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.

Maybe not, but at least we won't be supporting inequality with public money.

In a fully selective area, it is more surprising that there aren't any children on FSMs in a whole year group, and I'd be questioning whether the local primary schools are spending their pupil premium money effectively.

Yep- the system's fine- it's just everybody is doing it wrong!

Selection happens either by school or within school or later on in life. Do the grammars or top sets in comprehensives in your area get better teachers, better opportunities curlew? If so that is an unfair mismanagement or spending of public money. If opportunities are PTA driven then that will be always more in middle class areas whatever the school.
If children entitled to FSM (or equivalent) do not get support at primary school to reach their potential and be candidates for selection either to a separate school by streaming / setting, are they more likely to catch up with the others in a mediocre comprehensive or a good secondary modern?
Have to say (selfishly) I am in favour of a child who likes learning (whether very bright or not) being in a majority rather than minority environment so that they don't continually have to justify themselves to their peers.

'I'd be questioning whether the local primary schools are spending their pupil premium money effectively'

Children from disadvantaged homes are behind even before they've started school. Schools need a lot more than £900 per year to provide the class sizes that private prep school pupils may benefit from in addition to all the advantages and attention they receive at home. Even 100% of the pupil premium could be spent directly on tutoring (and I doubt the economics or school day can work that way), it wouldn't be enough to keep up with the extra tutoring middle class state - and private - pupils regularly receive on top of school.

If state grammars were abolished, more prep school pupils would be prepared to pay for their secondary education. But not all of the specialist teachers in grammars would automatically move to the private sector, and the private sector couldn't expand that quickly, so it would spread teaching resources to more comprehensive schools, and larger top/smaller bottom sets give the majority of schools the chance to timetable more cost-effectively academic aspects of the curriculum, e.g. single sciences and languages etc.

Super selective area here.

I can think of loads of factors that would bring down the fsm numbers at dd/DS schoolthat are just a function of non changeable factors eg the schools are in a fairly leafy suburb location ( be interesting I guess to find the primary school fsm rate next door - that'll be low I think) and there is no catchment area - so applications from kids who spend an hour in the car to get there, are clearly only from those who have the money and parental availability to do that!

As a slight aside - I don't give much credence to the idea than school that selects (along the lines of the juggling example) always gets better results.

The two catholic secondary schools I know of (one in our city, one 30 miles away - both the only religious schools in their areas) have worse results by far than all the other schools in their areas (all comps) essentially because they have terrible behaviour and nobody wants to send their children there other than those who prize a catholic education ABOVE a good education.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25153419

"Have to say (selfishly) I am in favour of a child who likes learning (whether very bright or not) being in a majority rather than minority environment so that they don't continually have to justify themselves to their peers."

Yep. Like the top set of a comprehensive school. Rather than in a school you can only get into if you come from an involved, privileged family. Unless you are suggesting that bright children and/or children who like learning only come from families like that? Which I'm sure you're not.........

Well, clearly you're not bothered because your child is at that school. Presumably you prefer that school to the comp, it seems in some way better to you? Maybe the parents of children who get FSM would also like to access your school? And go to university? And get good jobs? And the obvious institutionalised discrimination doesn't bother you?

The only reason I prefer the grammar school in my area for my DS is that its general level of teaching is at a more advanced level, and there are more kids there with similar attitudes to learning and knowledge as him, so it provides a more appropriate education FOR HIM.

If the school were appropriate for a child on FSM then they would be there (as a few are) because they would have passed the 11+. (I'm in a fully selective area so they take 25% not 1%, and plenty of kids here pass 11+ without tutoring.)

But what your post overlooks, and what always seems to be overlooked, is that the non-grammar schools here (as everywhere) get THE SAME money from the government, have access to all the same stuff, to facilities that are just as good (actually probably better in our case - DS's school is really falling down). And actually now with the pupil premium, most secondary moderns will presumably get MORE money than the grammars down the road.

There's this bizarre idea that grammar schools get some kind of special privileged deal that gives their kids an unfair advantage, which has no basis in reality. The only thing they have is different kids.

That's what I meant about treating the symptom. I suspect people dislike grammar schools because they make the different educational levels of kids at 11, and the different family backgrounds behind them, OBVIOUS. But a kid going to school with no breakfast and no motivation is still going to be playing up in the bottom set at a comprehensive school. The presence of the other kids there who are academically able and motivated and supported isn't going to magically "save" them.

If you want to do something about the disadvantages that put them in that position in the first place, then I'm all ears. I've voted Labour all my life and am more than happy to pay the taxes necessary to address those things. But making sure everyone goes to comprehensives large enough to hide the problem, isn't doing anything of the sort.

OK, FastLoris.

If the grammar school that the "top" 25% in your town go to and the secondary modern the other 75% go to were combined into a comprehensive school, what impact would that have on your grammar school children?

@ Curlew

"Have to say (selfishly) I am in favour of a child who likes learning (whether very bright or not) being in a majority rather than minority environment so that they don't continually have to justify themselves to their peers."

