Changes to 11-plus to stop middle-class parents 'buying' access to grammars by hiring tutors

[breadandbutterfly]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2241411/Changes-11-plus-stop-parents-buying-access-selective-schools-hiring-tutors-children.html

Similar article in the Times apparently but paywall.

Ronaldo you sound mighty confused and dare I say a bit ignorant of the light and shade of real life. Arriviste unfortunately always struggle as you can never just relax.

I would like to know which particular garde Ronaldo considers himself avante. From his posting it sounds a completely incongruous description!

I am not denying it rabbitstew

Aaaw rabbit

You've put me off my sausage supper

Turd -in the- hole

Why dont you just use the word? I am an upstart (well not quite but close thanks to my DM not giving me the start I should have had - and the one she gave my DB).

I was delivered of the wrong culture and now we are full circle.

Its strange how the dumbed down pleb culture is always more dominant, even for people like myself who had experience of both.

Didn't you know it's avant garde to want your son to be a creative thinker but nevertheless to put him through a "system" so that he can understand how systems work and fit in with those around him, who are all carefully selected establishment figures with a taste for classical music and dressing up in DJs for social events?

Takver, thanks for interesting post 2 pages ON THE TOPIC.

I disagree that grammar schools were exclusively middle class in the 60s and previously. My FIL got into grammar from a v working class background in the 50s - tutored by his mum who was a cleaner. My uncle got into a grammar despite being a refugee living in a hostel. You're right that there were quotas, though not nec as strict as you suggest - in my mum's grammar,there was a Jewish quota but certainly a lot more than 1 pupil per year - think it was more like 50%, owing to the area.

My gut feeling - from reading 11+ forums etc - is that a large part of the rise in tutoring is down to two factors - firstly, the creation of national league tables (rather than just local knowledge of which the 'good' schools were), creating a kind of feeding frenzy around the 'top' schools,along with increased numbers of recent immigrants from cultures that value education highly, but lack the first-hand knowledge of the British system, so tend to aim for high-scoring schools as a default position, where their finances will not stretch to private schools.

post 2 pages BACK

You dont know seeker. You should not judge.

As a private school teacher of 4 years experience (state sector doesn't count, after all), I guess you are a bit of an upstart to think you have found your niche in the upper echelons of the establishment.

Well, its hardly mainstream is it rabbitstew? Add to that I am considering being really radical and putting him in for GCSE next year and what do you get in that mix if not something creative?

APMF Sun 02-Dec-12 15:29:37
"@minty - Maybe Renaldo doesn't want his kids to be educated next to people who can't spell 'elite' even though it's there two posts up and the phone has spell checker."

Not sure I catch your drift APMF, but I do hope you weren't suggesting that I don't know how to spell elite.

Ronaldo in my earlier post when I mentioned a monoculture I did not mean a racial monoculture I meant a class monoculture ( my DC'cs attend a rural comp in Scotland so ethnic diversity did not spring to my mind first).

I was referring to middle class "culture", playing rugby rather than football, plenty of books at home, music lessons etc. and working class culture, football, Sky television, holidays in Spain ( to use sweeping generalisations that are very crass). It is my experience as a parent and a pupil that many comps contain children with a great variety of home cultures and most children find friends who share similar backgrounds. Your DS would have no difficulty finding friends with a similar family background at DS3's state primary, there are at least three children in his class alone who have a parent who teaches in an independent school and two of those have one parent from abroad and are bilingual.

The local independent school has a fair sprinkling of parents who are well off but are not what you would call " cultured".

but this is my swan song rabbit. I have done my bit in the upper echelons. I am on the way down now - well down on the giddy heights of muy main career. I havent always been a simple teacher you know.

ON THE TOPIC - grammar schools did advance members of my family through the social ranks. No idea what proportion of children genuinely benefited but I know plenty who didn't benefit from grammar schools!

Oh, Ronaldo. You have told us all about your redundancies in the past. That doesn't sound very glamorous or in the realms of giddy height-dom. What about the golden handshakes? Or the continuing streams of people bowing down before your wisdom, even post-retirement? Surely you would have expected some of that?

You don't have the courage of your convictions or the confidence to really educate your child how you see fit? Why don't you do what you really feel is right eg no school and break the cycle you seem to feel there is in your family? FWIW I was privately educated and that firmly made me decide that my ds would be state educated

Wigglybeezer, I think I have been honest previously but I will breath catchingly so now - I dont want my DS to mix with state school kids lower middle class or otherwise. I just do not want him in the environment.

I know that there are some less culturered upstarts in independent schools too.

I currently HE. I hope the school we have chosen has eliminated the undesirable elements. Now that will cause lots of trouble here.

Get a life folks. Some few people do feel that way, we just dont say it often I guess.

You don't have to say it, Ronaldo, it seeps out of the pores of people who think it.

Were you bullied, Ronaldo?

Sorry, that was too personal, don't feel you have to answer.

I am wondering if Ronaldo is just a name change, he sounds just like another poster. I feel sorry for his child if he doesn't accept fail and can't. Failure is good for anyone-it often spurs them on and if you are frightened of failing you don't risk anything.
To get back to OP - I don't think it possible to design a tutor free test but I do think it a step in the right direction to acknowledge that parent's 'buy' their DCs grammar school place and it needs to be stopped.

I have been bluntly honest rabbit. That was warts and all giving my redundancies. Of course I got a good hand shake and was actually promoted before being "retired off" on that redundancy.

Yes, in the 1980's recession I did come back from Canada because I was not given tenure . I would have stayed in a heart beat but thats because Canada has a culture of " Canadians first" In fact its law. It wasnt because I was a failiure as such. UK doesnt have this attitude of putting its own first. I dont disagree with it. But it cost me a job and I had to come home here.

So yes, I bitted around academically but my research and publishing work went forward and my academic career went forward and upward (title wise) as one might expect.

If I had said I had taken new challenges instead of telling you I was pushed out, you would see it differently wouldnt you?.

Thats the trouble with being really truthful people want to interpret it as failure. Many men ( and women ) move on in careers. People say they are finding " new challenges" - often they are being eased out. Same coin , two sides in description.

Research showed that the advantage of practice on a test occurred mainly after the first time; thereafter there was little or no effect.

A way To level the playing field would be to have all schools practice the test a couple of times, with a bit of coaching/teaching first.

You don't have the courage of your convictions or the confidence to really educate your child how you see fit?

I do, my DS is home educated. He will not go toschool until he is 7. We have selected a quite different school for him then. He will continue to be HE in that we will control his education base. As I said, I am even considering if we should be putting him in for GCSE in the next year or so.

He has piano lessons and dance lessons and has passed grades in piano and music. He is well above his level for his age.

I am not convinced of the value of sport and we do not do any. He does not do scouts etc. for similar reasons. I have very strong and different views than you might think.