'new' grammar schools in kent...

[oliverreed]

well, not technically. The local authority have been given the go-ahead for two (I think) annexe grammar schools in Sevenoaks. Gove is surely rubbing his hands with glee. I agree with the decision as pressure on places in this area is causing a lot of heartache for many families whose children are travelling a long way, but is it paving the way for the creation of new grammar schools.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts?

But how is having everyone in together better? If a school is under performing it is the fault of the school, not that the top 23% aren't there. Believe me, many of those in my year at a grammar school were bright but messers, and having us in a secondary wouldn't have done the secondary any favours!

I actually think Kent needs less not more grammar places. Perhaps if less children were creamed off the non-grammar schools would be more comprehensive and suit everyone's needs better.

I agree with the grammar system (mainly because I benefited from one and would have hated it in the comp I would have gone to...yes comp, different borough but I was totally alienated from all of my peers in middle school, it was horrible and going to my high school was a lifesaver to me) but also agree that comps are a good system and atm think both DCs will go to one. Here we have superselectives with no catchment so the actual percentage of local children that go to grammar is very low and we have 4 or 5 very good, oversubscribed comps, a few middling comps and then 2 or 3 not very good ones. The good comps are near all the MC homes, the bad ones near the council estate. At least with grammar the bright kids have a chance of accessing it if they can get some practise at home, school or from a tutor. Yes the system is flawed and having money improves your chances but it improves chances in a comp system too. In our system MC parents stay in the state schools, they don't go private unless they commute to the next town (there are no boys or mixed private senior schools in our borough, two small girls independent schools but there are less girls grammar places).

It is not about getting a "better" education in a grammar so much as education in an atmosphere more tailored to a very bright, cerebral child. Not all bright children will benefit from it. I think of it as being like a musical child going to a music school.

I like the idea of two schools being linked although not sure how it would work in reality. Would children swap if they were top or bottom in everything and only if there was a place from a child coming the other way?

If I lived in Kent I think I would probably move.

I could, I suppose, just about stomach it if the top 5% academically went to a different school- the genuinely academically gifted. But 23%?

And the point is not really that the top 23% is going to scatter the light of its presence on the clodhopping 77% and somehow enrich their lives, it's that in a comprehensive school, the 77% has access to the Elysian Fields, and has not been told that it's only fit for metal work at the age of 10.

As someone mentioned below, some of the sweeping generalisations on here are astounding. Not all grammars are good, not all comps are either.

The idea that at 'all' comprehensive schools the weakest 'flounder' and the brightest don't do as well as they would at a grammar is simply ludicrous. If that were the case then there would be no comprehensive graduates at Oxbridge, Russell Group unis, or in successful high achieving careers. This is clearly not the case.

I am in absolute agreement with Seeker et al, that the major major problem with grammars is that children are written off academically aged 10. It takes no account of the different speeds in which children develop/learn, or indeed what's going on in their lives at the time of the exams.

I would like to bet that there are some comps (in truly comprehensive areas - i.e. no grammars) that perform better than some of the grammars in other areas.

All I'm saying is lets try to be even handed here. It's the biggest truism in the world that some kids will get better exam results from a selective schooling. Some others will flourish in a more mixed environment with a different style of teaching (not worse, just different) and their learning will be enhanced by these experiences (and I'm talking about the bright kids here just so we're clear).

I am very tired of being told that my education was sub-standard because I didn't go to grammar school and that comprehensive school teachers do nothing except 'crowd control'. It's just not true. It's not. I did very very well at school thank you very much and I don't think that by reintroducing a grammar system in my home town, I would have done any better.

Incidentally all I can see that my DH learnt at his grammar school that I didn't was how to do something called 'pole axing' which involved a boy's head and a tree trunk. Not sure I missed much there ... and my exam results are better than his.

Oh and incidentally a grammar education doesn't automatically mean smaller class sizes. A friend of mine has a child at a Kent grammar where their a-level classes are about to go up to 30.

That's sort of what I mean seeker. I think 23% is already too many, will it be 25% now do you reckon or will an increase in population balance it out?

