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.

TOSN - You think that selecting by ability to pay is wrong? Well, they use to select by intelligence but some bright spark decided to do way with GSs. Now they mostly select by ability to pay. That experiment to make things equitable didn't work out too well eh?

What was that? You are against selecting on intelligence as well? Presumably if your DC gets straight As you have no objection to the uni giving the last place to the grade C student who overcame great obstacles just to get a C.

Silly example I know. It's just that people consider something unfair if it is to their disadvantage but If it is to their advantage .....

Ok, I'll try one more time. I want all children to have access to everything education can provide. In a grammar school area, 77% of 10 year olds are told that they are failures, and are denied opportunities that the 23% deemed to be successes are given automatically. If they were all in the same school, the 77% would at least have the opportunity to know what was available. They may not want to take up the opportunities, but if they don't know they are the, then how can they know whether they want to or not? And it makes no difference to the 23%, because they will still be educated together in the top sets with other bright children. I'm not expecting the 23% to be role models. I' expecting the opportunities to be available in the school for anyone who wants to tqke them up.

I think I do want to understand you seeker. so I'll take post 13:41 sentence by sentence.

"I'm obviously not expressing myself properly. In grammar school areas, there is no non selective education- you are either selected for grammar or high school

I think I get that why you think people are been selected.

"In comprehensive areas, the children who would have gone to grammar school go into the top sets and do as well as the would in a grammar school"".

Are you sure about that? We do not have any grammer school in my county, the best comp in my area was no 554 on GCSE league table, the nearest private in another county was no 46 on same league table.

In the state school league table for A levels, the nearest grammer also in another county was no 6 for girls and 54 for boys for A levels - the comp was 224 for A levels.

The difference is that those top sets and what is taught and learnt in them is available to the other 77%. it's not about your child being a role model. It's about the opportunities that your child has at school being available. If you can't see it, there's no way of you finding out whether you want it or not!

No, I don't get this point at all. I give up.

If children need an extra hour a day tutoring and four hours at the weekend, 9 hours a week in total (excluding school holidays) ??the school is not doing its job properly or the child is not suitable for GS.
The GS test is basic maths and English skills the only part that might need a little tutoring would be the V and NV reasoning.

Thanks Brycie

Seeker

I understand perfectly what you are saying.

Iyatoda

I'm sure you apprecuate that comp is further down the league table because by definition it takes all comers, (including students with learning difficulties) therefore the results will not be as good as a school which is selective, whether by ability or financially.

In a comp, there is always a chance for a late bloomer to move up the sets; the opportunities are open to all.

I won't pretend that I've read the whole thread (no time).

I am not an educationalist.

But I often think it would help if schools/parents/society stopped judging and selecting on the same old criteria and looked at whole pictures instead of bits of kids. Might lead to a healthier lot of schools generally.

No idea how we'd go about it, though, needs someone wiser than me (and probably from a 'top set' or 'grammar school': I had a depressingly mediocre private education...)

ps I understand what Seeker is saying too, about opportunities. No grammars in our Borough, thank goodness - we can focus on improving the local comp without guilt.

"are denied opportunities that the 23% deemed to be successes are given automatically"

So the answer is to deny the 23 per cent those opportunities?

Would not your campaign be better directed towards improving the opportunities of the 77 per cent by campaigning for improvements in the education they receive? Rather than just accepting that "it's not nirvana". Obviously that doesn't bother you as much as other children being better educated.

I did say sometime ago this was a dog in the manger attitude. Thank you for proving my point. I think it was described at the time as bizarre, or silly - it's so difficult to keep up with the random insults.

You therefore don't answer my point about what you expect from grammar school students when they are educated with non grammar school students. You expect them to raise standards? Yet we are told they are not the best, only the best trained at jumping through hoops. So how would this be achieved?

As opposed to, say, a sustained effort from teachers, head teachers and local authorities to improve the standards to grammar school standards?

"we can focus on improving the local comp without guilt. "

Excellent.

Simple questions. Do you want grammar school children educated with all other children?

Yes, because I don't think you can sort children into grammar sheep and Sec Mod goats at that age. I don't think intelligence is fully fixed as though children are different sized milk bottles just needing to be filled up.

Why do I care? Not directly because I sent my children to comprehensives and am mighty glad that's the system here. Academically and job wise they have done well so the system has worked.

Why else do I care? I have got too many intelligent friends who were deemed failures at the age of 11. They have succeeded in life but it's been despite their education not because of it. They say that they can still feel the pain of being rejected at 11. (As it happens the friends I am thinking of were all lucky enough to go to better secondary moderns.) I'm currently studying for another degree with the OU and some of my fellow students are extremely intelligent but were deemed to be failures at school.

Interesting enough, when my school turned comprehensive the 11+ had already been held. The headmistress of my school received the results but she and the deputy decided to hold them back and form their own judgement as to the children's abilities. After five years they had a look at the 11+ results to see who had performed in line with the results. There were a number of surprises - so called 11+ failures doing well, supposed grammar school standard children not doing anything much to write home about.

I really don't see what your argument is. If the presence of grammar school students makes no difference - then why do you want them.

If your beef is really the quality of education offered to the 77 per cent - why aren't you campaigning about that instead of selection?

Um, Brycie, but (ref: 'improve comp without guilt' comment) that refers to the fact that we don't have grammar schools around here. If we did, I'd be agonizing and panicking instead of wholeheartedly supporting improvements in the local comp.

I don't think you can separate the two issues, and I think thats what Seeker is saying, no?

