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.

Re: A,G&T.

My Ds3 is on the list for maths at his (good) state primary, but I treat it with a pinch of salt. Just a box-ticking 'this is what we do for the more able children' exercise for OFSTED, imo.

What it actually means (at Ds's school, anyway) is the opportunity to apply for one 'course' (Saturday 9.30-3) per two full terms (till Easter!), an hour's drive away, at a cost of £50 a go!!! (Ds not interested as it clashed with football!) Even if he did want to go, I doubt one day would have any impact unless it was being followed up in school.

What it doesn't seem to mean is any differentiation to speak of in maths teaching or homework ('Challenges' are given at end of homework, e.g. see if you can do it faster, or make up some of your own!).

In fact the only differentiation they did have, by way of setting for maths, has been ditched in favour of whole class teaching, which even the teachers acknowledge can be unsatisfactory for children who could be working at an accelerated pace.

I think people should go on look on the "Secondary section" under Urmston or Stretford Grammar, people actually encouraging the "Secondary Modern" School ( THAT MAN UTD/CITY ARE QUITE HAPPY TO SEND THEIR FUTURE SUPERSTARS TO). Ashton on Mersey school . I know i will get told despite the fact the Trafford sends 30% of its kids to Grammar schools that for some reason it is not a fully "Selective Area" . The reason being that because the surrounding areas are Comprehensive it does not have the same problems as Kent.

Does Trafford send 30% of its kids to Grammar Schools, or is it simply that 30% of secondary places are selective? The two things are not the same. In much the same way as Sutton has 30% selective places while the non-selective schools, for the most part, perform very well. How can this be? Are the people of Sutton especially brainy or do the selective schools take so many children from outside the borough that there are plenty of smart children to go to its non-selective options. On the other hand, the surrounding area of Kent is mostly sea!

Caro whilst your school may anecdotally offer a great education to DC from a lower sociuo economic section of society, the reverse is true generally.

We all know this!

Pretending that poor children are well served in the UK in all comprehensive LEAs, but not in Kent is utter rubbish. The UK has done its very best at applying the comprehensive system and thus far social mobility has not improved one iota.

It may not harm middle class DC but it certainly hasn't helped working class children.

But you seem to keep aligning working class children with children on FSM and children not in top sets, and all of that is both problematic and untrue.

But you seem to keep aligning working class children with children on FSM and children not in top sets, and all of that is both problematic and untrue.

Well that's the problem with this whole thread. It very quickly went from a statistic about children on free school meals at one school, to a bunch of gross generalisations about "the privileged" vs everyone else, without anybody seeming to notice.

Notrude - surely the point is that it isn't all about choice. You can take equally bright children from a MC class home and a WC class home. If the WC parents can't afford tutoring then the WC child needs to be innately brighter than the MC one to even stand a fair chance. That's where social mobility starts to go out the window.

DH and I are both from working class backgrounds, both went to Grammar School. The stress USED to be whether your family could afford the uniform, not that you had to be coached to the nth degree to stand a chance.

I had school friends on FSM, friends with holes in their shoes. During the miners strike we used to bring food in to share with others whose families were really suffering. I recall no-one every worrying about how much money anyone else's family had. I spent weekends in council houses and plush places with many bathrooms. One friend had a swimming pool. No-one gave a shit. Well maybe we were jealous of the pool

The problem with the uk schools system is that the difference is so vast .
One thread is asking why can't the school permanently exclude a pupil who has made "RAPE THREATS" to a Girl from the same school. Another thread is about how a "B" grade in Maths is not good enough for a Super Selective School.

I posted on the 11th November about a serious incident , the incident was a "AIR RIFLE SHOOTING" of a 12 Year old Girl at Hyde Technology College in Tameside Gtr Manchester. The Schools response was almost like "WELL THESE THINGS HAPPEN" not very encouraging , it could so easily have been a
a real Gun that the pupil Had.

The Rape Threat/ Gun incident are enough in their own right , for parents to want selection to protect their children.

How can the same system controlled by the state have such extremes of Education/ Behaviour and expectation from the pupils in schools.

The stress USED to be whether your family could afford the uniform, not that you had to be coached to the nth degree to stand a chance.

I took the 11+ more than two decades ago and failed it. My parents were poor and illiterate, but would have got me a uniform by hook or crook if I had been offered a place at grammar school. I perhaps should have passed the 11+ when you consider that I was top of the class throughout primary school (2 schools).
I had never even seen concepts such as verbal and non verbal reasoning and was therefore at a huge disadvantage when sitting the exam. So this idea that bright kids used to stand a chance but those chances no longer exist isn't necessarily true. I don't think they have stood a chance for decades.
Perhaps instead of blaming parents who have the money for tutoring for taking places from brighter but poorer children perhaps we should blame the primary schools for failing to ensure that the brightest children, regardless of family income, are prepared for the 11+ and therefore stand a chance of passing it.
Why are primary schools in grammar areas not identifying the able children and offering them booster classes to help them understand the format of the 11+ tests?

Both my parents passed the 11+ in a pretty poor area, did extremely well and in effect moved class. In their areas no one or virtually no one really was rich at all. Some might have had slightly better clothes but the grammar system did work (for those who passed) and was in a sense the making of them as they could both go on to further education, something their parents did not manage - one of their parents left school at 12, another at 14 etc. Now they also had some relatives who were keen on studying so I expect the home environment did help.

Norude,

Because we are not allowed to....

Odd, but true. We cannot run after school clubs, we cannot coach children, we cannot teach the NVR and VR skills required.

I don't know why, I don't know whether this is law, but certainly in the 'opt in' grammar area I work in, as a state primary we cannot prepare children explicitly for the grammar tests.

