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.

SatinSandals Thu 24-Oct-13 07:29:19
"It would be OK if there was movement between the split site and those at the top of the secondary modern went up and those in the grammar school went down,but their opportunities are decided at the tender age of 11yrs."

This.

My highly academic dd was ill during the last year in primary: there is no way she would have passed an 11+. So she would have been separated from all her other gifted and motivated friends and sent to a school with lower expectations. Instead she was supported throughout secondary and is now doing academic subjects at A-level.

My ds is a late developer: he was in lower sets in primary and had very low self esteem which he tried to cover up by being as lazy as possible. We suspect dyspraxia or something similar. Attending a comprehensive has forced him to mix with children with different abilities and different levels of motivation: it has made him realise that hard work pays off and that he is not actually less intelligent than the boys who could hold a pen better and write more accurately at primary. He is now working hard to catch up as he has started thinking he might want to go to university. In a grammar system he would have been shunted sideways into vocational subjects for which he has absolutely no aptitude. Any aptitude he has ime is far more academic and analytical- but that really wasn't apparent when he was 10.

Interesting to see allyfe's point. As a university lecturer I regularly meet highly gifted students with dyslexia who have not been diagnosed until college or even university. These are precisely the students who underperform until they get to an educational institution that can offer proper enabling services- and that is not most primary schools. We don't want to miss out on this potential by shunting people into vocational paths for which they may not at all be suited.

Summerworld Thu 24-Oct-13 19:04:44

"If they were in the position like our family (and a lot of others) where my bright DC had a fate of going to a dump primary and then a dump secondary thanks to the postcode we lived in, they might have a very different view on the matter?"

But that would have been the fate of my bright dd under a grammar school system.

And for other bright students who were late developers or unfortunate enough to go through a period of illness or bereavement just before the 11+

At least in the comprehensive system a bright student like this isn't separated from all the other bright students and told they have failed.

cory if you suspect dyspraxia you should get him diagnosed. However speaking as a dyspraxic mother of two dyspraxic daughters - you'd know. Handwriting is the least of a dyspraxic person's problems. :(

Maybe I got prickly last night sorry.
With regards my elitism comment probably a badly thought out way of expressing what I meant as I was responding quickly.
I do indeed think ALL children should be challenged and all teachers should have high expectations. I got into trouble for this on my PGCE. We were asked to write a scheme of work on Oliver Twist. I dared to make it about the whole text rather than the film of the musical (which misses half the plot). I was told I was being unrealistic as I had gone to a grammar school. My first placement school in West London was fab and had similar high expectations of what all sets would cover. My second placement school in Surrey (a very popular girls' school) was crap. I will admit to having in the words of my PGCE lecturer 'too much grammar school experience' and to being frustrated at the bullying I have experienced on some teacher training days when the delegates find out where I teach. I was wondering where the vitriol comes from I now know. I think the system in my county could be improved but, I don't think the GS system is inherently wrong. The other schools locally do a good job as well. I have taught many of their students when they come to us at A level.

In my own GS btw we have SEN as well. Dyspraxia and ASD probably the most common but several students have had diagnoses of dyslexia whilst at our school as well and we often have EAL students as well. We seem to be just as diverse as the other local schools in many ways which is a very good thing in my opinion.

But English, is it honestly a surprise to you to learn that People oppose the grammar school system because:

1. Entrance to a grammar school depends on a test on one day.
2. The grammar school system does not allow for children who mature later.
3. Getting into a grammar school is heavily dependent on having parents who both understand the process and can prepare their child for the exams.

I don't think this is vitriol, these are valid objections. I think you are being a little disingenuous.

We do accept people later. I have seen people get what I would call vitriolic about it.
Looks like as I said earlier we need to agree to disagree. I think GSs are a valuable part of the education system. But then, having been to one I would. My own family and friends had a balanced attitude to the whole thing and I can give many examples of siblings attending different schools not causing a problem in the slightest.
I repeat again sorry for any offence caused.

We do accept people later.

I don't believe you think that this efficiently accommodates all children in your area who have the ability to attend your school but either failed or failed to take the 11+.

I went to a private school, and while I am sure all my teacher's had made their own peace with their decision to teach there/thought on balance that private schools were a good thing; I can't believe that any of them wouldn't have been fully acquainted with the reasons that people are against private schools and had some sympathy for them.

A lack of familiarity and understanding of these arguments wouldn't have implied anything good about their academic abilities.

Thankyou for calling me unintelligent. I think grammar schools are a good thing. I also don't think private/public school teachers start guilt ridden and come to terms with it. I knew many people on my PGCE course who only applied to the private sector.
Having said two or three times now that the thread isn't really achieving anything and apologising for how some of my posts may have come across I don't feel there is anything to be achieved. I'm about to head to work now. I hope everyone's DCs achieve at their highest possible level and are encouraged to achieve their best.

I think an important point from your OP is when you say it's "split site streaming"

It may well be, but I, and many others, think that streaming is a bad idea too.

