Does it matter whether the pizza guy has GCSE Latin?

[PooshTun]

By the time your DC gets to 14 it should be obvious whether he is academic or not. If he isn't then why should he be expected to sit through 2 years of Latin, German, English literature etc only to get a D or E?

Wouldn't you rather he spent the next two years doing something that will help him get a job? And if the kid is struggling with English then shouldn't this be the school's focus as opposed to getting the kid to study German or French?

The education authorities (and some MNetters) seem to be of the opinion that ALL school leavers should leave school with a well rounded education. That is a great thought if you have a kid who can't decide whether to study geography or Latin or Egyptology at university.

But with some kids they are not academic and they won't be going to Uni. They would benefit greatly from a two year course that would prepare them for the work place as opposed to studying subjects which somebody somewhere has decided that is necessary in order for a person to be a 'well rounded' person. Some people's main concern is first get a job THEN work towards to being what someone else regards as being a well rounded person.

'These things are about perception'

How naive are you? If your child is clever but you have no money and you have a choice of a state grammar school or a sink comp which would you choose? And if your child did not get into the state grammar how would you and she feel? That is not just a problem with 'perception' is it? That is the reality for some parents.

There appear to be a lot of posters who intensely dislike selective schools, not because they have an ethical/moral objection but simply because they can't afford it and resent those that can or because their DC aren't academic enough to pass. Such is human nature I guess.

'She doesn't care. She doesn't feel a failure. She doesn't feel second best.'

But she got into your first choice of school which is fee paying and selective.

So she wouldn't feel like a failure would she????

Weird.

But five why should it be sparkly grammar v sink comp?

Why is it beyond the wit of man to make both choices valid?

Poosh, I've not seen any of that here.

What I have seen is people who have a blithe disregard for people who do not have choices available to them. And there is no excuse for that.

My point was that this situation where everyone wants their DC to go to grammar school (whether it will suit them or not) is bloody daft. The other options should be equal but different.

Exactly. This is why I think that 14yrs is a good time to make the choice. The DC themselves have opinions and know their strengths and weaknesses.
At 11 yrs you get DCs who is obviously going to fail and instead of saying 'my DC isn't suited to highly competitive, selective education' the parent says 'must get a tutor'!
They seem to have no understanding that getting the place isn't 'the end' -it is merely the start. By 14yrs it will be quite clear whether the DC was just a late developer or just not academic.
Choice could then be made in discussion with the most important person-the DC-and the parent and the teachers. If it is all under the umbrella of the same school it should be possible to fit in a quirky individual-even the one who wants the practical and Latin! The DC may well be passionately keen on gardening, want to spend their time out doors as a career and yet want all the Latin names.
We seem to be very narrow and inflexible! We need the education system to be designed by someone with vision-ideally someone who hasn't much money and has no DCs yet and so doesn't know whether they will be highly intelligent, average, below average or SN, but is sure that if they do have DCs they want the best without school fees!

'Why is it beyond the wit of man to make both choices valid?'

Word, are you being deliberately obtuse. If you cream off the brightest kids from an area and educate them together in a selective school can you not see how that would impact on the other schools? Grammar schools are by definition selective and competitive. By defintiion that means there will be a signficant number of kids who enter the exam but are rejected. Naturally they will be disappointed.

PErhaps, unlike you, they may not have the money to get into a school which is good.

Go on, just try a bit of empathising.

'why should it be sparkly grammar v sink comp?'

This IS the case for many parents. Just because you wish it weren't like that doesn't mean it isn't.

If your child is clever but you have no money ..
what if your choice is a sink comp or ...er... that's it really. Perhaps then you'd rather your child at least had a shot at a grammar? When ~25% of places everywhere were grammar and the schools prepared all the kids for the test that was at least a possibility. The problem wasn't the grammar schools, it was that too many of the others weren't good enough.

What I find somewhat bemusing is that my own experience of the 11+ in Kent, in the 1970s, was not one of success or failure in the black and white terms described on this thread. There was the 11+. If you took it (which was entirely optional), you might pass, but there was a distinct pecking order among the schools for which passing the 11+ was the minimum hurdle. Everyone, but everyone, knew which were the best grammar schools and which were the second order grammar schools, and, although you were notionally asked to state preferences, in reality the cleverest children ended up in the best grammars and the less clever in the second and third rate grammars. And after that there were secondary moderns/high schools/comprehensives, schools for which the 11+ was not required - but some children who had passed the 11+ chose to go to them anyway.

Oh grimma we don't mention those schools because comprehensives are A Very Good Thing.

