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?

So your child(ren) aren't at 11+ age? How do you know that they'll pass and/or be suited to the Grammar environment? I live in a Grammar school county with some of the best schools which are incredibly selective, especially the better ones. Why don't you just do what so many others do? Rent in the area so you've got a local address and put your kids through the 11+. If they pass great, if they don't then you can either stay as in this area as there are some excellent non-grammar schools or do something else?

If we had good comprehensives (and liked the town we lived in) it probably wouldn't be such a big thing to move!

I would worry that the state schools in a heavily grammar leaning area would be worse than a state first area... if that makes sense!

I can’t help but think of you can’t grasp this simple concept your children may not be grammar school material.

They start with pupils that are gifted and want to be there. Also parents donate monthly by Direct Debit.

Why don't you move somewhere you like with a good mix of schools - so give you options. Your kids might not be a good fit for grammar.
My eldest is super smart, passed the 11+ but didn't feel the grammar was a good fit so is in state... and is doing well.

I would be very careful. I live in a grammar school area. The pressure my DC put on himself was a lot and he missed out by two marks. He felt a failure. Imagine also knowing your family moved and gave up being near extended family and jobs they loved for that! If you do, then don't tell them!

I went to a grammar school. Those who were tutored floundered as soon as the tutoring stopped. Anything less than an A was failure. The school forced children to do less exams so it wouldn't reflect badly on their results.

The teaching was possibly worse than my friends got at their comps. Mostly teachers reading from books and us taking notes. They knew we were bright so they didn't work to make the subjects interesting. It sucked the life out of learning for me. Not all schools are the same so hopefully things have changed.

My school was also full of bullying, anorexia and anxiety.

Despite being ina grammar area, my son is loving his non grammar school. His subjects are streamed so he's with others who want to learn. The teachers work hard to make the subjects exciting and he's flying as top of the class rather than bottom in a grammar.

Things can work out but if you don't yet know if they are academic or not, it's a big risk. Even if they are, they could have a bad day on exam day. It's a lot of pressure.

This does depend how selective the grammar schools are. In my area over 90% of kids still go to the comprehensives as the grammars are super selective and don't actually have a catchment area (or do for only a few places) so people come from miles and push the local kids out.

We’re awaiting to hear if our child has a place at grammar school, he passed the 11+ months ago which allowed him to apply.
We don’t have one locally so it means a bus ride of 45 mins plus to the closest one.
We wouldn’t have gone down this route if my child hadn’t insisted he wanted to try and get in after hearing the head of one talk about the opportunities they have there at an open evening at his primary school where the head teachers came and gave talks as to why people should consider their schools.
His slightly older sibling attends a ‘normal’ secondary school and it’s an amazing school. Poor behaviour is not tolerated and they are in the top ten in the county for student progress, he can cycle there and has local friends.
TBH I’m almost hoping our second one hasn’t got into the grammar, competition was fierce and children had attended tutoring sessions for up to 2 years apparently before taking it.
On the day there were 100’s of children sitting the exam for 165 places, many of them came out crying at the end…
To be in with a chance of getting a place you had to score within the top 1/3 which our son has, however each year there will be children who are ‘of standard’ who won’t get in.
Children that apply themselves and work hard, will in general do well wherever they go.
I wouldn’t move to try and get a child into a grammar school. If you move from a place everyone is happy to a place where you don’t like as much and they don’t get in then you’ve moved for nothing.
There was also a thread on here not long ago about the older child getting in and the next child not getting in, other schools close by to grammar schools can sometimes struggle because all the high achievers head to the grammar, I’d be very carefully looking at all the schools in an area before moving.

In my experience, if both parents are very bright it usually, but obviously not always, translates that the children are more likely to be bright enough for 11+ (SEN not withstanding). Largely because children with two clever parents are more likely to have grown up in a household with rich vocabulary, with parents who foster learning. Clearly, there will be exceptions to this rule, but I’ve found it to be generally solid. I would move if you’re both really bright but, if not, I’d probably wait and see and move later.

They do and this is always a chance but we also don't like the town we live in so both drive our motivation to move.

We don't want to risk staying where we are with an already bad school and risk it getting worse. I also don't want to move them primary if we do then decide to go for a grammar school.

OP, the sweet spot is to move within the catchment of a grammar and of a good comp as a fallback. If your kid gets a grammar place, excellent. If not, join all the left-wing middle-class posers who buy expensive houses around the comp, colonise it, and then boast about their egalitarian principles.

The extra advantage of buying property in a middle-class comp catchment is that your house will go up in value. Double bubble!

OP, given how young your children are, I think you should consider moving to Chelmsford to be near family. You'll have a better family environment, which will set your children up well for their future.

Chelmsford has generally good comprehensive schools (I don't think any of them are dire?) and has both a girls' and boys' grammar school. True, that means these schools are super selective, but the flip side of that is that the other schools in the town will cater to a wider range of academic abilities.

I personally would not choose to live in a grammar area, especially without knowing my children's academic abilities - what if my kids don't pass the 11+?

My own children went to a super selective grammar, but we only applied because it was well within walking distance for us. There were 2 alternative secondaries in our area - 1 had been excellent, one was satisfactory. But within 3 years of us starting secondary school, the satisfactory school had upped its game and become excellent (and over subscribed).

A lot may change in the next 9 / 10 years before your kids reach secondary age, you can't predict or plan for all eventualities so choose on the basis of where you can work and where your family will be most settled and happy.

The 11+ primarily selects those who are good at the 11+. ie good at that style of test and at that age. The data indicates little direct correlation between 11+ score and GCSE results, counter-intuitive though this may seem, because GCSEs and A levels are completely different types of exam.

