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.

Cynically I think that grammar school supporters who have a 'dead cert' child who fails are no longer supporters if the system.

But parents can buy their places without tutoring by making sure they live by the better primaries or go private.

I personally think those in private education shouldn't be allowed to apply as they're state schools and nobody is excluded from going to a state primary.I also think a points system re primary school would make things fairer,they do it with age.

I used to believe that children from private school shouldn't be allowed to apply for grammars either, but I changed my mind!

It's unfair to exclude any child from state education, and unless you are going to give massive tax breaks to parents who educate privately, they have to have the same rights to the state education system as anyone else. Also, may parents are using private primary schools because their state options are genuinely very poor, and they would have much preferred to be able to use a good state primary but they didn't get a place.

Instead I think that private schools should offer free after school tuition to state school pupils in y5 as a condition of their charity status.

A lot have chosen a private school specifically to pass the exam and you can't ban them.
The whole system is unfair , I 'bought' my children places at a very good comprehensive by affording a house in the 'right' area.

But why are the comps in the 'right' or 'expensive' areas better in the first place?

We are lucky to be in the same position, although when I moved here schools were the last thing on my mind.

I can see that it can reasonably be said that people can buy the advantage of good schools if they can afford to live in the right area, but I don't see why that is so often cited as a problem. The problem isn't with the good comps or the high achieving grammars, it's with the schools that aren't good and that don't routinely produce children who have good prospects.

There shouldn't be so much focus on grammar schools when all that energy could be put into improving poor schools

What woo,woo just said.

Aris. I have read about your story from other posts. It is a great story,
you managed to achieve first a successful career before becoming
a teacher. What you achieved was remarkable and showed true strength
of character on your behalf.

However when i talk about the "Great Unwashed", i am talking about people and members of families that constantly every Friday/ Saturday
night would threaten my family and staff. They would continually tell
me or my staff how they were going to "Put us ten feet under".

These types of people start off in the inner city schools destroying and
poisoning the chances of not just very bright but those of middle ability.
I have said it is not just the academic side, these families destroy
but also the character and development of the pupils educated with them.

Satin Cynically I think that grammar school supporters who have a 'dead cert' child who fails are no longer supporters if the system.

Yes I expect we all know people like that.

soul what my story shoes is that even fairly average people like myself will go to great lengths to escape the exact life you describe.

I know I would never in a month of Sundays earned a place at a grammar school. It would make me a total hypocrite to want to put on place something that may well advantage me at the other side of a series of lucky breaks - but disadvantage children like me.

Aris. I think you are probably downplaying yourself?

If you didn't have the requisite I.Q, do you think all those teachers who
saw real potential in you, would have wasted their time.

The chances are coming from the background you described, that even with your serious academic ability ( WE WILL GET THE USUAL, I AM NOT BRIGHT
NONSENSE"). You would of failed due to family circumstances and the conditions you lived in at home ...
I think it is pretty obvious that if you had had a dedicated primary school teacher and a bit of practice you would have scored 141. on the 11+...

Otherwise for god sake whats going on at Oxford admitting "THICKOS".

Zzzzzzz-I won't cut and paste but I don't understand the last two posts you wrote in response to mine- if you get a chance could you explain

zzzzz
as you have stated that all of your kids are primary age and some are HE, WTF are you doing pontificating about how secondary selection works
you've not even tried it
how many segregated schools are within your daily drive distance ?

flatiron
of course some Hampshire parents go over the boundary for grammar schools : I swim with several : and the numbers are trivial compared with the numbers of Londoners who move into the Bohunt and Yateley catchments

Blanket inclusion is the only sort of school there should be, with facilities and support for all abilities and interests. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I saw what my DCs' high school offered. It works so well for the students and saves so much admin and maintenance money to have a huge building with all the sports and music and art and science facilities you could hope and wish for, one computer system, one set of holidays for virtually everyone. And everyone knows their school welcomes them no matter what sort of student they are. Some don't appreciate it of course, but for the most part it is recognised as a huge asset to the entire community.

Soul2000 there are plenty of children whose potential goes unnoticed and who would fail the 11+. There are lots of late bloomers and children who go under the radar in their classrooms because of classroom dynamics or blind spots of their teachers.

