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

[octopusinastringbag]

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.

Well I guess that must mean there are a lot of parents posting who would secretly love to have access to a comprehensive education but know it's just never going to happen for them, then .

Have no strong feelings about 5* hotels or kids clubs, but am perfectly prepared to understand that many people do, and that those principles are no more or less valid whether they can afford said hotels or not!

I can think of lots of things I'd like but can't have, but that doesn't make me decry those things. I think it's always a bit dodgy to lay claim to 'the truth' when it comes to other people's 'real motivations', to be honest. I mean, I could have a lot of fun staking claims about lots of people's 'real true motivations' on this thread alone, but it would be a bit daft and arrogant of me.

Oh, sorry Abbiefield - was she offered a free place? I didn't understand that from your original post.

^curlew Thu 31-Oct-13 10:26:52
How many "sinking schools" do you think there are? Go on, have a wild guess.^

There should absolutely not be ANY, they should fail and be closed, not afforded a guaranteeed intake every year regardless of their performance. This is how the system works now. Yes, parents can put their choices down, but the reality is their choice does not carry much weight in the admissions process. It is only if there are places at their first choice of school, and funny enough, it is the same school everybody else wants, too. There is no place for substandard state educational establishments, and I adamantly object to subsidising those with my tax.

Do you think I've concealed my longing for a comprehensive education for my children adequately?

I have huge respect for the couple of people on here who have actually come out and said that they want to keep their children away from "the great unwashed" (that's becoming rather a meme, isn't it?). Because I suspect that that is what most selective supporters actually think but they haven't got the chutzpah to say it.

Please note my use of the word "most". This does not mean "all".

"There should absolutely not be ANY, they should fail and be closed, not afforded a guaranteeed intake every year regardless of their performance. This is how the system works now"

Can I take from this that you have absolutely no idea? Or are you currently googling, and discovering that the situation is not quite how you represent it?

Nit Actually, I've said before, if I still lived where I belong :( I'd be overjoyed for my girls to go to my old school. The results obviously aren't as good as the school they are at/will be at overall, but the top kids have comparable results. And they would be singing PROPER CAROLS at Xmas. :( But yes, it's just never going to happen for me or them. :(

As for 5* hotels - I stay in them all the time for work. They aren't all that. I could afford them for my hols but much prefer to rent (the same) cottage twice a year, people who get excited by hotels always bemuse me but I suppose if you don't often experience them then maybe they seem more special than they really are (certainly the DCs are excited about spending a couple of nights in a hotel in London at the end of the month and I'm just because it's just.....nothing special).

I'd like to be tall. I never will be. I don't 'decry' those who are. I decry dogs and dog owners, I don't want a dog and I don't want to be a dog owner.

Well as a 5"4 cat owner, I agree with you on tallness and dogs, definitely

She was offered a fee reduction - the equivelent of what she would have had if her mother had still been staff. We give staff reduced fees not free in my school. The reduction is pro rata on the staff contract. Her mother said she couldnt afford those fees ( around 2K for the year) but I suspect the real reason was she didnt want to drive her in to our school ( inconvenient) and she just wanted to leave us behind as she progressed her career (went to a state school to work ) and from the local comp her daughter could walk home easily when she wanted - the school allowed sixth formers to stay home or go home if they had no classes, we dont. In our school she would have had to be in school all day and catch the school bus - and then mum would have to have collected her from the school collection/drop off.

However, when she asked us to help out when her daughter was struggling with the school and lack of teaching we immediately came in and helped and that was without charge.

well, you are right, Curlew. People tend to resent the fact that they got no choice of where to send their child, or being told that it is actually not that bad for their kids, that substandard school. It is quite all right, you know. It does send a couple of kids to Oxford a year.

I think parents can make up their own mind what is all right for their kids and what is not. Nobody knows their child as well as they do, so they are the best person to make that choice. Some will actually choose a comp over a grammar, because it will suite their particular child better.

Then, Abbbiefield, you're right and if the mother could have afforded the fees (though never quite safe to assume, I wouldn't thinnk?) what I said about your school was unfair, and I am sorry.

I still think it's a bit unreasonable to say the other school shouldn't have made a fuss or been pleased about her results, but the rest of what I said what unreasonable in that case.

Abbie. I found it shocking, that just to get a pupil to University , is "JOYFUL" for the said school, shocking.

It should be a regular occurrence getting pupils in to University, not a time
to bring out the "Bunting" and shout it form the roof tops.

The Comprehensive i went to use to have a trick. They would quote
the two kids who got in to Oxford/Cambridge, and would conveniently forget the poor sods like me who were not allowed to take exams.

