Those of you in favour of grammar schools, come and tell me what to say to my Ds...

[seeker]

He woke up crying in the night because the reality had just hit him that he won't be going to school with his close friends in September because he failed the 11+ in September. "I can't be very bright, can I mum, or I would have passed" " no, it was just one of those things-you're going to a good school, you'll be fine" "I know- but if i was clever I'd be going to school with X and Y" "You are clever- look at your SATs-you'll be in the top set at the high school because of those" " it's not SATS that are important, though, it's the 11+"

Do you want to have more kids feeling like that? Then campaign for more grammar schools,

yellow I don't claim to know much about the test but I can tell you that every kid in my DC's prep school who tried for a place at grammar, dd included, were successful.

They were absolutely not the brightest in the year. They were just very well educated and prepped quite robustly. Also, and I'm sure this helps, they have been having formal exams in all subjects since year 4. So timing is not an issue and nor are nerves.

I can also tell you that when DS started doing VR and NVR papers for his entrance exam to his secondary school he hadn't a Danny La Rue. Less than 50%. By his exam he was up to 98%. There's definitely a knack to them and once you get that knack, you're sorted.

I'm not saying you need a tutor, but you do need someone who can explain the gist. And then you need to put a bit of time in, especially if you're not used to timed exams.

seeker you started this thread about your son. No one else. You made it personal. No one else.

You need to start taking responsibility for your own actions and stop worrying about everyone else...

Of,not off

So is tutoring better than doing a few bond papers at home,what do tutors do that you can't do at home?

But if people would rather persist in dodging the serious debate by making this about me being outraged that my son didn't pass his 11+, so be it.

Oh, seeker, do reread your opening post.

You are flip-flopping like mad now.

Said I had given up but Seeker you sucked me back. YOU made it personal, no one else! Look at your op. Honestly, this time I do give up on you.

Happy to talk about HT appeals. They are not help children from disadvantaged bqckgrounds. They are to help children who on the day don't do quite as well as the Head expected them to do.

The parental appeal is on academic evidence only. No scope for personal circumstances al all

I am so glad I live a 5 mins walk from a good Comp and 10 mins from a good sixth form college. I do think my DC's would get a better education at a grammar or at a private school but there has been no barriers at their schools to prevent them from doing well. I have always told them that they are responsible for their own education, if they have a crap teacher and they have had them! then they need to teach themselves or ask for help elsewhere.

There are grammar schools inthe next town so a lot of the bright kids go there but both the local schools still have lots of bright kids and they are big schools so there is plenty of scope for streaming. I have never given my DC's tutoring.

Also, going to Comps means your DC's will be eligible to attend certain access courses to help them get into good Uni's. Sutton Trust etc. If your DC's are bright then I think they are valued by the local Comps and they are given opportunities to do well in the same way they would be at a Grammar.

DC1 studies medicine and he doesn't think he would have gained anything by going to a grammar or going private. He gained an hour extra in bed every morning and lots of local friends by going to the local schools.

If the local comp had not been good I would have got my DC's to try for the Grammar or would have paid private. Ultimately, I would have done what I thought was best for my DC's.

It's a shame he was so upset, but I agree that failure is part of life (unless you never attempt anything) and learning to pick yourself up and move on is a hard but essential lesson to learn.

What is the alternative - that no one should be allowed to try, in case some child fails and feels upset? You could have chosen to not enter him, if you weren't prepared to take the risk of him failing and feeling disappointed.

Maybe it's more productive to try to understand what went wrong, and where you can go from here. Why do you think he failed so catastrophically despite being bright and doing well in previous tests (if it's some problem with exam technique or preparation, it's worth addressing before he gets to GCSE age). Will there be any opportunity to transfer to the grammar at a later stage? Any possibility to appeal or resit?

seeke

There's a further corollary of the only tutored kids get into grammar these days schtick. That being the case, the grammar will be chock full of pedestrian brains who have been tutored to death and the high school full of raw, eager FSM kids who are bright and untainted by NVR coaching.

You say the FSM kids won't make it through the 11+ due to lack of coaching, but unless you think FSM kids are less intelligent, that should delight you, your clever son will be surrounded by other clever kids who weren't tutored (like him.)

The issue of pace is interesting. This is often cited as the reason children can't shift schools to the grammar or up to the top set in a comp because the pace difference means they have fallen behind from the outset in the lower sets/schools.

But then they all end up doing GCSEs at the same time, so the end point is the same - how does that work then? Do the lower sets/schools not cover the higher level work, so sit GCSEs at a disadvantage, or are the top sets/grammar dc over prepared having learned beyond GCSE level by the time they take them, or is there in fact not much difference in pace at all? (I know at yellows school they do GCSEs early, but that's quite unusual so I'll ignore it).

@pride My DD was not privately educated at primary school. She went to a primary school that is not considered very good by the 'nice people' (although I think it is pretty good in many ways). I won't deny that there aren't some people who went to posh primaries at her school though. Me, I'd abolish private schools. If I ruled the world. Most of the intake at Dd1's school didn't go to posh primary though.

@seeker Merely an observation. Your continued insistence that you can only pass the 11+ anywhere by tutoring for it is refuted by the fact that at DD1s school most of the kids aren't tutored (although as I said I think there may be a fair bit of home tutoring going on given how many of the kids have teachers for parents). Your problem is that. Always you refuse to accept that Kent doesn't model the world. Above that though - if you actually believed that you can't pass the test without tutoring then clearly you should have sent yourDS to be tutored - if you were standing by your beliefs. But you didn't stand by those beliefs. Just like with the whole 11+ thing.

