I guess they can have high standards because they're not dealing with constant disruptive behaviour from kids who don't even want to be there.

School should be a place that all kids want to be, and that will NEVER be a one-size-fits-all school. There should be more diversity of education, not less.

plenty of us prioritise our kids education and parents in a way that expects them to work hard, just in the state sector

Then you're not the people I'm talking about. But that doesn't change the statistics - for example that working class white boys have the poorest outcomes academically.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm

parents talking about schools/ grammars in Cranbrook in Kent. From about 17:31 onwards if people are interested.

@Justrelax "Maybe instead of trying to (as usual) drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator"

Many of us don't think of our children's schools as doing this. Surprising as it might seem to some.

@Justrelax Incidentally-you do realise how indultingvthat statement is, don't you?

I know that from DS's years in compehensive education, and it was the stock in trade of the old secondary moderns. DS did attend a UTC, launched with a massive fanfare and tons of money, as a high-performing STEM school for 14-18 year olds. In DS's Y12, the school lost it's (good) head, an excellent deputy head (both to stress-related illnesses) and the STEM-NQT's were ruthlessly headhunted a few months in by other schools with naicer catchments. By March, the faculty was stripped bare and it was effectively a PRU. The head of maths, whose honesty I still value, said in a private meeting in May, if you value educational achievement and have the money, buy back the year by going private and re taking y12. DS is summer born, so not at obvious disadvantage or much out of cohort.

The best decision ever. It didn't make DS cleverer, or remove the dyslexia and processing issues, but it made time, space and opportunities. So DS ended up with B,C, D at A level in three hard academic subjects.

I find it really insulting that sec mods and comps are sneered at for having "kids that don't want to be there" who will drag down the precious kids at grammars.

I didn't want to be at my grammar. I hated it. But I never disrupted anyone else's education.

I think instead of a grammar system that creams off the top 20%, they should create specific schools for the bottom 20%. By bottom I mean not academic achievement but those whose behaviour is problematic for whatever reason. By having lots of spaces to educate these disruptive pupils outside the mainstream, it would be easy to remove those messing up for everyone else. This would mean firstly that the majority of pupils can learn in a comprehensive environment (use of setting by ability for different subjects still a possibility). Secondly, it would give disruptive pupils or bullying pupils a chance to get greater support, diagnoses for any underlying conditions, more personalised help in smaller classes taking subjects more likely to engage them.

If kids and parents thought they might get removed for bad behaviour it might give them some incentive to behave better too - but even if not, it would be win win for everyone to get these pupils away from the majority who do want to learn.

I think there's a big problem in this country of some people not valuing education

It's strange to me that people take personal offence at such things. Of course there are cohorts of kids that don't want to be in an academic setting. I find it more insulting that people completely ignore the needs of these kids by trying to 'teach' them at the same time and with the same material as kids who are naturally academic and enjoy academia. It's also not a myth that behaviour is notoriously bad in secondary schools and that it's one of the reasons teachers are leaving in droves and are hard to replace.

But there's this horrible snobbery among well-off middle class parents who use their advantage to get their kids into grammar schools because they hate the oiks, basically. Maybe if we didn't tell 11-year-olds they were failures, and then lump them all together, it wouldn't be such a problem.

All the people I see defending grammars do so for what are disgustingly selfish and greedy reasons that basically say "fuck everyone else", and I say that as someone who attended one.

@PrincessTeaSet So what you're saying is "keep the oiks away from my naice children".

They have these schools in NI. Loads of them. And results in secondary schools are still shit.