Fiona Millar on grammar schools in the Grauniad

[samsonagonistes]

This article here is doing my head in on a number of levels, not because I necessarily disagree with it, but mainly because I don't know what I think and I don't know enough about some of the research/thinking behind it to come to a conclusion on my own. So I'd be really grateful for any thoughts and/or pointers.

She's working from the premise that grammar schools are inherently bad, and that this is a clear thing for all right thinking left wing people. Now, when I read MN, I can see that plenty of parents want grammar schools and are fighting to get into them. So I end up feeling about this pretty much as I do about UKIP, that the point is not only/necessarily to condemn them outright, but what would be more useful would be to find out why people feel this way and what is actually going on for them right now. So what's the gap between theory and experience here and why?

Also, she seems to think that the main argument against grammar schools is that they are not engines of social equality. Now, this may be one argument against them, but surely the point of school is to deliver education, with equality of opportunity in achieving that. Lots of other things do not deliver social equality - like private schools, expensive clothes and London house prices to name but a few - but that's never part of the argument against them.

Also - and I am aware that this is going to be controversial - but an argument against their social mobility is that they take reduced numbers on FSM. Now, for this argument to be valid, we would have to assume that IQ is spread absolutely evenly throughout the population.* I would like this to be the case, but has this theory ever been tested/proven?

• and yes I am aware about the cultural relativity of testing, etc etc, but then schools are also culturally relative in that they privilege theater and art over other activities and there are so many knots in this problem that it's hard to disentangle.

Molio I may have missed this but what are your other local schools like?

Because here, where there are grammars and then super selective grammars on top of that, the rest of the schools are frankly, shit.

If you're in an area where there's only one grammar then it probably means the distinction is less critical.

As an example, here - class of 30, 18 girls, 12 lads (Y6) single intake primary.

Of the boys, 7 went to grammars (five of those to the super selective), and the other five dispersed across 3 different non grammars.

Ds was the only boy from his primary at his.

How could he not feel devastated? These were his closest friends, his colleagues. He was fiercely loyal to them. Now he barely sees them.

Oh and out of the girls, ten went to grammar, 7 to non grammar and one didn't pass and went to a private school.

It didn't follow the '25% get in' rule that seems to prevail. Perhaps it was just our school, but you can maybe see how bad the ones who didn't pass might have felt, being in the minority.

In our school this year 16/45 passed. It is totally different when there is just one SS and comprehensives nearby.

The critical point is, what is the alternative to grammar like in your area? If you live in a proper grammar area, where the alternative is a secondary modern where the top 25% don't go, you are then sending your child to a school with effectively the top set missing, vocational quals agogo but no triple science, limited languages etc etc.

The people that dismiss the concerns parents in grammar areas have most often have no understanding of what a secondary modern is like as an alternative. And this is what fuels their concern.

And this is why the system is shit. In answer to the ops original question, any system that writes off 75% of children to a secondary modern ( or second class ) education at age 11 is very wrong.

The corollary of living so close to the superselective isn't just that a great many local DC apply but that many of those get in and therefore the other local schools are disproportionately affected. For those who come from twenty miles away the comp local to them will barely feel a ripple. I'm not really in a position to comment on the quality of the comps near me. Some parents seem delighted with them, others not. But no school even a grammar is going to have the unanimous support of its parents. Obviously their results are nothing like the same and that's true for all four comps in the area. But I don't know much more than that.

The friends thing can work in reverse. DD1, DD2 and DD4 were the only girls in their respective years to pass from their school, so they went 'alone' and their friends went elsewhere. That was sad, but they soon made new friends.

quietly that is a real difficulty with a superselective. The DC make friends from all over the place, which means much less easy to organise kicking about in the evenings etc. It's a very different thing from a community school and, from that point of view, less good.

Molio - so your DD1, 2 & 4 were the only girls in their year to get in. So all the other girls went to the local school.

That is a massive difference!

It always amuses me that people airily talk about taking the test and not passing it as being "no biggie" for other people while getting their child to take and pass is the single most important thing in their lives for several months......

In the same way that nobody is a staunch supporter of high schools. Just of grammar schools!

^^

Exactly.

My daughters go to a "High school" and its the right school for them !.

Hakluyt you need to be more explicit in your teminolgy , otherwise people will think you mean Grammar schools when you say High school....

Well not massive actually given how things work in this area, Theoretical. The class sizes are tiny so friends are made across several year groups generally. And people here go to one of several secondaries too, depending on a number of factors. It's different, granted, but generally the fact that we live so close magnifies the effect enormously so it's a bit simplistic to say superselectives are totally different. They are if you live miles away but less so if you live very close.

Hakluyt if you're referring to how I myself approached the test, then I can safely say that no, that's not how I went about it at all. I do mind about this stuff and my kids' education but when it matters I don't ramp it up. That's helped I think, quite a bit.

Molio - what are the "several secondaries" they go to if not the SS? Comprehensive, church school, free school, private?