As someone who always stands by her beliefs even when it's socially, financially, career-wise, and even health-wise not always convenient or advantageous, I find your attitudes bemusing. If you have beliefs, stand by them. But don't pretend to beliefs then ignore them every time it suits. Or at least, if you do, keep quiet about it unless you want people to pull you up on it.

Seeker, I said whatever it was a few pages back about the subjects offered at our GS being the more academic ones, and I stand by it, because there are far more subjects on offer at the comp. At the GS they just spend a lot more time doing Maths to a high standard and they do a lot of science, as the three sciences are taught separately. I don't really see what's wrong with that, not all children will want to spend as much time on thise subjects, and it would be pointless for some children. Including my own bright child.

You talk about middle classes having a way of not paying school fees as if every GS parent could afford private school fees. You are deluded if you thnk that's the case. I certainly couldn't afford private school fees, and the GS is nothing like a private school anyway. It doesn't have anywhere near as many facilities as the private schools I have entered.

What is middle class anyway? Do you have to have two parents educated to degree level and be in professional jobs to be considered MC? Because if so, my ds is two parents away from that. So are quite a few other i know. Or if they do have professional jobs they arent earning enough to pay HRT, so does that make them fair game, or what? Or by your definition are the MC parents the ones who are capable of looking up an admissions process and getting hold of practice papers, in which case the do the needs of their children and the work their children have put in count for nothing because they aren't on benefits?

There is a whole big catergory of people in between those on benefits and those who could afford private fees that you just seem to be ignoring. Or you seem to believe those people don't deserve any provision being made for their children by the state.

We have schools that have a huge percentage of children on FSM - should they be scrapped because they only serve a small section of society as well? Should we scrap sure start centres because they only serve one section of society? Or is it just your perception of Middle classes that don't deserve anything different back from the pot they pay into?

word but your experience and area is a very different from most. There's a world of difference between selective fee-paying London preps and ordinary state primaries, or even non-selective independent primaries. I'd fully expect all the boys to pass, tbh. I don't think one can extrapolate meaningfully.

Did your HT appeal on behalf of your son?

If not, why not?

That's probably true yellow.

Don't get me wrong, I'm saying that prepping will do everyhting for you. You still need ability. Just that practice does seem to give an advantage on the day IYSWIM.

So if you take two equally intelligent DC and one has prepped and one hasn't, the former is at an advantage.

I'M NOT saying prep will do everyhting for you.

Seeker
Ht appeals are to get any child, who didn't pass for whatever reason, into a gs if the Ht thinks they should be there.
That covers dc with parents who might not be educated,aware or affluent!
You need to get over this.
Your ds didnt pass, the ht appeal either failed or didn't appeal at all, your appeal was unsuccessful...your ds will be fine at the high school. All the schools in your area are good, he will be fine!

The arguement about children on FSM probably has a little more clout in SS areas, which you have said you don't disagree with quite so much. At least in an area like Kent, the information about he to apply to a GS is as easily available as the information about how to apply to high schools. At least all the children are given familiarisation papers at school in an 11+ area, where all the bright children, no matter what their background will be encouraged to apply for the GS.

In SS areas (well, in mine at least) you are completely on your own with no support from the primary school at all if you want to apply to the GS. So I can see how that may be considered unfair to children whose parents aren't bothered about finding out, but if parents aren't bothered about finding out about things their dc could do then it's the parents that are putting their children at a disadvantage, not the system.

Xenia makes the point that her private school has a significant cultural mix, which she likes. Despite what seeker says about the grammars she knows, I find our ss grammar has a good social mix, with a very broad band of parents between the FSMers and the clearly rich. I like that for my kids. That's been the case for the significant number of years that I've now known the school. The mix is far greater than each and every independent school down the road. It's a definite plus. Of course I also like the fact that my kids school achieves significantly better results than either the indies or the comps nearby, and that opens doors (before anyone asks the obvious question as to why I don't simply go comp).

HT or parent appeal will help children from disadvantaged backgrounds if they have the ability but something went wrong on the day, of course they will.

Head teachers don't only bother to go through appeal if the parents are MC!

We won our appeal on personal circumstance!
Ds1 had nearly full marks so that covered the academic but it was his sn's that won us the place.

seeker

Were you unaware of the trend for 11+ coaching before your son took the exam?

Given the prevalence of 'only coached children get into grammars' remarks on here and in RL, and your own assertion that FSM kids don't get in for precisely this reason, why did you not coach?

Seeker, why don't you just acknowledge to your son that the Grammar School is percieved as 'better' within the local community and beyond. But then open up the debate with him about what makes one school better than another? Lots of 'clever' children together does not a good school make but by and large the children at the Grammar have worked hard to get there and see it as a place of privilage = an ethos of 'success'. Tell him that his 'journey' at the HS will be different but he may well emerge with the same set of results and tell him that you will make sure to give him ever opportunity in life to continue to try to be the best peson he can be. Your school does not define who you are.

Of course she wasn't,t Greythorne... You can,t miss it here. I think sadly, she was a bit arrogant and thought her ds would fly through