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?

Do you not have family or friends IRL with children OP?

Do you realise what a gift “strangers” can be- the old lady happy to natter to your 3YO on the bus can be an angel in disguise. Delivery drivers, shop workers, waiting staff, neighbours, medical staff, the dentist, the more people your child is able to converse with the better. There is not a kidnapper or peadophile around every corner and all of these interactions can be learnt in public anyway.

Honestly, and kindly, you need to take a big step back and talk to people in real life, reduce use of or access to anything that is fuelling your anxieties (the news? Social media?) and look after yourself.

That doesn't sound quite as bad but is there really no approved pick up list or passwords like at nursery?

What if a grandparent who the parents didn't want them to pick up came to get the child and the child was happy to go with them? I'm guessing their are policies and procedures to cover this? How do teachers deal with situations like someone commented above of a friends parent taking their child home too but what if the parent didn't actually agree to it?

My friend is bringing up her kids in Switzerland.

Where...

Brace yourself...

The 5 year olds walk to school by themselves!

Actually I did too, in the UK, in the 70s (aged 4).

You will probably find in those cases what’s actually happening is 7 year old sees their adult, tells teacher ( usually while pointing), teacher checks and says they can go. That’s how DD’s school does it, I know as sometimes her teacher doesn’t spot me until I wave if I’m not in my normal place or have my hood up. Year 5 and 6 can just go if they have a parents permission.

Regarding pick-up arrangements, I’d assume it varies from school to school, but at my DD’s school Years 1-4 line up in the playground and the class teacher lets them out of the line when they see whoever is responsible for collecting them. However by year 3 & 4 it’s more relaxed and the teachers rely on the kids pointing out their parent rather than it being the teacher’s job to do this. In Year 5 and 6 the children leave the school and find their parent themselves, or walk home on their own.

OP, having been on your other recent thread where you discussed your severe anxiety and your extremely limited social interaction, I think you have a very skewed view of what is considered normal when socialising with others. It is perfectly normal for another parent at school who recognises your child to to say hello to them in the playground, or to speak to them at a school event - stay and play sessions, assemblies, sports days. Likewise, it’s perfectly normal for children to be asked to speak to visitors at school, such as parents taking a tour. The fact that you think this is strange is a concern, especially as safety and safeguarding in schools now is taken more seriously than it was in the past. Depending on your age, things are likely to be quite different than when you were at primary school.

You acknowledged on the other thread that your life is very limited by your anxiety, and as a result your DS’s life is likely to be limited by it too. I think that homeschooling would narrow you and your children’s’ world even more, and I suspect that this is part of your DH’s reason for being so against it.

I didn’t see this reply when I just posted. Personally i resent the inference that most of us on here with a different viewpoint to your own don’t want to keep our children safe. Of course that’s what we want. However the responsibility of a parent is not just “keep them safe”. It’s to prepare them for the world, to help them become well rounded young people ready to go out into the world and grab the opportunities it offers, while being able to take care of themselves and contributing to society too.

Those things are equally as crucial if they are to thrive and not all will happen if you never take your eyes off your child. They might be safe but what life is that for them really?

You need a lot more mental health support in my view.

Okay, well maybe more targeted counselling could be of benefit because you are not being rational about this.

There are many different ways to keep your child 'safe.' One of them is not exposing them to their mother's irrational anxieties. Another, is not teaching them that the world is a terrifying place, fraught with ever present danger.

I have worked as a TA and as a tutor for home schooled children who needed help with preparing for their GCSEs and I genuinely believe you are the very last person who should home school. And I completely understand why your DP is so averse to the idea of you home schooling.

No, you have a lot of mental adjustments to make to survive your children’s progress through the school system and life.

If there are particular safeguarding concerns for a child, eg birth family or an abusive parent then yes, there will be additional measures around collecting.

In some situations the child will have a code word for people who collect them- eg I picked my friend’s son up from afterschool club because she couldn’t get there and I had to know his Coe word. She’d also told them I was coming.

In a primary i worked in, children had to wait until they saw their parent and then the teacher let them out; that was true at my daughter’s school too, I think up to year 5. At year 5 and 6 they had more freedom to come out and find their adult.

At primary open days the student guides are usually the older ones, but they usually know the younger ones and quite often will speak to them as they go around. The young ones don’t generally chat to parents as the tours are quite short, but you see how the children interact with each other and with the adults within the school and visiting adults. It’s valuable to get a feel of how the school operates and feels day to day.

I would really urge you to go to several primary open days and see. These questions can easily be answered and you can compare different places and start to realise what would be acceptable and what unacceptable for you. And what’s normal custom and practice and what’s unusual. Unless you’re in your very early twenties it may not be the same as when you were at school, an seeing it through a parent’s eyes is enlightening anyway.

Its not about that but these comments have created a lot of questions for us to ask schools to ensure they are the right fit and safe.

I can't force my partner to let me homeschool my kids. He earns the money and could easily say he doesn't want to be the only one in a career so I wont manipulate him into getting what I want. However I can make sure he is fully informed of what policies etc are in place at schools so we make the best decision for our kids.

I never imagined I would have to ask a school what their start or end of day looks like with regards to dropping off and collecting. Now we know its something we need to ask about and if all schools are allowing a more open dismissal as early as 7 it means we need to have plans in place to make sure I can be there early. For example we couldn't have a nursery pick up at 3pm if school pick up was at 3.10pm and they were released into the playground incase I was running late as that would make me feel awful. So its more about having the information so we can have a plan and logistics and make sure I feel the kids are safe.