Less than 2% of children achieve top results throughout their school career, so those at super-selectives will mostly do very well, but the grammar schools which take 25-30% of a cohort such as those in Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire, will have a lot of DCs who will be much nearer average attainment.

Grammar schools select both overtly and covertly. They get more academically high achieving children, obviously. But they also get a higher number of privileged children with aware, switched on, often better educated parents from the available cohort. Hardly surprising they achieve better results. However, if you compare a selective LEA with a nonselective one with a similar socio-economic population there is no difference in academic outcomes. .

I haven't read all posts so sorry if what I say is a repeat! I've only read your updates.

Ultimately it depends. We live near a comprehensive (where my kids will ultimately be going) but it's very good because they stream kids usually based on their SAT results, so the "able" kids are in the top sets, and the kids who perhaps might be more disruptive or find things more challenging are in smaller groups so it works well for all the children. There are some problems (I've heard there's bullying, not great SEND provision etc) but you get that at the local private school with bells on too!

You need to look at the area the grammars are in that you're going for. We considered moving for 11+ entry when I was pregnant with my eldest (not a huge upheaval as we were moving anyway! But it was a consideration) but we found the areas the grammars were in were actually very unsafe and had a LOT of very big issues that they hid to protect the school - things like drug dealers hanging around the school gates, very high drop out rates from the pressure applied to the students, lots of racism within the school etc. It was only by going and speaking to other parents who lived in this area or had kids who'd since left the school that we found out about this. Results at GCSE aren't everything.

As you say, 10 years is a long time in schools. All you need is a change of headteacher and within a year, a school can go from fantastic to absolutely terrible and vice versa. Our local comp had a terrible reputation 10 years ago, and then they changed head teacher and most of the SLT and it is now night and day with about 10% of students going to oxbridge last year alone.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have a tutor for their children these days, especially at senior school, whether they're at a grammar school, an expensive private school or a comprehensive. We will be going with comprehensive school with top up tutoring for the above reasons.

My 2p

1. If you have to pass a test to get into the school, then the school population will be heavily skewed towards pupils who are good at passing tests.
2. If you are a "borderline" case, you will either have a stressful time keeping up at a grammar (and the constant threat of being shown the door) or you will end up at the secondary modern which will skew heavily towards the unacademic/uninterested side of the population. You may even find that luxury subjects like MFL or higher paper maths/science are unavailable as resources are heavily focussed on getting the mass of students to get the basic pass in maths and english.
3. There will be bullying and unpleasant behaviour at both schools. But in the grammar, the bullying is more likely to be psychological warfare than physical. And a punch up is much much easier to idenitify and deal with than the relentless but underhand and under-the-radar unpleasantness of a more canny operator.
4. Grammars often have expensive uniforms and pricey buses with a longer journey. You may find it economically more rational to save the eleven plus tutoring, uniforms and travel costs and use this to fill the gaps left by a regular school - top up tutoring in weaker subjects or cultural/work-related opportunities.

You really can have no idea of your DC's academic capabilities at this stage, so it's a massive risk to make such a move now.

Oh and Lincolnshire grammars aren’t super selective, so not as difficult to get in as it is in some counties. Generally, if you’re in catchment, you just need a pass. Outside catchment, it’s remaining places go to highest scorers.

I do agree to an extent. But I had to move primary schools and it affected me massively. I don't want to do that to my kids.

Thinking I may have to convince DP to let me homeschool!

Just interested but why home schooling? I think it's yhe worst kind of education and also very isolating for the child . Do you have 11+ in your prefered area that there are Grammer schools .

If you move, then make sure the non grammars are also good.

However I'm sure there are vast swathes of the country with a bunch of 'good' comprehensives (and no grammars) so you could do research and move to one of those areas?

I think you need to prove your assertion that grammar schools are 'so much better'. Better in terms of what? They will of course get better results, but don't forget things such as all round education, and student mental health (both in the preparation to take the 11+ and ongoing through the school).

And if your children are only nursery age now, any one school can go up or down quite a lot in 8 years.

Are you really asking this question? Students have to sit an entrance exam to get into a Grammar School, then they take the top students. There is no catchment area for those students. Parents tend to be wealthier and more engaged in ensuring their child gets into a Grammar School, by paying for tuition. Meanwhile comprehensives are all inclusive and have to take a wide range of pupils, including much less able students, those with learning difficulties and those who have been excluded from other schools. But it doesn’t mean bright children cannot get straight 9s at a Comprehensive, there will just be far fewer.

Not sure how flexible you are in terms of where you can move to but I think you're right to be concerned and do some research into other local schools if they don't get in to the grammar. We're in a non-grammar county on the border of a grammar county. DC got into grammar school in neighbouring county and was very happy there, but if they hadn't (either by failing 11+ or due to distance) would have definitely got a place at a very good, close by comp.

I definitely wouldn’t want to live in Bourne but I guess it depends where you live now. It’s a small town with not great facilities not near anywhere lovely (sorry to anyone in Bourne but reasonable I think).

Grantham at least is a decent size town and not too far from big cities for a culture fix.

Also iirc there are more non grammar options there, as in, it’s not 11plys or sec mod. I’m not an expert tho as I am from further east in Lincs.

What do you do? Can you easily move jobs? Do you live in a rural area now?

You’re projecting here. Lots of kids move school with only short-term upheaval.
The fact you had a hard time doesn’t mean they will if it’s handled properly.

Wait until you know what your kids needs are before making a hasty decision then having to revisit it a few years down the line anyway.