They used to get away with this until league tables came out, then their
tricks were exposed. The Comprehensive is located in Gideon's constituency town "OOPS"...

It was funny about 8 years ago when an ofsted report slammed them.

There excuse was " WE CANT HELP IT, WE FACE A TWO PRONGED ATTACK
FROM THE NEARBY SELECTIVE AREA AND FROM PRIVATE SCHOOLS"

My 3 years there were "TRAUMATIC" and it shows that you can still be
F** in a supposed leafy comprehensive.

nit and the general grubbiness of the b's?

Curlew, it makes no difference to me how many bad schools there are nationally, all I am interested in is I would not have to send my child to one of those. As it stands, where I am, a lot of schools are not "sinking" on paper, some are classed as satisfactory, but I know they are substabdard schools. I know that because I live in the area, I do not need an Ofsted report to tell me that!

Summerworld What will you do if your DS does not get in to a Grammar School? Most kids don't. What then?

well, people move close to a good comp to cover all bases just in case. This was our strategy, anyway. I just hope that things stay as they are in time for my DC to go through the admissions for a secondary.

But I thought there weren't any good comps?

^Xoanon Thu 31-Oct-13 11:18:39
But I thought there weren't any good comps^

ha, of course there are. It is just there are nowhere near enough of those for all who want them, so people are forced into the "not-near-as-good" comps. That was my point. As an earlier poster said, her friend's daughter would never have got into their good comp due to the location, but at least she will now go to a grammar. She has got the chance and she has used it.

^LaQueenOfTheDamned Thu 31-Oct-13 11:25:31
Xoanon there are good comps. But, there are the only 2 that I know of, in our area local area.^

my local situation is broadly the same
How many children can you squeeze into those two good comps?

I would also make the point - which I made in the previous thread, that in a school whose 'overall statistics' make the government deem it failing, your child may still succees.

As I have said before, in a school in an extremely challenging area, below the government 'floor level' in terms of overall results, there were 3 children with 10 A / A GCSEs [statistically, that means that more than all of the children who were high ability on intake emerged with 10 A / A GCSEs, as statistically they only had 2 HA children in that year group].

As to good comps, 5 comprehensives in my county come amongst the grammars (ie above the lowest grammar) in terms of the A level league table, and 25 above the lowest grammar in terms of value added (ie the progress that children make in the school).

"As it stands, where I am, a lot of schools are not "sinking" on paper, some are classed as satisfactory, but I know they are substabdard schools. I know that because I live in the area, I do not need an Ofsted report to tell me that!"

What criteria do you use to judge a school?

"there's another about 10 miles down the road that has GCSE results within close touching distance of our grammar."

LaQueen, you do, I am sure, realise that comparing headline results between a grammar and a comprehensive is meaningless? (I know that I then proceeded to do the same )

A grammar, with its selective entry, would be expected to get much higher results than a comprehensive, because the latter takes in children of all abilities. In particular, in 'comprehensives' in or near grammar counties, the top ability children have been taken OUT of the comprehensives so the gap would be expected to be even larger. This is why the 5 comps - technically secondary moderns - in my county that get comparable / better results than the grammars really do do extremely well.

A much more meaningful comparison would be obtained by going through the DfE tables to compare results for HA / MA / LA children in each school. As I can't face that, I use value added as a shorthand, because it measures, whatever the starting point, the progress that a child makes in the school, and so compensates for the different starting points in grammars and comprehensives / secondary moderns.

[There was someone upthread who said that it was easier to add value to less able children? If I asked you whether you would rather teach top set - who have all made above average progress in primary- to get an A, middle set - who all made expected progress in primary - to get a C, or bottom set - who have all made less progress than expected in primary school - to get E, which would you reckon was the easiest task?? Each gets you equal 'added value' points, as each is 'expected' progress [I may have the exact grades out a little, but you get my point I hope)

I live in an area between 3 LEAs and I can honestly say there is not one comp (fully comp area apart from five superselectives in the neighbouring city) and I can honestly say I would be happy with any of the 7 or 8 comps near by. This is not just a leafy area. We are close to really deprived areas too but there is a good mix in all of the schools and our LEAs have worked really hard to improve provision. My only choice now is between school specialism. DS is at the science specialism because he loved it at primary although not as keen now he is choosing his options. My dd will go either to the same school or the performing arts one as she loves atg like this. Neither of them would choose the sports one as they are both useless at that like me. If you concentrate on making the comps as good as they can be and do not get carried away with grammar/free schools you can actually offer people more choice.

I do spend a lot of my time in Potters Bar though and some of my colleagues are finding the choice much harder there though. The LEAs really should be ensuring all schools in the area offer a good provision or getting a good school to work on the poor school and share provisions if there are weaknesses.