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.

But a previous poster says that your local secondary school does not offer that environment, so your dd would not have had to run the gauntlet of the nasty thick children.

My comprehensive is fantastic because it is on the edge of the grammar catchment. So we are less affected by the grammar selection than elsewhere. The grammar schools are two bus rides away.

Go into the centre of the grammar area and it is a different story, my children would not be albe to access a comprehensive education which values all pupils because a minority want to educate their children in what is mostly a middle class bubble for the heavily tutored and those from prep schools who would like to save their school fees for a few extra holidays or domestic staff. I would not choose to educate my children in either a grammar school or secondary modern environment. We moved here, from London, for my job , we live where we do to avoid the grammars and have land.

Sorry pressed post, so I have a choice between a secondary modern which is almost a comp or a grammar. I chose a secondary modern which is almost a comp.

People are not necessarily saying that their comprehensives are fantastic, and filled with academic, motivated and hard working pupils all getting excellent exam results, just that the pupils that are academic, motivated and hardworking are not going to have to run the gauntlet of hassle and jeers whenever they step outside their top-set classrooms.

Of course if you live in an area where

And just down the road from Blu my lovely DD1 and her mates are miraculously surviving in their non-leafy comp too...

Posted too early. Was going to say if you live in a selective area, you will choose the best fit for your DC's but there is no need to exaggerate the disadvantages of the non-selective options.

Never let facts and evidence get in the way of a good rant

I went to a fee paying selective gels school that had a significant undercurrent of "we,ve paid, job done"
hence the girl who was enrolled in 6th form but was actualy a call girl
and the girl who in my year who had three kids before I left uni

there are only three counties whose LEAs describe them as tripartite : Kent, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire

other areas happen to have superselectives in amongst the comps
Lincolnshire is so huge that much of it is effectively comp

Kent is the county from which most MN grammar school threads originate
as in all other areas there are realistic state funded alternatives

I lived in Kent.
Glad I left.

We deliberately don't live in Kent because of their schools.

talkinpeace - glad you cleared up your misleading statement that "there are only three counties with grammars,"

"And, I don't want my DDs to have to be under the same educational roof as these sort of pupils."

Honest. If distasteful.

I thought this kind of left wing hypocrisy was as out of date as shoulder suits for women and braces for braying traders.

How can you seriously choose a school for your own child and then berate it for the way it is run? And then claim this fact is somehow irrelevant to your argument. The political is personal and if you select a school for your own child, it defines your inner values, regardless of the outward values you parade to fit into a particular clique.

It isn't compulsory to take the 11+ Parent can chose non-selective school
If your child is at grammar school,you obviously pursued it.as did others
I'm surprised one pursue grammar school and them bemoan the inequality of it

scottish
so you would actively choose a school that had no top et and the teachers that went with it?

sorry but I'd NEVER tolerate that
its an offensive diminution of the abilities of kids who mature late or have disorganised parents

Soul2000 your descrption of GS kids aquiring "discipline, confidence and belief" might also be interpreted as "obedience, arrogance and naivety". I have seen top set comp kids working beside and helping children with SEN and been very impressed with the compassion and humility they are learning.

My DS is top set English and Science at comp and has not been bullied. He has a wide range of friends from a wide range of backgrounds. He is in the G&T Group and goes to debates at local Uni, listens to guest speakers, goes to Shakespeare and opera. He has a wide range of friends from a wide range of backgrounds. I don't think he have all this if we were a GS area and he went to the secondary modern (which he would as he would fail his 11+).

All those in favour of GS must therefore be in favour of SM and be equally happy for their kids to go there.

No selective state school scotland
If I pursued a selective grammar as many on thread did,I'd not then berate said school
Parents aren't compelled to go selective state,but those who did so pursue with the same voracity as the others.dont dress it up as oh was compelled,system set up like that

Parents aren't compelled to go selective state
they are if they happen to buy a house in a selective area
something that may well have been well outside their radar when they bought
Kent's house prices are dysfunctional already
they'd be doomed if ALL 20 somethings knewthe mess they'd bought into

"If I pursued a selective grammar as many on thread did,I'd not then berate said school"

Why not? People who choose comprehensive schools berate them all the time. If you aren't allowed to berate the status quo there would be no discussion about anything!

How so,it's selection not catchment.even if in proximity for gs there are non-selective too
I'm always reading it's fierce competition so if not selected there are other schools
Does the local authority compel one to compete for 11+?are you saying parents can't chose not to opt fir grammar

Is it actually berating a school simply to observe that there are no pupils in Y7 that are on FSM. It is stating a fact. If anything, it is berating people who insist that grammar schools are a vehicle for social mobility.

Scottishmummy, it depends where you live. If I stated I was against selection but tried to get DS into Tiffin, (as it was once my nearest secondary) I think that would have made me a hypocrite. However, if I lived in Kent, then the system is selective. The exam is taken at primary school; you are part of the system whether you want to be or not. The competion is not especially fierce - 23% of pupils pass. If you had a bright child and sent them to a non-selective, they may be the only child in the school working at that level as the whole top set and part of the next set will be elsewhere.

Personally I love eating at le gavroche and do so frequently. However most of my fellow diners, like me, do not qualify for income support. Isn't this atrocious?

Something wrong with this statement? Since when did hypocrisy become an acceptable Modus vibe di?