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 have them here, too, and people do move here because of the schools - which does unfortunately push property prices up, and it’s a fairly expensive area anyway.

Though having said that, a colleague who lived in a very small house and certainly wasn’t well off, had 2 dcs at the local primary followed by the grammars, and both then to Oxford.

My biggest issue with it is the tutoring aspect. It seems to be widely accepted that its hard to get in even if your are bright, if you don't do tutoring.
We are fortunate enough to be able to afford it, but my daughter has a few really bright friends who are very unlikely to be able to pay for it, and therefore their chances of getting in would be much less than my daughter, with the same ability.
I feel really frustrated by this, to the point I want to offer her best friends mum for her to join my daughter in the sessions for free, it wont cost us much more. But this could come across badly?

They don't help social mobility at all (IMO largely because it's rich people avoiding paying for private taking up spaces of kids who would be socially mobile).

They don't have FSM kids or SEN and are usually more selective than private schools. It sucks up all of the best and leaves the worse in sink schools. A huge chunk of them come from private preps. https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/facts-figures-and-evidence-about-grammar-schools/

That was a long time ago. Times, and educational practices have changed.
Never base current opinions of schools on your own experience.

Grammar schools are a big thing round our way. Most are very well thought of and offer a cost-effective solution to those who might find it hard to come up with the cash for private secondary. What’s become apparent, reading the Grammar school threads over the past few days, is they differ greatly across the UK (pass mark requirement, pupil premium, catchment, pupil destinations), meaning we are discussing very different environments and comparables have been hard to draw. There appear to be many who find the concept abhorrent, which seems odd to me, when a school is successful. If you don’t like it, don’t apply, it’s not mandatory.

It's the effect it has on the entire area for schooling that is the issue. It creates an ingrained divide. Many people who live here all their lives have a weird old boys network from their grammar days. It's very niche and not far removed from the public school attitudes of the politicians.

It's true that non selective state schools vary enormously, for various reasons.
What parents want of course is the best for their children, and no doubt compromises are made.

So she's in rainbows so shes what 5 ?and you have already deceided ed she's in the top 10% typical mumsnet 🤣
And no she's not an unpaid TA!

I don't have 'contempt" for grammar schools . Many of them are excellent. I have contempt for a system which is wildly unfair, and which thinks it OK to divide children into "sheep and goats" at the age of 10.

And yet, I can give similar examples of the exact opposite thing happening.

In the city where I grew up grammar/secondary modern schools were got rid off in 1975 and I was one of the first cohort to enter the first year (now Year 7) of a comprehensive school in the city the following year.

In 1975 there were two boys grammar schools and one girls grammar school. So back then boys were twice as likely to be offered a place at a grammar school. There were also 8 secondary moderns and at least one special school.

Of those three ex-grammars. One is still rated by The Times School League Tables 2024 as one of the best comprehensive schools in the region - interestingly, another school in a village just outside the city (a former secondary modern) is also on the list of best comprehensive schools in the region.

Of the other two ex-grammars, one merged with a couple of secondary moderns and is now a fairly average comprehensive and the ex girls grammar became a successful single sex girls comprehensive school until it was closed in 1982.

So just a couple of examples of how everything wasn't all doom and gloom.

There are only 163 Grammar schools in England and 60+ in NI that's the point most people don't even have the option to apply its hardly a level playing field s and only benefits the very few .

She isn't in Rainbows, she is nearly 10 and volunteers as a helper with Rainbows.
And it's her teacher who informed us she is top 10%. And who joked at parents evening that she is 'her TA'.

The more I think about, the more I think schools and individual children would benefit much more from an increase in Pupil Referral Units with really good staff and resources than from an increase in grammar schools. The kids who are disruptive and the ones who quietly struggle would get the additional support they needed, leaving the rest to get on with their lessons. There is some really good alternative provision nearby which has made a huge difference to several kids I know who have struggled with demands of full-time learning in a big school, but there are far fewer places than there is the need for them.

