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"

"I would argue that that is NOT going to be achieved via the current grammar school or private school systems, but by having proper comprehensives that enable all children to meet their full potential regardless of parental input or coaching ouside school."

Whatever the school system, competitive parents just up their game to ensure their children get a head start. Among the parents of my generation I see parents whose children are brought up speaking four languages and playing two instruments and doing several sports... and they are nursery/early primary.

Bonsoir - yes. But it is the job of the school to seek out as many ways as possible to level that playing field. Where I work, we have about a fifth of the school with illiterate parents. We emply a specific TA to, amongst other things, read and do homework with those children. They receive free class instrumental tuition. We bring in outside sports coaches to make sure that everyone has exposure to high-class sports coaching. We teach French to everyone. We fill in their application forms for the next stage of education. There are a hundred and one tiny things that we do to mitigate the disadvantage those children start off with. I agree that it can never wholly compensate for having competitive, clued up parents - but IMHO, every school should be seeking to do so as much as possible.

Of course, what you have going against that, teacherwith2kids, is that the middle classes, who probably vote more and expect to have their say more, don't actually want the playing field levelled too much - it's much more pleasurable to angst about something you pretend there is nothing you can really do about than to do something which might destroy the advantages you would actually like to fight hard to keep. Spend "too much" on the disadvantaged, and those who have to pay for all this themselves start to resent it and say there is no incentive to be a good, "hard working," "squeezed middle" parent any more. People don't really want the best man to win, they want their own offspring to be the winners.

@rabbit - If I were to generalise about WC parents the way you just generalised about MC parents I would soooo have a whole crate of buns thrown at me.

Tbh. Rabbit. I don't care. I care about the children. And since ALL the children will benefit if those who could become the 'disaffected' are given the help that they need to fully engage with the education system early on, I do genuinely believe that even the most advantaged of children benefit from the small-scale help that we give the disadvantaged.

teacherwith2kidsSun 09-Dec-12 15:14:01

But it is the job of the school to seek out as many ways as possible to level that playing field. Where I work, we have about a fifth of the school with illiterate parents. We emply a specific TA to, amongst other things, read and do homework with those children.

Couldn't agree more teacher. Couldn't agree more. And I agree a little bit with rabbitstew in that I have seen a tendency on mumsnet towards an "I'm alrgiht Jack" attitude - ie "it's quite right that parents do all this work at home with the children, and it's the parents' fault if children fail when they don't'". Sometimes that attitude is with teachers too. But what teacherwith2kids said - never a truer word spoken. There are other teachers on here who do the same and make the same efforts. The "extra" parental input should be entirely up to them - and nothing to do with the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic.

However what you say rabbitstew is far too much of a generalisation, it's as much a generalisation as saying it's working class parents who don't care about their children's education, and both are wrong.

"up to them" = up to the parents, not the teachers

God botherers and aspiring MC mums have the same failing
they assume that their children will have the same hangups they do

please do not

the point of state education is that it separates the ability of the child from that of the parent
and sadly nowadays, selective state schools (of all religious and secular hues)
UTTERLY fail on that front
as religious and grammar schools consistently have higher rank socio-ecenomoic parents than their non selective neighbours
but sadly (for the strivers) less of a difference than would be expected by standard deviation.

SO
You bust a gut to feel better, but actually your DCs do no better.

We who live in the comp areas worry more about supporting the kids we have, rather than the kids we would have wanted to be.

Sorry ladies, time to put the tutors out of business ...

"People don't really want the best man to win, they want their own offspring to be the winners."

Yes, of course they do. Which is why it is so important to try to get parents to care and do the work themselves.

It is a complete illusion to believe that you can separate the ability of the child from that of the parent. Unless, of course, you whisk children away at birth and never let them near their parents!

Brycie,

My grandfather learned to read at 14. My mother - his daughter - went to Oxford.

