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.

So, just to confirm, LaQueen. You don't actually think selective education as a principle is a good idea?

I agree with retropear.
I also am not sure that I understand this obsession with having all kids of all abilities in the same school. Parents who have the money to pay, will often have their children go through some process of informal or formal selection; they then choose according to the character of the school and how it best suits their child's ability, confidence and other interests. Questions like would the child be better at the top of their year rather than struggling at the bottom often come up. Some parents go for the private equivalent of a comprehensive, some go for more nurturing schools with different strengths.

Secondary moderns could and can be as good as grammars and allow equal extracurricular opportunities but better suit the needs of a child including those that are brilliant at maths but have other learning needs or those who are identified as a bright late developer and once they catch up are pushed accordingly.
. What is wrong is that certain children from an early age are condemned to poor quality schools whether they are in a comprehensive or grammar area.

Oh, and if you don't think saying that you wouldn't want your children under the same educational roof as some of the children at a comprehensive is denigrating compressive schools, then obviously you have a different understanding of the word than I do!

Norudeshite "But they have schools which don't require an 11+ test to be passed. Can parents not opt to just send their children to those rather than sitting an 11+?"

Yes, they can. But if you read the thread it is explained that in full grammar areas the non 11+ schools are effectively the equivalent of the old secondary moderns. Because the top 22% or whatever have been removed to the grammar, the opportunities, aspirations, selection of teachers and diversity of children is restricted. So nothing like choosing a fully comprehensive school at all.

It's like committed vegetarians that eat fish, isn't it? Strong supporters of selective education who would go private rather than use secondary modern schools.

Maybe the thing to do is change the language so they're called "Secondary Modern areas". That might make the "aren't grammar schools wonderful" brigade stop and think for a minute.

Fully comprehensive schools will never exist as long as there are private schools.

I would agree with expanding super selective grammar schools. If it happened, then the competition for places wouldn't be at the crazy level it's at now, because every child who was academically deemed suitable for a place would get one.

As it is, most parents don't tutor to get their child to pass, they tutor to get their child a pass that is high enough above the pass mark that they will get a place. Every year grammar schools turn away children that have passed their 11+, even when those children are in the top 5%, because they simply don't have enough places to accommodate all those children.

If we had more grammar school places, and only aimed to take the top 5% of children whose parents thought they were suited to a grammar style of education, then grammar schools would be much more accessible to those on lower incomes and FSMs.

I actually don't have a problem with selective education, but I do have a problem with our current system.

My dh is Dutch. In Holland they have a selective system which works. At 11 the children are streamed into about 5 streams. As far as I know, all 5 streams are on the same campus, it is possible to move from one stream to another (for a late developer for example) and there are different opportunities available in each stream.

The top stream (about 5 %) go to university. The standard uni course is equivalent to our Masters degree, and is for the truly academic, the professions which require that level of training eg doctor and lawyer.

The second stream goes on to a higher education system which is more like our university level, this includes teaching degrees.

The bottom stream is a very practical education, so by 14 there are opportunities to be an apprentice, for work based training, for proper skills training.

The most important difference as far as I understand it, is that the streams 3-5 are valued and properly funded. In the UK it would be seen as ''failing'' to be in stream 4 or 5, but this is not true in Netherlands, they see it as children needing a different type of education, but one of equal value. Far fewer children come out at 16 with no qualifications.

I have always thought that the problem with the grammar system was not the selective nature of it per se, but rather that there is no movement possible across the system and the lack in investment in the secondary moderns and technical schools (which were originally part of the system, but have now disappeared)

That's not selective education, steppenmum- they are all on the same campus and can move between streams. That's extreme comprehensive education!

Grammar schools are inherently unfair on the DC not in them. We know this. But whether they are any worse than private schools, church schools, schools in expensive catchments, I'm not sure. These schools all run on the same principle.

I think they throw up a different set of issues from private schools because they are state funded... though yes, equally divisive.

They wouldn't be at all unfair on the children not in them if they schools they went to met their educational needs.

There is no reason why schools can't be brilliant schools just because there's a grammar nearby.

I very much disagree that grammar schools are unfair on the children that aren't in them, and I'm saying that as a parent who has one child in a superselective and one child in a comp.

What word said.

A lottery system,abolition of the private system and zero info re Ofted reports are pretty much the only methods that would ensure fairness but then you might as well live in communist China.

Not sure some posters would like the methods of selection they use to be abolished tbf just the method they didn't benefit from.

WooWoo- if you have a child in a superselective and one in a comprehensive then the chances are that that is a fair system- as I understand it superselectives take from such a wide area that they have very little impact on other local schools.

Whether or not superselectives are a good idea in themselves is a completely different debate!

Curlew, I don't follow your post about compressive education.
Whether selection occurs within a school or between schools it is definitely unfair that a child should be mismatched to the appropriate education by exams (11plus, SATs or whatever) because of a poor aspirational background or parents who are unable or choose not to help their child with exam technique and there is no provision for help in the junior school.

Or if they can't afford to live in certain areas.

LaQueen - but if you agree with selective education, why would you send your children to a private school rather than to a high school or comprehensive if they do not pass the 11+? Surely selective education depends on those not in grammar school to be in the school allocated to them via selection - i.e a school lacking higher achieving students.

Basically you are selecting on grounds of demography and income.

As the stats in the OP show, these days grammar schools are NOT the basis of social mobility they were once thought to be.

However in a proper comp, a child of high ability and high socio-economic disadvantage can get a good top set challenging educational experience.

And these good comps are not exclusively in leafy high house price areas, as many posters on this thread have testified. Perhaps it is a push for social segregation in some areas that has created 'expensive house price ghettoes' rather than the quality of the education on offer.

I think there is a difference between 'believing in selective education' and 'wanting my child to be selected', whether for grammar or private school. If you're going to make sure your child end up somewhere selective, you don't really believe in selection as a Good Thing, because for selection to operate, there must by definition also be rejection. To make a plan that avoids engaging with rejection at any level is understandable, but it isn't the same as being in favour of selection as an ideal.

It's not a different debate though, because as I pointed out yesterday, these MN grammar school threads don't differentiate between grammar schools in fully selective areas and grammar schools that are the only school of their type in an area.

You started your thread about selective state education, and super selectives are a part of that.

Certainly the super selectives in this area have next to no impact on the other schools in the area, and definitely not in comparison to the private schools around here. In Surrey, super selectives do seem to have more of an impact on the local schools despite the fact that their catchment areas are huge. But I can't pretend to know much about how it works in that area, so my impression could be wrong there.

The OP is about a grammar school in a fully grammar area.

It has repeatedly been pointed out that the low numbers of super- selective in non-grammar areas have little impact on the educational opportunities for the rest of the schools / children. And that in a fully grammar area the grammar system has a marked impact on the remaining schools which are effectively secondary moderns.
This thread is about the lack of equality in a grammar school in a full grammar area.

Tosh Caro parents buy in certain areas for schools- period.We all want a big a house as we can afford and the best schools we can afford.The more you earn the more and better choice you get.

Successful schools in leafy expensive areas push prices for rental and buying up- everybody knows that,estate agents even put it in house details.

Tosh Retropear.
In S London, anyway.