Setting, on the other hand is, I think, a very good idea- but is impossile to do properly if 23 % of the cohort is in a different school.

I didn't call you unintelligent. I said you were pretending to be less intelligent than you presumably are if your profession is English teacher at a grammar school.

I don't think my teachers were guilt ridden. I do think they would have been familiar with arguments about selective education and would have been able to understand the anti-private school point of view. It is possible to understand or even agree with somebody's point of view while on balance feeling that somebody else makes a stronger case.

Very few people get in later. I sat the 12+ , I don't know how many of us but the hall was full for the exam and we were all put forward as being suited to grammar school after one year in a secondary modern, and it transpired that we were competing for 2 places!
There was no other opportunity until 6 th form, which was when I finally got in.
The system is unfair. It depends on numbers. Had I been a boy my marks would have got me in because they had more places in the boy's grammar, had we lived in the next town my marks would have got me in, there were more places.
My best friend at the time failed because she was weak in Maths, she was weak in Maths because her father was in the Forces and she went to at least 6 primary schools and had huge gaps or did some things over and over again.
My BIL failed because he was in and out of hospital until he was about 7 yrs and didn't catch up in time.
My brother failed because he was a late developer and didn't 'take off' until he was 13yrs.
There are lots of reasons, which are not a problem in the comprehensive because you can rise at any point. In the secondary modern they hit a ceiling where they can have outperformed everyone in the school ,and be far advanced of many in the grammar school, but they are stuck until 16 yrs
I can think of many children who are not 'all rounders' and they wouldn't pass if they were fantastic in English but couldn't pass on Maths.
The name should tell you what is wrong with it. A secondary modern was 'modern' in 1944 but we are almost at the 70th anniversary and it is such an antiquated term that areas try to use terms like 'High' School instead. That never sounds right to me because the Grammar School that I eventually went to was 'X and County High School for Girls.'
If the term is antiquated you can be sure the system is too! In the 21st century we should not be dividing children at the tender age of 11yrs and in many cases, depending on birth month, 10 years.

I sat the 11+ in 1970, the last year it was compulsory in my area. In those days you couldn't take O levels in secondary modern schools, only CSEs. Back then a secondary modern was considered very much a second rate option. I thought we had moved on from those days.

Are these schools in Kent and other similar areas still called secondary modern? Are they not considered comprehensive schools?

DD's comprehensive school has the word "Grammar" in the title simply because it was originally a grammar school. It is very old and dates back to the 14th century (the building doesn't, it is new), so they kept the grammar word in the title because of its history.

They can't possibly be comprehensive schools if the top ability band has been creamed off.

They are still considered a second rate option or there would be no need to pay vast amounts on tutors they could just go in and sit the exam with a few practice papers.

Names just confuse the issue e.g Watford Girl's Grammar is a true comprehensive.

A point which people seem to forget is that if the selective system was so good, then the LEAs that have a fully selective system would have significantly better results than the LEAs that don't.

And they don't. So if you take a grammar school and the schools around it where the children who don't take/pass the test go, their combined results ar no different from a comprehensive in a similar area.

So why go through all the stressful, damaging, socially divisive process?

Despite an IQ of the required Grammar level, my dyslexic DS would fail the 11+. This is because his IQ is very spiky with some scores way way above the required level and some way below. Thank goodness he is at a comprehensive where he is in top group English and able to work alongside peers of a high level and in second group Maths where he is also working with peers of the same level.

Satin is there no longer a test at Watford Girls Grammar? I know they used to do it at the Rickmansworth school as my dd sat it but didn't apply for WG.

I know that sibblings can get into the school. Why is it a comprehensive? It still seems very desirable with people moving into the catchment area or pretending they live there especially Watford boys.

The great god of stats, Chris Cook, does a brilliant analysis on the FT
blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2013/01/28/grammar-school-myths/
In which he compares an area 'selectivia' which is the combined Kent, Bucks etc fully grammar areas and compares them with non selective areas.

Basic conclusion is that Selectivia does slightly worse than the general average and that poor children in Selectivia do dramatically worse.

Quote:
Grammar schools are a part of many people’s identities: having won admission to a selective state school plays an important role in the story of their life, especially if they came from a less privileged family. But, as a way to raise standards or to close the gaps between rich and poor, it is hard to find evidence that they are effective.

Sorry linky link
blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2013/01/28/grammar-school-myths/

Curlew I thought Kingston and Sutton were the top LEAs?

Yes: I think that also, historically, people confuse 'good, widely available state education' with 'the grammar school system' because that was how widely available state education was introduced. It is undoubtedly true that good schools, available for free (apart from the uniform) to poor kids in the 1950s offered them something that they'd not have been able to afford before the Welfare State. But that doesn't mean that it was the grammar system per se that did it.

"Grammar schools are a part of many people’s identities: having won admission to a selective state school plays an important role in the story of their life"

If you listen to the archives to Desert Island Discs your'll find a lot of people for whom failing to gain admission to a selective state school plays an important role in the story of their lives too.........