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 stand corrected.

There are loads of home educators in Cambridgeshire, why don’t you have a look into local groups and do some more research if that’s what you really want. Even if it’s just for the first few years. I’m also in favour of far more child centred education, especially for the early years, even though I was not brought up like that and before kids would have said I was far more focused on academic progress like your dh.
A lot of people are incredibly ignorant about home ed and assume the kids are actually at home all the time - we’re out at classes and groups for at least 3 hours most days, and they mix with kids of all ages, not just their year group. That does come at a cost though and everything is getting more expensive. Not everyone does as many structured groups though and there’s probably some free outdoor meet-ups near you.

The major problem here I see though is that both you and your partner are totally tunnel
vision on making sure your kids don’t have the bad experiences that you both had as kids. At some point you’re going to need to move past that and try to see what works best for your own children and understand that you need to deal with your own past traumas yourselves, not vicariously through your children.

Are your children at nursery even though you’re at home?

My son goes 3 days a week as I usually work 2 nights a week (not at the moment as I am on mat leave) he loves going to nursery.

My partner also insisted on it so he gets socialisation etc as I couldn't stand baby groups and as he wants him to go to school he thinks its good for him to get some time at nursery.

I would happily keep him home with me if I didn't work at all although he does love going!

What’s a sink school?

I think you have to be guided by your children on this.

Some children are introverts and thrive in a home ed environment, some are extroverts and want to be at school. This is doubly difficult if the parent doing the home ed is introverted. The only way I could have kept my daughter happy at home would have been by socialising for several hours every day and that would have been beyond miserable for me.

Yes 100% something I have to consider if I can do. The good thing is although we have to apply for school next year. We will then have another year before he starts so we have 2-3 years to decide if home education is the best thing for us/him.

I'd imagine they see a lot fewer SEN kids / kids that need additional provision (money) spent to accomodate them. Speaking as mum of a very bright SEN kid whose anxiety prevents her from testing well enough to pass 11+

You’d be surprised! Some parents are excellent at getting all sorts of accommodations for their academically gifted but challenged in other ways children. Separate room, visiting the room beforehand so they can check out any potential distractions/ read any posters beforehand. I had a friend who made sure they got everything possible covered. I had no idea these were possibilities before she told me!

The grammars send more to Oxford and Cambridge. I remembered the local comprehension sent 0

kundalini7 · Today 10:16

It's like Grammars in Wirral - they take the 'top' 50% or so and this translates into about 50% of their GCSE results being 9-7. Compare this to the grammar schools in Kingston-upon-Thames or the Latymer School in North London where thousands apply for 100 places each year. Results in these grammars are over 90% 9-7 at GCSE. Where populations are more dense, there is more competition. Grammars vary massively in terms of selectivity and results, depending on where they are.

I actually think the Grammar Schools in places like the Wirral and Lincolnshire (where my sister is a head of 6th Form at a Girls Grammar) have intakes that Grammar schools should have this being more localized in nature and not overtaken by 'Grammar School Tourism'. This, is to suggest grammar schools should not be solely the preserve of the 'super intelligent' from miles but a band around the top 25% of pupils resident in a localized area of say 10-15 miles. The tourism has obviously occurred due to the lack of availability of grammar schools and now worsened by the effect of VAT on Private Schools.

The difference in grammar school cohort depending on areas can be quite distinct, i know this as my two DD are at Essex Grammar schools and my sisters grammar only requires a 4 in Maths/English for Sixth form Entry and 6 grade-5-9's. This as opposed to 52/54 points over 8 subjects required by the Essex Grammar schools. The requirements no doubt being pushed up by out of town 'tourism' which is unfair on local children.

That’s a consequence of Labours attempt to kill off grammar schools, to be further exasperated by Labours latest attempt to kill off independent schools. They’re not big on education choice for children.

Almost as if parents know what's best

Comprehension? Oxford and Cambridge aren’t the be all and end all.

I am so glad I live in a country where children mainly go to their catchment school and we don’t have this nonsense of putting pressure on 11 year olds to pass an exam to get into what is still a state school!