WooWoo -- When people can buy the advantage of good schools (in a system featuring catchment areas) then those who may desire to send their children to a better school than the one they are forced to send them to, and whose children might be well able to benefit greatly from a good school are excluded. It's like a stealth school fee barrier and it makes a mockery of the idea of free state schools. Catchment areas deny real choice to parents.

math
gerrymandered catchments as in the US are indeed rotten : I vote in an NYC electoral district that was delineated by a cockroach on acid
in the UK catchments and boundaries are set by apolitical groups based on house building

I agree with that math, but I don't think catchment areas are the problem. I think the fact that some schools aren't good enough is the problem.

If we all knew that no matter where we live, our children will have access to the same good schools with the same good facilities and the same good teachers then there shouldn't be a problem. But failing schools have had money put into them to improve their facilities, we already get good and bad teachers in every school, and there is still a problem. Which we may as well admit is likely to be down to other parents who don't support their children's academic and social education in a positive way.

I don't understand how a child could take an exam, fail it, and not wonder how they went wrong, or not care that they failed. The only way to avoid that is to not take the exam. I think it's disingenuous to say it wouldn't matter to you when you have put the child through the exam in the first place.

I think anyone saying their child wouldn't give a stuff about it has a problem on their hands. Children really should care about the outcome of exams they take. Caring about the outcome motivates them to study.

math
but the exams my kids will take - GCSEs AS and A2 followed by degree
will matter
but will be late enough in life that the cohort variation will be minimised

something the founding fathers realised when they made high school graduation and S.A.T.s the be all - rather than anything at 5th grade

I agree with that math, which is pretty much why we didn't opt into the 11+ for ds2. There was no need, the GS would have been wrong for him anyway, so there was no point putting him through a test that would require some preparation from him only to upset him if he didn't get a high enough pass.

But I do appreciate that it was an option that we had the chance to consider.

I would feel differently if taking the test was the only option we had to avoid the wrong school.

soul my parents would never have paid he extra bus fare to get to the grammar if I could have walked to school. They would never have taken me to a Saturday exam. They would never have paid for the more expensive uniform.

I am obviously not thick, but am not that special, I just worked hard and was determined.

It is a fantastic school Polter.

TIP, not all US school districts are gerrymandered by a long shot. The ones I am familiar with follow municipal boundaries or within large cities they follow boundaries delineated by some natural or other obstacle like a large industrial or commercial area, airport, motorway, railway, river or forest preserve, large park, with efficient or safe transport in mind.

Some suburban municipalities are lumped together for high school districts and feature large high schools or even several huge high schools (designated Suburb-East, West, North, South, etc) while elementary school districts tend to be only for one municipality. Older suburbs tend to be very built up/densely populated and have their own districts or share with a neighbour if they are relatively small geographically-speaking or if they were built at the same time. Outlying suburbs with less dense population/more spread out housing/roads designed with larger volume of traffic in mind have larger geographical areas and can also share a school or schools among several suburbs but often they are larger suburbs and have their own district with the municipal area serving as the boundary. Districts can be split or amalgamate depending on population/housing changes.

High school district map for Cook County Illinois. (The black lines superimposed show extremely gerrymandered Cook County Commissioner constituencies.)

The big green one is the City of Chicago, and within that district you can find the attendance boundaries by using this tool and clicking on names of schools in the drop down on the left. Citywide enrollment schools show no attendance boundaries but those with an attendance boundary show the blocks the school caters to, whether HS or elementary. The attendance areas follow streets,which are basically laid out in a grid pattern with some diagonals.

This thread prompted me to examine the admissions policy of the grammars in our city. (As I have previously posted, the only good secondary schools in our area).

If there are more who pass than there are places, then top of the list according to the admissions criteria are children who are in the care of the local authority.

I would love to know how many children in local authority care ever get the opportunity to take the 11+, or the support needed to have a fighting chance of getting in.

Aris, I think there are a lot of parents like that, because of complacency ('I did fine and so will she') or because they feel they can't see their child in an environment different from anything they're familiar with or understand its benefits, or they can't see how their money could stretch to the necessary extras. Even a little thing like busfare can really add up.