Grammar schools -a "think" piece.

[seeker]

New readers start here. I live in a small town in Kent. We have a fully selective secondary education system,- children take 11+ tests in Sepetember of year 6, and are allocated either to the grammar school ( the "top" 23%) and the high school- the remaining 77%, which consists of those that don't reach the required mark in the test and those that didn't take it at all. The grammar school is an OFSTED outstanding school, with 99% a-c. The high school is a good school, with, if I recall 40% a-c. It has excellent vocational facilities and very good sport. There are no comprehensive schools in any sort of travelling distance. One or two children go to other selective schools in the area, and a few go private, but the vast majority go to either school A or school B. ( It's important to say here that I am only talking about a fully selective system here. The areas where there is a grammar school for the very top of the top 5% and all but comprehensives for everyone else are a different discussion)

The reason I think this is interesting in a broader context is that this is the model which many people would like to see replicated by the introduction of more grammar schools. To a grammar school enthusiast, it looks perfect. I think they sometimes forget that more grammar schools means more "secondary moderns" .

Living in in the middle of such system, is possible to see it's damaging, divisive consequences.

We have a town where children, at the age of 10, are told that they are not good enough for the grammar school, with all the societal and psychological problems this produces. The supporters of the system say that it isn't a "pass or fail" system- it is just an "allocation of appropriate school" system Which would be fine- if wasn't described as "passing" and "failing". If the town was not full of congratulations and comiserations when the results come out in March. If the children themselves were not fully aware-because they are not stupid- that tests produce passes and failures. And if the grammar school did not have less than 2% children with SEN and 2% FSM -against the high school's 27% and 22%.

Basically what we have is a comprehensive school cohort, but rigidly separated. The top set are educated completely separately half a mile away. There is no opportunity for kids at the high school to move into that top set if they suddenly discover an academic streak at the age of 12 or 13, and no opportunity for a Grammar school child to move if they discover that they are not as academic as they appeared on one day in their 10th September. Which a properly streamed comprehensive would provide. Such a school would also provide a proper top set, as well as opportunities for the less able. But there would be the possibility of movement. AND, crucially, you wouldn't have a massive group of kids who have been told, in however sugar coated a way, that they have failed at the age of 10. What's, as they say, not to like?

Now we all want to know atht the comments about seeker's child were on the other thread (now deleted)... do spill the beans...

Is this thread about whether clever children should be segregated by school and educated separately? It benefits most of those clever children so yes. I have paid to do that, amongst other things.

4% of children get that in the state sector.
Many but by no means all get set in comps.

Second, is it morally wrong to want your child in a school where they are not disrupted in class? I would say certainly not and indeed it would be wrong to pick the worst state school around to send your clever good little darling there to make the school better.

In the past you posted details about your DS and about your appeal process and how he felt about failing the 11+.

You do know that MN has a search facility don't you? I'm asking because you seem to think that what you've posted in the past is gone forever so it is safe of you to accuse others of misrepresenting what you said?

Life is a never ending sequence of failing and passing. What happens to you a 11, 16, 18 and 21 affects your whole life. I didn't get a First or 2ii at the age of 21 so that automatically shuts me out certain jobs. Do I let that define me as a failure? No really.

So I don't really understand why some people choose to elevate the 11+ to the level that they do to the point that 30 years later many obviously still carry the emotional baggage.

@seeker yes it does answer my point. Thank you. I'm not convinced all the kids at the GS Dd1 attends are super bright nailed on cambridge double first types. What they are though, in the main, is hard working, FAST working kids. This is why they take their exams early and have hardly any homework. They are full on in school and they like it that way. It's not just being bright -DS is bright - its being a particular type of bright. The type of bright that shows and that can
Lead to either boredom in slower paced schools, or resentment, or both. Lots of DD1's chums have the same backstory as her - labelled as geeky and swotty at primary school (unfairly cos they were making NO effort) and sometimes bullied. Now they are in their niche.

I quite understand why you don't like the system in Kent. I suspect I wouldn't like it either. Please do understand that those of us who support some sort of selective state education don't not care about the ones who end up not in the GSs. I certainly see - with my own children (and also with myself and my sister - who would prob have failed 11+ , was lower stream at our famous Croydon catholic comp but ended up with decent O levels, good A levels and a great degree from UCL) that different people have different learning styles, and strengths, which benefit from different approaches. Surely it's not beyond the wit of mankind to take this on board and make it work?

