Middle class access to grammars via tutorproof 11+ part 2

[boschy]

May I do this? only there were some contrasting views at the end of the last thread which I found interesting.

One was mine (sorry!): "I think fear actually drives a lot of those parents who are desperate to get their child into GS, so they can be 'protected' from these gangs of feral teenagers who apparently run rampage through every non-selective school in the country.

Because clearly if you are not 11+ material you are a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal who likes nothing better than beating up a geek before breakfast and then going to score behind the bike shed before chucking a chair at the maths teacher and making the lives of the nice but dim kids a misery."

And one was from gazzalw: "If you had the choice would you opt for a grammar school or a comprehensive that has gangs?"

Soooo, do people really think that all comprehensives have vicious gangs, and all GS children are angels? Or that only those of academic ability adequate enough to get them through the 11+ should not have to face behavioural disruption of any kind? If you are borderline, or struggling but still work hard, should you just have to put up with disruption because let's face it you're not academic?

PS, re the knuckle dragging Neanderthals I mention above, should have said - "and that's only the girls"

Oh I give up APMF. Has seeker ever even said it was fair her dd 'passed', I don't think so. I know she thought she was in the 23% which was why she should try the test (but I think was less sure of her ranking within that than her ds), but she's always said a lot fail who shouldn't too. If you live somewhere with an imperfect system, what are you supposed to do?

APMF, because SM and GS are different in terms of education, they just are. They are alos different in terms of extra curricular activities, behaviour etc
Being on the same NC level is not everything is it?

I am not going on about the "shitty" time my ds is having qt his high school. It was you that brought my children into this discussion. My ds is fine, thank you for asking. My dd was indeed a level 4 in year 6. By this stage in year 7, she was working at 5b.

I asked you before whether you would like me to explain the difference between hitting levels and getting an education?

Defining disadvantage is rather tricky I agree. Would using FSM not work then?

@tantrum - they are not personal attacks on seeker's children. The subject in front of us is whether the GS selection does a good job of selecting the 'right' students. I am making what I feel is a reasonable argument namely that the selection process works MOST of the time and that seeker has no problems with the system when it selects her DD.

Seeker has had vociferous probems with the system before she had Secondqry age children.

But Seeker has always had a problem with the system. Even when it selected her DD. Her position has always been entirely consistent.

"Defining disadvantage is rather tricky I agree. Would using FSM not work then?"
As I said, more work for accountants........

Cross-posted

I didnt say personal attack, I said personal comments

FWIW even though 2 of my children are at GS I hate the grammar school system, I hate everything about it

pity.

Seeker - you constantly post about your DS and hold him up as an example of how The System has wronged him. And now you are going on about how I introduced him into the conversation??? [bangs head against table top]

marni - there are those who talk the talk and there are those who walk the walk. seeker has been talking the talk for years. So what?

seeker has been posting about the grammar school system for a long time before her DS sat the 11 plus so I dont get your point?
Are you trying to say she has had a sudden change of heart? because thats not true.

Much as I usually disagree with Seeker on matters religious and educational (but not on children being left home alone occasionally without parents being lambasted), she has always been consistent on her grammar school stance. If it was me, I'd move counties if I hated the 11plus so much (friends of ours did just this), but it's not always possible if you have work and family commitments to fulfill. Or just like your house a lot.

I don't you know, AMPF. I used him as an example on a particularly heated thread once, and since then I have never had to mention him even if I wanted to- somebody else always does it for me. Usually so inaccurately that i have to respond. In the current conversation, that person was you. It will probably be somebody else next time.

Seeker is incensed at the perceived downward social mobility that her non-GS DC is going to endure because she cannot afford to purchase private education (which would give her a better shot at maintaining her children in the socio-cultural-economic class she wishes her family to belong to).

Her solution to her own dilemma would be to force all children to attend fully comprehensive schools, thereby, she believes, removing the advantages bestowed upon the few by selective and/or paying education.

But she is wrong. It is not that simple, as she would know if she had lived and breathed the educational systems of other countries which have tried the fully comprehensive route.

APFM, if seeker had put her ds into an independent school this September, then I may have been more inclined to agree with you (though even on that one I think a change of opinion is allowed, and seeker if things don't work out for your ds then I really do think you should consider this option). As it is, I rather think she's walking the walk at the moment and that you are being rather rude.

No doubt I'll be flamed for making personal comments about your kids but mine were at that level in Year 6 at their undemanding primary. If your DD is at that level in year 7 at a GS then that doesn't say much for the GS. In which case, why does it bug you so much that your DS is not at this underperforming GS?

x-posts with Bonsoir

You used your DS more than once without me even having to search historical posts

It says nothing whatsoever about the grammar at all - possibly it says the primary schools in the area aren't that great, or that the catchment area is challenging, or that the grammar takes a large percentage, but you cannot slate the grammar for the standards of it's children on entry.

And your dc have nothing at all to do with this at all.

It's not a under performing grammar school. My dd may have at that stage been an under performing mathematician- however her A* at GCSE shows that she pulled her socks up......

I don't think I have ever, apart from on the historic thread I mentioned, been the first to mention my ds. As I said, there's always someone to do it for me.

Bonsoir, that was, I feel, unnecessarily nasty. I would like to rise above it, but I can't help myself telling you that I could actually. afford to send my ds to private school.

What is so magical about a GS that makes people think that exclusion from one will consign your DC to a life of unfulfilled dreams?

There is no shortage of people posting anecdotes of themselves, siblings or friends who failed the 11+ and yet went on to go to a good university and a great job. Those anecdotes were meant to show that the 11+ is not a good predictor of ability but the flip side is that it proves that a bright kid can still achieve at a SM.

A lot of you perceive SMs as an inferior product. You then project these attitudes onto others. It is YOU that is going around using the F for Failure words

If you could afford to purchase private education for your DS, you would, given just how much you hate him being in a SM. Unless, of course, you are totally insane dysfunctional.