Why did the gvt get rid of grammar schools?

[jumpingcastles]

I moved to the UK 9 years ago so I don't know much about the education history.

I watched a programme on telly last night on BBC2 called Posh & Posher which left me wondering.

If the grammar schools gave poorer children a chance, why were most of them abolished?

Tutoring makes a nonsense of 'helping bright poor children' though.

Milly was suggesting that well educated parents were able to perform the same function as a tutor. Poor doesn't mean parents that don't or can't help and support their children. Also poor in this context actually means not in top 10% of earnings. Plenty of people can afford a tutor for a year to get their dcs through the 11+, but couldn't afford the 1/2 million to educate them privately.

Grammer schools are a way of enabling bright children from normal (as well as poor) households to acsess professions which are typically the preserve of the most priviledged in society. Those proffesions and society as a whole are surely richer for this. I don't want my doctor,lawyer and MP to come from that superpriviledged group.

I don't think you even need to be particularly well educated to help a child with the 11 plus. It is, after all, an exam for 10 and 11 year olds and most adults can understand it. It doesn't require the level of competence an adult would need to teach a whole class of 10 year olds the national curriculum.

TCNY, the main point of my argument was that the 'bright but poor' bit is a bit of a red herring. Grammar schools are not there to focus on the bright but poor, they are there to focus on the bright but too poor to put 2 kids through even the most minor of independent schools. And that is the overwhelming majority of children in the UK.

Grammar schools should increase their intake of poorer pupils still further away from the poor record of comprehensive school social selection. But even with the record as it stands, the children from poorer homes who go to grammar make more improvement than middle class grammar children do by GCSE level. This is again, entirely opposite to the fate of working class children in comprehensive schools (according to the Sutton Trust). The gap between low income children and others widens in the Comprehensive system.

The only people who want grammar schools are those parents who only think about their off-spring and believe that they will naturally ease into grammar school (because they are sooooooooooooooooooooo more intelligent than all the other children)

I don't think wanting the best for your child means you don't care about anybody else or that you think they're cleverer than everybody else.

There are no grammars around here but I wish there was so that we could at least have a shot at getting into one.

I wasn't particularly making the point to disagree with anyone - but the reality is that as with any system of selection currently developed, the resources will disproportionately go to those who have the resources, (whether that is time, money, inclination, knowledge, determination or a willingness to dissemble) to play the system.

A low/mid income family CAN probably tutor their children through the 11+. Many though lack either the time to do so, the money to pay someone else too, the knowledge that it's necessary or the skills to do so.

I went to a comprehensive, gained a PhD at university and now earn way more than the average worker. The grammar school deemed me not intelligent enough to enter their hallow halls.

The only reason private schools and grammar schools are perceived to do better now is because they are highly selective, most children are from the self-serving, pointy elbow middle class brigade who tutor their children to an inch of their lives.

I use to be one of those tutors. All my children came from grammar or private schools. The parents were convinced that their little geniuses just needed more support. The parents had more money than sense.

And you were happy to take their money off them mariepuree

Oh, and the problem with that in a grammar school system is it means that you don't end up with the brightest kids going to the grammar schools.

TCNY, I think your point has to be central if the Government did bring in more selective schools. The system would have to be brought in very carefully. The quality of non-grammars in grammar areas would have to be very good, and still offer a very academic education for some of the children in the school at GCSE.

I would want the new grammars to be in the most impoverished areas, with extremely narrow catchment areas. Children from wealthier backgrounds then either couldn't go, or would have to move into the area thereby reducing the number of areas of social exclusion.

Of course jonicomelately.

A fool and his money are easily parted.

MillyR - it's a somewhat academic point as that's never going to happen, and I still don't believe that it's possible to create a good enough selection system.

MP, like you, I went to a comprehensive school in a grammar school area and then into HE. To me this shows that the grammar school system does work; children who go to the non-grammar schools still go on to get postgraduate qualifications, which is as it should be.

I also think your idea of who gets into grammar has been skewed by tutoring. You don't meet the many children like my son, because they aren't tutored.

I also think your approach to tutoring is a bit odd. I have friends who had their children tutored, and the tutor will only tutor children who she thinks are very competent to begin with.

TCNY, we can't create a perfect selection system, but the 11 plus seems fairer to me than most other selection systems we have in place - GCSE, A level, university selection.

I suppose it depends on what people think we are measuring. Some people seem to think the 11 plus is a measure of innate ability. It is impossible to measure innate ability, as the makers of the test have stated very clearly.

If every school was up to scratch surely we wouldn't be having this debate?

MillyR, parents hire tutors because they believe their off-spring need help. That is why I did it. If they were competent in the first place, they would not need tutoring.

I am just amazed how these grammar school pupils managed to pass the 11+ in the first place (ahh yes, they were tutored to get in the school in the first place and needed tutoring to stay in there!)

DD is in the minority in her school though.......most were tutored for a year, and there are poor children there, but I would say only about 4 or 5%. There is also a divide between the very rich "horsey girls" as my DD calls them, and the rest of them. I really can't see what can be done to aid this situation apart from the primary schools in poorer areas doing more tutoring for the 11+
We have also recently had a letter requesting that all students who are entitled to free school meals declare it, as it makes a huge difference to funding.
DD's school spend per pupil was around £4800 in the last declared table as opposed to the comp in the poor areas spend per pupil being 0ver £8000

MP, that makes no sense. We go to learn things, either within the classroom, from a tutor, a dance teacher or a drama school because we are competent to learn from the experience and wish to acquire knowledge and skills that we don't already have.

If a child is not competent to learn a particular skill at a particular point in their life, they shouldn't be tutored to attempt it.

Within a grammar school there will be a range of abilities, and some children will have to work harder to keep up. The ability range in grammar schools is narrower; it isn't non-existent.

Because most grammar schools decided ability by age, there is also going to be a difference in ability between some August born children and a September born children. This doesn't happen in comprehensive schools because when they set they do not take into account a pupil's month of birth when setting.

Surprisingly it was Mrs T who closed more grammar schools than any other minister. I believe she put a stop to free school milk as well.
My older cousins went to secondary mods. They certainly didn't have the chance to do latin or even a MFL. They did maths, english, RE, history and geography, and a general science. Lots of time was spent doing needlecratf, cookery, and homecraft for girls, and woodwork, metalwork and gardening for boys. Back then the school leaving age was 15 and many of the older ones in the year left at the Christmas holidays. In this area most started work in the local factories within a week of leaving school.

Lol my DD goes to Mrs T's old grammer school.....

MillyR, I tutored children in Maths, Physics and Chemistry and went to their homes after I finished a full day at work. Parents contacted the agency and agency contacted me.

You are talking about something completely different

I didn't know Grantham was still a grammar area. What do they call the non grammars, because they are not comps but secondary mods don't appear to exist?

Thatcher did indeed stop school milk hence the moniker "Thatcher the Milk Snatcher".