The difference? Not ability, in any way, as my grandfather was a very intelligent man. But opportunity, in the form of access to good schools; removal of barriers, in the form of sufficient food on the table; and societal expectations, as my mother was not expected to care for 8 siblings nor work from the earliest possible age to put food on the table.

We can do all those things, in terms of access to good schools, removal of barriers, and creating appropriate socoetal expectations, and it will make a huge difference.

[Sorry, that post was addressed to Bonsoir]

Of course we don't have a level playing field. Only a fool would suggest otherwise. But shouldn't the conversation be about improving the opportunities of the 77% than decreasing the opportunities of the 23%?

Ok, a GS kid may have the opportunity to study 2 MFLs and the Sec Mod only one but if the Sec Mod kid gets good grades in his/her GCSEs is that kid really receiving an inferior education because he/she 'only' has one MFL?

All I've heard is a lot of talk about how if my kids were to go to your school then I will be forced to work towards improving your school. That is so patronising. Are the parents that are already there so incapable?

Despite what some of you might think, not all of us MC parents are in the position to have the local MP over for tea so that we can strong arm him into increasing budgets and stuff.

We no longer live in a time or place where children lead the kind of life your grandfather lived. Children in Europe go to school at 4 (or even earlier) and children are not expected to assume caring responsibilities for siblings or work to provide for their family. And yet we still have wildly different attainment levels. What, realistically, can we still do in schools to close the gaps? We can improve schools with the patchiest provision, for sure, but ultimately we need parents to adopt different behaviours towards their children's education. Schools cannot do it all.

"Children in Europe go to school at 4 (or even earlier) and children are not expected to assume caring responsibilities for siblings or work to provide for their family."

I have children in my class who did not start school until well after their 6th birthday, several who care for their siblings full-time outside school, others who are young carers for adults in their family, and yet others who are expected to contribute to the family business in some way. And I teach 7-8 year olds. You clearly live quite a sheltered life as this is a relatively normal village primary!

APMF
Frankly I don't give a shit what grammar schools do because there are only 164 of them and NONE in my county - which consistently comes high up in the tables - above the counties dumb enough to hang on to 1950's approaches to class choice.

The best way to make the "grammar school test MS proof " is to abolish the bloody thing and to get the MC parents involved in their local schools - which will benefit everybody.

If you looked at statistics rather than your own anecdotes, you would know that children in Europe (unlike the rest of the world) now universally attend pre-school. Exceptions are very rare indeed. Maybe you should leave your village from time to time and get out and see the world?

Plenty of parents who COULD do more at home complain that it is all the school's job and schools are being lazy asking them to get involved in anything academic, even listening to their own children read. That takes the teachers away from helping the children whose parents genuinely can't do much at home on the academic front, except watch in admiration as their kids do things they themselves never got taught. What to do about that? We've all seen how much difference parental involvement makes, however hard the school is also working...

@teacher - A relatively normal village primary??? In Louisiana Bayou country maybe.

'Universally' is a strong word. It implies 100% - and you only need 1 black swan to prove that they are not all white. In that context, the fact that nearly 1/4 of our Reception class attended no form of pre-school education is perhaps relevant? Even in the large town where I live, take-up of pre-school education is not universal. It may be available to all - but it does not mean that it is taken up by all.

Perhaps the home-school partnership needs to be a lot more explicit at a national level? Parents who were fully informed about eg learning to read and the involvement school was going to expect of them well in advance would factor the time in. I remember that birth-5 book that the NHS handed out when I was pregnant with DD - maybe there should be stuff in there about starting school and how parenting evolves at that point?

APMF - all I can say is that you'd be surprised!

Rural England. High Traveller intake, though not all of the children that I refer to, in particular the young carers and those who are expected to help out e.g. in family shops etc, are Travellers.

talkin - I say again, aren't you being a bit patronising towards to the parents at these schools?

Bopnsoir, how does that help illiterate parents or those with English as very much their second language?

Then you, sadly, live somewhere exceptional (at a European level). But don't fight battles that are already won! All European governments (thankfully) are aware of the value of pre-school education and there is no intention of going back on that.