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.

And what Indy said.

As an aside if the choice was either of the comps dp and I went to I'd home ed.

really people on these threads are too hung up on tutoring and perceived unfair advantages they think it brings, the 11+ is not some advanced degree course - there are numerous resources (many free), books from newsagents or Amazon, that mean any parent willing to put in the time and effort could "tutor" their child and the bright child who is willing to put in the effort can have a good shot at grammar school. I know people who left their kids 11+ tuition to tutors at £30 plus an hour for a year or two, whose kids did not succeed, and others who did entirely DIY who did. The paranoia about tutoring or other people tutoring for something as basic as the 11+ is astonishing. The one thing a tutor might help with is actually get your child to do the hours of work...but a parent could do the same if they really wanted. But then there is also a degree of smarts in it and some children are more willing/motivated than others.

indy
the thing with tutoring is that it is well out of the economic reach of many families
it often involves driving over and above the mileage families can afford
and it requires a level of parental organisation and planning that excludes those who most need the "break" of being educated with other really bright kids.

For parents who work night stacking shelves in supermarkets, there is no spare hour to sit and help their kids through Bond tests.

yeah and what's really unfair also....is that some people who are not willing to accept the state alternative, can afford to not work and can home educate their kids 1:1 (You'll find quite a few child geniuses have had that background). or some children have stay at home mums who can put in the time to help with their homework ....or that other children have an enormous head start because their parents are teachers or went to Oxbridge (and so can help them get A* in maths or whatever) ....or can afford 200+ books in the house.....all those real advantages should have to be declared in an UCAS form...and held against them. After all, many middle class children do have those advantages also which also may explain why they do better academically...a bit facetious i know, but it's not as black and white as who can afford tutoring or private schooling.

not having time to sit with your children to help them with basics is a poverty of different sorts

You say I keep asking the same question. It's because with one honourable exception, the grammar school advocates won't answer it. Saying "if it was right for my child" is not an answer, because it implies that the is a choice. Which for the vast majority of people in wholly selective arts the isn't. The presence of the grammar schools that you want automatically creates another school that you wouldn't want to send your child to. But because you want the chance of a grammar school you seem not to mind that 75% of the area's children will end up in a school you wouldn't want for your own. Which strikes me as a pretty shabby attitude, to be honest.

yes I do mind that the state alternatives are not good....they should be much better ...including the less academic ones ...rather than bringing the excellent choices down and that is shabby but the government needs to be held responsible for that mess...who said they do not mind.

I do mind that there are wars and poverty in the world also ...don't you...? then how shabby that you choose to live with your children in a place that there is not, when so many of the people in the world have to live that way. How far do you want to take this logic?

while we are at it...I think it's wholly unfair that people are allowed to home school...they really have a huge advantage with their 1:1 tuition with usually very educated parents...that choice should be taken away so we can level the playing field also. Or let's tax them heavily for exercising that choice....or being able to afford it.

curlew your argument about the 75% is a good argument for superselective grammars with no catchment then, that way much less likely of a local area being deprived of the whole top local 25% .

exactly Briar

Ds2's best friend was coached by his mum and passed the 11+ to get into a very selective grammar school - he was been eligible for fsm. It does happen - not often, but it does happen.

I do not disagree, however, that it is easier of you can afford tutoring etc.

Absolutely. Proper setting in a comprehensive school. Everyone on the same campus. Sorted.

Only problem with that is that Mumsnetters level 6s would have to queue for lunch, or do Art or PE with other people's level 4s. And that would never do!

There has been research showing better academic achievement for all in grammar areas

I have to pick that point up again. The research shows precisely the opposite.

Some Chris Cook analysis is found in this Fullfact summary of the evidence: children from deprived backgrounds performed worse than their counterparts in areas without selection.

And overall the fully selective areas (Kent and North Lincolnshire) perform worse than non-selective. According to provisional 2013 GCSE results Kent was a third of the way down the table and NE Lincs was 129th out of 152 LAs for Ebacc and similar for 5 GCSEs inc EM.

More disturbing evidence is of progress for pupils in English and Maths - Kent is further down at 60th place and NE Lincs still stuck in the bottom third. This puts both LAs below areas with two or three times their level of deprivation such as Hackney or Tower Hamlets (and other areas outside London). This suggests the moderns are not an effective route for getting majority to gain a C pass, or the grammars are not getting Bs and above. Or both.

