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.

And it still begs the question - if grammar schools are such nice places to be, such excellent learning environements, why do so many of them have such lamentable value add statistics??

(Local superselective is 32nd if you sort our county table like that, overtaken by virtually all the schools that people clamour to avoid .. so these very able children actually make much LESS progress than all the children attending supposedly 'worse' schools)

I know exactly what you mean Talkin! My group of friends was exactly the same at secondary. I find it hard to believe how nasty and sly we were when I look back, and my behaviour as a young teenager is the only regret I have in life. We were just so horrible!

Even on the rare occasions that teachers were informed about our behaviour they just didn't believe it, because we were nice middle class girls don't you know! When we did get a telling off, it was incredibly easy to lie and make the teachers believe us, or feel sorry for us, so we could always get our ineffectual punishments reduced. They were so easy to manipulate it would be funny if it weren't so terrible. I actually think that many if the teachers were intimidated by us, the fact that it was a fee paying school seemed to mean that the thing the teachers most feared was a parent making a complaint about them, so they'd let us get away with stuff just so we didn't try to get back at them via our parents. And parents on the whole had very little involvement with the school, so often had no idea of what was going on.

Exactly what I said, Talkinpeace, the clever child makes sure they don't get caught! It is much more difficult to spot. If it isn't spotted it isn't dealt with.

Exactly what I said, Talkinpeace, the clever child makes sure they don't get caught! It is much more difficult to spot. If it isn't spotted it isn't dealt with.

Sorry, I don't know why it posted twice.

in which case you MUST understand why I do not want my children educated in such a toxic atmosphere
why a comp - full of the great unwashed but usually in a different room
where teachers admit their kids have faults
HAS to be better than living a lie

"Or you may be dyspraxic, dyslexic, autistic. But you can't BE Special Educational Needs."

It's not right to say 'may be dyspraxic' etc etc either as that is defining the person and saying that they are X, Y, Z. They are a person who has dyspraxia, or whatever they have.

WRT progress, if you have a school with a high ability level at the start, surely it is harder to add value than when they come in very low?

But, Talkin in the same way as all grammar schools aren't exclusively full of angels, they aren't all 'toxic atmospheres' either. My guess is that they ran the exact same gamut of attributes as comps do.

^Talkinpeace Tue 29-Oct-13 18:20:50
How do they cope with the kids who never knew who dad was, mum is a junkie in and out of prison, boyfriends vary with the weather, several siblings in the house of variable parentage?
"mealtimes" do not exist, nor does personal space.
how does the school keep that child - who has no specific learning difficulties - on an even keel in the classroom^
it sounds absolutely terrible and this is the kind of stories I heard from a former headteacher of a local comp in a not-so-nice area: kids sleeping rolled up in a dirty rug, eating off the floor etc. These children are seriously troubled and need lots of help. I admire the teachers who will take the challenge on. But I cannot help but feel, it is not the teachers' responsibility to be putting the wrongs right. The teachers' responsibility is to educate.

I do not want to imagine the level of disruption such troubled kids cause in class. Would I want my child to be in the same class with them? The honest answer is no, I don't. And I am prepared to get flamed for it.

I do Talkin, but I don't think it's the selection that did it. I think it was more the fact that the parents were paying than the fact the children passed an exam. Looking back, I think many of the teachers disliked us from the outset because they saw us as privileged, despite the fact that many of us had normal problems that aren't affected by money and we were just normal teenagers going through normal adolescent struggles. They didn't want to make the effort for us unless they thought that our parents would put a good word in with the head. (There is a chance I'm being overly cynical now, but it is based in truth!)

The attitude I see from teachers towards the children at my dcs GS is very different to the attitude I was treated with at a private school.

Summerworld
Less flamed than burgled in years to come after society washes its hands of such people.

I'd like to think that my children will be less blinkered than many of the posters on these threads.

Why assume that society will wash it's hands of people that have difficult childhoods if they don't pass an 11+ or attend a comp?

What makes you so sure that comprehensive is the best way for such children?

Isn't there the possibility that mixing well behaved children with badly behaved children will either encourage negative behaviour in the ones that were previously on track because it looks fun, or make the disadvantaged children feel even worse because what they don't have is being rubbed in their faces? (I'm not saying that either of these outcomes are inevitable btw, just suggesting its a possibility)

so where do they go?
not the ones with physiological needs, just the ones with shit homes.
where do they go?
I agree, I'd rather they were not in DCs classroom, but they have to go somewhere.
Where should that be?

and remember that in a comp there is a normal distribution of wealth - no cutoff reduces the chance of "rubbed in their faces"

I wasn't actually referring to wealth, I was meaning stability and support, as I should imagine that that's the thing that many disadvantaged youngsters want the most.

I take your point that that these children have to go somewhere and I agree. If a parent wants to access state education then they have to be prepared to take all that comes with it. But I don't think that anyone's education should come at the expense of someone else's.

Disruptive children should be taught with other disruptive children IMO, whether they have the brains and wherewithal to pass the 11+ or not.

Where do they go?

I dont think anyone really wants to answer your question talkinpeace.

Wealth isn't normally distributed.

Talkingpeace
what makes you think that having not known their dad or having siblings with different parents make a child troubled? It might for some children but I have known children in both those situations who have come out with handfuls of A grades at GCSE.

T.P. Does the comprehensive i mentioned on page 1. of this thread have a
normal distribution of wealth. Is it a grammar school with a few low
attainers to please the "Conscientious Objectors" who refuse to let their
Dc take the 11+. The low attainers get thrown out at 16.

The Comprehensive is in a adjoining area with no selection .
it got 74% 5A* to C Maths/English 2013.

The Modern school got 73% 5A* to C Maths/English.... 2013.

most schools have a normal distribution of wealth within the parents - it is a limited sample, but its still, generally a normal distribution.
TiP luff stats

Octopus background does not creat outcomes but it sure as heck influences it.

abbie
I know. Nobody ever wants to think it will happen to them or impact on them. I also happen to know a system that works really well for those kids but it makes bad headlines and would shock the GS brigade in its efficacy.

Schools may have a 'normal' distribution of wealth (whatever you define that to be) within themselves, but there will be a big difference in distribution of wealth between different ones.

wooWoo
absolutely but a sampled distribution has its own consistency
therefore the gap between poorest and next poorest and next poorest will be incremental, even if difference between top and bottom is huge - so all kids will be able to find kids with similar backgrounds

the worst situation is bursary kids in fee paying schools whose home life bears no relation to those around them - they do get their noses rubbed in it

T.P .. You mean you could actually put some of them in grammar schools
and watch them fly... If you took some of these poor sods out of their
miserable existence and put them in to new surroundings its amazing how they can improve themselves.

At the moment i am watching BBC 4 and a program about the said kids
treatment in the 1970s Shocking...

At 10 on BBC 4 there is a program about a boy of 10 in 1973 who they wanted .lock up.

TIP may luff stats but Xoanon has a maths degree. Wealth is not normally distributed.

Xoanon it is indeed a skewed distribution but pretty contiguous :-)

Soul2000 Nope. Not Grammar schools. Awful places. My local LA is working wonders turning such kids round in specialist centres that they go to for a few weeks at a time as needed. Its improving them and the schools they are not disrupting. Win Win.