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.

Why would you care about what?

It can happen in the same building, and mostly it does, but in the pockets where selection to state grammars has been retained, parents are in the invidious position of having to deal with the reality that they are there. We can't overthrow them, even if we're not in favour of selection!

Some areas are lucky enough to have good non-selective schools as well, but other are not.

others

Parents are not powerless to do anything about the system, admittedly we are on the edge of a grammar system but most parents do not partake in the grammar system and therefore we have almost managed to turn our secondary modern back into a comp which means even fewer feel the need to go to the grammar.

If children's differing academic needs can be met through setting surely it would make sense to have more comprehensive local schools. Unless grammars are not about meeting educational needs.

You said that your children we far to clever to be educated in the same building as average intelligence children. Mine seem to cope, I was wondering if that was becaus mine we less intelligent.

Zzzzz yes, I think all going to the same building is of the utmost importance, because separate is always unequal, and always gives the appearance of being unequal, and being equal is really, really important.

• Being equal and feeling equal - the perception of equality is the important thing in the long run.

Inequality is everywhere, but it has a disproportionate impact in the education system, where so often the lessons learned are not the ones teachers are trying to impart. You have only to look at the experience of segregated education in the US and its legacy to see the damage that can be done by separation of students according to artificial criteria. There is an especially clear lesson broadcast in a system where one of the criteria for entrance to certain schools is failure to get into another school as pointed out above.

If a school caters for the abilities and needs of everyone then nobody need feel they are on top or on the bottom. The academic cataolgue of the high school the DCs attended contains hundreds of course offerings in every area at many different levels. My DD4 is probably not going to be in the honours classes her older sisters got into, but will probably follow the same sort of of trajectory DS did, and I expect her to come out ready for university, probably to do something like nursing or physical therapy. I do not think this is in any way beneath what the others did. They happen to have an academic bent and she doesn't. My dad did pretty well for himself despite not being academic (or able to read very well - he started out as a pilot in the RAF and went on to a career in business) and I see DD4 having the same qualities. DS suddenly found his vocation when he got to university with aviation in mind for a career but found it was ruled out because he had too many concussions playing football, and is now on track to do medicine. Turned out the verbal and practical nature of science courses at university were better for him than the more book-centered classes in school. Even so, despite not finding the traditional honours route engaging, he was able to do courses on astronomy, war and literature, computer aided drafting, psychology, website development, history of the Vietnam War, the Great Migration, as well as maths, science (bio, chem and physics), English (American and British literature) and Latin.

In a huge school it is possible to offer something for everyone due to economies of scale.

Great Maths but not all schools are like that as they vary and our education system is very much geared to dealing with and pushing the average not the above average or SEN.

We don't live in a communist state and all schools offer something different.Children differ.One size ones not fit all.I'm suspecting my 3 will all end up in different schools and I love that.

The grammar we're looking at is in partnership with the nearest alternative which is doing very well.The grammar offers the IB which would suit one of children,our local comp(which has good results) another choce,doesn't.We also have the choice between another school with amazing sport and music facilities parents go out of catchment to get their kids into or a science academy with a very good reputation which my other son would love.There are also 3 grammars ranging in style.We're going for the middle one.

I love the choice and think it's great.Dp and I loath the one size fit's all comp system,both have very bad experiences of them.

Said grammar is in an area of high unemployment.

"I love the choice and think it's great.Dp and I loath the one size fit's all comp system,both have very bad experiences of them."

Could you explain why you think comprehensive schools are "one size fits all"?

I wouldn't send mine to the sort of comprehensive where one size fits all. They went to a very good one and since my children are very, very different they couldn't have been treated the same, they all wanted and needed different things, and got it.

""Children feeling like failures is a side effect of a selective education system"

No, it is as result of people's reactions to their placement and parental attitudes to their abilities."

OK. On this thread you have had a lot of parents who are very keen for their holder to go to grammar school. Some even admit to coaching, and to being very pleased when their children pass. Presumably they congratulate their children and tell them they've done well? So the children who've passed naturally go into school the next day very pleased with their achievement? (Nothing wrong with that, obviously). But how then do you stop the ones who haven't passed feeling as if they've failed? Because by any objective measure they have.

Of course you know you have failed! Try saying that you want to be a doctor when you are in a secondary modern and see the reactions! You are 11years old and people think doors of opportunities are closed- it is criminal ( not to mention hard work around the system for those who do go on to become doctors).

I never really understand what people think they mean when they decry a 'one size fits all' system. I mean, one does fit all insofar as all should learn maths and English and science, and should do some PE, and have the chance to be in plays.... Do people honestly think that because a comprehensive does that in one building for children of varying abilities, they don't think there's any difference between individuals?

Is it because some people think comprehensive=mixed ability for everything?

Yes, I don't get this 'every child needs a different type of school' mantra either: I can see some are happier in much smaller schools (though the pay-off is less choice) and some will need music/drama/sports stuff - though any decent school should offer that - but otherwise we're talking a broad education, innit. Languages and sciences and suchlike.

I think my elitism is showing

Grammar schools cream off high-ability children and leave other schools (secondary moderns in all but name) to educate the remaining 75%. The movement against grammar schools was because middle-class parents realised the odds were stacked against their children passing the 11+ and wanted a fully comprehensive system which didn't divide children into "bright" and "thick" at age 11.

Being a grammar school isn't necessarily a sign of high-quality education. Ofsted found Chatham Grammar School to be "Inadequate" in September.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/flagship-academy-chatham-grammar-school-given-inadequate-score-by-ofsted-8807496.html

The best-performing school systems tend to be those which don't segregate children academically until at least the end of lower secondary (age 16). For more info see:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/02/%e2%80%9cthe-highest-performing-education-systems-across-oecd-countries-are-those-that-combine-quality-with-equity%e2%80%9d-says-oecd/

Well at ours the local schools are very different.My DS would really suit the broader IB bu the local school doesn't offer it,it wouldn't suit all kids so why dilute Alevel provision to suit a few?

The local sporty school everybody raves about has amazing facilities which would just be wasted on my dc and left us all cold.All mine need is a hockey pitch and sports hall they can be reluctantly turfed out onto.Other kids need waaaay more.

I don't want to be told where my dc are going and forced through a sausage machine.My kids differ,as do schools.I want choice and more of it.You don't.Well thankfully you don't get to dictate what happens to other people's kids and there is choice.