Metabilis- I think that's what I meant about the "bubble" effect. It's certainly noticeable at dd's grammar school- is it something you think about with your dd? Do you think if it was possible to meet the very bright child's academic needs in a school where there was a broader rnge of ability it would be better in terms of social development?

I am one of four sisters. My two elder sisters and I had almost an hour's journey each way via public bus, to go to the grammar school and my younger sister remained in our weensy town to go to the secondary modern. She was just a slow starter but ended up swapping to the grammar school for sixth form and on to a RG university where she got a first.

My parents didn't bat an eyelid at her not passing the 11+ and they were very supportive of both schools. My sister thinks her sec modern was very nurturing and says it enabled her to grow in confidence. And she enjoyed the grammar school too. Growing up, we all felt warmly towards both schools and there was no question that one was seen as superior over the other: just different and separate. Seeker makes it sound as though the pupils from these schools are socially disjoint sets, but this wasn't the case for me. I had lots of friends via outside of school interests at the sec modern. And they were proper friends, there was no nose-holding.

@seeker No, not really. In fact, not at all. I don't think she would benefit at all from being part of some sort of sociological experiment. She has enough challenges as it is with her dyspraxia. She doesn't need any more.

@seeker incidentally she doesn't think she is anything special. Her best friend is pretty much top of the class in everything she does except for DD1s top subjects - DD1 is most definitely not top of the class in anything other than the things she wants to do for A level. She's fine with that. She's also fine with being humiliated in PE because nobody there needs to use being good at PE as a way to compensate for being poor at lessons. It sounds like paradise to me.

So I don't really understand why some people choose to elevate the 11+ to the level that they do to the point that 30 years later many obviously still carry the emotional baggage.

You don't have to understand it-some of us do- and it is not surprising when people tell us that we are being ridiculous! It is not like any other exam. You can fail all your GCSEs-go off to work and decide to go to college to do them again or you can fail to get into university and do OU later-or even go to university when you are 45yrs. You fail the 11+ and you either get a slim chance of going at 12+ or you wait until the 6th form. You also know full well that there are people there who got exactly the same marks as you.
There are lots of things that I don't understand but I don't just dismiss it for other people.

Hello Seeker
Your original question seems to have got a bit lost!!!
Yes, I think you're right, Kent does damage its communities with its selective system. Too much debate on grammars gets taken over by anecdotes about how selection worked or how people thought it worked years ago. Your question is about 2012 and how selection works in Kent where league tables show very clearly the differing attainment at secondary schools.
As an earlier message says if you had to design a modern selective education system you should look at Kent to find out how not to do it. Hardly anyone mentions the key feature of Kent education - endemic tutoring which can begin at year 3 or earlier. Private primary schools use their 11 plus pass rate in their adverts. Able to ignore SATS, these schools are very successful at gaining grammar places for their pupils. KCC know this but do nothing about it. The 11 plus is now taken in September; to be able to pass the maths paper you need to be tutored because the September timing means that the untutored children will not have covered year 6 maths. I have taught many year 6 classes where by July the "bright" children are not all the ones who have passed the 11 plus. From September other children will have come through and improved and got good level 5s, but will be heading for the secondary modern. They will be comfortably achieving more than the 11 plus pass children who sometimes switch off after having got their place. Children who schools have said that they will not appeal for, are able to pass because they are tutored. In Kent there is no admission to grammars at 12 or 13 to cater for "late developers". There is no official way that grammar children can be demoted to the secondary moderns.
I think that grammars in Kent only exist because Kent residents do not know enough about them. East Kent grammars are not full on March 1st but no one wants to discuss the fact that far fewer children pass in East Kent than West. Harvey in Folkestone had 71 vacancies on March 1st. They will fill their places to keep the schools viable by taking children who failed the test but who have parents who are keen to appeal.
Despite all the pro grammar talk in Kent, only 55% of year 6 children chose to sit the test last year. This means that the grammars are not as strong as they were, some of the secondary moderns are doing quite well eg Bennett Memorial, Hillside, Archbishops and St Anselm's in Canterbury. These schools take reasonable numbers of level 5 children, although not as much as a comp would. It all comes back to tutoring. Kent parents are becoming more aware that if their child is not tutored they will have less chance of passing and some are deciding to attend their local school.
To breathe some life into their archaic system, Kent should change their test regularly so that tutoring becomes more of a challenge, at the moment it's too easy. However with most grammars now academies, that is not an easy solution for KCC to administer.

