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'm not in love with grammar schools, but if they had to exist it would make much more sense to sit the test in Year 8, for transition in Year 9.

The majority of pupils would go to a comprehensive for Year 7 and 8. Grammar schools would abandon Y7 and Y8 and just become Y9-13 provision.

Under my proposed system of testing in Year 8:

Children are already learning more independently and parental involvement is less of a factor.

It allows for later developers - 10 really is too young!

Children's cognitive, social and emotional development is more advanced at 12/13 so the test outcomes give a more realistic picture.

Children who want to do the test might be able to arrange to do it independently, even without parental support.

Children would have a far better idea themselves if a grammar school environment would suit them, rather than it being led by their parents.

Early thinking about GCSE options could be taken into consideration when sitting the 13+ and applying to a grammar school.

This timing would integrate far better with independent schools, many of which also have an exit/entry point at Y8 and Y9.

Most importantly:

Little children of 10 years old would not be having their Year 5 and summer holidays dominated by endless tutoring and VR/NVR. I know that not all parents do it that way, but plenty do!

There are problems with both the principle and the practical application of grammar schools. The problem in principle is the rigidity of streaming children at age 11 across all subjects. As a PP said children mature differently and are good a different things- grammar schools don't acknowledge this. I went to a comp but with a lot of streaming - you could move across streams and be in different streams for different subjects.
But Grammar schools don't distinguish on ability - its on the ability to pass the exams which is really about how much money the parents are willing to pay/time spend on coaching the children - i know people who costed out the value of sending their children to a very good private school which would guarantee a grammar school place and save them money on private schools in the long run - and thats even ignoring the ability to access grammar schools by living in the right area

@tiredbutcantsleep

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

I fully agree. It really was washing the baby out with the bathwater when the decisions were made in the 70s to scrap most of the grammars. But, here in the UK, we hate success, especially academic success.

Our local grammar was converted into a comprehensive the year before I left primary. In our town, we had a successful grammar and a pretty dire sec-mod. Parents were sold a lie that the comprehensive would give everyone a "grammar" standard of education. The reality was very different. Every year I was there, as more "comprehensive" intakes were admitted (alongside extensions etc to cope with the higher numbers), the standards of behaviour declined, disruption increased, vandalism increased, the old grammar teachers left (either retired or had nervous breakdowns etc). It basically turned from a successful school to a crap comp with massive problems over just six years! That was 40 years ago, and it's still a failing crap comp today, to the extent that lots of parents send their kids to a different school across the county border in a convoy of school buses!!

I’m quite conflicted on this topic. I completely understand the elitism/inequality arguments, but DP and I were both geeky, academic kids from very ordinary families (both my parents left school at 15 with no qualifications) who were lucky enough to win places at a super selective grammar. It was brilliant for both of us, exactly what we needed both educationally and socially, and there is no way we would have been exposed to the same academic, musical and sporting opportunities at any of our local comprehensives. My horizons were broadened and expectations raised hugely by the school I attended.

Grammar schools are deeply flawed and introduce a whole range of problems in the areas where they do still exist, but at the same time I find the U.K. to be a deeply anti-intellectual country, with the education system at times very resistant to letting the academically brightest kids raise their heads above the parapet (while there is much less opposition to the idea of specialist schools for e.g. sporting excellence or performing arts).

DP and I still live in the same suburb where we grew up, and now face the prospect of either hothousing own daughter for the same, now even more super-selective, grammar school that we attended, or sending her to the mediocre comprehensives that we ‘escaped’ back then. I think what we’ll probably end up doing is move to a more uniformly middle class area, within catchment for one of the high achieving, sought after comprehensives - the ethics of which is another whole argument in itself.

The heart of the issue is really that the British education is as tightly bound by the British class system as the rest of our highly unequal society, and middle class families who value education will ultimately do anything they can to ensure their children win the best possible school place. At the very least I think comprehensives should stream their pupils - we need to stop pretending that one size fits all in terms of academics, and that ‘a bright child will do well wherever they go’, which I strongly disagree with.

Back then yes, but people need to change their mindset. Academia is not the only measure of success and intelligence.

I and all my siblings went to a grammar school. I'm from a free school meals family and we were definitely the 'tatty' end of their intake. It had its downsides at the time but it gave me access to a different level of education and the mentoring was brilliant.

It led to a business degree but without them I'd probably be filing in a small town manufacturing company (what my df had planned for me) or redundant.

Instead, I've had a 40 year international career, and paid higher rate tax for 36 of those years, so the taxpayer got their money back.

I will be forever grateful to the teachers who backed me and put their faith in me. I was very lucky. 🙂

I haven't really questioned the rights and wrongs of it while my kids have been at school and just get on and accept that this is the system we have in the area we live in.

I didn't exactly choose to send DS to grammar as that was just the path that he was put on at his primary school where half the year group of 120 kids tend to end up at one of the local grammars. I could have refused to let him sit the test I suppose but who would do that in reality. The grammar was the right school for him and he did well and is now doing A levels there.

