For anyone who still thinks that access to selective state education is a level playing field.....

[curlew]

I have just read the latest OfSTED for my dd's grammar school.

There are no children in Year 7 who are eligible for FSM. None. Not one.

Scottishmummy- I really don't want to get into this debate. But, on a point of information, in the 12 LEAs which are wholly selective, there are no non selective schools at all. The received wisdom is that the 11+ is not a pass or fail exam (yeah, right) it is just a test to see which school is appropriate for each child. So if you go to any secondary school in that LEA you are engaging in the selection process. K

Larrygrils- does the taxpayer pick up your bill at Le Gavroche? Is there a deeply flawed selection process to decide who gets to go to Le Gavroche and who gets to go to Subway?

exam is taken at primary school; you are part of the system whether you want to be or not
Are you saying its mandatory to take the 11plus?can parent not decline?
If 23% go grammar,where do the other 77% go?that seems competitive to be in top 23%

Never let facts and evidence get in the way of a good rant

That could be LaQ's motto when it comes disparaging our fabulous comp. I wish your DD well at her grammar but you are utterly delusional if you don't think there is bullying and bitchiness and disruption at that all girls' school (have friends with children there in all age years). And any jeering and hassle they get will likely be from the inhabitants of the run down town in which it is situated.

Happy to send my bright, sporty DD to the comp in our lovely, leafy village

No child has to take the 11+, but the very real danger if your bright child does not take it is that he/she finds himself at a school that does not cater to his/her needs.

Thank you for response,that's what I was querying does child need to take 11+
I see it's not mandatory to take the 11+
Of course it's a significant decision.one which fills mn threads. Most parents are anxious about education

scittishmummy
round here, the only kids takingt he 11+ are those planning to go the grammar in the next county 30 miles away
it is in no way part of the normal schooling

if one lives in Ashford in Kent, it is an integral part of the system

in one lives in London and has pushy parent it is deemed important, but thte schools are 95% comps

My parents live on the Tunbridge Wells/Ashford border, so are surrounded by grammar school area.

Lots of DC do not take the 11+. Or the 13+.

The grammar schools in wilts, 1 for boys, 1 for girls, are in the far south of the county (Salisbury), an area poorly served by public transport from other parts of Wiltshire.

So for families living in Swindon, Malmesbury, Chippenham, Royal Wootton Bassett, Calne, melksham, devizes, Trowbridge, Bradford, Westbury and warminster, to name but a few of the local towns, children are far more likely to go to the local comp.

The 11+ and its angst is a foreign concept to us. I'm certainly very happy with comp my DC attend/attended.

Blimey, this thread is moving fast! My reply was in response to Soul2000 post number 200.

The reality is the middle classes always find a way to game the system ( or pay to go privately). They attend churches when they are non believers, they buy houses near good schools, or they aggressively coach for the 11+.

At least grammars do have an academic rather than a financial hurdle and do offer a hope to the poor but talented, as do private school bursaries. The schools which have catchment area of 150 metres squared where the cheapest properties are £500k are basically state subsidised private schools.

Our local (ish) ones do have a financial hurdle .

The tutoring
The bus fairs
The uniform
Expected " voluntary donations"
Even the lockers require a hefty deposit

At least private schools are open and up front about the their mission to keep the poor riff raff out.

And once again...I am nauseatingly middle class. The sort of person whose grandparents all went to university (and believe me that wasn't usual for women in pre-independence India). My parents met at Oxford. That's how middle class I am...

...and once again my daughter's school is resolutely non-leafy and full of kids (many of whom are her friends, she's not in some sub-ghetto of posh kids) on FSM. Just to puncture the stereotype yet again.

Why is it so threatening to accept many of us have children whose education is meeting our (often rather high) standards in genuinely non-selective schools?

