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?

So doctors and lawyer, factory fodder and supervisors. All put in their boxes at 10.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am glad we live in a grammar-free area. Dd who is gifted but was ill in Yr 6, and ds who has poor self-esteem and would take any excuse of "nobody else does" to stop working would be equally stuffed in an 11+ system.

Instead, they are at an excellent comprehensive where good teaching is going on at different levels: ds is made to see that some cool kids do actually work hard, and dd is taught at a level corresponding to her real ability.

Seeker: my parents went through the old system in the even worse good old days, ie before Grammars were free! This is probably going to be long. Sorry!

This might be a bit far back (1942/3) but if it serves the purpose...

both my parents were working class children from council house estates. They both took the 11+ as the only way out. Both are bright people. My mum, despite being nearly dunce level in maths (still is by her own admission!) got scholarships to two separate Grammars, which meant that her parents 'only' had to buy uniforms.
My dad, despite being nearly genius level in maths (he can still outcalculate your average calculator in his head) apparently failed. He was stuck with doing vocational stuff at the local secondary modern. His brother (somehow) passed and the family had to pay for him to go as it wasn't scholarship.

Now I have heard it repeatedly said over the years that the only reason Uncle went was that he was paid for, and dad wasn't. This makes me think that dad really did pass, but couldn't go because they couldn't afford it, and they told him he'd failed.

Dad has spent his life battling a heavy sense of failure and worthlessness. He left school at 14 (was made to?) and had to join a bookkeeping firm, where with his innate ability he took off. But that FAIL stamp has stayed with him for a lifetime.

I could phone him up now and ask, and he'd say like a shot that he was in favour of the grammar system, as long as there were checks to make sure people who were bright but had no self-confidence could get recognised.

My mum left at 16 after her school cert and promptly became a shorthand typist. She is not just in favour of grammars, but told me when I was a teen that if she'd somehow been able to scrape together the cash to send me private, she would have done rather than send me to the local (by then) comp.

I did OK. I now have three degrees in science from RG unis and so from the outside, people would probably think I'd be in favour of the system as it is now. But I'm not. When I got to university I found out the difference between what in our town was thought to be a good school and what Grammars and Indies were turning out might as well have been the world. In confidence, ability to work hard (and play hard) and lead the hall societies and all sorts. I remember being terribly sad when I realised, finally, why mum wanted more for me. I think she'd glimpsed the other world when she was at Grammar, before her own family had pulled her back down again. (Her dad had refused to support her past 16 as the scholarship only paid to then).

Very sad, really. Both parents were utterly thrilled when I got my BSc, more than thrilled when I got my MSc and I don't think there was a happier mother on the planet when I got my PhD. But they never got the chance to do it themselves, either the one who passed or the one who failed.

I would really like to see a few people who went through the 11+ process in the "good old days" when everyone did it and who failed it speaking up in favour of the system.

I don't think I have ever met anyone. Even among those who made good in adult life, that sense of being labelled a failure at 11 stays with them.

The system might have been better had it really been a tripartite system as it was supposed to have been. My sister in law failed to get into the grammar school but went to a technical school; she was happy with it, and didn't feel a failure. She then moved house; there were no technical schools where she moved to so she ended up at a secondary modern, admittedly quite a good one. At that point she felt she had been labelled a failure and didn't do anything like as well as she would have done if she could have stayed at the technical school.

Genuine comprehensives in market towns such as I live in seem to be fine and seem to serve most children well (and I mean comprehensives, and not Kent and Buckinghamshire's Secondary Moderns dressed up with another name.)

I don't doubt that we could improve the system but trying to turn the clock back to a model which failed children 50 years ago isn't the way to do it in my opinion.

There is a FT article that says The Kent system is less equitable and its schools are average.

Kent is less socially mobile than the rest of England and much less than London, where the better comprehensives are fair banded and the better selectives are non-catchment.

I did the 11+, passed and went to grammar.
Dsis1 failed and went to comp.
Dsis2 passed and chose to go to comp.
Dbro passed, but failed to get into his grammar of choice and went to the high school.

Now we are all adults, no doubt our schools influenced us, but not nearly as much as our parents did.

BTW, my grammar school would suggest the less academically able girls find a more suitable school at the end of each year. This process continues today in order to maintain the school's 95%+ pass rate.

I wonder why, when the OECD data shows that your family background is a better predictor of success, and that when you adjust for background, state out-performs fee-paying, parents still back a 'type' of school? I can see why someone would be keen on a certain school, but a 'type' of school?

A TES article points out that "There are ... 446 schools where disadvantaged pupils perform above the national average GCSE points for all pupils. ... these schools are spread across the spectrum of disadvantage. They represent 16.5 per cent of all schools, and include schools of all types and make-up."

I'm more interested in how these arguably good schools manage that, rather than obsessing over private v state or selective v comp? The differences in family background still matter in these schools, but the gap is smaller. So these good schools do make a difference, even if it's less of a difference than the family.

I do wish people would stop referring to Secondary Moderns as Comprehensives!

I agree LaVolcan-I think it is because they are outdated-there is nothing modern about that sort of secondary education!