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.

For many counties the grammar system is nothing like the Kent system so not getting the obsession with Kent.Th education system doesn't begin and end in Kent,it is one county.Either discuss Kent or the system in other counties.They are completely different so it's pointless to treat the two as the same.

Would like to add I suspect many leafy comps have negligible fsm.

There is also the fact that getting into grammar for all kids takes drive and the education of a child's mother has the biggest impact on a child's future.It thus follows that to get fsm education is likely to be low for many of the parents which I suspect is the biggest cause of low fsm kids in such schools.

Oh and our comp is in a shitty town,far shittier than the comp two of my kids will probably go to.In fact it's a worry re after school activities(drug and other issues)and worries me slightly however it would suit one of my dc down to the ground so if he gets in he'll go.

Kids differ,schools differ,one size does not fit all- get over it.In an ideal world my dc would go to the fab private school in our local city but we don't have the money.Not getting the argument for keeping that open but not the grammar which actually in our area has kids from quite diverse backgrounds.My friend who is a very poor and totally single parent has her son at the grammar.Why in your ideal world should he lose his school but the uber rich keep their school?

Madness.

laQueen is but no means unusual and therefore is perhaps getting a hard time on this thread.

She sounds exactly like every grammar school parent I know of, certainly not a poor family seeking social mobility , rather an already advantaged family scrabbling to maintain their place .

You can be poor and not get FSM. You can be on minimum wage and not get FSM. Those families on £70 a week Contributions'-Based Job Seekers’ Allowance don't get it, although those on Income-Based Job Seekers’ Allowance are eligible. In Essex, if you get Working Tax Credit you can't get FSM and if your income is below £16k with WTC, you can get assisted transport ...but no free school meal.

There are people who fall through the net that need it and could boost those FSM figures that people seem to want to use for whatever agenda or conclusion.

Oh and at our local comp the top kids get put into a selective booster class in year 7. Kind of shit for the bright kids from the local mediocre primary who will get more chance of being pushed at the grammar,great for the kids who come from the local Outstanding primary their parents bought places into through housing.

Unfairness is everywhere in education and there are far bigger fish to fry than a few kids who get into grammar.

retropear
Kent's system gets a hard time bcause it is the most dysfunctional in the country.

Out in the real world, like here in Hampshire we pootle through primary, pop three names on a form during year 6 and get the kids into one of them - more than 90% of us getting them to the top one on the list
no exams
no tutoring
no stress
and the FSM in the schools reflects the areas because the schools take all the kids in the area unless parents drive them to another catchment, but that often increases the FSM rather than lowers it as we move away from the dire schools ...

teacher -

Here is the link again:

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

Now that I look at it it is indeed crunching data from reports from 2005 and 2006. Well spotted!

I don't know how things would have changed since then, on either side of the comparison.

If we no longer had selective education of any kind in the state sector, people would still complain about inequality in education.

The differences in the quality of education in comprehensive schools can be huge, so much so that I really can't see the point of rallying against grammar schools when if they were gone, there would still be more than enough left to worry about.

The biggest factor determining educational outcomes will always be parental influence. People that want to improve things for children who are statistically less likely to achieve highly because they are on FSMs would be better off worrying about what goes on inside the homes of these children rather than worrying about what goes on in schools that do an excellent job.

woowoo
if there was less money wasted on selection and appeals and tutoring, there might be more money left in school budgets for actual teaching ....

and there might be chances for EVERY child to reach their potential

LaQueenofrheTimeLords is at least honest enough to say that she doesn't support selective education at all- she supports keeping her children away from from the riff raff as cheaply as possible. Like many people, she is all about looking after Number One and devil take the hindmost. It's not an attractive attitude, but better than the people who go on about social mobility and opportunity for all while rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of fees saved.

Parents who pay for tutoring are doing so out of their own pockets, and it actively supports their children's education, so I can't see how that's a waste of many that would be better spent on...err..teaching!

