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?

I think that you have misunderstood it 0.6% of the 4% are looked after. Pupils with a statement of SEN were similarly low.

One thing is for sure, you are more likely to go to jail than university if you're in care never mind the risks of being abused there. It would be a lot cheaper if we sent them to boarding schools.

Of course it would Xenia - much the best option and it would turn their lives around at a fraction of the cost - as long as only a few went to each school so they were pulled up rather than doing the pulling down !

No, I didn't misunderstand what you said, you misstated the true position. You said 0.6% of looked after children were in grammar schools It's not my fault that you didn't set out the true position. However, you seem determined to cling to your prejudice. I will continue to believe that being looked after does not automatically mean in and of itself that a child is not going to be able to pass the 11+. I guess also that you haven't seen any of the press comment or posts on MN or TV and radio pieces being outraged at the fact that if you have certain SEN conditions now, getting a level 4 at KS2 means you are deemed not to have SEN anymore, despite whatever diagnoses you may have? DD1's condition is not one of those subject to this new diktat, as it happens - but DS's dyslexia is. It's a mad world. It's a shame that some people compound the sad impact of the madness by making unfounded and biased assumptions about others.

Have it your own way- grammar schools are full of looked after children. They breeze in, take the exam and pass- ahead of all those with parents who have been employing tutors for 3 years!

( I think that my research that says that grammar schools only had 0.6% of their pupils in local authority care is more likely)

@exotic Can you actually read? I only ask because you just completely misrepresented what I have typed in several posts in this thread. Nowhere have I claimed that Grammar schools are full of looked after children. All I have said - several times - is that your several posts stating variations on a theme that being looked after = no chance of getting in to grammar school are factually inaccurate. They are also pretty nastily bigoted. As is your comment about 'pulling down' above. I have known many looked after children because I have friends who do fostering. Some of those young people have been really bright, others not. some have been diligent and hardworking - others not. some have been creative - others not. There is no one type of young person who ends up being looked after. It can be a shitty situation, it can lead to lots of moving around (which is itself inimical to settling academically) but it doesn't have to be.

I can't think that you have been reading any of my posts - I have been agreeing with you! Of course it is possible to get in - and a few do but sadly the system is skewed against them as parents fight tooth and nail for their own child - using tutors and private education. Knowing they have used every advantage they have they then say ' ah how wonderful - it gives a chance to the disadvantaged' - knowing their chance is better!

I have been reading your posts. It is your language I have been taking issue with. The most recent example being "as long as only a few went to each school so they were pulled up rather than doing the pulling down" At the least, it's sloppy writing. And if you don't actually think like that then surely you won't want to give that impression?

I had to go out out so I was writing in a huge rush. What I was intending to say was that a class can absorb a few ( very few) troublesome children and they will not be troublesome if the majority have a work ethic and ambition. However if you only have a few with the work ethic and ambition they can't alter the behaviour and will be the ones labelled swots etc or will try to fit in. It was short hand for saying the behaviour could be pulled up to better or pulled down to worse- in the way that jabed was quite accurately describing.

It is quite an achievement to have been called 'someone with romantic ideas about the unloved and deprived children I want to save' and 'making nasty bigoted comments' in less than an hour!

I am more inclined to think that I am the naive, romantic- looking at life through the rose tinted spectacles.

Basically you could take Xenia's idea and put one in each boarding school and it would do them a power of good and make no difference to the rest of the pupils. You definitely wouldn't want more than one in each class and you wouldn't want more than a small handful in each school. I am talking about troubled and disruptive children here.
Not all DCs from disadvantaged backgrounds are troublesome, I have known lovely children from backgrounds that would make you want to weep for them and equally I have known mean, spiteful, bullying DCs who have very good home backgrounds. It is largely down to personality.

My dd's best friend is a looked after child who got into her semi-selective grammar because of this. As far as I know, grammars also have a duty to prioritise looked-after children, as this applies across the state sector.

Jabed - your views about children in care are appalling - as Metabilis has said, they vary hugely and I daresay are not all angels but of the ones I've met, many are hugely bright and hard-working.

My uncle, who was in care as a child (a refugee to the country, who came without his parents) passed the 11+ and is now a (retired) Oxford Professor. Hardly think he was holding back the rest of his class, somwhow, or dragging the school down.

Ridiculous prejudice, jabed, not remotely born out by the evidence.

Exotic - yes, and for 'looked after' children with good foster families or local connections such that packing off to boarding school wouldn't be the best option, they should be the legal priority for private dayschool bursaried places. I know a school which, as a result of the charity comission review was going to have to introduce some bursaries but they didn't seem to have a good idea how to allocate these few places - it didn't have selective entry. Reckon the LEA/SS should decide who could most benefit.

