How are Grammar schools so much better than comprehensives if they get the same funding?

[Karma1387]

Me and my partner are in a situation where we are looking to relocate in order to move to a Grammar school area. This is going to involve us both having to find new jobs and coordinate a house move at the same time.

Some of my family disagree with our decision to move for the sake of grammar school and don't see how they can be better than a normal comprehensive school.

I am hoping some people on here will have some knowledge on how grammar schools achieve so much better than comprehensives?

Also anyone with experience with grammar schools they could share? From what I have read the class sizes aren't much different to comprehensives and they get the same funding. Is it literally just a case of because they do the 11+ they tend to only take on the more academically inclined kids. Does this translate to less bad behaviour etc compared to comprehensive schools?

The move is going to be stressful with us both trying to find new jobs plus moving further away from both our families I want it to be worth it! Our local comprehensive is awful for results and we want to give the kids the best opportunities.

Personally I would rather homeschool and fully keep them out of the school system but my partner is very against this and is determined we need to move to a grammar school area so any advise to aid our discussion would be amazing!

Are we being unreasonable to relocate for the possibility of grammar school?

I have no issue with clear structured education (although not keen on too much structure before the age of 6/7)

But I also don't agree with kids sitting in massive classes for hours a day not actually necessarily learning huge amounts due to so many kids in a class/disruptions etc.

I value education but I know from my own time at school that it sucks spending half a lesson with a teacher dealing with bad behaviour or being in a class you struggle in but your teacher cant help either because of behaviour or because multiple student are struggling but they have 1 pair of hands.

Its just a personal opinion but there are 2 of us in our kids life who have to make a decision we are both happy with and that is going to be best for our kids.

Can I add a note of caution here. I, too, tied myself in knots over the choices of schools for my kids. I now see that my fussing/optimising was likely counter-productive and, if anything, damaging. I wish I had been more laid back. Also, with such young children, OP, you have no idea if they are academic or not, or have SEN, so setting your sights on a grammar school might be totally misguided.

Hi OP,
I think you are giving undue weight to a grammar school (without even knowing if your kids will get in) rather than taking a balanced approach.

If you can be near family it can be lovely for the kids and so helpful for you. E.g. Grandparent came to ours and took my youngest to school when my oldest had an early morning hospital appointment last week and we are often dropping the youngest to his Grandparents at 9:30 at night because eldest needs bringing back from a gig (8 year age gap with mine). It's also so nice to have people around that love your kids and your kids love.

I understand you don't want to send your kids to a school you consider awful but if an area is ok/nice with ok/nice schools then other things in life are important too. My kid went to the local primary and a nearby high school and is on course for great GCSEs. He also has lovely kind friends. The expected GCSE grades are because he is an academic kid. If he wasn't an academic kid that wouldn't be the schools fault and we would support him to do his best.

If you have family that live in ok/nice areas with ok schools I would move close to them. There is more to life than school.

This is also true, so I suppose an important question is why did OP have MH issues?

If it was because of a traumatic childhood or some other external factors then it might not really matter.

If it's a highly heritable condition, then Grammar School may be a bad idea.

Can I add a note of caution here. I, too, tied myself in knots over the choices of schools for my kids. I now see that my fussing/optimising was likely counter-productive and, if anything, damaging. I wish I had been more laid back and this is the message I'd tell to my younger self.

Also, with such young children, OP, you have no idea if they are academic or not, or have SEN, so setting your sights on a grammar school might be totally misguided.

I’ve just seen that you are looking at Chelmsford, if you are unsure about selective Grammars and assuming you want to commute to London, you could look at the higher ranked schools in Bishops Stortford (Herts) or Saffron Walden (Essex). They are admittedly not as highly ranked as KEGS and Chelmsford girls, but they send a good proportion of students to Russell Group and Oxbridge without being selective and bright children are supported and do well.

The ranked schools are still oversubscribed though and you would need to look at the primary feeder schools and MATs to maximise getting your preferred choice.

They're not. Ours was meant to be one of the best schools in England and it was pretty poor. I taught DS quite a lot of the GCSE content for a couple of subjects. Variable teaching, poor behaviour, lack of proper governance and high teacher turnover.

We just sent the other two children to private school.

My children are in grammar. To get to grammar it’s on the parents to fund tuition, or tutor their child through the 11 plus exams. You will have to keep them motivated and once they are at Grammar they will be with some very bright children. Chances to shine are less than at a mixed ability comprehensive as the majority are clever and capable and you still have to push them. If they are streamed at the grammars in the area you want to move to, you will also have to deal with some children being in the bottom class of a high achieving school. That can be hard for some to deal with.

At my children’s grammar schools they are only streamed in two subjects so that’s better. But it’s still a competitive environment some children will thrive. Other bright children will be better off in a comprehensive where the school can focus on them more in a less hot house environment. I think children can do equally well in either environment but at the grammars everyone wants to learn and there is less distracting behaviour in class.