Great that you have choices.

It is good that there are choices, yes, but only one of four of the comps is oversubscribed Theoretical. I'm all for choice. But don't have a go at me because I happen to live in that sort of area. As I said, it's been home for many years - we didn't downshift.

Sorry I am not meaning to have a go, Molio.

I do often find on MN that the people that criticise parents that live in grammar counties do not have experience of a similar situation. There are often comprehensives, free schools, single sex schools, church schools and or funds for private in their cases, which means they are not faced with a sole alternative of a secondary modern.

The friends thing can work in reverse. DD1, DD2 and DD4 were the only girls in their respective years to pass from their school, so they went 'alone' and their friends went elsewhere. That was sad, but they soon made new friends.

Yes - I see how that would feel strange, however there is a plus for your children in that they are going to a selective school, with all the benefit that brings.

For my child, and the minority of others in his class who didn't pass, there is no up side. He was relegated to a dreadful school, with no friends.

I think that's worse tbh. I mean what's to like, what's to be cheerful about - nothing.

while if they all went to the same school, it wouldn't seem like such a slap in the face. Such a rejection.

To be told that most of your mates are going to a top school, they've passed, they get to celebrate something, they are wanted - while you're not allowed to work or play alongside them any more, you can't join in the celebrations, you don't get any of that - and as an added insult you then get bullied by the kids at your new school till you can't bear it any more.

Ds has actually been depressed this last year. And I can totally understand why. I am sure it is the same for many thousands of children all over this county.

Pispcina

At my daughter's school (Habs) they grouped each class based on where people lived so that the girls you got the school coach with each day were the ones in your class and lived nearer you. Good system.

it is hard to generalise across the country. In many many places except cities there is one secondary school and just about everyone goes there and it will be a comp (only4% in the country are in grammars). There may be one private school a very few children go to too.

In cities like Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, London etc there will be a huge variety of schools including religious, state comp and in some areas grammar and also a fair few different fee paying schools from those for the brightest in the land to those who are not academically inclined. It is a huge melting pot. We probably have the biggest variety in the land near where I live as even though no grammar you can easily send a child if they get in to a state grammar as counties border us. We even have I think the only hindu school in the country, lots of Jewish schools and of course all the London international schools, Saudi too. London is totally different from other parts of the country.

"But don't have a go at me because I happen to live in that sort of area. As I said, it's been home for many years - we didn't downshift."

I'm not having a go at you at all. However I would certainly take issue with your blase assumption that selection at 10 causes no problems at all based on your personal experience of a superselective- which bears absolutely no relationship to what happens in "bog standard" grammar system.

Hakluyt that comment was addressed to Theoretical, not to you, and Theoretical has responded. I completely accept the point that a single secondary modern alternative would be dire. I wouldn't support a future system which advocated that at all; I'd be dead against it in fact, unless the secondary modern was at least as good, but different, from the grammar.

To try to respond to you though Hakluyt, I think you need to deploy your imagination a bit to get that the impact of superselectives varies according to how far from the epicentre one is. I'm about as close as it gets. So the impact is real.

"To try to respond to you though Hakluyt, I think you need to deploy your imagination a bit to get that the impact of superselectives varies according to how far from the epicentre one is"

Why? It's still only the "top" 2%. Three from your dd's school. You're hardly going to feel much of a failure if you're not in the top 2%!

And taking the top 2% from a very wide area, as superselectives do, has very little impact on the schools used by the other 98%. They are near as dammit comprehensives.

It's so easy to solve the problem. It's just the "I'm all right Jack" brigade don't want to. Because it's not their problem!

London is totally different Lotus, absolutely. I live in a place with lots of Londoners with holiday homes who stress endlessly about education. The sister of my immediate neighbour says London is crazed - you need to be on the treadmill at 4; 5 is too late (her teenage DC go to St. Paul's - both schools). She's very talented herself and seems very grounded but it's as though it's a game where you have to keep up. My other immediate neighbour who recently sold her holiday house spent summers reciting times tables to her infant DC (very tedious). They're now at middle of the road London day schools. Another friend in the village with a holiday home had DC at Eton, Roedean, Sherborne and Eton. Talk was non-stop schools/ education. Her friends came down to stay and it was the same. Such pressure and madness. And some of these are hugely rich families - CEO's of massive companies/ Senior Partners of this and that. All so stressed. Yet several could all pay for any school they wanted. I'm really not sure what the moral is, except that London seems bad. Perhaps Kent is the same. Different, but the same in terms of competitiveness and stress. It doesn't need to be like that surely?

Sunshield, in the grammar area I am in, the non grammars are called high schools. Perhaps Hak is in the same area?

There are a lot of schools here- grammar, superselective, high (both single sex and mixed), church and private. This does make it easier for children Pips sons situation, as generally they are going to at least half a dozen schools between them.

I imagine in more rural areas it is harder.

However I believe technically that near here the church school is the most oversubscribed and hardest to get into, as there is only the one!