If you really believe what you typed in your OP, then you should NOT put your child forward for the 11 plus exam. Grammar schools select the 23% who performed best in the test on the day. It's simply wrong to say they comprise the 23% brightest/smartest/other sickly inaaccuracy.

But Frieda, if you have an academic child and don't put them in, then the sec mod is not designed to meet their needs, and they have a much reduced peer group. This is not great for that child.

Kentexile, at least 3 of the 4 comps you mention are church schools, and I am far more opposed to selection by imaginary friend than selection by ability.

How about those who are uncomfortable with the Kent model vote with their feet, and home educate? Possibly expanding to provide free schools with different entry criteria? That would avoid any expensive experiments for existing schools, DCs being "short-changed" over their educational span, having to move home, and the pointless waste of energy fighting instead of choosing.

Most people will choose the best they are faced with. Wouldn't that separate those who only talk from those who will walk?

Well you might be as unhappy with the home ed/free school model as with the 11+, I should think. If you think all children should be educated together regardless of wealth or ability, I hardly see that you're going to be in favour of educating them all at home on their own!

More problems. When we looked ta home ed, there was lots of networking in real life and DCs socializing without needing to teach in a large group. It could be the solution for some less fussy types who can live with less than perfect correlation between their wants and possibles. Or at least slightly better correlation that they are facing at the moment. Or they could complain until DCs are 18.

I don't think that HE is going to solve the problem. For the first place most families have both parents out working full time, most parents and children would hate it and parents are not up to all subjects to graduate level.
If I had failed the 11+ and my parents had kept me at home then I really would have an enormous chip on my shoulder!

I think that Kentexile shows what a mockery the whole system has become.

I wanted a rigorous, academic education-I did not want my mother felicitating my learning.

Some may be convinced that rigour is best facilitated by a child's mothers, be it as intelligent procurer or provider.

Anyway I'm sure those who can will already have walked. Hence leaving those who won't or can't. Good luck.

@exotic does it not occur to you since you did, as you tell us, very well at your school, you therefore did receive the appropriate education for you? There will likely be young people at the comp my DD did not go to who get as good results as she does in their GCSEs, or better results. That doesn't mean that the faster paced GS would be right for them. It doesn't mean that being forced to do 3 sciences like it or not and limited arts subjects would be right for them. It means that the school they are at has delivered magnificently, for them. Currently, her school is delivering magnificently for DD1. But I don't hear any of the many parents and young people we still know, who were her contemporaries at primary school, complaining that their DCs should have gone to the GS. They understand that it's horses for courses and hopefully everyone gets where they want to be and deserve to be at the end of their particular route. To be honest, slavish devotion to orthodoxy and refusal to listen to the points of others isn't exactly the sort thing that most selective schools promote. They are much more about the whole child than about cramming people into pigeon holes whether they fit or not just to satisfy a wish for revenge.

Metabilis- has your position shifted at all on there being no difference on the impact on the cohort of a 5% selective school and a 23% one?

I fail to have any faith in a system that had me 2 places away from a grammar school place, and would have given me a grammar school place had I lived across the river, was putting me in the right school! They were juggling numbers. I have far more faith in my primary school Head, who was also my teacher, who said that I ought to have a grammar school place. I was also prepared for the fact that I would struggle to keep up once I got to the grammar school sixth form, to my pleasant surprise I did not.

Also if 2 DC s hadn't taken up their places then,magically, the grammar school would have been the right school. It is a lottery - unless you are way above or below average.

@seeker I have consistently said that I don't think the Kent system works very well. I've consistently believed that the top probably 10% should go to grammar school. Nothing you have said has changed my view, other than confirming my opinion that the Kent system is poor. But Kent is not the world. This thread and others like it have also confirmed my view thatist opponents of selective education determined by ability are just fine with selective education determined by depth of pockets. I'm very comfortable opposing that sort of person. FWIW I'm not persuaded that's you. But it clearly is others in the thread and in the wider anti selective education campaign.

To remind you - my DS has been consistently evaluated as in the top 5% or better. I couldn't be more convinced the GS isn't right for him.