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Original poster

Genuine question - why do some people have a problem with the grammar school system thread 2

381 replies

octopusinastringbag · 29/10/2013 10:04

Original thread full so here goes.

I think the people who are concerned about aspirational/non-aspirational need to trust their DCs to select friends who are like minded. Generally it is my experience that they find their own groups who are similar to them, especially with setting and especially once the GCSEs have started.

OP posts:
Summerworld · 30/10/2013 19:54

^curlew Wed 30-Oct-13 16:30:31
It is ridiculous to say that you are protected from being bullied by going to any specific type of school. It is even more ridiculous to assume that your child will be bullied before you even go to the school.^

I lived in the area for some time. We did not belong because we had a nice garden we tended to, owned our house and looked after it, kept the front and back garden and cars clean, did not loiter on the doorstep with a lager in our hand of an evening to socialise with the neighbours etc. My DC was not friends with the kids in the street due to the above. Indeed, he was hardly out in the street unlike the other kids. When we did go to the park, the children I did not want near him were all over him.

So far, does it sound good to you? If I proceed and describe the school he was offered a place at, you would tell me yourself, run as quick as you can. It would have been stupid of me to put the blinkers on and send my child to that school, and see how long it takes for the shit to happen. I didn't, and I am so glad I didn't. He now goes to a school where there is 1 (!) problem child in his class (who really shouldn't be there either, as lives out of area). The other 27 kids are placid, well-behaved, naïve MC kids. It is a different world and yes, he is much safer there.

Summerworld · 30/10/2013 20:04

^losingtrust Wed 30-Oct-13 16:37:04
You need to find a good comp before writing all comps off altogether.^

we all know where they are, it is just getting in there. The admission rules are in order of preference: children in care, siblings and then distance. Unless you live very very close to the said school, what is the chance of your DC getting in?

There is a limited number of places and at good comps those are highly sought after.

losingtrust · 30/10/2013 20:09

We live in a nice MC area. The kids play out in the street. All are owned although a couple are rented. We have been known to have wild parties in our close where the parents get sloshed and the kids are left to roam free until early hours. My DCs get the coach with the kids from the nearby traveller site that go to their school. It is great that we all get on and the owner feedback is the kids that get on at that stop swear a lot. You are prejudging rather a lot with your comment about people who own their houses or not.

kitchendiner · 30/10/2013 20:10

Around here we also have feeder schools which are down the list in terms of admission preference but will still get you in ahead of out of catchment distance. This means that rather than buy a house in catchment, you drive to feeder school instead.

losingtrust · 30/10/2013 20:11

So you have looked at all the inner city schools that are getting kids into Oxbridge then? I am sure you could afford a house in some of the more deprived areas in Birmingham for instance where this happens.

losingtrust · 30/10/2013 20:13

The schools round here are all starting to use feeder schools which evens up the intake. It is a good system. There are feeder schools in both deprived and non-deprived areas.

Summerworld · 30/10/2013 20:17

^abbiefield Wed 30-Oct-13 18:11:43

Summerworld, the great unwashed was not my term, as I said " what some have called" - I think it was talkinpeace who used it here.

Of course it comes from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who I think used it to describe a group who we might term underclass now. I think he said, the uneducated who enjoy reality TV and shopping at Wallmart.^

sorry if it came across as if I believed it was your term. If course, it is literary. It does grate on my ears, but I can see what the term is trying to imply.

losingtrust · 30/10/2013 20:26

Btw Summer my car is hardly ever cleaned. It gives me a sense of great pleasure that my children will not be mixing with kids of parents who would like down on my children for that reason.

Summerworld · 30/10/2013 20:34

^LaQueenOfTheDamned Wed 30-Oct-13 19:07:48
my friend (single Mum, working part time, feckless ex, only just getting by financially) her DD has just passed the 11+, and will go to the grammar with my DD1 smile

My friend had no chance of getting her DD into our local excellent comp, because there was no way she could afford to live in the catchment.^

well done to your friend! I am so so pleased for her. Se did not give up and worked hard to give her daughter the best chances even in her difficult situation. I am glad there are still grammar schools around for people like that. What a wonderful achievement!

Summerworld · 30/10/2013 20:46

^losingtrust Wed 30-Oct-13 20:09:29
We live in a nice MC area. The kids play out in the street. All are owned although a couple are rented. We have been known to have wild parties in our close where the parents get sloshed and the kids are left to roam free until early hours. My DCs get the coach with the kids from the nearby traveller site that go to their school. It is great that we all get on and the owner feedback is the kids that get on at that stop swear a lot. You are prejudging rather a lot with your comment about people who own their houses or not.^

I only spoke of my experience. Does real-life experience still count as prejudice? I had thought that prejudice was something which is not actually there.

Summerworld · 30/10/2013 20:53

^losingtrust Wed 30-Oct-13 20:09:29
The kids play out in the street. All are owned although a couple are rented. We have been known to have wild parties in our close where the parents get sloshed and the kids are left to roam free until early hours. .^

I live in a city and parents normally avoid letting their kids play outside unsupervised for obvious reasons. When I lived in a more rural area, it was a usual thing.

I consider it a dangerous thing to do where we are, hence my comment that other parents were not particularly bothered about their children's safety. Young children were playing unsupervised in the street on a bus route. No, I do not consider it a great idea.

losingtrust · 30/10/2013 20:57

Ok cheap shot. The way you wrote seemed very judgy. It depends on the age of the child obviously.

soul2000 · 30/10/2013 22:47

Summerworld. You have given a great analogy about living in a town or area where the only option is comprehensive.

