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,

Not people's picture LittleFrieda-they like their prejudices!

There may be a tiny number of children that are so very bright that their needs cannot be met by the top set of a comprehensive school- but their needs could not be met by the top set of the grammar either. I know teenage mathematicians, for example, who are in a different league to the normally bright - one goes for lessons to the university maths department.

We're not talking about specialist education for the very very gifted when we talk about passing the 11+! We're talking about above average kids- the 5b qnd 5a and the occasional 6. The sort of kids who, in sensible parts of the country are catered for in the top set of a comprehensive school.

I know a grammar school that wouldn't even agree to provision for an outstanding mathematician-the parents were dismissed with 'all our boys are clever'. He went to the comprehensive where they made him a special case.

Being very academic most definitely is a special educatnal need.

Haven't read the whole thread. Fortunately I don't live in a grammar school area. I went to a gs in Kent as a child and did well, but I hate them passionately. My children are doing well at a comprehensive and I am extremely happy with it.

Everything can be done through setting - keeping all children in the same school. I laugh at the fact my brothers went to a school called a comprehensive in a grammar school area. How can it possibly call itself comprehensive??

Of course it is-this particular DS would have been bored stiff in a grammar school maths lesson. In the comprehensive he was working with the 6th form by year 9. He may even have failed an 11+ anyway-his English was nothing special.

Everything cannot be done by setting.

You cannot change a large and intimidating and busy school into a smaller less stimulating school for a child who has sensory and social issues just by setting.

Why is the grammar school a smaller school? My gs and the "comprehensive" were the same size.

Where do sensory and social issues come into the grammar school vs top set discussion?

Outraged,

No. But that is not relevant to a comprehensive vs divided school system, as small and large schools exist in both systems.

What a lot of comprehensives with specific bases attached to them do is to have 'schools within schools' - small, familiar bases for children with particular needs like hearing or sight impairment, or ASD, or behavioural issues. The children within these bases attend some lessons within the mainstream parts of the school, accompanied by familiar TAs, signers for the deaf etc, but remain within the base if needed.

Surely that is a better model than separating those childen off into a comnpletely separate school, where they cannot access the range or quality of teaching that a good comprehensive would provide?

Grammar schools are not allowed to expand in some LEAs. They might be allowed to expand in Kent. This means that in those LEAs where they cannot expand they are the same size they were on the date at which further expansion was forbidden. Which may have been a 'normal' size at the time but may not be now. DD1's school for example has 120 kids in each year. But each class has 30 kids.

A bright child will do well wherever they go if they have family support and are diligent and hardworking. I went to a school in a 'deprived part of South London. There were many disruptive pupils and bullying was prevalent..
I was classed as a very bright student. I worked hard and gained 10 'O' Levels
(6 A's 3 b's and 1c).
This is my reply to all the posters who said that a bright child will not do well wherever they go.

They come into it because if you have the option of a high school and a grammar school available to you, which everyone in Kent does, then you can make a choice about what would suit that child best and then let them take the test.

You aren't forced to go for a comp, you have a choice.

Not all children that have those issues need to be in a special unit. They just need to be catered for in school.

Forehead, so you expect you and your experience to replicate that of every bright child then do you?

You are that bright that you can't see that not every bright child is the same?

A bright child might do relatively well wherever they go. However, they might be able to do even better if intellectually challenged.

They deserve the right to meet their potential as much as less academic pupils, and this myth cheats clever children of an appropriate education - and the country of highly educated people.

They come into it because if you have the option of a high school and a grammar school available to you, which everyone in Kent does, then you can make a choice about what would suit that child best and then let them take the test.

So are you saying that 50% of Kent parents think a grammar school is the sort of school that would suit their child best but that half of them are wrong?

If a bright child has parental support and is prepared to work hard they will do well.

"Exceptionally Gifted Children" by Miranda Gross is a really interesting read if you want to follow up the 'being gifted is a special educational need' angle.

the main points she raises are
a) There are exceptionally gifted children who cannot easily be accommdated by ANY mainstream school (bear in mind that the to 1% of the population - in terms of ability measured by tools such as IQ - includes as broad a range of abilities as the entire range of children between the 2nd and 98th centiles - ie 96% of the population).

b) acceleration can be an answer for these children - but it is likely to need to be acceleration by several years in subjects in which they are particularly gifted (e.g. an end primary mathematician being taught with able 6th formers)

c) exceptional gifted children of this type are rare (c. 1 in 10,000 of the population).

To suggest that a gramnmar school is full of children who need a different type of education from others does not fit in with the literature of 'giftedness'. Those children who truly do need a different type of education are a much, much tinier proportion of the population than even the most superselective admits.

Are grammar schools usually smaller? The one i'm banging on about is, but only by 100 kids. The one in the town one along is the biggest school in the town I think and that's just girls!

Is this another grammar school myth?

Forehead,

It depends what you mean by that dreaded word 'bright'.

Do you mean 'above average'? 'Top 5%'? 'Top 0.1%'? Normal Oxbridge material, or doing university maths at 11? The answer as to whether any school can cope with those depends on the level of 'brightness'.

Forehead, that's not quite the same thing then is it? Seeing as how not every bright child is motivated to work hard and has parental support?

Cecily, no, I'm not saying that. Clearly. I have already said elsewhere on the thread that I think the Kent system takes too many children into grammar schools.

Im not saying that grammar schools are full of children that need a different type of education, although I do thnk they have some that need a different type of education. I'm saying that the children in grammar schools benefit from that type of education. That is evidenced by the fact that their parents schools those schools for them and they get good results.

I don't thnk grammar schools should be taken away from the children who are benefitting from them to serve children who are being catered for adequately in other schools.

Forehead I went to a comprehensive school with a large proportion of children from socially deprived backgrounds (think industrial north). I got very similar results to you (5 a grades, 5 b grades). I would in no way class myself as 'very bright.'

I have no idea if they are usually smaller, I'm just grateful that I had the option of sending my ds to a smaller school because that's what he needs. The GS we have access to is half the size of our outstanding local comp.

No, not all of them are. The one I went to was very small - 2-form entry at a time when new comprehensives were very large at 12-form entry. INow most comprehensives are much smaller and there are some pretty large grammar schools, especially in some outer London boroughs, with 6-form entry.

Oh, and I took my exams 20 years ago before everybody got a or b grades