I agree that being on the 77th centile in a secondary modern school must be very tough, I wouldn't like to be put through it. I really think though that being on the 95th centile in a "all the rest" school is a lot better....and essentially comprehensive...providing you can afford a minimum of about £350k for a 3 bed semi near a good one natch

However I do think that for really fast witted, cerebral children even a comp will be a misery. At our grammar even the mischief was well thought out. In our area there isn't the option of private scholarships for boys if that environment would suit them more.

Still disagree. The 77% can still have plenty of chances if the school they are in is doing its job properly, removing 23% should have no impact. Many of the secondary schools in NI now offer a-levels and course for those 16 plus and it has been very successful, in particular the single sex secondaries.

Limelight of course it isn't the case that only children at a grammar will do well. It is just the fact that the environment and atmosphere is different. I wouldn't even call it an ethos, it is just naturally different to a comprehensive due to the intake. Same as a sports college or music school.

The chance of a child getting good education and exams isn't lost in the absence of a grammar, it is just an environment more suited to some academic children. I don't think it's a better education, just a tailored one. All schools are different and suit different DCs in different ways.

I do agree that some people misjudge this though and really want a grammar education for their DCs for the cache when it probably wouldn't suit them.

I live in the area affected by this and I like the grammar schools and not because my dc go to one - they don't.

The choices here are 3 girls grammar schools, 3 boys grammars 2 high schools 2 academies and 3 comprehensives 2 of which are church schools. All but one of these schools are ridiculously oversubscribed.

Despite what many people seem to think, good non grammars in a selective areas do exist. The girls high school has excellent results and I'm pretty sure has had oxbridge success in the past. The church comprehensives (the C of E in particular) always feature in the Times league tables. I have never heard of a single case where a child who isn't at a grammar has been dubbed a failure. Each of the schools has its own distinctive character. You opt for selection and if you don't opt for it, its not a sentence at all. Almost all the schools send a good cohort to RG unis. (Not that I think that is necessarily a measure of how good a school is, but you get the drift)

The new grammar is not going to be a super selective, it will be a 4 form entry with 2 forms for girls and 2 for boys and will select by distance ensuring that local kids passing the 11+ get to go to local schools.

Get quite narked when people who don't know the local situation or the local schools make sweeping statements about non grammar kids being failures. That is a remnant of the 1960s not the 21st century. Times move on and things improve.

The system here is no different to streaming which happens in every secondary school in the country - only here different streams are sometimes but not always on different sites.

I imagine the situation is that the new grammar anexe will cream the bright kids off the other schools.

"The system here is no different to streaming which happens in every secondary school in the country - only here different streams are sometimes but not always on different sites."

Its completely different. The over coached private school kids cannot be tranferred to a lower ablity stream easily because it means changing schools. The bright EAL child who failed the eleven plus because she could not read English is stuck in the secondary modern. Friendship groups from primary are broken up. In a normal comp children can and do change sets and they can see their friends at playtime.

I feel that it should be put to the vote of all parents in sevenoaks whether this grammar school anexe is allowed. Especially as many parents may have moved to Sevenoaks to get away from the grammar system.

People don't move to Sevenoaks to get away from the grammar system. Kent is IN the grammar system. Sevenoaks just doesn't have one at the moment, so children from around here either have to travel stupid distances or go to secondary moderns/academies.

The grammar annexe will not therefore cream off bright kids from other schools in the area. It will take the pressure off places like Dartford, Wilmington, Tonbridge and TW grammars.

@jalapeno Being the 95th centile in a comp was pretty cruddy actually.

"Still disagree. The 77% can still have plenty of chances if the school they are in is doing its job properly, removing 23% should have no impact. Many of the secondary schools in NI now offer a-levels and course for those 16 plus and it has been very successful, in particular the single sex secondaries."

I'm not sure what you're saying. Of course there are good high schools in grammar areas. Did anyone say there weren't? But they are schools without the top set. How can that not have an impact? And how canoeing labelled a failure at 10 not have an impact? I see you haven't addressed that point. What people usually say is that it's not a matter of passing or failing it's just about finding the right school. This is usally said, in my experience, by people who either have no children, or whose children have passed the 11+ or by politicians who are so removed from the state system that they have no idea what they are talking about!