It's a pity we dismantled the grammar school system. I can see the argument for not selecting at a young age, but we really did lose something. In the 1950s, American academics considered a set of British A-Levels to be the equivalent of an American college degree.

I do understand the drive for equality, but instead of leveling up, it almost always leads to leveling down. And also to dumbing down. It's something we need to be constantly on our guard against. For example, I have heard people argue that Shakespeare should be 'updated' into modern English because the original is too difficult and 'excludes' people. The stupidity of such an argument is beyond words. Instead, we should say "look, these plays are for everyone, but they're difficult. Very difficult. If you want to understand them, you have to be prepared to work hard. You struggle because you're not prepared to put in the time and effort, not because you're the 'victim' of elitism."

Erm they choose the children who attend?? Is this a serious question????

I teach at an excellent comp; a number of our students just won places at Oxford and Cambridge. DS1 also attends; I would much rather he went there than a grammar school.

I grew up in Kent with a grammar system. There are grammar schools and then there are grammar schools. A super selective top 3% school is going to be entirely different to a we take 25% of the local area grammar

My experience of grammar school was not anything like what this thread describes. It was a nice environment, a higher percentage of pupils wanted to engage and do well but there was still a lot of bad behaviour, and the school didn't deal with it very well. There wasn't a lot of pressure or hot housing. There wasn't greek or Latin or chess club. The sport teaching was shocking. There was a lot of bullying

They were reliant on having well behaved, engaged pupils. If you paid attention and did your homework youd do well, but there wasn't any effort put in if you didn't. This meant struggling pupils probably didn't get a lot of support

DHs experience of grammar was quite different, he had a lot more expectations and more coaching. But still not a haven of wonderful, very academic, engaged pupils all striving for success. Other grammar schools do put a lot of pressure on their pupils, the grammar my dad teaches at as high levels of mental health/anxiety and stress.

Essentially you can't move somewhere with grammar schools and just expect that those schools will be a good fit for your child and they will thrive, or that they will even get in. Personally I think a good comprehensive is more likely to result in a better education, because they do teach a wide bredth or ability and behaviour and still get good results.

They select the best pupils so get the best results.

I am a former teacher and considered home ed for the same reasons. However, it became clear early on that DD loves being in groups of children and even as a toddler was vehemently against the idea. We found a small village school, with class sizes of under-20, very few behaviour problems, and a very creative, outdoorsy curriculum.

I'm not so worried about secondary school because she's got a good grounding in love of learning.

If you really don't want to have to move them during school and they are to young to know if they will be bright enough for grammar. Then look to move to an area with a good selection of good comprehensive schools. Because as others have said if they don't pass the 11+ they could end up going to a very poor comprehensive.
Areas that just have good comprehensive schools have a mix of atudents and abilities at each school and it can definitely be worth the extra house prices to move to a good area.

Also, SEND doesn’t mean not academically capable. DS1 is AuDHD (medicated) and consistently getting 90% plus in all of his assessments.

One we can't view results on as they haven't had a year 6 cohort yet but its part of the very poor secondary school so I don't hold much hope and wont be able to see any results before applying for 1st child. 2nd is awful. 3rd has improved a bit this year.

There is 1 which is in the local small village which seems good a bit smaller, results are good but we would be classed as out of catchment for them so we could put them down as a choice but as we have 3 schools in our town we don't have a great chance of getting in.

We could move to a better area with a good primary and a good secondary only 25-30 mins from us but it is considerably more expensive than where we are now and more than the area we would be looking to move for grammar school. Buying a house for 150-250k more than we are in now would cause all sorts of issues with me needing to go back to full time work which I can't do whilst kids are at nursery and I don't want to miss out on the quality time with them.

What do you mean by "part of" the secondary school? It it an all-through school?

We ruled out Chelmsford due to the cost and how selective KEGS is as much as the school and their curriculum look incredible!

No, they select a combination of the most academically able and those who have been heavily coached. You don’t need to be either of those things to be a ‘best pupil’

Please be careful OP. We are very invested in our children’s education, we did everything “right” and one of our children appears to have pretty severe ADHD at age 7. She’s bright but struggling. I picked an area with excellent comps on purpose, before they were at primary school. Sometimes the other schools in grammar school areas aren’t as good.

They added a primary onto the site a few years ago so they now cover primary and secondary.

Both my son and daughter attend local single sex local grammar schools. Please bear in mind that it is extremely difficult to get a place. Approximately half of their class at primary school sat the 11 plus and only about 3 children got places (out of 15 ish) I’m not sure I would move to a different arre / change jobs etc in the hope they would get places. as it’s very competitive. My daughter in particular works really hard and is very motivated to learn. Her friends all work really hard too. My son is very bright but doesn’t put in much effort (he has coasted through) and his results have been similar to friends at non grammar schools who work hard.

Are you confident that your DC are academic enough to get in to grammar school as it’s a lot of upheaval to move if not?

Ok so non-selective alternatives for boys could be Bishops Stortford High School, Hockerill (if you can move within spitting distance) or Saffron Walden County High. Unfortunately house prices are still expensive.