I would say with any selective school, whether state or Independent, it doesn’t have the race to the bottom mentality a lot of state school
kids have. No one wants to wilfully be bottom of the class in a grammar or private school.

But don’t ask their children what they want.

Typo on my part.

At that age surely the parents know what's best for their children's future.

Well I would say that putting them under pressure and getting tutors to get them through an 11+ isn't in their best interests.

They aren’t “academic” if they need all that help.

The 11+ (well, where I live) actually lends itself to children passing it with high grades if, for example, they have high functioning autism. My own children both have extra needs but both also have very high IQs. The type of pattern recognition required in the 11+ very much leads to those children doing exceptionally well, particularly when there is no extended writing attached to the test. Both my children attended the local grammar school and were very happy there. My eldest son, who has autism, had a group of friends who were all also autistic and high-achieving. We moved house to get our children into a grammar school and are very happy with the decision.

For me, as a teacher and 11+ tutor, I would say the draw of the grammar school is certainly the good behaviour of the students and the high expectations both from other parents and teachers. I wouldn’t say that the teaching is necessarily of a higher quality but more that teachers are allowed to actually get on with the job of teaching and not constantly having to deal with poor behaviour and disruption.

Can I ask a question? Not to you particularly.

Why does England still have grammar schools which pit children against each other?

I think it’s archaic.

You clearly don't understand the 11+ exams. Both the verbal reasoning and the non verbal reasoning papers are very different to anything a child will have seen before in primary school. Some of what is in the non verbal reasoning paper (so maths really) isn't covered until the end of Yr 6 which is long after the child has sat the 11+

Both our DDs were on the 'top table' at primary school and DD2 actually got all Level 6s in her Yr6 SATs. But I still got them some tutoring just to familiarise them with the 11+ papers and to ensure they could confidently walk into the exam room.

Furthermore, every single other bright child on their top tables also had some form of tutoring. It's disingenuous to pretend that genuinely academic children won't need any tutoring. In the 11+ speed is everything. They have 30 seconds to answer each question so hardly anytime to try and figure it out or ponder.

It's not enough to simply be bright when you're up against equally bright children, especially if those other bright children have been tutored in technique and shown the tips & tricks required.

While not in any way being an apologist for the current Labour govt, it didn’t take the action that removed grammars. And in fact it was when Thatcher was ed secretary that most became comps.

In addition, speaking as someone brought up in a grammar area, they really didn’t offer children a choice. You sat an exam aged 10, most of you failed, (in my village primary six children out of about 35 passed) and you either commuted to the grammars in town or went to the more local sec mod. Even if that was really the wrong school for you. No choice in evidence. There was a lot more choice and movement possible at my DCs’ comp tbh.

I sat it myself back in the day. We all did. Our teacher put example questions on the blackboard then told us all how to work them out.

For about two weeks before the actual exam.

It was a measure of our respective IQs and, since we were all going to the same secondary anyway, was used to decide what stream we were in.

No one got “tutored”. If you were clever you passed it and were put with pupils who were similar and if you didn’t pass, the same.

But I’ll take your word for me being too stupid to understand a test I sat 😬

@Karma1387There were two things that struck me from your post. The first is that you and your husband seem to have very different views on education - you are very opposed to hothousing (home schooling/ your nephew’s maths /tutoring for 11+) whereas he seems to want the pushy/pressured/high achieving school.
The second thing is that your kids will be fine wherever they end up - having involved parents that value education is a big predictor of success. They are too little to be able to predict what type of secondary school they will thrive in.
In your shoes I would stay put, enrol your child in state primary and see how it pans out. Presumably once they are a bit older you’ll go back to work, and then family finances might stretch to a home in catchment for a decent state secondary. You’ll have a much better idea of whether they are candidates for grammar school - both whether they would pass and whether that environment would suit them. Ending up in a grammar school area but at the ‘secondary modern’ with the bright kids creamed off is the worst of all options.