LaVolcan: all this:

"I have got too many intelligent friends who were deemed failures at the age of 11. They have succeeded in life but it's been despite their education not because of it. They say that they can still feel the pain of being rejected at 11. (As it happens the friends I am thinking of were all lucky enough to go to better secondary moderns.) I'm currently studying for another degree with the OU and some of my fellow students are extremely intelligent but were deemed to be failures at school."

is about the quality of education offered to the 77 per cent and not to do with selection. It can be blamed on the teachers, or the schools, or the local authority, but not on the families who are not attending the schools or being taught by the teachers. Your anger/concern should be more appropriately directed.

And this :

Yes, because I don't think you can sort children into grammar sheep and Sec Mod goats at that age. I don't think intelligence is fully fixed as though children are different sized milk bottles just needing to be filled up.

is exactly the same. If the quality of education were demanding, rigorous, excellent, it would make no difference. The fault is in the quality of education being offered.

"If we did, I'd be agonizing and panicking instead of wholeheartedly supporting improvements in the local comp."

Well I send my children to private school. As soon as I'm not working I'll get CRB checked and join or set up reading programmes in schools which have nothing to do with me or my children except in the sense that we can all benefit from improvements in education for all.

Your post demonstrates just as much a "me and mine" attitude as any grammar "mummy" (as seeker likes to call them).

Ok, I'll try one more time. I want all children to have access to everything education can provide. In a grammar school area, 77% of 10 year olds are told that they are failures, and are denied opportunities that the 23% deemed to be successes are given automatically. If they were all in the same school, the 77% would at least have the opportunity to know what was available.

Seeker in what form are these opportunities that are only open to grammar schools and not sec mod/comp? Is it sports, subjects taken, quality of school meals, quality of teachers .... ?

So many contradictory arguments.

So many anecdotes of people who failed the 11+ but went on to achieve educational and professional success. So, in yah face those who think that 11+ is a good predictor, goes the argument.

Mucho congrats but why are you on here going on about how failing the 11+ consigns the pupil to a lifetime of failure and lost opportunities?

Plus some of you are proud of the fact that you and/or DP got to Oxbridge despite going to a comp. It is one of the most selective institutions in the world. You don't think it's fair that Mrs X should send her DC to a selective secondary in her town but you have no problems with yourself attending Oxbridge???

is about the quality of education offered to the 77 per cent and not to do with selection.

If the quality of education were demanding, rigorous, excellent, it would make no difference. The fault is in the quality of education being offered.

I beg to differ - those places which still have selective systems are saying that we will give a good quality education to the 23% and the rest will have to make do with second best.

What do people think that the 23% are getting that the 77% aren't getting?

People keep reminding me that their sports facilities are just as good. That the musical opportunities are just as plentiful and the range of after school clubs just as extensive. Others have gone on about how the GCSE results at their comp are better than that at their local indie.

So tell me. What do YOU think that you are not getting from your 77% education?

LaVolcan: see APMF's post above yours.

"those places which still have selective systems are saying that we will give a good quality education to the 23% and the rest will have to make do with second best. "

Ok some of you are saying education for the rest is not worse, some of you are saying it is.

Is it worse? How?

If it's worse, campaign for it to be improved.

Trying to get some clarity here is a nightmare. This is why I think the argument isn't thought through - it's just a general sort of oh it must be wrong it must be unfair something something everyone else gets a good education oh no they don't something something something we want grammar school children oh no we don't they cream off the best oh no they don't something this something that.

Think, think, think. Why do you want this - what is the real problem underlying your vague sense of unease.

Surely in grammar school areas the top sets at the local non-grammar secondaries are now opened up to children who would not make the cut in a comprehensive elsewhere - and that should have a positive effect on their education.

Children like to shine and this gives those who otherwise wouldn't a chance to shine.

Purely anecdotal, but my sister was effortlessly top of the class in a very so-so private school. Despite 11 A* at GCSE she got a very nasty shock when she moved to a very selective top-10 private school for the 6th form and discovered that she was considered low-average in the class. Her confidence was seriously knocked and I imagine she would have done better at A Level had she remained as the 'uber-bright' kid at her first school.

As far as I can see, a massive issue is portraying the non-grammars as schools for 'failures'. Is this a 'British' thing?

In Italy, children are streamed into 3 schools: the Liceo for the high-flyers, the Scientifico for the middlers and the Tecnico for the non-academic where they learn whatever skills are needed for the local industry. I lived there for 8 years and there didn't seem to be the same issues with these divisions that there are in the UK. No-one looked down on the kids at the Scientifico, it was just deemed as horses for courses. Both groups could apply for the same courses at the same universities, you just didn't all get to do Latin.

Instead of turning comps into academies why not make more grammar schools?

"a massive issue is portraying the non-grammars as schools for 'failures'"

I'm beginning to think this is the only issue. They'd rather everyone had a mediocre education than this. Or is it mediocre? I don't even know if the anti-selections think grammar schools or better, and if so why, or if they think grammar school children are actually brighter, or what benefit would be achieved by grammar school children not having a grammar education. None of it is clear except the statement above.

I think so too Brycie. I think sometimes that perhaps its the thought that grammar schools are perceived as better that upsets people. The level playing field may only just be in the name.

So people would feel a lot better if all schools were called comps, it then becomes difficult to distinguish which is better or not in name.

Plus some of you are proud of the fact that you and/or DP got to Oxbridge despite going to a comp. It is one of the most selective institutions in the world. You don't think it's fair that Mrs X should send her DC to a selective secondary in her town but you have no problems with yourself attending Oxbridge???

The difference is that, as everybody has to go to secondary school until they are 16, there is no reason to divide children at the age of 10 - no need at all. By the time young people are 16 or 18, they will be taking different paths in life, based on their own abilities and ambitions, and not everybody will go to university, let alone Oxford or Cambridge.