My DD was put on the path to the local state academy where she was in the bottom sets for everything. It was an impossible environment for a well behaved , rule following child with mild learning difficulties and after two years we transferred her to a non selective private school where she is finally flourishing socially and emotionally if not setting the world alight academically.

The kids in the top sets at the local state academy do really well and often end up at the grammars for sixth form and likewise a lot of the grammar school kids fail to do well enough to stay at the grammar for sixth form and attend the state school sixth form instead.

It seems that it's the lower ability sets where the behaviour is really bad and the teachers are just focussing on discipline and crowd control.

I don't think the issue for us was caused by being in the grammar system I think it's just a problem with the teaching and behaviour in lower ability sets at the state schools.

I don't think lower ability kids like my DD are badly behaved but badly behaved kids or kids from difficult backgrounds are often not reaching their potential and are put in lower sets where they end up in a downward cycle and disrupt the learning for others.

Maybe a system where the top 20% in each school go into a top set and work at a faster pace and every other class is mixed ability but with additional support for the ones who are struggling would work better but who knows what the answer is ( my DDs private school has started working that way with a new "grammar" stream and everyone else in mixed ability classes) She gets amazing support with her learning difficulties.

These are just my feelings based on my experience with my kids who are now 18 and 16 going through our local grammar/ non grammar school system.

I went to a grammar school. It was a brilliant school for me in many ways. I had excellent teaching, brilliant classmates and it allowed me to excel academically. And for a grammar school it was very nuturing and had space for eccentricity. But it also taught me to tie up a lot of my sense of self in academics and left me with a lot of weight of having to live up to my potential.

And I think as a system, it's not great and I'd rather they were abolished. My understanding is that stastics show its detrimental to the kids that don't get in and doesn't actually help grammar school kids make any more progress. (I'm willing to be corrected here as it's a while since I've read them.) I think the 11+ plays into incorrect and damaging mentalities ("you're clever or you're not" rather than "work hard consistently and see improvement"). It's all very well to tell his "this exam finds the best school for you," but there's clearly a pass/fail outcome - we all knew when we were in the remedial group at school, didn't we?

I've been interested reading this thread, and the perception that all children who go to grammar schools are tutored to get in. My daughter went to a super selective school and had no tuition at all, and neither did most of her friends. We bought a pack of past entrance papers which she worked through, but that was all - the school was very clear that the type of reasoning tests they set were such that children would not be particularly advantaged by tutoring. The school had a very wide catchment area, and we lived close to the edge, so there was no question of her primary school providing any practice tests for that school anyway as it wasn't somewhere thst their pupils generally went on to. They did do practice tests at the start of Year 6 for the local public schools, as well as SATs practice, but these were very traditional type tests.

Is there not more contempt for Comprehensive Schools? A lot of people think they are all crap. Apart from the fabled ones where everyone must live in a million pound house to attend of course. Not sure there are enough of those to worry about, although would be interested to see a list of them.

I live in a grammar area. One of my dc is v capable academically and likely to get in. The other, 50/50.

I have no issue with the concept of grammar/streaming. But having lived here 10 years it is painfully clear how distorting the impact of tutoring & private school education is on the 11+ results.

A phenomal number of better off parents start tutoring even very bright DC from age 6. Even the non selective preps get 80% or more of their DC in, while the best state schools manage a third, or half a class in an exceptional year. Increasingly quite a few of these heavily tutored kids struggle once in, and there's then an ongoing vicious cycle of further tutoring to keep up. Its not pleasant for those DC. Meanwhile poorer kids with natural ability who can't afford tuition often just miss getting in and are deprived of the spaces. Heavily tutored out of catchment pupils from private schools also take up spaces.

I've ended up concluding the best option would be mixed schools but with sets/streaming throughout, and lots of opportunity for movement up and down.

If your child got into any selective school on the back of you 'preparing' them for 11+ etc in the way of tutoring then your child isn't bright, your money is.

Now, that's not to say that should there have been grammar schools in my local area I wouldn't have done the same for my son, the vast majority of us would if funds allow, but let's not kid ourselves that it's a process based on equality and fairness because it isn't. I have no issue with Grammar or Private education because in my area it simply isn't an option and luckily my son is in a good state school.

For a lot of kids it's not their intelligence that got them in, it's mummy & daddy and their golden wallet and I really wish parents would stop bragging about their 'high achiever', when everyone knows you purchased their brain.

I live in Exeter and there are state grammar schools in the surrounding area, that Exeter children can apply for.

Whilst I totally support our friends who have children at a grammar school, I think the system is unfair because:

1. tutoring. With a few exceptions, every child I know that's passed the 11 plus has had extensive tutoring over many years. Costing up to £6 or 7 k. This is not within reach of many families and totally skews the results as "good" children with tutoring will score higher than bright children without. This defeats the equal opportunity basis of the grammar school system

1. Distance. Not all children are able to travel the distance required to the grammar schools. Yes, there are free buses and other schools but many kids now have family responsibilities. This excludes any child who is a carer for example.

1. Top slicing. Not just the children but the families too.

It's not that I have contempt for grammar schools or those who go to them, just with a system that fundamentally fails to meet its original aims.

