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.

Can somebody please explain to me why it's better for the top set to be in a different building? Apart, as I said earlier, from protecting them from the hoi polloi?

My Daughter has had serious problems at school due to ADHD and inappropriate teaching and discipline . Fortunately the school accepted that they did not give DD the correct education for 5 years , they have readmitted DD to year 11 to repeat her GCSEs she is now doing A* work in line with her 138 IQ level,the fantastic new Senco is on my DDs case.

Over the last year i have realised this is the level of work my DD should have been doing since YR7. the Highly regarded comprehensive seriously have let my DD down badly.

I believe that if my DD had gone to a grammar school with strict discipline and high academic expectations and with teachers on her case from day 1 none of the serious problems we have faced would of occurred.

DDs older sister went to this school and got 4As at a level and is in her 3rd year doing ancient history now so it didn't fail her. Her IQ is lower than DD2 but she is a different person, not prone to "Meltdowns".

The point is some kids need grammar schools, some don't to achieve their potential due to different reasons.,

It would be interesting to know why some teachers choose to teach in grammars rather than comprehensives, may be it is to do with the type of teaching style they have. What do teachers who have taught in both say?
I agree that in some comprehensives ( not the wonderful comprehensives in parts of Hampshire ), the top set get grief from other children, many of whom are just as bright but don't see it as cool to work. It happens in the private sector as well!

I think that all those who praise grammars must be able to praise secondary moderns as that's where the majority 75% will go. How would you feel about your kids going to the local secondary modern after just missing the 25% cut?

My DS is very clever, high IQ etc but would fail his 11+ as he is not high in all areas. He is top of top set (G&T) regarding aspects of English and Science at local comp but he has dyslexia and would not make the grammar school cut for maths. His friend is G&T in maths but might not make the cut in English. Thank goodness we live in a comprehensive area. The thought of all his peers in top set English and top set Science being creamed off to Grammar is horrendous.

Grammar is only good for (some of) those who pass and crap for the other 75% who are written off at age 11.

Is there anyone out there willing to sing the praises of secondary moderns?

.......deafening silence.......

I would sing the praise of my local "secondary modern" schools. The vocational and pastoral side of several seem excellent (I have been to open days and also know kids who attend them). BUT academic expectation isn't very high it seems. A child in my eldest's year at primary was celebrated on the "honours board" when we went to open day with the youngest, for getting GCSE results that really weren't " all that", and certainly wouldn't represent the crossover over- that the upper tier academically at the comp were constituted of the kids who didn't choose, or just didn't make, grammar entry.

That's where things seems to fall down. don't know the answer I'm afraid.

But if you are a "D" student in say GCSE english/maths they have much to offer to bring you up to the al important C, and if you are struggling with academic GCSEs at all, they have lots to offer in a vocational way.

briarscliffe
but in a sec mod, if you have a kid who is crap at maths but amazing at creative writing they will be an outlier so never reach their 'potential'

in a comp with setting they would be in set three maths and set one english - so pushed and pulled to excel

how can than NOT be better?

lower sets contain children disaffected by and disengaged from education
so you think it better to exacerbate and reinforce that from age 11?
or put them in an environment where they might find something they are good at as the key to unlock them
(a kid at DCs school used stock car racing as his key to drama and thence to English - not likely at a grammar)

Talking, you seem to think that secondary modern teachers are so much poorer at stretching, differentiating and unlocking potential than teachers who by geography happen to teach at comprehensives or grammar schools. I would think that the good ones are well able to pitch their teaching appropriately just as teachers do in primary schools and other schools. A lot of very talented mathematicians are rubbish at writing and vice versa.

summerends
where did I say that about any teacher?
the pupil will be an outlier
the school will be unable to attract teachers who want to work with those who excel basic career options
why go for a shit job when 5 miles away is a decent one?

as an accountant who as a primary school governor/classroom volunteer / helper discovered a lot about myself while teaching a small group
and married to a nationally renowned educator

comp schools will get the best teachers as they get the kick of challenge and excellence
and the sooner that academies and free schools are unwound
and LEAs are amalgamated to a minimum size of 450 schools, the better

So all secondary modern teachers are there because they can't get a job elsewhere? Teaching is only worthwhile when teaching "top set" children?
Surely there are different types of teachers who have skills and like different sort of challenges?

summerends
grammar schools are very rare, as are secondary moderns
they are an irrelevance in most of the country
so if teachers CHOOSE to teach in those schools, rather than move to the 80% of the country that is unaffected, more fool them

The fact remains that it is uncredibly unfair that children can be coached, hothoused, trained - whatever you call it - for an exam at age 11 that determines the quality of their secondary education and environment.
I'd like to see grammars abolished. All schools fully comprehensive. But then, I think I'd like to see independent schools abolished too. At least they don't pretend to be fully inclusive, though.