"The system here is no different to streaming which happens in every secondary school in the country - only here different streams are sometimes but not always on different sites."

It is wholly different. There is no opportunity for the lower steams to move into the higher streams. You are permanently streamed at 10.

I live in Kent, and although ideologically I would like comprehensives that were good for all children, I had a pretty crappy education at a very big standard comp, and my ds's are at/ going to grammar schools. I wish they were mixed sex, but the only nominal mixed comp near here has lost all the most able children to the superselectives, and therefore is in fact a secondary modern.
I imagine there will be problems in opening a grammar annexe however, not least that it will require both a boys and girls grammar to come on board, and if it is not superselecive, may still lose out to the "kudos" of having a child at a super. ( and this is a total generalisation, but 7oaks parents are likely to have chdn headed for supers over " ordinary" grammars.

Well, I'm in Sevenoaks, DS is still pre school, but when he's at secondary age the choice wasn't "Comp or Grammer", until this week it was "Music academy, long bus/train journey to Grammer or finding the money for Sevenoaks school". (£30k a year)

We're in Sevenoaks, we can't afford private, so we're going to put DS in for the 11+, if he passes, it'd be nice if he can go to a school in his town rather than join the other DCs who are already getting on the bus at 7:30am.

I much prefer selection by intellegence over selection by parental income, which is what is happening in Sevenoaks right now.

"I much prefer selection by intellegence over selection by parental income, which is what is happening in Sevenoaks right now".

I couldn't agree with this statement more! Where we live there are no grammar schools and the above is exactly what happens. The wealthiest children are shipped to super selective indies miles away, some move to super expensive areas for cathment in fantastic comps, and the ones left behind get stuck in the sink comp, which fails all the children. Nice system...

Can somebody tell me about these "sink comps" that fail all the children that I hear about?

Well seeker all you have to do is do a search on league tables and look at comps that get less than 30% A-C GCSEs - generally you'll find that in these comps (I know two very very well).

If this isn't enough also look at how many very few chidren they send to university, how many have orchestras/art/sports and how many don't do separate sciences.

Not to talk about knife crime, drugs and other severe social problems which you will find plenty of.

Sadly I know these schools very well both personally and from people who teach there, I don't think it is that hard to believe that there are schools like that, surely?

Oh I have just checked the one I had in mind, it actually has 15% A-C GCSEs!!!

Interesting to look at such a school in context.

Drugs are q problem in all schools- even in the private sector. Knife crime, unless it is very under reported in the media appears be rare outside the pages of the Daily Mail.

30% A-C at GCSE needs looking qt in context - what else are the kids doing?

Art and orchestras I give you. Many schools do appear to be cultural vacuums.

Lydia - This isn't my experience around here at all.

I suppose that the good thing about grammar areas is that it pushes the house prices up so hardly anyone can afford private school fees

It has certainly worked here. I've just looked at our league tables and we have an independent religious school with 12 pupils last year taking GCSEs and a girls private which underperforms the girls grammars (and a couple of the comps) by some margin. I've just realised the other girls private nearby is just inside the next borough.

I would prefer it this way too, the private system is more divisive imo.

Oh, and drugs can be a proper nuisance in very rich areas too...

'On average, 2% of grammar school children are on eligible for free school meals. About 17% of children in the wider school population are.'

Not altogether surprising. Even allowing for the artificial middle-class coaching inflation aspect (which I agree distorts the profiles of grammar school intakes and badly needs addressing), children with higher IQs are likely to have parents with higher IQs, IQ being largely inherited. Parents with high IQs are more likely to be prosperous and in work and not need free meals for their children. Of course there are exceptions.

Ah. The old "rich people are cleverer than poor people argument" I don't buy that.

I don't buy it either. In the 50s the grammar school was a way out of poverty for a generation of bright children.

It does seem to bear out statistically though. It may well be true but whatever the cause it is a scandal.