"There appear to be a lot of posters who intensely dislike selective schools, not because they have an ethical/moral objection but simply because they can't afford it and resent those that can or because their DC aren't academic enough to pass. Such is human nature I guess."

Nobody like that on this thread that I've seen.

Our local state catchment collège (junior high school, for 11-15 year olds) is a sink school. Seriously sink. It has 800 pupil places, but only 500 pupils.

Bonsoir I suspect that most parents and DC crack on okay if their Dc don't take or don't pass the 11+.

A vocal minority of MC parents will be gutted of course.

But really, if either of mine failed an exam at 10 and it made them feel a failure for the rest of my life I'd consider myself an abject failure as a parent!

This is why I think that 14yrs is a good time to make the choice. The DC themselves have opinions and know their strengths and weaknesses.

Yes - and of course this is when children already do have to make their choices of GCSE/BTecs. The problems with the current model is that (a) some schools seem to push children towards academic subjects for league tables and this may not be in their best interests (b) provision for a wide variety of options may be difficult to achieve well within one institution without it being overwhelmingly large.

Oh grimma we don't mention those schools because comprehensives are A Very Good Thing.

They weren't comps, they were secondary moderns. They were on the whole not a good thing - but the reason wasn't because the 'top' had been 'creamed' it was because they didn't do what they should have been doing well enough.

Things may have changed significantly since then, wordfactory, but IME, both in the past and recently, MC parents make contingency plans to avoid sink schools.

There appear to be a lot of posters who intensely dislike selective schools, not because they have an ethical/moral objection but simply because they can't afford it and resent those that can or because their DC aren't academic enough to pass.

I dislike them because parents manipulate the system. I have seen many DCs who have been drilled to pass. I have also known them have to have remedial English and Maths once they got there!
I have nothing against them, if it is a level playing field and every DC went in cold-if they couldn't work out the questions for themselves they shouldn't be there! Sadly you can't have such a system.

"I dislike them because parents manipulate the system. I have seen many DCs who have been drilled to pass. I have also known them have to have remedial English and Maths once they got there!"

I think it is my primary duty as a parent to manipulate the world to my children's advantage and do so as often as I possibly can manage!

How can you possibly equate the fact that a cohort of children from a prep school are all happy with the schools they're paying to go, and have chosen to go to, next with some notion that everyone's a winner in the 11+ system and not-academic doesn't mean less good? That is unbelievably obtuse, I'm afraid.

Child B in prep has perhaps chosen slightly less academically focussed school over another because she likes the sport/location/uniform/drama.... it's still a choice, it's still paid for, she's not there because she failed a hurdle. That is not in ANY WAY the same as the child who doesn't pass the 11+ and so has NO choice!

Also I would still be interested to know how your definition of 'targeted excellence' is different from mine, word.

As GCSE exam time approaches many/most schools, selective and unselective, will 'drill' the pupils in terms of exam technique and revision.

As a parent you will no doubt be doing your bit. Some of you may even make use of Easter cramming courses either run by the school or by a for-profit company.

To many parents present the above is a sign of a good school and of parents that are involved with their children's education. Yet if your kid doesn't get in at 11+ it is because of those damned prep schools and well off/pushy parents tutoring their kids.

Apparently there is nothing wrong with schools drilling their pupils to pass exams and for parents to be involved as long as you and your DCs benefit from it.

Seeker - Do you still want to maintain that there aren't any parents parent here who are anti 11+ because it is against their personal interest?

Even in fully comprehensive systems though, don't children still risk the 'failure' issue when they get set or streamed? I know there's the potential to move up, but equally they can move down. I would imagine that could be continuingly stressful for the child of a pushy parent.

'But really, if either of mine failed an exam at 10 and it made them feel a failure for the rest of my life I'd consider myself an abject failure as a parent!'

Again, desperately naive. Sadly parents don't have the power to protect their children from the impact of this failure. There have been very many moving accounts from those who underwent this.

Perhaps you'd feel a little bit differently if you didn't have the money to send your child to a private school which is non-selective and lived in an area where there was a stark choice??

"Seeker - Do you still want to maintain that there aren't any parents parent here who are anti 11+ because it is against their personal interest?"

Such parents might exist. But there don't seem to be any on here. In my experience parents tend to be in vociferously in favour of
Grammar schools because they imagine it will be in their personal interest.

Poosh, again, you miss the point somewhat. The point about the fact that parents cram their kids to pass the 11+ is that grammar schools are SUPPOSED to select purely on the child's ability rather than a test of parental income and motivation.

In fact, it has been well documented that grammar schools are dominated by children from privileged backgrounds.