Most schools will have policies on the above. I know someone who did have to stop a grandparent ( her mum) picking up their child as she was in the early stages of dementia and it just wasn’t safe. They told the school and school made sure child wasn’t dismissed to grandma, rightly so but it was very sad all round. I do tell DD’s school when someone who doesn’t usually pick up is going to, but school’s don’t generally have a password as by that age children will recognise who is picking them up, and if someone turns up pretending to be their Aunt Jane or grandma or whoever they’ll be pretty vocal that they’re not.

I have brothers with kids. My brothers are very different from me! We have very different views on things and no I don't have friends.

That doesn't sound quite as bad but is there really no approved pick up list or passwords like at nursery?

Absolutely not! There doesn’t need to be.
In KS2 children are old enough to know who should be picking them up. If that changes last min then parents will phone the school but there aren’t approved lists or passwords as there doesn’t need to be.

What if a grandparent who the parents didn't want them to pick up came to get the child and the child was happy to go with them? I'm guessing there are policies and procedures to cover this?
In these circumstances a parent will let the school know that they shouldn’t be allowed to go home with a particular person. That would be treated as a safeguarding issue.

How do teachers deal with situations like someone commented above of a friends parent taking their child home too but what if the parent didn't actually agree to it?

That was me. My child always knew if they were being picked up by another parent. On all other occasions if I wasn’t there then they’d tell their teacher. In years 3&4 they are checking the children have spotted their adult before leaving. A parent isn’t just walking into the playground and kidnapping an another child.

Schools vary although I suspect the UK is at the cautious end of developed countries. I've been teaching 15 years and in that time have taught several pupils where a parent has been the subject of a restraining order. It comes up on the database in bold and obviously staff who teach that child would be made aware and probably all staff if it's a recent thing.

Independent schools may be more security conscious than state ones ime because parents have higher expectations of that kind of thing and also sometimes with the posher ones DC could actually be at risk. I mean I taught at one with particular credible risk factors.

But a village or local primary - everyone knows everyone!

So they would only allow them to go if it was a parent getting them? If it was a grandparent or friend they would require parental permission and possibly a passphrase like at nursery?

If you're picking up someone else's child generally you'd show a WhatsApp from the parent or they'd email school. At least that would have sufficed at my DC's moderately paranoid independent primary.

I am 28 so its been a fair while since I was at school.

The thread has become very enlightening since it deviated from the initial point of grammar schools.

Lots to think about but at least some useful things to ask when we start attending open days.

This has to be one of the most bonkers threads I've read. You are planning to uproot your family to somewhere you don't know or particularly like where the job prospects are low but houses are cheap and there are grammar schools. You have no idea if your child would even suit grammar school because they are 2 and unborn. And you also hate the education system because of the pressures it puts on kids. I mean, if you want to put pressure on a kid, then getting into grammar school is the one! And then add to that the additional pressure that your family have based their entire life around getting you into that school 😱

You don't seem to be on the same page as your partner at all. And then you casually mention you've already planned not to return to work while the children are school age, but haven't discussed this with your them at all. A lot of suggestions won't work for you because they involve additional expense, which would mean you have to go back to work. So while you are positioning everything as 'doing what's best for our children' there is the caveat 'so long as I don't have to work'. Ditto the homeschooling really. Its hard to see to what extent desire to homeschool is driven by desire not to work.

Honestly, the most likely outcome from all of this seems that you will end up disappointed (because it's impossible to make decisions now for events 10 years away), that it will all a cause tensions in your relationship (because you don't seem to agree on much), and you are going to pass on all your stresses and anxieties on to your children. Your latest outrage that children might speak to an adult in school seem insanely over the top. And it seems clear from your responses that you plan to use this information to try and persuade your husband of the evils of school. But it really is sounding like the best thing for your children would be letting them go to school.

Unlikely in KS2 as the child will be to tell them
that grandma is picking them up.

I'm sorry I didn't mean those with different views dont care about safety. More everyone has different views on what is OTT with regards to safety and what is normal. I am really sorry if I offended anyone!

@Karma1387
Back in one of your first posts you stated that you hated where you live.
Why don't you use the Mumsnet hive mind to help you find an area / town that might meet your needs.
Do you have an area that you need to be able to get to for your DPs job or you want to be close to family?
Or are you completely flexible on location?
What's your approximate house budget?
How many bedrooms do you need?

What I would say is if you want to move once rather twice, I would think more about the secondary/ grammar school than the primary school in terms of location

What if parents don't want grandma or auntie or whoever picking them up? Surely there is policy in place for this? If parents for example say only mum is allowed to pick up I assume school would follow this and ensure it is followed?

Aw @LeastOfMyWorries you just reminded me of a lovely stranger we met once. We were on holiday in Canada and had been waiting ages at a hot bus stop (there was some confusing issue with re-routing). DD was 5 and getting more and more discombobulated. This grandad age guy started to entertain her. He was really good at it! When the bus came he confessed he'd been a children's TV presenter back in the day!

Yes there would be. It is not uncommon to have issues if e.g. parents are acrimoniously separated or families are estranged.

An example of a lovely interaction you would never have had if you didn’t let your children talk to strangers. I hope the OP actually gets a reality check from this thread and comes back to read it in future when she has a healthier mindset.

I vote all bus stops have a children’s entertainer in situ!!