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"

apmf

sorry?

Apology accepted

APMF - you realise that your previous post made no sense at all?

"that would be a remarkable school who could wholly compensate for that lack of parental nurturing in the in the school day"

Amber, I know. But I also think that a system that irrevocably significantly reduces such children's life chances even more at 10 can't be right, can it?

EvilTwins: Shouldn't the conversation be about how to get these kids into a GS?

When it comes to Oxbridge the conversation is about changing admissions policy so that students from a disadvantaged background has a shot at an Oxbridge education. No one suggest that Oxbridge be dissolved and that resources be diverted to Thames Valley or South Bank.

Yet when it comes to secondary school the conversation is different.

You help a disadvantaged kid get into a GS and the Oxbridge bit takes care of itself naturally 6 years down the road.

But who is crying out that home education gives them a spectacular adavantage than say a comprehensive school child in mixed ability class of 30?

No one, because if only 4% of DCs are in grammar schools and 7% are in independent then the percentage being HEed must be tiny. Out of that very small sample there will be the whole range-some won't be capable of an university, never mind Oxbridge. People do it for all sorts of reasons and with all sorts of method with all sorts of end results in mind. I can't think why anyone would aim for university before 18yrs-it is must be a huge disadvantage if you can't take up everything on offer because you are still a child. All the one to one and intense concentration on the DC can work as a disadvantage too.

We are still debating a tiny proportion on schools as if they are relevant to most DCs when there are only 164 grammar schools in the country! In response to comments earlier I would say that all good comprehensives set for subjects.

APMF,

I think the conversation needs to be how to enable the greatest number of such children to fulfil their true potential.

That is not, I would argue, best achieved by taking a tiny number off into a separate institution. It would be much better to plough that money into comprehensive schools to ensure that they all have the capability to help all children to fulfil their potential. Oxbridge has a problem of finite size - it cannot take more children than it has, so it has to find a fairer way to allocate the tiny number of spaces that it has. However, if all comprehensives all over the country were helped to become places where all childrem regardless of background, could aspire to the highest standards, there is no finite number of children who could be helped IYSWIM?

(Apologies - the number is of course finite, as the number of children in a cohort is finite, but it is not restricted by physical space to anything like the degree that Oxbridge admissions are)

Let me try again.

People choose a selective education for various reasons that has nothing to do with elitism. MN is full of stories about kids that weren't being challenged at their old school. Others talk about how crap the local comps are and how GS or indie was the only option. In seeker's case she wanted her DCs to go to the GS because the SM wasn't that brilliant.

We ALL chose a selective education for our DCs because we wanted what was best for them. Yet when everyone sits down and go on about righting the inequality in this world some like to portray others as selfish Me First types who have no conscience despite the fact that we all have kids in selective schools.

AMPF-what you have just said about me is not true.

"
"We are still debating a tiny proportion on schools as if they are relevant to most DCs when there are only 164 grammar schools in the country! In response to comments earlier I would say that all good comprehensives set for subjects."

Exotic- weird isn't it? I think it must be some sort of harking back to a golden age where ploughboys become academics through the grammar school system. I suspect that many people supporting grammar schools have very little idea about the reality of them now.

neither of my children are at selective schools
but DD came home tonight with a prize for coming top in her year group (of 300 children)

I am anti selective schools because DHs work - spending time in over 100 schools a year - has convinced both of us that only those stupid enough to pay should have it.

And the Oxbridge analogy is one of skew rather than finite resources.
Tim nice but Dim gets in because he was well coached
Chanelle from the comp does not even apply as she assumes she won't fit in.

Talkin,

Agree. DD and her friend - local state primary - took part in a town- wide Maths competition run by one of our local private schools. DD and her friend came 2nd. None of the private schools, even the selective ones that do all the coaching for grammar entry, were placed....

I suspect that many people supporting grammar schools have very little idea about the reality of them now.

They also support them because they think their DC will get a place! It isn't certain however clever-I mentioned earlier in the thread the letter in the Sunday Times with the man with a DS at grammar school, the younger one was just as bright and had level 5's for Maths, English and Science-his question was about how to go about the appeal. He stood very little chance however he did the appeal-there are just so many places and if the competition is particularly tough that year you don't get one! (as found out by the people who moved into my house, got a solicitor for the appeal and still failed to get in).

People choose a selective education for various reasons that has nothing to do with elitism.

Well over 80% of people don't get the choice-there are no selective schools (thankfully!)

