11+ being scrapped

[musu]

At one school in Essex here

Interesting development which follows on from Bucks CC overhauling their 11+ and trying to make it tutor proof (although everyone I know in Bucks is still employing tutors).

So, wordfactory, what is your suggestion?

I understand word perfectly. Normal is very important too here in this house. None of mine are gifted but I'd always put a far higher premium on the social aspect of school and a decent peer group than I would on fostering a gift - or the gift all too easily turns into a curse.

Which is what this boys parents did!! He also needed to be taught at the appropriate level.

Exotic fruits. You say that 7% of kids go to private schools,3% go to Grammar Schools.But what percentage of russell group oxbridge,places do they take up. Seeker on page 4 of the secondary section there is a posting about wellington school in trafford. You may wish to read it. If 90% of kids go to comprehensives, surely 90% of all oxbridge graduates should have been educated in comprehensives, as we all know it is probaly less than half that. So you can see the comprehensive system is not fit for purpose. It does not help those at the bottom read and write,it does not get anyway near enough kids to oxbridge or russell group uni"s. It only works for the middle 60% "MEDIOCRITY".

Sounds to me as though he was happy and so was everyone else, Exotic!

Grammar schools are not bursting at the seams with DCs who do maths at Cambridge - nor are DCs who manage GCSEs a few years early two a penny - and if they are they have changed vastly from my day. I went to a grammar school in addition to a SM.

No, beatback, those figures would only make sense if private schools and grammar simply took whoever wanted to go, but they don't. All grammar schools and most private schools take children who pass the entrance test. Bright children. Children who were probably the most likely to go to RG universities and Oxford and Cambridge anyway.

My DS went to a RG university and he had friends there from private schools and grammar schools, but the majority were like him, from comprehensives- which they would be if 90% of children go to them.
Are you really saying that RG universities consist of DCs from Kent, Bucks and other pockets?

Many (? Well, some) GS are in fact bursting at the seams with DCs who do GCSEs early, because all the kids there do all their GCSEs early.

They can do them early in the comprehensive- I can't see the point personally. I still don't understand why 97% of the country without grammar schools have dimmer children or why someone is suddenly a better teacher if they happen to land a job in one of the 3% of schools.
If there are no grammar schools the bright DCs and good teachers are in the comprehensive- they can't be up to much if they can't cope unless segregated.

exotic you do understand the difference between grammar schools in say Kent and super selectives (both state and private), don't you?

No wordfactory- failing the 11+ made me too thick to grasp it!

Well you sound as if you are conflating the two!

I shall leave people too it, ,when we get down to patronising people I have had enough.

Sorry to- not too.

I don't understand why DC should ever do GCSEs early. For the purposes of accurate measurement and comparison, all DCs ought to take all the GCSEs they will ever take at a single sitting at the end of Y11.

wordfactory - I don't understand your point. I am from Kent and, indeed, briefly attended a GS here, as did several of my first cousins on my father's side. Both the girls' and boys' GS we attended are "superselectives".

My two went to state comps (all boys and all girls, as that is how it works in our town) and then to RG universities. They have friends from all types of school.

What happens to those kids who do (say) Maths GCSE a year or two early and want to carry on with the subject to A Level. Do they start the A level early?

And all my cousins who stayed right through went to Oxbridge and did MAs and PhDs in illustrious institutions across the world...

Bonsoir my understanding from seeker was that children in Kent sat the 11+ and the top 25% went to grammar schools, the others DC go to secondary modern.

We don't have that here.

But there are a few super selectives with no catchment, which are much more selective than 25%. They don't really affect the other state schools because the catchment is so wide and selection so strenuous.

As for sitting early.

Well DS teachers believe that in certain subject the curriculm is done and dusted. Ge the exam out of the way and get on with the real business of education.

No, it's nothing like that. Kent has all sorts of schools and the grammar schools are not all the same - far from it. They are highly differentiated from one another and operate in a market place. In Kent, state and private schools compete for the same DC and so you get specialities ie an all IB grammar school. In any case, lots of children in Kent do not take the Kent test (11+) - there is absolutely no obligation or expectation for DC to take it.

Some Kent comprehensives have a grammar stream so DC who have taken and passed the Kent test go there.

One could equally say that kids who go all lady of the camelias over not being selected for Grammar School can't be up to much.

Neither statement is actually true, of course.

amother I can only speak for DS school and say that they all sit math early.

And the powers that be believe that all boys should carry on with math, even if they don't want to take an A level in it, because everyone can benefit from doing more math!

I think you make a case not to do it. But you'd have to really state it well and come up with an alternative.

Didn't know that bonsoir ... had only got my facts from seeker.

That'll learn me