There's an interesting piece in the FT. If you aren't a subscriber you can access the article through searching for croydon grammar school ft

LittleFrieda - is this about Croydon getting a selective grammar through at Norwood? I dont know much about it as its not my area but I do know several such ideas are being mooted around the country. None have yet made it though - or is there something new?

jabed - yes precisely that. It will be quite a precedent if it happens.

The latest news is that hundreds more vulnerable children are going to be sent to boarding school. Apparently the reason they haven't was hostility from local authorities towards private education but that is now thought 'outdated'. It is said that over £26 million could be saved over 5 years, even when some will be charging annual fees of over £30,000. Three fifths of councils have joined the Assisted Boarding Network. It says that in principle all private schools are charities. I think this is wonderful news. (in the Times today)

It is wonderful news. The sceptical me wonders though if places like Eton and Westminster will be part of this, or will it be the non selective boarding schools only or ones struggling to fill places?

No - it especially mentioned that it would be schools like Eton, Harrow and Cheltenham Ladies College included.

My father was a Polish refugee in WW2. He was taken in by a well known boarding school as a charity case, having english only as a rather weak third language. He took to maths as a result, rather than a humanity, to which he might have been better suited. After having been threatened with a shotgun by one of the more mecurial teachers (as a 'test'), he prospered. Without that charity he might well have gone to the wall. This stuff works.

As it says in the Guardian

'"You have to ask why, when so many local authorities are advertising so widely for foster carers, these same authorities don't copy the approach of charities like ours so that they can attract at least some of the hundreds of thousands of working couples who would be able and willing to support a child in school holidays.

"For many of these children, that would be the best of both worlds - great schooling and pastoral care, and a stable foster family."

Sounds great to me because there are many people who would be happy to give foster care in the holidays.
Your father is proof that it works Yellowtip-who knows how his life would have turned out without it-not as well is my guess.

He'd have had no chance at all exotic, nothing. Any success he had subsequently wasn't about these much vaunted 'connections', it was about him being quite clever, allied with the chance of a restored, or good, education. There was a great deal of prejudice against Poles in the post-war years. He had been given a chance with school, he got to university as a result, he applied for jobs with a Polish name and drew hundreds of blanks.

So he went to the university library and pulled out books to find names and found a lowland Scottish name that he liked. Not too extreme. He re-applied. The interview offers rolled in. And he got a job.

You have to negotiate what life throws, but if you're down on your luck you do need a chance.

It is wonderful news. The sceptical me wonders though if places like Eton and Westminster will be part of this, or will it be the non selective boarding schools only or ones struggling to fill places?

Yes, I am sceptical too. I work in a top independent day and boarding school. I cant see how we could take any of these children, our boarding is full to capacity. In fact,last year we opened a new boarding house but we still full.

I can see that you might squeeze one in. Some of those independent schools who are struggling to stay open ( preps mainly) might use the opportunity to offer their space to the state and keep themselves afloat (sorry to be so cynical).

Either the schools willselect very carefully, a take a token pupil or effectively turn intoa local authority boarding facility simply because as a business we all have to be midful of the paying parent. Top loading the school with children from care may well cause paying parents to leave - i know you do not like it said, but there is a FACT.

One of the reasons independents are very quick to expel difficult and disruptive pupils or those who get into trouble ( eg - go shoplifting etc) is because of reputation. Parents send their children to us to acoid disruption and for that exclusivity. If they dont get it, they take their wallets elsewhere and schoolsincomes are affected. Its not in our interests to have the
"common touch".

Why on earth is it immediately assumed that a looked after DC will be disruptive? If your DC s were suddenly orphaned with no guardians and no money, jabed, do you want them to be pariahs that 'decent' parents don't want anywhere near their DCs?! They are looked after for all sorts of reasons - perhaps this was the reason they were all shipped off to Australia in 1940s and 1950s - as the untouchables!!
I can't believe the callousness of someone whose DCs have everything who would deny them an education.
It will work perfectly well and be cheaper. Obviously the selective schools will select. Luckily the days where you could put your baby down for Eton and get a place are long gone.
No one has mentioned 'top loading' a school.
I think that they all want their charitable status - I think that the best schools would want to take part, but if they don't they should just get their charitable status taken away IMO as they are clearly not charitable.

Many looked after DCs are the loveliest DCs you could imagine.

You miss the point exotic fruits. It doesnt matter in the case of those lovely orphan Annies whether they are disruptive or not, the fact is we may meet a factor with paying parents ( just as we do with disruptive children - and that was the point).

Its a bit like having a Soup Kitchen in Fortnum and Masons. Its not that the nice folk who have fallen on hard times are disruptive necessarily, its the paying customer who stomps up top cash , who will stop coming because they do not pay to sit next to those poor persons ( I am sorry but I am sure you will get my drift really, despite the protests). Probably more of the paying customers will go elsewhere and eventually all that will be left is the soup kitchen.

I know its not what you would like to hear but its what happens.

As I said previously we may get away with taking one ( carefully selected ) pupil but that would be the limit (and chances are we do that anyway with scholarship places).