Genuine question - why do some people have a problem with the grammar school system

[englishteacher78]

I went to one - my choice in part, parents would have preferred me to go to the Catholic secondary. As a teacher I have worked in two.
I know if I had gone to the Catholic school I would have coasted (even more than I did).
Some people seem to he very against the grammar school system and I'm not sure why. It was the making of my dad (miner's son from council estate in Scotland)and I think that all counties should have that provision. Surely it's just split site streaming in a way.

TalkinPeace - I absolutely DON'T think they should be segregated or bussed off anywhere or put in a separate building or school at all. I think that like every other child in the education system, they should be given abilty-appropriate teaching and curriculum! And that that can happen in a building which has children of a diversity of abilities. In the same way as I don't think high ability children need to be in a separate grammar school building.

I think it is ZZZZ who wants them in a special school.

In truth I have no experience of the super-bright, but this thread is about Grammars, anyway.

Talkinpeace you raise a good final point there - my girls have been very sheltered - lovely nursery (MC leafy suburb!!) lovely infant/primary schools (MC leafy suburb) and have had a big shock going to a edge of city secondary where the real world merges..... it is a good school specialising in science and languages, with kids from all over the place with different standards, different starting points and very different aspirations....

their friend - who goes to grammar (and her mum who really does not have a clue as she is a specialist private language tutor) have those big shocks coming!!

with a massive carbon footprint and churning out lots of kids with no understanding of the people who will work for them later in life ......

(not as bad as Gideon and Cameroon and Clogg admittedly)

zzzzzz
hahaha - take our local SS grammars for example - they seem to be schools for the children whose parents have paid for their kids to go to expensive private prep schools where they get taught in small groups- thus starting with an advantage, those kids also get taught how to pass the test, and those who are having trouble pay to be tutored on how to pass the test. These kids then take up most of the places...

The naturally bright kids should be spread throughout the socio-economic groups - not just come from upper/middle class households who can pay for the privilege -( or are poor kids automatically thick too) - they would normally go to public school - but our local grammar is "better" at no cost.. because it is SS....

zzzzzzzzz
My DS fits your definition of someone with a high IQ who needs specialist teaching BUT he would fail his 11+. He is not high IQ in maths.

In truth I have no experience of the super-bright,

You probably have, blu, but they have an amazing ability to appear just like normal people most of the time!

What is a super selective grammar school, if not a special school for the academically super-able?

But would bear absolutely no relation to how we would normally understand by a special school where children who need it can be given significantly more support than they could ever have in mainstream. Special schools have been set up to meet specific needs, superselectives have come about by chance - an accident of history really.

One of DDs friends is super bright - and has the common sense of a drunk cat.
Lovely but out to lunch.
Needs constantly to be grounded by reality - segregation into a superselective would be really bad for that person.

Many 11+ exams are IQ style tests and are very tutorable. Of course tutoring invalidates them as a measure of IQ.

1. in this country it has certainly been a problem. See 60% of uni intake coming from private schools.
2. as agreed IQ tests have limited use.
3. see kitchen's post.

It's just not as simple as dividing children up by IQ or separating them into bright/brighter/brightest/non-bright. People are more complicated than that.

Talkin That is a truly excellent turn of phrase! And it could actually be applied to both me and my girls I don't quite understand why you are so convinced that all superselectives are necessarily and irretrievably bastions of unreality though. I don't think ours is. Except for that whole being geographically where it is issue, which is also a feature of the local comps.

Xoanon
In areas like West London and Manchester and other really big cities, superselective have their (possible) place.
Out here in the real world, the catchment would be 60 miles across.
AND
Having those really bright kids at the comp pulls the pretty bright ones up and gives the teachers that bit of a buzz that helps to get them through the lower middle sets (told so by two teachers last night).

And I go back to my point that
good leaders need to understand who they are leading.
Segregated education (for that is what selection entails) does not lead to good leadership - compare our politicians with our non City business leaders if you do not believe me.

I'm saying that if all schools were good and did what they were supposed to - stretch the academically gifted, support those with special needs, then we don't need the SS grammars at all. Spread all that intelligence around..... I would not like to see a move to IQ tests, I would like to see a good education for all.... without grammar schools.

