Grammar Schools and Private Schools

[peapodlovescuddles]

I genuinely don't know what to think here so would be interested to see what other mumsnetters have to say

Today while my son was swimming I overheard another mother moaning. Her DD has just found out she hasn't got a place at our fantastic local grammar school.
She was saying it wasn't fair people like peapod sent their children to grammar school when we could easily afford private school fees, my DCs went to a good prep school and then onto the grammar because I wanted them to meet a wide range of people from many walks of life. I didn't feel this would be accomplished at the local public school and I don't want my children to board.

So should I have sent my children to the private school so someone less well off could have had their place? Or is ANYONE entitled to a state education?

Mine didn't settle after three and a half years! My son's personality completely changed when he started school- he went to school a confident, chatty, bright little chap, and in the last 10 years has become more and more passive, resistant and unwilling to speak. I am hoping he "finds" himself again in 6th form or after school, and that this is not him for ever. In retrospect I wish I'd taken him out of school at 7, when it was clear he wasn't thriving socially. Academically he is doing OK, but no more, and certainly not where he should be for his intelligence.

What about the children who arent bright. Granmmer schools discriminate against them they dont accept average or poor pupils. Good education for all.

Oh yes i know im talking pie in the sky. And true i wouldnt like to be the first to send my child to a failing school on the basis or an experiment.

But isnt this a bit like the MMR scare. Started by the middle classes and the homeopathic organic saps out there who believe they know better based on no sound evidence.

Again i say if you child is clever they will do well.

But i am only this brave on the internet.

Sadly, Claygate, that is not the case.

What if your child is kind loving and an asset to a grammer school but not bright.

What if my gifted child is horrid.

What if my middle class child is not bright and is disruptive.

I havent read it in full but are the bright poor failing because of the education system or because of other social factors, parental influence, home life and social life. Possibly they are failing because as soon as a school gets populated by estate children the middle classes avoid it like the plague and it goes down the drain. You walk on by...not you literally, for fear of being dragged down as well....no good samaritans in the middle classes.

It is very difficult and emotive and easy to take one side or the other. Its a very complex problem. I just wonder whether like the failing banks as everyone takes their money out it drags the bank under.

My present primary school is a lovely school but it could easily be said that lovely parents have less bright children who disrupt other children and that they teach to the lowest level. I would like to see smaller classes and more teachers to support all abilities within one non-selective, non gifted environment.

But to be honest im a hypocrite if i had the money i would select a private school, because i wouldnt care about nurturing close community ties or local friends, id be skiing in winter, at my villa in summer and mixing with my own kind. Eventually id avoid all contact with anyone who might put my lifestyle at risk and id complain about the amount of tax i have to pay and the unfairness of inheritance tax.

But im not rich, i have to do the best i can for me and my family. I just wish that the poor kids who come to school without a coat in winter, with teeth rotten through lack of care, who dont have books bought for them at home had a chance of some happiness in a wonderful kind nurturing school environment.

Plenty of children in even sink schools from very awful homes find in school what they dont' get at home however much paint there is off the walls etc.

The grammar schools used to take some very clever poor children and give them a better start - look at senior people in business, MPs, at the BBC etc many many from poor homes got there by the grammar school route. That route has gone as has the assisted place scheme but that scheme tended to help the rich who lied about their self employed income.

You could meet 'people from all walks of life' at a comprehensive? I used to work in a real tough London one and the most of the few middle class kids there did very well. We had Oxbridge entrants and plenty of music, drama and art and so on. Unfortunately, there was a lot of gangs and ghettoisation but when we saw the classes mix it was great.

The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of kids from good homes with caring parents will do well anyway. So called 'sink' school's often work their socks off for students but simply don't get the results that selective schools get because most of their intake don't start of with the same advantages.

My personal view would be that I'd like to see all schools with the same percentage of advantaged/disadvantaged kids. I know that that's an ideal and isn't going to happen but if it did, people would see that it isn't bad schools so much as disadvantaged children. I now work in a comfortable area and do about half the work I used to in London and I get groups with A*s, whereas a C used to be the cause of great celebration sometimes.

Do I think that the parent who could send her child to an independent should? Well I think that independent schools shouldn't exist at all and we should all be equal. That's clearly not going to happen (but I can hope, where's me red flag?)But the bit I want to respond to was the idea that you can't meet a good range of people at a state school and the notion of 'failing' and 'sink' schools. Who calls them that? The Daily Mail?

Nice sentiment Eilatan. I commend your feelings.

Oh and... IMO as a teacher and a parent, aside from a more equal society. The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT WOULD IMPROVE EDUCATION would be CLASS SIZES. That's where the posh schools have the advantage. Unions have be saying this for years. I'd strike to see class sizes lessened before any other issue in education.

