Grammar schools - interesting article

[UnquietDad]

it be here

I know it's over a year old, but I'm new here, so apologies if people have seen it before!

As a former grammar school boy myself - whose parents could never have afforded to go private - I found it interesting. I find it a shame that my DD won't have the same opportunity.

So now my parents were pushy were they? What is wrong with a vocational career????? Most plumbers and electricians(and there's a shortage) earn far more money and in places in Europe such as Holland Germany are extremely highly thought of. In fact I'm actually thinking of working for my friends building company when i get my green card, because to be honest physical work can be more rewarding than intellectual. I'm not ashamed to be I'm middle class why should I be I've worked damned hard to get where i am and I didn't get grade A A-levels nor am i particularly academic, didn't go to University but got a college degree. Anyway I though examinations were now supposed to be a great leveller or isn't that you've been getting at all along. Let's just agree to differ (I'm having personally a very very difficult day), but please don't view me as naive or start attacking parents for wanting only what's best for their children. We will also have a class based society and those who have and have not,sadly that's the way of the world all over. If you've read Wild Swans by Jung Chang you will see why I'm so anti a classless (supposed) society. At least our society is civilised (some may dispute that) and achievement is not frowned upon and children are actively encouraged to be inquisitive in all areas.

How do they mysteriously get into grammar schools?
Err do the test and get in that way?
In our area (semi rural Lincolsnhire) I can certainly assert that nowhere near even 1/2 of the kids that got into grammar school are middle class. I'm from working class family who worked hard from basic beginnings as is DP.
Why should a test be a class issue, if you're bright enough you'll get in regardless of being middle class or not. this is the case in our area at least, it may not be true in others.

What is to stop bright children from poorer backgrounds doing well at their ordinary secondary schools and then going on to do well in further education? Poorer families get help with costs anyway. I actually think (hope!) that these days, any child who wants to learn and get ahead, and preferably has parental encouragement, can and will, grammar schools or not.

And regarding children who are especially gifted, don't scholarships still exist in some circumstances?

Having said that, my DS (going into Y10 next month) is in an 'ordinary secondary school' that has recently achieved specialist status in performing arts due to it long track record of high achievers in this area (academia isn't everything! ) and any child especially gifted in this particular area has the opportunity to go far, I have seen it with my own eyes very recently. Equally, other secondary schools in the area specilaise in other subjects.. one in particularly has just achieved specialist status in Maths.. surely this gives all students the opportunity to go far, regardless of their background?

The problem about the specialist schools is that (in our area at least) you're still stuck with the school in your catchment area. Our town has three main areas - one has a girl's school which is an language specialist & a boys which is business, the second area is Maths & ICT co-ed & the third is co-ed with (AFAIK) no specialism. But if you have a chld who shows talent for Maths you can't get them into the maths school unless you live in the area - they mayend up at the language college where you are practically forced to do at least one language at GCSE even if you have no aptitude at all

Point taken Rusty.. but in most (not all) cases, if a parent grits their teeth and battles for a place in the chosen school, (local press involvement if necessary), they will usually be successful eventually I think.

Would like to think that's the case SleepyJess, but experience of those I know would suggest otherwise, unfortunately. At the most popular schools, you've usually got about 3 families battling for each place, and they can't all get one, whether you get the papers involved or not.

Of course, it would help if the comprehensive system was really "comprehensive", rather than being selection by mortgage. (The only truly fair way to do it would be to put everyone in a big hat - or computer simulation thereof - and distribute them equally around the city, which is obviously impractical.)

Some not most in this area I'm afraid.

I got into a grammer school by passing the 11+ exam. I didnt end up going becasue we moved to an area that didnt have grammer schools. we were poor and I dont mean poor where you get summer holidays abroad - mean POOR. we slept top and tail in the same bed ( one that took us thru bedwetting and had a big hole in the middle where it was rotted right the way thru, put paper in our shoes when they had holes in them and sometimes had cereal for tea. when we could not pay the electric we had none. my junior school was full of children like me you were posh if you had a parker pen and had a garden. I got in on ability. so not all children who go to grammer schools are from middle class.

btw total proud mum hijack here - dd (who didn't get in to the girls grammar) has just rung to say she's got 4 A* & 7 A at GCSE - I wonder if everyone who got to the grammar did better than that?

I can't imagine that the father on last night's programme was typical - and if he was I sure am glad that I don't live round Tiffin school. He struck me as being a bit of a loony. I was glad that the boy got in, because his life would have been hell otherwise. The problem with grammar schools today is that there are not enough of them and competition to get in has become very fierce, particularly from prep schools where the parents want to avoid continuing to pay. Why pay if you can get into grammar free. I know that some people see the prep school as a passport to grammar school - it is cheaper to pay at prep level than at secondary.

When I went to grammar school, there really was no pressure at all. I only did a couple of papers before I sat the test and I passed. There wasn't much made of it at all. However, there were loads of grammar schools at that time (and technical and secondary mods) and the school was very local to my house.