As an aside I know very little about home ed but I'm pretty sure that at 12 onwards the parent does n't need to be at home most of the time, particularly with more and more home ed groups.
Repeating myself, 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.

Curlew -

FastLoris- so what would you do if your child didn't pass the 11+ and had to go to school with the unfiltered majority?

That's a hard question to make sense of because we moved into the area knowing perfectly well that we had a highly academically able child who was very unlikely not to pass. (It's a fully selective area so he only had to be in the top 25%).

Do you mean "what if by some fluke / freak out on the day / whatever he didn't pass, by a large enough margin not to get in on headteacher appeal, despite the fact that he looked like would easily pass?"

Or do you mean "what if you had a different child"?

indy
as part of DHs work he meets lots of home school groups.
he would utterly disagree with your assessment of the IQ of many parents who do not send their kids to school.

I like the fact that my kids get to see all sorts in the lunch queue
they do not socialise with them but do meet them
in the school orchestra are some superlatively thick musicians
and in the sports team are kids who can run but not write

schools need to think laterally : Oxford University did with Clare Balding's dad (as per Desert Island discs at the weekend)

You see, it keeps coming back to this. I don't understand how people can be in favour of selective education when they would not be prepared to sen their child to the alternative.

I'm not really in favour of full selection, and I wouldn't be prepared to send my child to a secondary modern. But if I couldn't get my child through the 11+ in an area that takes the top 25% I'd be questioning my own parenting and the primary school I had chosen for my child.

The reason being that the 11+ isn't really that hard, and I'd assume that the top 25% is roughly equivalent to getting a level 5a or b, if not level 6. And looking at what is expected of a child at level 5, it's not that high a standard tbh. If my child wasn't achieving that then they would be receiving extra tuition, either from me or a professional but not because of the 11+, but because they need to improve to have a decent shot at getting a good education.

its rugby at a comp

Talkin -

the thing with tutoring is that it is well out of the economic reach of many families. It often involves driving over and above the mileage families can afford and it requires a level of parental organisation and planning that excludes those who most need the "break" of being educated with other really bright kids.

That may well be true of some families on FSM, but the point is being severely over-egged as part of a wider argument that only "privileged", and (WORSE!) "middle class" (hawk, spit) parents can have their children tutored, or do it themselves. As I calculated in an earlier post, we spent precisely £720 in total on tutoring for DS - much of which was money wasted and I ended up making more difference myself anyway. That's money that most families with at least one parent working in a steady job can manage raise as a ONE-OFF expense within the greater scheme of raising a child, if they consider it necessary. And I know plenty of kids around here who passed without any external tutoring at all.

And since when was it only privileged and (hawk, spit - YUCK!) "middle class" families who are capable of "parental organisation and planning". What kind of surgery exactly do they perform on the brains of good honest working class parents that puts such things outside their reach?

You seem to be trying to argue that selection is terrible not just because it favours money, but because it favours those children whose parents actually parent them as opposed to popping them out and then wishing they'd just stay out of the fucking way for the next eighteen years. Well I'm sorry but education - and not just education but life, in every sense - is ALWAYS going to favour those children. The solution to that is to do something about crap parenting, not to demonize the people who are actually doing it with commitment.

Talking, I am sure you do not mean to but you do sound a bit patronising, and stating the obvious. Of course mixing is good (but not limited to school hours) and talents in sport, music and lots of other things are not associated with academic ability, however paying for music lessons or outside sporting clubs is usually only possible with a reasonable income whether you are in a comprehensive or not.

there is breathtaking arrogance in some posts which assume that FSM parents are not engaged or capable of instilling a love of learning, and that FSM = disruptive behaviour . I teach is a school where there is 50% FSM, and also bad behaviour, but it does not correlate wu=ith FSM... At parents evenings there are parents who are very, very poor, but very motivated regarding their childrens' education. I tis a vey lazy assumption to assume that FSM = cultural desert

summerends
the Rugby is free, after school
the orchestra lends instruments and is free after school
the netball, football, rock climbing, trampolining, choir etc are free and at school (ideal for the parents who work in fact)
music lessons are £70 a term and can be subsidised for those who need.

fastloris
£720 is more than a whole year's bus fare - for families earning below the median of £27,000 gross per household - that is an impossible amount to find ... and if there is more than one child .....