@Janedoe82 I suppose at least over here all children can have the opportunity for grammar as SEAG work is done in class in primary school. I agree that some secondary schools are awful but not all.

Maybe we need to roll out a Grammar school programme, rather than demonise a system that gets good results? It doesn’t make sense to deconstruct something that is successful. Surely we want more Grammar schools/places - for kids? Not fewer. Labour oversaw the acadamisation of many failing UK state schools, which saw them sold to Tory Donors like Lord Harris (Mr Carpetright), who owns the Harris Academy Group. Surely this isn’t a favoured blueprint for UK state schools?

I agree with you, @UnimaginableWindBird , we have to integrate students who really have very demanding additional needs.
With an ever reduced budget

The government should create more technical schools and pupil reform schools.

If people want Grammar schools, they have to understand that the majority of children will end up at secondary modern type schools.

My issue with them is that a) they cream off the brightest kids which has a knock-on effect on other schools in the area and b) it’s too easy for sharp-elbowed middle class parents to game the system through intensive tutoring.

I wouldn't be against having different types off education having a non academic teen myself as long as they were of equal worth
Not kids being seen as failures at 11.

I live in a grammar school area and both my kids passed the 11 plus and are at grammar (one not tutored, the other was, but only because it was during lockdown and her school was barely even open. She passed easily anyway). I do think they have advantages and my kids are benefitting from a great education. It's not to the same level as private school though (I attended one for a few years) as the classes are massive and there just isn't the individual attention you get at a private school. The major downside though is that they come at the detriment to all the other secondary schools in the areas, hoovering up all the resources, the well-off parents who can afford to contribute to new maths blocks etc, and also the cleverest kids. The local comprehensives in my area are all, frankly, shit. If my kids hadn't passed, we might have had to consider moving up the road to Oxfordshire, where there isn't a two tier educational system. I don't think the grammar school system benefits the county, as it means there are lots of people here who've had a substandard education - particularly as half the kids in the local grammar schools aren't even from the area. And I don't think the 11 plus is anything other than a snapshot of a child's abilities at that point in time. The only reason I'm not completely anti grammar schools is because I've been worried that we'd level down, and ALL the schools round here would end up being shit! Instead of just most of them! Whereas all the schools need massive investment and should offer kids the same great education - and that might happen under Labour.

My issue with them is that a) they cream off the brightest kids which has a knock-on effect on other schools in the area and b) it’s too easy for sharp-elbowed middle class parents to game the system through intensive tutoring. They entrench inequality rather than alleviating it.

I have mixed feelings on this. When I was a child, pretty much everyone was entered for the 11+ but no one was tutored because no one was trying to get into grammar school. We lived in a very working-class area where people didn't go to university. Everyone just did primary school > high school > job.

Therefore, only two of us in my year got an "A". I was one of them. I got into an all-girls grammar school. That opened up academic opportunities that I just wouldn't have had if I'd gone to the local high school. But, unfortunately, I had the double whammy of autism and ADHD so I just couldn't get the full benefit of that environment as the pacing was so fast, the pressure was intense, and there was zero support for anyone with SEN. I don't think I would have fared much better in the local high school though because it was complete chaos with sex, drugs and violence. And SEN kids were completely written off.

I don't know how much things have changed since then. My own children go to grammars, and they are thriving, but (as far as we know) they don't have any SEN. So I don't know. I do think grammars offer opportunities to those who are academic and can cope with that pressure and pace. If they can get in. I think the only way to make grammars obsolete is for all schools to offer the same level of opportunity and attention to their most academic children. But I don't know how that would be possible when there is such a range of abilities, backgrounds, and needs in children. And people are so against segregation and streaming. I'm also against using children to influence the behaviour of other children. It's not children's responsibility to make others do better.

This failures at 11 is a hangover from the mid twentieth century when SEND and dyslexia wasn't catered for. We are a generation (or 2) removed from that now.

Ah some stats, not just the murky fog of envy then?