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,

@gelatinous My DD1 goes to the same school as Yellow's DCs. They take their exams a year early. AIUI there are a lot of other GSs that do the same thing now (to be honest, I wouldn't look at a GS that didn't as things stand. If they change the system again nationally I might also change my views. AIUI there are also a lot of comps that put their top streams through some or all GCSEs early too. Not the ones that enter you early so you can get a few fails under your belt before you manage to drag it up to a pass - the ones where they say the current NC is too limited for bright kids, they are perfectly capable of doing it quicker. So they do. To be honest this was the case when I was at school too, I could easily have done my O levels one or two years earlier and I'd have been a lot less crushingly bored most of the time I was at school.

Wordfactory- you didn't have to join the thread!

But as you did, what do you think about the % of FsM children in grammar schools?

"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!"

Yes of course- I thought you were suggesting that the HT route was particularly useful for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

seeker the FSM measure is too limited to hang an argument about the existence or expansion of grammar schools on. It's too blunt a measure. Almost useless in fact.

It's a good place to start, though!

I think it's probably indicative of poor children not taking the test. I'd be interested to know actually how many on FSM did take it.

Many parents aren't prepared to make the commitment that is required of them should their DC end up at Grammar School.

I don't particularly think it is a good place to start though seeker. I think it's a measure capable of skewing the argument. And used as such. I think one needs to look at the whole social/ parental income profile of a school really, not just some incredibly low measure. The eligibility criteria for FSM may further skew things too, as in theory middle class stay at home single parents are eligible. But I'd be interested to see a comparison between the social profile of grammars now and in the 70s.

What commitment is that pickled?

The commitment to rub shoulders with the braying MC for one.

No-one has to rub shoulders with a brayer if they don't want to. It's entirely possible to avoid anyone you don't want to engage with if you're that much of a snob.

But aside from that, I don't actually see any extra commitment required whatsoever - if anything I'd have thought less was required. Travel excepted perhaps.

OK then, the commitment to be prepared for your DC to stick out like a sore thumb.

How many people commenting here are familiar with what contemporary grammars are like? I can't off-hand think of any child at ours who sticks out like a sore thumb. What I see is a good and healthy melting pot of types, at least in tems of social background, sporting prowess, musical prowess, maths prowess etc. There's room for all, if parents can be open-minded enough not to foist their own predjudices onto their children.

There will be lots of bright working class kids at the high school. Grammar schools don't select the brightest, they neglect the poor and disadvantaged. (there's a very good article written by Chris Cook in the FT (it's behind a pay wall but can be accessed via Google search) about he social division of the grammar system: it no longer does what it was designed to do). He may be one of very few who's grade 5 Clarinet, and whose parents went to university.

Seeker, you need to show him the FT article.

PS I do think that having entered for the Kent Test, you have to accept the consequences that flow from it.

My DCs go to grammar schools. We are not in kent though,2 different schools in north London but there is a very diverse mix of backgrounds etc. they are not "middle class" schools.
It's not a grammar area so it's up to parents to find out about the schools, do the practice papers etc

Yellowtip ..'I can't off-hand think of any child at ours who sticks out like a sore thumb.'. Precisely!

There is not a good social mix as evidenced by the FSM data. Mind you, it is worth noting that even in the small rural primary school of which I am a Governor, some parents do not wish to be associated with the 'stigma' of FSM so don't claim even though they are entitled. The same could be happening in grammars schools where the 'stigma' would be an even greater issue (presumably).

Well I am very familiar with 3 grammar schools- and one of them are a melting pot of social background- they Re all almost exclusively middle class. And I know that the FSM thing is a blunt instrument, but if the selection process was fair you would think that the FSM % would at least be within a shout of the.average in the surrounding area.

None of them, I meant.

Mordion, I've never heard of any other school doing this. The nearest SS to me (not all that near, but tops the league tables most years) certainly doesn't. I suggest that in most parts of the country you would have to look at a school that didn't as the choice isn't usually there.

I can't see why the fact that students seem mutually accepting of differences make a school inadequately mixed pickled. It's a reflection on the students, not their background. I can see differences, of course, as I've said - but not differences which isolate individuals. It's a tolerant school. Perhaps that flows more readily with intelligence than not? How many families as a percentage of the population claim FSM pickled? You as a governor will know this.

Yellowtip, I'm not suggesting that there would be less aceptance of difference at GS, just saying that most of the differences are marginal in terms of social mix.

@pickled the non claiming of FSMs is a Big Issue in several predominantly rural counties including the one in which I live.

What I want is a comprehensive school that can push its brightest as much as it can nurture its most weak and insecure. The problem I have with grammar schools is that it is just such a young age to decide which children can cope with being pushed academically and make good use of the skills obtained and which can't, and it creates the assumption that something different should be done with the children in the non-grammar schools - otherwise why separate them out so that (if the acceleration and depth of learning argument has any credence) they can never really be educated together, again? In a day and age where a majority appear to need academic qualifications, it seems odd to hark back to a past when the majority did NOT need academic qualifications. It's a system set up on the belief that only those separated out at age 10 SHOULD be educated sufficiently rigorously to become doctors, etc, and the rest should be kept away from that path, because we don't actually need THAT many doctors.

Or is the grammar school system actually a system based on the fact that there are a limited number of good head teachers and teachers available to run schools effectively and, since we therefore can't have good schools with model pupils everywhere, it's easier to maintain a certain proportion of people gaining sufficient qualifications to keep running the country smoothly if we create a blatantly unfair system from the start? It must be much easier to run a school which only has to concentrate on one type of learning for children with a fairly narrow range of abilities, virtually all of whom are willing to do hours of extra tuition and work after school and who are either eager to learn, or compliant enough to be pushed. Why bother about whether these children were brow beaten into being this way, or all happen to be from a particular type of background? Or that other children like them were squeezed out of the system? That's just collateral damage in the big scheme of things... what does society care about that?...

Whatever the system, the saddest thing to me is the level of paranoia and generalised anxiety that seems to have built up around children's schooling. Whatever one has on offer can always be bettered, it seems, by extra tuition, extra pushing, extra stress. People wind each other up like springs. It's really quite nasty. It's like cancelling childhood altogether. And all, frankly, because we don't actually know what to do with our children any more: they've got years of waiting around before they can get anywhere near the job market and in the meantime, they get under everyone's feet, unless they are kept busy doing something.

So are plenty of schools though pickled tbh. It's at least as much neighbourhood driven as not, where there's catchment. It's not realistic to expect every school to mirror the national stats for serious deprivation/ middle earners/ rich. What I can say with certainty is that at their school, which takes pupils from a very wide area, each of my seven DC have, or have had, a friendship group which to my certain knowledge includes low income (including FSM), modest income, middle income, high income, very high income. Their friends parents represent a surprising number of occupations - across the spectrum really - and they know a large range of different 'types'. Ours isn't a hugely mixed race area, so that is reflected fairly accurately at school too, but where there is racial difference, no student seems to 'stand out'. If anything, difference is welcomed. Seems healthy to me, though I'm sure more parents of clever but less well off DC could apply, since I know some who haven't - sadly.