And Claygate is spot on!

Cheers!

I mean Claygate is spot on for her views about education not for being nice about me!!!

Oh dear...Stella time!

A practically irrelevant comment now that the french moment has passed,but I am a primary school teacher in France,and have taught in the private sector for ten years,both in Paris, and now in the south. As a result,we put our children in the local state school, which never fails to delight us with its wonderful teaching,fantastic resources and a real community spirit.Our school is not unusual. There is also a local private school where kids go when the state school is full.

Oooh! pinkhouses - which schools have you taught at in Paris? [nosey]

claygate, I agree with your sentiment having taught in sink schools in the past. I have seen the high fliers get their results etc..

However, I've seen said high fliers spend 5 years being teased for being bright and I've seen potential high fliers get distracted by having a standard to live down to - not up to IYSWIM.

When it comes to my kids I want them to learn in an environment where effort and aspiration is the norm, where there's something to live up to and at our state grammar they have that.

I have never in 47 years lived in an area with grammar schools. Obviously there are better comprehensives than others. My nearest school gets 20% A - C at GCSE and the one nearest to that about 50% A- C (and 36% including a foreign language). The private schools are much better (80% A at GCSE and 97% A - A never mind cs at my daughter's old school). There is just no comparison but I suspect London is different from elsewhere.

We will never have everyone equal until we clone them all so they look the same, have the same personality, same looks, same weight, same IQ level, same genes in terms of poetntial illness and same home conditions.

i think you are very unlucky then xenia

many comprehensives fare far far better than that

I thought grammars had recently surpassed privates for results?

yes grammars did better than privates in terms of overall exam results this year.

That's not comparing like for like though is it? Many many independent schools are either not academically selective or only broadly academically selective unlike Grammars. The most academically selective private schools (eg Westminster, St Paul's, North London Collegiate and so on) out perform the grammars.

Lowenergylightbulb - I agree with what you said about how high-fliers can find themselves 'living down' to standards rather than living up to them, and I have my children in private school, with small class sizes, for that very reason, though, as bright as they are, I don't think any of them (well, maybe one) would qualify as a high-flier.

Having said that, my reasons for wanting to abolish state grammar schools is that surely ALL of our children, whether very bright or not, should have the right to be educated in 'an environment where effort and aspiration are the norm'? Why should only the cleverest children deserve that? I understand all the reasons why a grammar school, in all probability, would suffer less from disruption, poor attention, poor discipline, and peer pressure to under-perform or truant, etc, but I still don't think it's fair to cherry pick students who have greater academic potential to benefit from an all-round better quality learning environment when they already have the upper hand by virtue of being clever! Of course the answer is that those children pay a huge part in creating the environment, it isn't just down to having great teachers (though they do), any more than a 'bad' school is the fault of 'bad' teachers. I hate that assumption. I think most teachers in 'failiing' schools do fanastic, utterly thankless, heroic work in the face of enormous challenges and ridiculous class sizes because of the quality of the 'raw materials' i.e. the pupils they are expected to obtain results from.

Nothing can be done (at this level at least) to change the fact that there are so many children suffering from a poor attitude and abysmal attainment, but why is it that average ability children who want to learn, and want to behave, and aspire to do better, have to put up with the disruption, and the peer pressure to dumb down, whilst your very clever child does not? If your answer is that this can be dealt with in comprehensives by streaming, and by channelling children with educational or behavioural 'issues' into a more appropriate practical and vocational syllabus, and away from those who want to achieve in academia I agree. But I don't see why it should exclude the very brightest. After all, it IS a state education, so surely everyone should be treated equally.

Pinkhouses - thanks for that comment, that backs up what i was told by my friend living in France. It just shows that state education can work if everyone is prepared to back it, and that includes paying more tax to get a decent standard of state education for all kids. We don't have that attitude in the UK.

Lowenegy - I agree with your comment on high flyers in comps suffering for achieving good results. That was my own experience of attending an average comprehensive in rural Lancashire. Not a tough inner city sink school by any means, but I never dared to share my exam results with other classmates as i was accused of being "stuck up and showing off". I was regularly threatened with actual physical violence by those in lower sets for getting good results, as were others in my class. Luckily the support I got at home helped me stick it out and get a good education, but I wonder how much more I would have been able to achieve if I had been learning in an atmosphere of support for achievement.

As a result i have sent my DCs to local excellent private schools.

Lynette,sorry I have only seen your question. I was in Neuilly.

But Xenia....your daughters old school was no doubt selective in the first place. You really can't compare results form a selective school with those form a comprehensive where there will be children with all sorts of home background and learning difficulties.

Thanks pinkhouses - I was initially suprised you chose the state system, but a friend who lives in France also did, after trying an international school and a private French school.