Incredibly, obviously. Not 'uncredibly'. Wtf.

cat98
the elite will always cough up : leave them to it

for anybody who is not willing to cough up they should take the comp offer (now that comps are honed to a fine art a million miles from what they were when grammars were first abolished)
catholic shools should go too : you want god education, cough up (same as in the USA)

remember that the grammar school equality bump is a one off short term effect of unaffordable changes made after WW 2 : they do not predate it
they will soon be gone

round here there is no 11+ and long may it last
SATs are bad enough

summerends However good a secondary modern teacher is at stretching and differentiating, the point is that there is no top set. My top of top comp set G&T in English DS loses all his peers to grammar because they need to be educated with those of similar intelligence yet this rule doesn't apply to him despite him actually being more intelligent than your average grammar requirement in "some" aspects.... and way below in others (maths).

the lower sets contain children disaffected by and disengaged from education

The lower sets - including the middle, which accounts for nearly 50% of children? In a secondary modern they may have excellent teachers but are more likely to be teaching BTECs or core/additional science than single sciences. Amalgamate the grammars with the secondary moderns with slightly larger year groups and those average children - and there are as just as many of the above average in the moderns as are getting Kent grammar places - have increased opportunities.

Since there are superselectives where a third of the pupils have been able to afford private prep schools do you think a similar proportion are cramming for the top sets so good comprehensives? They never do in those numbers. They would just have to pay for a selective school. Grammars in an area like Kent operate like an assisted places scheme for the top 10% of the country. I wouldn't ban private schools but I'd ban selection unless it's banding and takes a proportion of the middle and lower ability band. That's what former free schools turned privates have to do even if they used to be direct grant grammars a generation ago.

Correction: assisted places scheme for the top 10% income bracket of the country. Some of the grammars are still taking 10-15% of pupils gaining L4 in SATs while moderns have 10-15% at L5 - because the average ability but wealthy can afford extra tutoring then ringfence the state system's subject specialist teachers.

kitchen, just taking up your point for argument's sake . From what you say the grammar schools only select academic all rounders. Secondary moderns would therefore end up with all the very bright non all rounders, the bright late developers and children who are willing to put the effort in and with the right sort of teaching outstrip their grammar school peers (particularly if the grammar school is n't that well managed and the teaching style disengaging. Hence your DS would not be alone.
If he ended up in a mediocre comprehensive, he would do worse than in an excellent secondary modern.

I would just like to ask a question of those of you who live in 11+ areas. Would you be happy for your child to go to the school that the children who don't pass the test go to?

Take your point summer BUT it makes a mockery of the whole concept of the elite being educated at grammar. Also, the chances of these kids meeting like minded, high potential peers is slim anyway but greatly reduced and highly unlikely if top all rounders have been cherry picked.

Is there such a thing as an excellent secondary modern in terms of academic excellence? Oxbridge candidates?

curlew I was going to ask the exact same question. If your child was top 26% rather than 25% and just missed the cut - would you be 100% fine with local secondary modern? Do these kids have the same chance here at the secondary modern that they would have at a comp?

Theoretically yes, if a) the school could get the best out of my child and
did n't throttle aspirations (that is a question in all school choices including in the comprehensive system) b) there was movement at sixth form entry by which time an academically inclined late developer or specialist or non tutored but well taught child would come into their own. The private system is full of the equivalent of secondary moderns. The grammar school style of teaching might not suit or get the best out of my child in the early secondary stage.
Returning the question to you curlew, from your direct experience, what is it that you dislike about your DS's school. Is it the lack of academic prestige label or is it the inability to differentiate and stretch him or is it the socioeconomic cohort?

The socioeconomic inequality and patchy quality of schools and teachers all over is much harder to solve. I would regard school labels as a distraction and clearly not solving the former.

Sorry kitchen, cross posted. Grammar schools are not for the elite but offer a certain type of faster moving education for all rounders who mature early or who through family background (parents who are teachers, more academic primary schools, outside tutoring) start off from a higher level of attainment and/ or have developed exam technique at an early age.

summer That could be why then that I have several friends who went to a grammar and found it a stifling exam factory where non conformity was frowned upon. None of them would ever send their kids there.

A depressing concept of education.

I guess they are not all like this though and this was also 30 years ago.