A thread to discuss state selective education.

[Hakluyt]

I am conscious that this debate is clogging up other threads in ways which are not helpful and must be annoying for those threads' authors. I tried to channel the debate to a separate thread yesterday, but got it badly wrong. I hope this will work better, and will be allowed to stay.

If you read only Mumsnet you would believe that 90% of the population were University educated. The perception on Mumsnet is those who have not had a University Education are what "Engels" described in 1845 as "The Great Unwashed".

La volcan. It would be wrong to say It was what I wanted, otherwise my many previous threads would have to be deleted for lying.

Sadly, rather suddenly last week from a phone call DD1 was saying it was my fault she ended up at Modern school. The reason being I did not appeal hard enough, she says I should have dragged her "kicking and screaming" to the 13+ at Cranbrook School. DD1 has a very short memory, she refused to move at 13 or 16 when offered several options. DD is now calling her school saying it cost her the chance of going to a better University than Leicester with ABB and that she would have achieved at least AAA at a grammar school.

This sad attitude and behaviour as started , because her new "friends" went to better schools and maybe she is feeling a bit inferior to them. This is rather sad because she enjoyed being "head girl" (unofficial) and is now "dissing" her old school which went out of its way for her.

smokepole - that is sad, because clearly your DD1 has done well and should be proud of her achievements. I don't know what she is studying at Leicester but it's got a perfectly respectable reputation in many subjects.

Those Secondary Moderns which exist now aren't the same as the ones in the 1950s and 60s. I only have first hand knowledge of ones in Bucks and even they have sixth forms these days - unheard of back then.

"Forensic Science" with Chemistry . Her A grade A Level was in Chemistry which was rather good reading how students struggled with it this year.

La Volcan it was also the only "University" she wanted to go to. It is also very unfair on the Head of Sixth form and the school who went out of their way to help her get there.

Does University and meeting other people make you ungrateful or embarrassed about your past. Materially she has had as much as anyone (courtesy of her Grandparents) so why does she now feel "inferior".

smokepole
That is a shame that your DD is kicking off about her school. But it could just be second term at Uni nerves. I remember the second term being the scary one as the novelty was wearing off and the real work was starting.
An A Level A Grade in Chemistry is good. End of.
She is clearly bright and if you can let the angst wash past you, she'll regain her mojo and be fine.

Thanks Talkinpeace for the encouragement!. I also want to let you know that none of my comments are meant in anyway personal or derogatory to any member of your family.

On a personal note I have to write an OU assignment on class and "Engels" (1250) words which is an anathema to my upbringing. however, since joining Mumsnet my Socialist inner-self is starting to come out. I am getting more confidence in my writing and use of the English language, which must be a greater "shock" to me than to those who commented on it on early posts of mine.

I am very grateful to Mumsnet and posters, because by posting on a regular basis I have been able acquire English skills which I did not have !.

Thank You Mumsnet and posters....

To be fair to your DD smoke sometimes you do get to university and realise you just don't know much .

I remember polling up and hearing about all these books and films and stuff for the first time. I remember feeling quite shocked at the gap between me and many other students due to my school and background.

Not just that, but if she was a big fish in a small pond, its rather a nasty shock to suddenly find yourself as a minnow in a blerdy great lake.

My school was less than 60 per year in 6th. My college year was a partial transition, but to suddenly be in a hall with 900 other people was a heck of a shock.
Especially as it took a while to work out who the untrustworthy ones were.

Its one of the reasons I'm so pleased with the local 6th form college options.
DD mixes with people from all walks of life, from other parts of the country and the world, in huge numbers
and then comes home for supper each evening

I have a bookish, non sporty 13 year old who is thriving in our local comp. It is a school in a non-leafy area, high levels of FSM, and sends kids to Oxbridge.

The OLD success of Grammar Schools and the social mobility effect was because the alternative to a grammar in those days was a secondary modern or technical school. If you didn't get to grammar you couldn't study to the level or breadth of curriculum available at Grammar so you couldn't go to uni.