All the super selectives do in Gloucestershire is foster this feeling of "need to tutor" amongst state primary pupils and that EVEN with a tutor your chances of going to the local grammar (Pates) are very limited. And if you do get there, there will be very few local children - those who walk to school are very much in the minority, despite it being in a n extremely residential community.

zzzzz
I have to fundamentally disagree with you there.
We need to offer those facilities within a single site that fully supports all children regardless of their skill set.

Comps with setting, pastoral, SEN support, sports, academic, arts, music, DofE .....
very, very few kids are all rounders
every child has some skill - we should help schools to help them find it

ZZZZ you were talking about people with 30 IQ points above average - that is the top 1% of the population. And I'm not sure whether, in RL terms, whether that is someone you refer to when you say 'specialist teachers'?

I am sure there are people in whom an extremely high IQs is an SEN, but that is different from very clever kids who get places in SS's.

I do not see why clever kids in SSs and Grammars need to be educated in separate buildings.

My DS is in the top sets of the top stream in his state comp, and he is challenged and progressing well. He isn't disadvantaged by having close friends in different sets who share the same playground and sports hall.

Earlier, talkin, I said: "About 'types' of GS: I am not opposed to the existence of a few, highly specialist schools for DCs -ahem- burdened with the SEN of being extraordinarily gifted but with off-beat social or inter-relational skills, 'oddball' but brilliant (in the same way as we have specialist schools for DC at the other end of the more or less NT spectrum). I'm thinking of, say, Winchester College where being 'just clever' (and rich!) isn't enough. You have to be off-beat, quirky, a bit 'other'. Mainstream public-school heading 'clever' go to Westminster and St Paul's (generalisation alert!). I can see a need for state school DC who'd fall into this 'quirky and very clever category to maybe be siphoned off into something other than the local comp, but as for the rest (and I mean, hey, if we're talking '23%' of the DC' as quoted, hardly a glittering, tiny, special minority, is it?!), a well run, properly resourced comp should be the destination of choice. I would add, entry to such a specialist school would not be via a single exam on one day. There would have to be years of evidence of this DC's particular abilities. It would be utterly 'untutorable' for."

And if we're talking 'normal GSs' that take 'the top 23%'- well, the reality is that if you took 100 random DCs and ran an 11+ exam on them, it surely can't be argued that the DC who came 23rd out of 100 is so amazingly better than the DC who came 24th, yet the current (non-SS) selective system would have those DC separated by geography, uniform, learning style, aspiration, opportunity and so forth, possibly with effects reaching into their old age. And also, surely coming 23rd out of 100 doesn't actually make anyone 'super-bright', does it??

Talkin Firstly, London is clearly more real than Hampshire. In every possible way.

Secondly, the catchment of the DDs grammar is a radius of about 60 miles and it works fine.

Incidentally I NC'd because of unwelcome attention, we have 'talked' often in the past sometimes we agree sometimes not but I always find discussing things with you interesting :)

I would have less of a problem with the grammar school system if more of the (good and improving) comps nearby to us offered children a guaranteed choice of more than two MFL and the guaranteed option to study more than one to GCSE if wanted
That kind of choice really matters to me and my children, and I saw only one school locally that could guarantee it
The HoKS3 at the other said vaguely "oh, it's French and Spanish at the moment, but I'm not sure what it will be next year". Not on, really.
Another otherwise lovely and impressive school would only let your child do one humanity subject and two sciences, in order to make room for a compulsory BTec in PE. Optional BTec, fine! Compulsory, not fine IMO.
If they're not bothering to offer a good choice of academic subjects to children who really want to do them, they're not really comprehensive.

Erebus
Having recently spent time with a family member who is at Oxford having been at Winchester, he's no great shakes.
Chatting to a friend whose son has just started at Winchester, she chose it for the boarding as the academic difference between it and Kings was not much.
The top private schools get top results because they select and then remove rigorously, not because they get anything miraculous from those kids than any of the better comps in the country would.

zzzzz
You clearly have little understanding of pedagogy. DD does not regard it as a job to pull her set up. She regards it as a positive challenge.