There really isn't that much money being wasted on selection and appeals either, at least not in this area which only has a couple of superselectives. The schools handle their own 11+, but as they get great results the money spent on it can't matter that much. Appeals are handled by one member of staff from the LEA and a panel of volunteers, so again, I can't see that they are wasting much money. Certainly not enough to warrant taking an excellent school away from hundreds of children that thrive there.

The selection and appeals process probably wastes a lot more money in an area like Kent where so many people go through appeals, but as always with these threads, it's easy to talk with crossed wires when people don't state whether they are making points about areas where there is full selection, or areas that just have one or two grammar schools surrounded by comprehensives.

Funnily enough, we thought about moving from the city to Lincolnshire because it's so very cheap and we could have had an insanely large house there... But the 11+ was a bit of a put off.

Although deep down I do think ours would have passed, in the place we looked at.

I agree curlew.

Curlew, doesn't every parent put their own children first when they make decisions on their behalf?

I'd say that was normal, and the people who are worth worrying about are the parents who aren't involved in their children's education and discipline, not the ones that want the best they can get for their dc.

I put my children first
but I'm very aware that the people who will work for them later in life need a sound education

Tbh all this talk of tutoring puts people off and I wonder just how beneficial it is.

We can't afford it so are doing it ourselves,I did have a confidence wobble recently(thanks to media horror stories)but my friend has a dd at private and all are paying ££££££ for tutors.Said friend told me what they're doing and tbh my DS can do what they've covered with bells on already.The VR he's doing himself from a book.Will book a mock.

Tbh primary schools could and should do the above themselves.

Will probably fall flat on my face but so be it.He needs to take some responsibility for what he wants himself and with his drive will be fine wherever.

Oh and Lincolnshire is flat and boring.

A 12 bedroom Georgian mansion wouldn't convince me to live there.

"I'd say that was normal, and the people who are worth worrying about are the parents who aren't involved in their children's education and discipline, not the ones that want the best they can get for their dc."

Absolutely. That's why I want an education system that doesn't depend quite so much on what your parents are like.

Well best get rid of the pupil premium then.That's ridiculous.

Talkin - absolutely! But that can happen without getting rid of successful schools. We have plenty of brilliant schools that aren't grammar in this country that can and do turn out well educated young people, despite the existence of of the grammars.

Oh and Ofsted reports,the terms Outstanding etc.Parents don't need the grammar system to select.

Everyone looks after their own children and puts them first! It's what people are expected to do. Not putting your own children first (and I'm not saying to the detriment of every other child, just having parents to advocate for them) is frankly bordering on abusive. You can't personally bring up every single child in the country- the most efficient way to bring them up is to let the people who love the little tykes look after them. And possibly teach them a few values along the way.

If you don't, no-one else will...

I wonder if Kent has a higher number of NEETs than other areas? Does anyone know? If they do then that would seem conclusive evidence that full selection at 11+ doesn't work, but if they don't, then maybe it's not as big a deal as we might think.

Retro, personally I would get rid of the pupil premium.

Education and social services can only palliate, they can't replace loving and involved parents. And unless we lived in a totalitarian country that didn't believe in diversity of opinion and free will and felt it was better to take all children into some form of State parenting as early as possible (it's happened in the past and it's never been pretty), then this is the best system we have.

What is really needed is not a regression to LCD or even to mean, but for people with spare capacity for parenting to advocate for children whose parents are not up to the job. Which basically is what the foster care system and children's services are meant to do.

WooWoo
Kent's neets are a bit of a moot point because of Thanet.
Margate has 29 childrens homes stuffed with the kids that London would rather forget about.
When they leave school they stay in Thanet.
Their outcomes are not the fault of the primary teachers in the area

It's important to remember that fully selective LEAs don't have better exM results than fully comprehensive ones. Which, from the way grammar supporters go on, you would rather think they would. Until you realise it's not about results, it's about segregation.