Yep. Like the top set of a comprehensive school. Rather than in a school you can only get into if you come from an involved, privileged family.

So hang on - you're saying that it's unacceptable for people to only be able to get into a top school when they come from an involved, privileged family, but perfectly OK for them to only be able to get into the top set of a comprehensive school when they come from such a family?

[Would be interested to see the stats on FSM among those in the top sets of comprehensives in nice areas, and whether these are actually any more inclusive than those of grammar schools in selective areas.]

No, I am saying that it is possible to get into the top sets of a comprhensive from a less than ideal family background, particularly if that has made you a bit of a slow starter. In a fully selective system, that avenue is cut off for you at the age of 10.

If the grammar school that the "top" 25% in your town go to and the secondary modern the other 75% go to were combined into a comprehensive school, what impact would that have on your grammar school children?

In terms of the direct teaching, some of that would probably depend on what policy that comprehensive had re setting or streaming. That's a really difficult thing to address when discussing comprehensives because they're all so different. I can see that it's possible for some comprehensives, if their intake is not too challenging and they are very strong on streaming, to provide a learning environment for those in the top classes just as good as a grammar school. (But then I don't really see why the selection process by which the children are sorted into those classes is so much less evil than the process by which they're selected for grammar anyway.) In other cases, even kids in upper sets end up with teaching to a lower level and more distraction from behaviour problems. I suspect in my area, it would tend towards the latter.

In terms of broader school ethos, my DS benefits hugely from being in an environment where it's assumed that children love learning, reading etc, kids who excel academically are looked up to and he doesn't experience any negative peer pressure to be "cool" by rejecting school. I know for a fact that that's not the case at many of the other schools in the area, so with a 75:25 ratio I can only assume that the ethos of their schools would dominate his.

No, I am saying that it is possible to get into the top sets of a comprehensive from a less than ideal family background, particularly if that has made you a bit of a slow starter.

Well it's possible to get into a grammar from such a background as well, as evidenced by the fact that some people do it. You might have a point here if you can show that the top sets of comprehensives contain many more children on FSM than grammars do. But I have no idea whether that's the case - it may be, it may not.

I don't know whether comprehensives even keep records of it?

they are very strong on streaming, to provide a learning environment for those in the top classes just as good as a grammar school. (But then I don't really see why the selection process by which the children are sorted into those classes is so much less evil than the process by which they're selected for grammar anyway.

Pretty much every single comp is incredibly hot on setting (streaming is less common because it is so divisive)
and kids are in different sets for different subjects
and the sets can be shuffled depending on results in different terms

so it is nothing at all like the segregation of grammar schools where kids who miss the cut never ever get that opportunity again .

The top sets at DCs comp will ALL be expected to aim for top universities and outcomes - and A/A* are the only GCSE grades acceptable in the top set.

Had DD2 tried fir the Grammar and got in.

£900 a year bus fare plus 12 miles a day car expenses to that bus and being tied getting DD to and from that bus and the limits that puts on when and where I could look for a job.

Local Comp. free bus from out side our gate.

No way is it a level playing field. The DCs from out lying areas who go to the grammar school have parents who teach in the other one and dad's who commute past the door.

Even with the grammar taking many (not all, see above) of their best students Set one at the comp. are still expected to get A*/A and set 2 A/B

Curlew, you are applying selection by only picking up on part of any post and arguing against that, whilst ignoring the context of what is being said in the rest of the post. It does n't matter what the type of a school is if the teaching, management and even the PTA are mediocre.
It may be possible for a disadvantaged child with poor support at home to move up streams or sets in a comprehensive or secondary modern but I suspect that it is a very rare event once past primary school. Also in our area there is a huge influx and change again at sixth form so it is 'possible' then.
By the way are you Seeker's reincarnation?

I don't think I quite understand your last post, summerends. Of course a bad school is a bad school, whatever sort of school it is.

Moving between sets in a comprehensive is not as rare as you say. But even if it was, there is at least the possibility. If you're segregated at 10, then that chance is gone forever.

I have never heard an argument for the retention of grammar schools which, if the proponent is honest, does not come down to "I don't want my child mixing with the, to quote a veryhonest Mumsnetter! whose name I forget, the "great unwashed".

summerends
It may be possible for a disadvantaged child with poor support at home to move up streams or sets in a comprehensive or secondary modern but I suspect that it is a very rare event
Bollocks
kids have been known to move from set 5 to set 1 if they are late developers or the primary school did not identify problems.
Kids regularly move up and down because the testing is based on regular exams, not Mummy's wallet.

Of course moving sets is possible for child particularly late developers who are well taught, but very hard for a child who has been turned off learning at an early age and discouraged to try harder by their friends and family.
Late developers don't get into grammar school at 10 whatever the relative advantages of family background. That is a different issue but they can move at sixth form if they have access to a good school before.

You sure do know a lot about the deep down-ness of people you've never met, LQ!

LaQueen
sorry but I would never EVER want the stress of grammars
Hampshire's comps are good enough for me thank you very much.