Now you can go to Uni, be the first in your family history to go to Uni, go to Oxbridge etc from a comprehensive school.

Whereas, as has been demonstrated numerous times, grammars are often colonised by the very children who would always have been done and so exclude the old 'social mobility' candidates.

The EXACT opposite of the qualities people trill about as being desirable.

Surely not, Blu. Are you sure he's not being eaten alive, or sinking without trace or having his intelligence drained away by queuing up for a Pasta Pot beside someone doing a Btec in Construction?

I remember Blu from the Kingsdale, Dunraven, Graveney, Charter threads - these comprehensive schools must be amongst the most oversubscribed state schools in the country with various complicated admissions hurdles including grammar places, banding tests (on a Saturday), aptitude tests, scholarships and a lottery for places - lucky to get in to any of them. We live nowhere near the catchment but DS1 has been to a music workshop at one of them.

Clavinova
What has that got to do with it?

There are hundreds of bright kids at comps not getting eaten alive.
They are at comps because

• their parents are not in the 7% of the population that can afford fees
• their parents are not god-botherers or hypocritical enough to pretend to be
• they live in the swathes of the country where there are no grammar schools - comps are what there is.

Quite so TalkinPeace but we have the devil of a job convincing people on MN.

Well, for a start they are partially selective and not fully comprehensive - results would be worse if they were fully comp. To take your child to a banding test or a music aptitude test on a Saturday requires some motivation on behalf of the parents - how is this fair for disadvantaged children who didn't get in because a child living further away got a music aptitude/grammar stream place etc? I thought this was an anti-selection thread?

Hakluyt - you talk a lot of sense.

Clavinova
My DD is bookish and non sporty.
That is why she is doing 5 AS Levels including 2 sciences and 2 Maths.
As are her good friends.
No selection at the comps round here.

Trolling Blu to diss all comprehensive schools is just silly.

I couldn't help it if I remembered her many posts and the music workshop was indeed at her child's school but I haven't given that away.

I'd love there to be more choice at 14. So many students are on courses they hate. My DS has been one - I would have loved a technical school to be available. It's not like it wouldn't do the economy good long term either. I think it's a mistake to think every parent wants an academic schooling for older pupils. Flogging a dead horse in my DS's case to try to make him analyse poetry aged 16.

Talkin mentions ponies and swimming pools at her dcs' comp when the value added scores and results for the disadvantaged pupils there are appalling - I wonder if there's much social mobility going on there either - certainly not in the top sets of the academic subjects. It's all very well being top set PE but it doesn't help with expected progress for English and maths. The middle achievers get poor results as well - indeed many comps seem to have a 'two or three tier' system within the same school - no better (and often worse) than grammar and secondary modern.

So, Clavinova's constructive addition to the discussion is to slag off the schools that other posters have their kids at.
Nice.

So, within a comp the impact of parental input is still dominant.
Whooppee doo.
BUT
there is the opportunity for the school to bring up bright kids and late developers, which would not have been the case if they had failed the 11+

The point is that at a comprehensive there is at least the opportunity of moving in to the top sets.And top and bottom sets have at least the opportumity of mixing. And, crucially, there isn't the psychologically and socially divisive process of dividing 10 year olds publicly Into successes and failures.....

there are comps that I know of that are comps in name only but are selective by postcode....they might as well be honest and call them grammar schools

Yes there are some like that- but most aren't....

I find the comp here just confirms everyone's view of themselves which has been built up (or otherwise!) through the primary years. The comprehensive gives an illusion of equality which has but a dampener on making real improvements to social inequality.

Only when you make such definitive claims Talkin and Blu's 'just an ordinary comp' post was a little misleading.

Clavinova - I really don't think you can generalise in that way - there are something like 3500 - 4000 comprehensives. This must inevitably encompass a huge variety - some will allow easy movement between sets, others will be quite rigid. But very very few children once assigned to the Secondary Modern seem to move to the grammar school - or only at 6th form level when they had had a chance to prove themselves.