Sorry-the youngest one had (to his horror) failed.

teacher: The comps in my area are good. It's just they aren't as academic as I would like them to be. However, according to reports and MNetters posting here, there are a lot of failing comps out there. There are no GSs in sight to cream off the brightest and the presence of Indies are minimal.

So improving comps is a separate conversation from GS v Sec Mods. Yet people often seem to consider it as one.

APMF,

You need to mine the data a little more, possibly. The question is not 'are the raw results of the comprehensive lower than those of elite schools?', but 'if you send a bright child to this school, how do they typically do?'

Sometimes the results are surprising. I know of a school where the overall results are just below the floor target, because the cohort is a very challenging one, but in which the brightest few students achieved 10 A* / A grades at GCSE, and overall pretty much every child made amazing progress even if the 'headline' GCSE pass rates don't look great.

APMF
The comps in my area are good. It's just they aren't as academic as I would like them to be
Chances are you are not reading the data correctly.

At DCs school there are children who will become tractor drivers on their parents tenants farms (Grundy)
There are also the landowners children (Aldridge)
And the children of the rich locally (Pargeter)
Sadly the Archers does not include many academics, otherwise my analogy would be complete.

The point is that in a Comp there are children who to do well, just have to be able to read the GPS on the tractor and sign for the SCATS delivery.

There are also kids who will be world famous in science in a few years.

Once you knock out the bottom half of the comps round here, by golly are they academic.
Kid in DDs groups has just moved across from the highly selective fee payer - he's lower end of top set ....

Mine the data a bit more? I'm not even mining the data a little :)

If someone says that their local comps are crap then I'm not going to talk cohorts, value added etc and try to make the point that its not as crap as they think if only they understood the data.

APMF,

If a child enters your local comp above the national average - say Level 5 SATs, then what GCSEs do they typically get?

If they enter at the national average - 4b - what GCSEs do they typically get?

Unless you mine the data at least enough to find the answer to those questions, then your statement 'good but not academic enough' is meaningless. If, for example, there is some specific reason why they only take in children below the national average, then their below national average results are 'as expected'. If they take in, say, 20% with Level 5s but those 20% don't get a decent set of GCSEs, then that's a different story.

APMF
So you are willing to accept incomplete opinion over fact?
Maybe you should admit to being Mr Gove.

If posters slagged off your kids school, would you believe them, or would you try to find out the truth?

Why are you willing to believe random slagging off (on Mumsnet especially) rather than check the data.

Any school can be crap - mine was for me
Any school can be excellent - mine was for my friend Wendy who now leads a University research team
Any school can be middling - mine was for other friends who are happy in their careers

You have to look into the facts for how a school will work for your child - not be facile.

APMF,

Many people would say that the school I referred to above is 'crap' - it's the toughest school in a tough town. However, its results show that very bright children do extremely well there, and so do middle achievers. The fact that they also take in children who other schools have said are 'ineducable' brings their average down - but since they also make exctremely good progress, does the mere fact that they are there make it a crap school?

(I should also add, anecdotally, that many people still think that my children's primary is 'crap - because back in the 1970s part of it was a secondary modern. That reputation lives on long, long after the reality - and didn't stop DS getting 6,5,5 in his SATs.

"If someone says that their local comps are crap then I'm not going to talk cohorts, value added etc and try to make the point that its not as crap as they think if only they understood the data."

But it may not be crop at all if you understqnd the data. It shouldn't be about obfuscation- for example looking at the progress made by high achievers might highlight that the school is, in fact highly academic, and the data for the low achievers might indicate that they have been let down. Or vice versa. You can't base a judgement on one person' anecdote.

I teach in a school that many would say is "crap". Mud sticks, and we were in special measures a few years ago. Since then, the school roll has been falling, and unless it goes back up, we'll end up closing. This is despite the fact that our results are going up and up. We have a multi-million pound new building, dedicated, excellent teachers and a head teacher who really knows her stuff. We marketed the hell out of the school for this year's OPen Evening, and were thrilled at the number of people who were really impressed with what they saw. Quite a lot admited that they'd only come to see if it really was as crap as they thought, and to have a nose around the new building.

Attitudes like yours, APMF, are damaging, but, sadly, common.

D Nephew missed the pass mark for his local grammars by 3 points (% points?) despite NO COACHING and no support from his primary that does not view him as grammar school material. Passing would have meant commuting to a school some way away, so we view the fact that the comprehensive 100 m up the road will have a grammar stream from September that for which he WILL qualify as a gift from the fates.

He has 0 commute and gets nearly the same thing as he would have had he passed, and he had no coaching. Win win win.