Right so we've addressed the no child compelled to take 11+. It's option parent and child chose
You see I've seen this on mn before as,we object to 11+ but had to send child
So just same as everyone else choosing grammar,seeking an educational advantage

I don't live in an 11 plus county and for any other faults the local comprehensive schools have (and primary schools, for that matter), jeering at "top set" children is most definitely not one of them. However, I grew up in Kent and found there that all through the last year of primary school (only), the children known to be most likely to pass the 11 plus and thus be heading for the grammar schools were suddenly thought of as "posh" and "stuck up." I don't recall in those days that it WAS an opt-in exam, so this wasn't because these kids or their parents had done anything "different" - I'm pretty certain my entire class took it (I remember them all sitting in the hall with the paper in front of them...), even though at least 60% of them would have been 100% certain they were not going to get into a grammar school, so surely in those days it was an "opt out" exam which most people didn't realise they could opt out of? Whatever was the case, it was colossally divisive and in my opinion was what created the mentality that to be "clever" was to be "up yourself" because you were going off to a different school which had a 6th form (the local secondary moderns didn't, because you were not expected to go on to take A-levels in those days if you hadn't passed your 11 plus). This quite angry attitude from the majority of the school population towards the stuck up people who went off to a different school continued outside of school, where it was genuinely quite difficult to safely mix with kids from schools in a different sector in public (whether private school, grammar school or secondary modern) even in the local pubs and clubs. I really don't see the virtue of such a system.

At least grammars do have an academic rather than a financial hurdle and do offer a hope to the poor but talented, as do private school bursaries. The schools which have catchment area of 150 metres squared where the cheapest properties are £500k are basically state subsidised private schools.

Would you be able to provide an example of a school whose only oversubcription criterion is shortest walking distance where the FSM level is as low as OP's school?

larry
ah yes, private school bursaries
I feel an FOI request to the Charities Commission coming on to ask how many of the children receiving bursaries (to comply with the CC rules) are the children of people who went to private school

and therefore the bursaries are not in any way 'widening participation' but are being gamed by those (like myself) who went to private school but choose to work part time, or moved into low earning industries or - even more cynically - shifted all their money into non income bearing for the bursary qualifying years ....

it may not make pretty reading

and the Grauniad will not crow as it pays boarding school fees for ALL of its staff posted abroad, even if - like la Toynbee - they are paid around £200k a year

PS - round here catchments are miles and miles across even for the most sought after comps

LaQueen,

I find it quite difficult to reconcile you last posts with the comparisons you made earlier in the thread, where you were suggesting that in any alternative school for your DDs they would be at the mercy of those outside the top set taunting them, and that the other pupils indulged in all kinds of disruptive behaviour to an extent that would have a significant effect on your children's learning.

If you now say that the alternative school for your DDs is in fact a nice school, do you mean to say that those descriptions were a little exaggerated?

(As I say, I can name a number of disaffected, disruptive youngsters who taunted those who worked hard at my Cambridge college - I find it hard to believe that none can be found within the walls of a grammar school. they did not disrupt my education by lattending the same institution as I did - but perhaps they are a salutory reminder that there is no ability level immune from disruption, disaffection and bitchiness)

www.cre.org.uk/docs/grammar_school_debate1.html

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"More importantly, while defending his spurious attacks on grammar schools, David Willetts referred to research by the Sutton Trust. The Trust (which is no friend of grammar schools) has done two recent studies into eligibility for FSM. To use either as the basis for an attack on some of the best performing schools in the country is to misrepresent the truth.

The first, Rates of Eligibility for Free School Meals at the Top State Schools, October 2005, looked at FSM rates at the top 200 state schools (based on their 5-plus A-C GCSE results) and compared these with the FSM rates of the areas in which the schools are situated. Of these 200 schools, 161 were grammar schools and 39 were comprehensive schools. The key point is that the average gap between school and area FSM rates was almost identical for the grammar schools and the top comprehensive schools*

Although fewer pupils at the grammar schools are found to be eligible for FSM than at the top comprehensives..., much of this difference can be explained by the fact that the grammar schools are situated in more affluent areas... The intake of grammars within the top 200 can be said to reflect – or fail to reflect – the local neighbourhoods in which they are based to the same degree as the comprehensives, with differences between average area and school rates of just under 10 percentage points for both.'"

fastloris
"grammar schools are situated in more affluent areas"
Thanet
Folkestone
Grimsby
Bourne (Lincolnshire)

I rest my case

find me the comp with 0% FSM in year 7 ......