In these areas the thought you may want something different (OTHER THAN PRIVATE EDUCATION THAT YOU CANT AFFORD) is met with incredulity.

When you question whether you think its the right school for your DC and
that the standards are low "DON'T YOU KNOW JOHNNY MORRIS/CATHERINE BAKER " got in to Oxford last year..

When people question how low the general standards are, they always come up with 1 or 2 people who have beaten the system.

curlew · 30/10/2013 22:50

"I lived in the area for some time. We did not belong because we had a nice garden we tended to, owned our house and looked after it, kept the front and back garden and cars clean, did not loiter on the doorstep with a lager in our hand of an evening to socialise with the neighbours etc. My DC was not friends with the kids in the street due to the above. Indeed, he was hardly out in the street unlike the other kids. When we did go to the park, the children I did not want near him were all over him. "

Well, I don't actually mind my kids socialising with people who "aren't like us". Maybe that's why my son has not been "eaten alive" or "sunk without trace" or "been torn apart by the wolves" in his very bog standard secondary modern. He has friends from many social economic groups. Some are a little more ..........unwashed.....than others, to put it mildly, but if ds has chosen that child to be a friend then I trust him to have seen something worth being friends with in him. I wish he was at a comprehensive where there was at least a chance of there being a slightly larger group of "people like us" but I fill in the gaps outside school, an am glad that he is learning many lessons at least as useful as academic ones in school.

abbiefield · 31/10/2013 07:05

"When you question whether you think its the right school for your DC and
that the standards are low "DON'T YOU KNOW JOHNNY MORRIS/CATHERINE BAKER " got in to Oxford last year..

When people question how low the general standards are, they always come up with 1 or 2 people who have beaten the system"

I hope no one at my old school ( now amalgamated with another even worse one) ever use me as an exaple of someone beating the system. I would not just be horrified but I would sue the pants of the LA for allowing it.

Locally the schools where I live have not ever , as far as I recall ( 14 years living here) sent anyone to Oxford or Cambridge or even a lesser place such as Durham.

They shouted a couple of years ago that one girl had made it to aRG university ( well they shouted her A and B grades at A level actually but I know that girl was educated for 5 years elsewhere and only went to their sixth form - and then her mother came and asked for our help in giving her private tuition in a couple of subjects - .... you guessed it the girl had spent 6 years with my school. She left because parents couldnt continue to afford the fees (mum had been a teacher with us but left).

soul2000 · 31/10/2013 08:04

Which region are you in abbie...

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 31/10/2013 08:41

Well Abbiefield I think the saddest thing about that story isn't that the comprehensive school had the audacity to make a fuss of some good results (though heaven knows it's amazing that a year there didn't leave the poor girl on drugs or beaten up in the refectory) - it's that your private school, once her grace-and-favour education ended, promptly showed this girl the door a year before her final exams!

Of course, private schools are there to make money and it's hardly in their interests to keep on a pupil who isn't paying them any just because they feel they can offer her a better education.... but it's really rather sickening all the same.

Any school that boots you out because of what happens in your parents' career, having oh-so-carefully nurtured and educated you for six years, and purported to give a fuck, is not a school I like.

LaQueenOfTheDamned · 31/10/2013 10:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

losingtrust · 31/10/2013 10:19

So here we are. We would all secretly like our kids to go to grammar school. We are all just deluding ourselves with our principles. So the rest of the state educated kids. We don't want it because we can't have it. Really! It is a but different to a five star hotel which is a private purchase. This is state education that affects everybody not just you or me.

Xoanon · 31/10/2013 10:20

So what do you say to those of us who support superselectives, but not the sort of 25% local grammars that there are in Kent or Lincolnshire? We aren't decrying what we (secretly) would love but know we can never have. I'd hate that system, it wouldn't be any improvement on the comp system AFAICS.

Summerworld · 31/10/2013 10:23

^TheOriginalSteamingNit Thu 31-Oct-13 08:41:17
Of course, private schools are there to make money and it's hardly in their interests to keep on a pupil who isn't paying them any just because they feel they can offer her a better education.... but it's really rather sickening all the same.^

What i find truly sickening is that good education is there if you can pay. We all pay taxes and we all expect decent services in return. Why should my taxes keep a sinking school afloat? And I, the taxpayer, be made to send my child there?

The Government would not let good schools expand, but they are more than happy to send kids to the school of their 3rd, 4th or not of their choice at all. They would tell you that a good school does not need to expand, as there are school places available in the area. The problem is nobody wants those other places, everybody is trying to get their child into that one good school (maybe two). Do you blame them?

LaQueenOfTheDamned · 31/10/2013 10:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

abbiefield · 31/10/2013 10:25

it's that your private school, once her grace-and-favour education ended, promptly showed this girl the door a year before her final exams!

No we didnt actually. We offered her ascholarship equivelent to what she would have had in feereduction. Her mum wanted her to leave and go to school nearby because she was no longer driving to our school ( and couldnt bring her daughter in with her). She left.

Remember, we did answer the call for free private tuition when she asked a term later.
We also had the grace , if you like to call it that, not to make a deal out of it either.

curlew · 31/10/2013 10:26

"What i find truly sickening is that good education is there if you can pay. We all pay taxes and we all expect decent services in return. Why should my taxes keep a sinking school afloat? And I, the taxpayer, be made to send my child there? "

How many "sinking schools" do you think there are? Go on, have a wild guess.

abbiefield · 31/10/2013 10:28

I think you are being most critical and unfair frankly. We did all we could. It isnt our fault if a parent doesnt want the help we offer is it?

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