I have 2 kids at grammar school (well, one nearly there anyway - 2 weeks to go) and I have found the whole process very pressured indeed, but not like last night's programme. We practised a few papers, but I would question whether 2 years with 18 hours practise a week is a good thing for a child. My personal experience has always been that people love grammar schools if their children get into them, but if they don't, they think that they are awful.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. If it is okay to select children because they are good at sport, why is it wrong to select children because they are clever. If ordinary state primaries helped children to pass the test, then you wouldn't have the situation of 60% of children at a school coming from preps.

"My personal experience has always been that people love grammar schools if their children get into them, but if they don't, they think that they are awful."

Not sure where that leaves me, figroll- both my dc took exams to get in to different grammar schools - 1 boys, 1 girls. DS got in, DD didn't. DS loved his school, has just left with AAB at A level - so success story. DD went to local comp, which presumably does not give such a "good" education & has spent the last 5 years feeling inferior to her brother (mainly due to MIL's comments, but that's a whole new thread). But she's just got fantastic GCSE's - better than some who went to the grammar - so either her school has raised her performance - in which case it's just as "good" as the grammar, or the test wasn't very geffective in the first place. Go figure.

That is great for her. Well done. I have never said and never will say that a child will not do well in a comprehensive. Of course, they will. The majority of kids go to them. Just because it is comprehensive doesn't mean that all children will become drug dealers. We live in an area that has grammar schools, so we have to go with that. I stand by what I said about people whose children don't get in. I have had such nasty comments from people that I have sat in my car and cried. I don't discuss grammar schools any more with anyone. I have learned my lesson that people (even friends) can be downright nasty.

"Just because it is comprehensive doesn't mean that all children will become drug dealers." Quite agree - guess which dc had a classmate excluded for drug dealing?

surely the issue is the inequity in the education system - some schools are allowed to fail as long as this is allowed to happed there will always be the haves and have nots. I chose to send my child to go to a reasonable primary & junior school rather than a top 10 one in our area. even though as sure as you can be when you live outside of area we would probably have been offered a place at the higher ranking school. I am not a martyr, i made the choice based on quality of life - i wanted to walk to school with my children. quality time to talk. I dont want competition of academic success to be the only measure of my children as people. I felt that supporting my local school was the best thing that I could do to try to help raise the bar of the school - not just academically but in other areas - social responsibility, an appreciation of people from a broad range of backgrounds. you can see with the stereotyping from last nights show how children come to have sad view that people in big houses are better. remember on last years child of our time they showed the picure of the big house and the small house and the children thought the nicest people lived in the big house.

Celia2 - 60% of children at Tiffins went to prep schools?!!!? I am shocked - I had naievely assumed that they would have tried to select from the state sector (It?s not as though there aren't alot of good state primaries in the area).

'So now my parents were pushy were they?'

Ali, What on earth makes you think I've said anything about your parents? How odd. What I said was kids who go to grammar school often have middle class, well-educated and often pushy parents. To clarify I meant nowadays (there are v few grammar school left and competition is fierce you don't get into them without a concerted effort by parents and children and often not even then).

'What is wrong with a vocational career?????'
Er, nothing. Never said there was. However I do think there's something wrong with putting kids into vocational schools at age 11 because clearly that is going to limit their life-choices and how capable is a 10 yr old child of making decisions that will affect their future at this age?

'I'm not ashamed to be I'm middle class why should I be I've worked damned hard to get where i am and I didn't get grade A A-levels nor am i particularly academic, didn't go to University but got a college degree.'

That's great Ali. Don't know why you feel you have to justify this to me.

'Anyway I though examinations were now supposed to be a great leveller or isn't that you've been getting at all along.'

Don't really know what you mean by this. You'll have to look at my other posts to see my feelings about exams.

'Let's just agree to differ (I'm having personally a very very difficult day)'

Sorry to hear that Ali

', but please don't ...start attacking parents for wanting only what's best for their children.'

Never have, never would

I teach in a grammar school and it is OK, but not by any means perfect. Kids will work at the end of the day, but they are still back-chatty etc. and need a lot of pushing.

I send my own kids to private schools. Given the choices I have (comp, grammar, private), I still think that private school is still worth the expense.

these school threads make for depressing reading.

I think it says a lot about the school you teach in that you wouldn't think it good enough for your own children, scienceteacher.

TBH, I also send my kids to private school and work in a state comprehensive. I send them for a variety of reasons, a major one being it allows me the wrap around care that I need so that I can go to work in the state school!

I would never send my kids to the school I work in, I am a 'tough' teacher and the other kids would in all probability make their lives a hell.

I work my arse off for the state sector and do, if I say so myself, a good job. I don't feel the need to send my kids to a school that doesn't suit them to fit other people's ideals of where I should send them. I don't need to do that to support the state sector....I do that every day in work. As they say, 'I gave at the office'.

Sorry you missed my smiley emoticon blackandwhitecat I know you weren't getting at my parents. If I'm naive so shoot me . Feel this thread has become too depressing to remain.