It's not up to brighter kids to help raise educational standards for schools so that other kids benefit. Why can't we celebrate brighter kids and help them thrive as much as possible by ensuring they are with other kids of similar academic ability?

The only thing I dislike about grammar schools is that they are only in some areas and not others.

Because it feeds into the two tier education system. Yes, there are a small number of children who are naturally exceptionally bright, but for the most part, the kids getting into Grammar are those who's parents are able to spend £1000's on tuition, or on private primary education. Those who's parents are able to also put in a lot of time training their children for the 11+.

Selective education, either by attainment or financial privilege, harms education for all. Segregation by financial privilege harms outcomes for all.

Local authority regions with no grammar or private schools have no secondary schools in special measures. The highest number of schools in special measures and with poor Ofsted reports are in heavily clustered grammar areas.

@Growlybear83. I think you could probably have got away with that route for the super selective I attended back in the ‘90s, but nowadays they draw about a quarter of their intake from prep schools (who would generally be teaching in a more focused way for the test), and the rest largely from highly motivated families who are intensely focused on the whole testing process (tutoring from Year 2 onwards and formal practice tests at weekends is the norm now, which it certainly wasn’t in my day!) It’s literally one child plucked from each of a couple of hundred primaries/preps located within an hour or so’s radius of the school now - crazy stuff and not something I fancy my DD being subjected to, as academic as she so far seems to be (it’s early days for us as she’s only 6, but even so we’d need to start with the tutoring madness soon!)

@sandorschicken

If your child got into any selective school on the back of you 'preparing' them for 11+ etc in the way of tutoring then your child isn't bright, your money is.

Not the case! The 11+ exam includes things that state primaries havn't taught at the point in time that the exams are sat (i.e. start of year 6) as they include topics that are taught during year 6! Some element of "preparing" them is usually necessary to cover the gaps at the very least and also an element of exam technique, likewise which isn't taught much at primaries by the start of year 6 - SATS exams are very different to 11+!

Nor is it always about money. Lots of parents "prepare" their children themselves at zero/minimal cost, especially these days when practice papers and other resources are freely available on the internet, or books can be bought from Amazon for a tenner or less.

Professional tutoring for months/years is obviously a very different matter and probably more of what you were talking about!

But even then, it depends on the school and the area. Professional long term tuition is probably required for high demand super-selective areas, even for the brightest of kids simply due to it being a numbers game with ultra high pass marks. But a bit of parental time and effort is often all that is required out in the regions were the grammars aren't super-selective and "pass" marks can be in the 60%-70% range!!

@Growlybear83 Sorry, also meant to say that it’s brilliant that your DD and her friends managed to do it without all the crazy hothousing - a great outcome for them.

I'm a bit conflicted about this - I can imagine at secondary level some kids would feel held back/frustrated and disrupted by this. I guess once you get to the later years they would all be streamed anyway though.

However, it's not just kids 'acting as TAs' - as a lot of research has shown that coaching other kids helps reinforce learning and the coaching in itself is a skill, building communication, cooperation etc. This is why eldest children in families tend to have higher academic attainment than any other siblings, even only children (who you would think benefit from more help from parents). Our (outstanding) primary uses mixed ability groups and peer coaching and it works really well for kids on all ends of the learning spectrum.

Fully agree, especially the last paragraph about the real problem in that they're not spread evenly over the entire country!

TBH I'm sick of the brightest kids being touted/used as useful tools in state education. It's never about them reaching their full potential, it's always about how they benefit the school/the others by being there. Kids who'll need to make do with good enough education to inspire others/support them through peer to peer learning/have their parents lead the way in encouraging the best from the school/government.

Parents choose grammar (or private if funds allow) because in schools with mixed ability, competing needs and finite resources, their kids are never given the focus.

I'm baffled as to why it's okay to treat these kids as a partial resource. They may be blessed with academic talent and find learning easy, but why is it okay to compromise them? The politics of envy go beyond financial haves and have nots.

With all the talk of "creaming off" and "motivated parents" etc. I think that it's losing sight of the fact that there's a percentage of kids/parents at the other end of the scale who are ruining education for everyone else.

It's the disruptive, badly behaved kids that make it miserable for everyone else, who make teachers leave because there's no effective sanctions for them. If classrooms were at least peaceful places, I think more children would achieve their potential even without every teacher having to be great. A private or grammar school is much more likely to be that sort of place.

In a comprehensive school there will be plenty of bright children. And some children in a grammar school will be outstanding mathematicians but mediocre at languages, or gifted musicians who struggle with science. A comprehensive school allows for children to be pushed in some subjects and supported in others.

The number of children who are so exceptionally clever that their needs can't be met by a comprehensive are such outliers that their needs won't be adequately met by a grammar school either, and they would benefit most from some sort of genuinely specialist provision.

I don't know what you think happens to bright kids in comprehensive schools, but my experience from my children and the children of my local friends is that they get interesting lessons from excellent teachers, get excellent grades and end up at top universities or other highly competitive destinations.