The whole point of using VR and NVR tests was to test intelligence, and the theory was that the results of these tests would be less influenced by the quality of primary school experience than the traditional tests in English and Maths. Of course they only really test intelligence if children come to the tests cold. If they have spent a considerable amount of time practising similar tests, it basically invalidates them as intelligence tests. I don't think they factored in the possibility that people would tutor for these tests which of course they do. Some selective LEA's are still in denial that tutoring either exists or makes a difference.

Schools are not allowed to offer any 11+ coaching in Kent either. 2 familiarization papers is all that's permitted. Strange but true.

But that only strengthens the argument that it should be allowed and that primary schools should be identifying the brightest children and preparing them for grammar school entrance tests (in GS areas). It strengthens the argument that poor children are being disadvantaged and the govt rules are perpetuating it.
If schools are not allowed to offer booster classes / after school 11+ clubs then it isn't the schools fault but it is the fault of whichever department has made it against the rules to familiarise children with reasoning and 11+ concepts in state schools.
I still think the state education system is at fault rather than the parents who can and do pay for tutoring.

Can schools suggest to parents that their children have a reasonable chance of passing the 11+ if they are able to access the relevant materials to familiarise themselves? Can they direct parents towards relevant websites and free / inexpensive preparation materials?
It is a genuine question BTW as I am genuinely curious about the education system effectively failing to assist getting the brightest poor children into grammar schools.

Norude - yes, we do that. Not sure if we are 'allowed' to, but we do.

Norude -

Schools certainly can, and do, tell parents which children have a decent chance of passing the test. I think that's pretty much all they're allowed to do though. TBH there's so much info and materials available online for anyone seeking it I doubt the schools could add much.

As Cecily said, the original thinking behind the tests was that they would test "innate" academic intelligence, free of the trappings of learning. In the 40s when the tripartite system started, there was a lot of very naive faith in such ideas. Nowadays many of the original studies and claims about IQ have been discredited, but at the time they were quite dominant in educational policy. The British ruling classes basically believed they had their positions and their private educations by dint of their innate genetic superiority - but that a few "deserving" cases might have been missed along the way and they needed grammar schools to find their proper place.

Hence the fact that for all the actual meaning of "tripartite", it was only the grammar part of the equation that anybody actually cared about or put any money into.

I suppose then that it goes back to the old saying of 'you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink'; you can direct parents to the relevant materials but you can't make them access it for their children however cheap it might be.
I'm glad to see that teachers do identify children suitable for 11+ but I think more needs to be allowed to be done to ensure that those children have a reasonable chance.
I don't think many schools really work on nurturing innate intelligence as much as they can as there is too much focus on SATs and ofsted and rule following. It isnt the individual schools fault, but the whole education system.
I do think parents have to play a role as well, it's a joint effort.

Round here grammars are treated as something of a dirty secret in the state primary schools, whereas they seem to be the main driver for prep schools.

We have had four children go through the local primaries, 3 of which were grammar material, it was never suggested to us that they should apply.

However all four children have been identified as able in some way by their primary schools and various levels of provision have been laid on to meet their needs. So parents have been informed if their children are bright, but not if they would suit a grammar test. We are on the edge of catchment though, it may be different if you enter the warzone that is the centre of the grammar catchment .

Word Retropear linked below to evidence that in London comps the gap between children on FSM and others is much smaller than elsewhere because of the higher results of those children. So while in Kent children on FSM. Are under represented in grammars so missing out, in London they are doing better through the top sets in comps. I am not sure what that says about FSM pupils in other regions, but in Kent, a grammar area, they do not enen get the equivalent of the top set experience because they are not in the schools (in fair proportion).

soul from the reports I read it was not an air rifle, it was a BB gun. BB guns fire plastic pellets and idiotic boys fire them at each others legs all the time. By law they cannot look like real guns, they are blur, or see through plastic, and most are spring loaded. They don't fire with anything like the power of an air rifle. It absolutely should not have been in school and fired but the incident was hugely blown up, IMO.

CecilyP
Does Trafford send 30% of its kids to Grammar Schools, or is it simply that 30% of secondary places are selective? The two things are not the same. In much the same way as Sutton has 30% selective places while the non-selective schools, for the most part, perform very well. How can this be

Sutton and Trafford get good results as LAs and their comps don't seem bad despite several grammars but I've made this point before:
they overprovide on places but import lots of bright children (e.g. to fill half of the grammar places) from other LAs because they are in cities with high densities of population. So many of those in Sutton's grammar schools are actually from a lot further away - many from Merton, Croydon and Surrey. At the same time Trafford takes a lot from Cheshire East and Manchester.

Meanwhile even their comps are not truly comprehensive but take pupils from beyond LA boundaries often on religious criteria. One Sutton 'comp' selects 10% on tennis ability!

So the modern effect is borne by schools left behind in neighbouring Croydon, Merton, Manchester, etc.

Interesting commentary on faith selection here with link to map showing degree of religious selection of schools and LAs (doesn't work on tablets though).

figures for Sutton 'imports'

A third of children attending Sutton schools live in other boroughs.

Cecil's re VR I don't think you can tutor as such for them,you can either do them or not imvho. You need to answer 80 in 50 mins here and from what I've seen reading a lot gives you a huge advantage.If you don't have the vocabulary I don't get how you could answer all of them at such great speed.So far in the How to book my DS hasn't come across one he couldn't already do,they really are piss easy if you have a good level of English,good spelling and read a lot.

As my son is at a school that is the lowest quintile any bright child could do the same imvho- if they had a good level of English and read a lot- which is down to their primary school.

Our grammar does 2 free 11+ familiarisation days and has the exam materials on line.