Theresa May to end ban on grammar schools part 2

[noblegiraffe]

Continuation of the first thread from here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/2702565-Theresa-May-to-end-ban-on-grammar-schools

I promise you that not every (or indeed many) of our super selective students have had three years of tuition to get in. I know someone who did pay for tuition and her sons got in. I've taught both of them. She didn't need to spend that much.
The sad thing is, particularly with my marking experience, I could probably earn the same doing 11+ tuition. I don't agree with it.

talkin I don't blame her at all, no decent parent would male a moral stand of that nature to the considerable detriment of their own. However she seems to think other people shouldn't complain about having to do so.

Ah yes, school open evenings.
Schools hire DH to make them look good for the prospective parents even though he lives in a different county.
Helpers at open evenings are all magically bright, white and well spoken - even if the catchment is not

and no, most parents DO NOT go to open evenings.
They assume that the feeder that has free transport is fine as working nights at the Tesco warehouse rather puts the kibosh on much else.

Which is why my advice to any parent is to park up outside at kicking out time and see what the place really feels like.

2StripedSocks Hoards.

Oh there were certainly hoards at the top ranked schools particularly as hopefuls come from far and wide. Not so many at the lower and none ranked schools though.

Are you going to rip to shreds every single parent who has made a visit to a school and based a decision on it?

No just roll my eyes at the ones who base a decision on a school they have never visited. You did bother to read the thread I linked to?

2StripedSocks Wed 10-Aug-16 21:31:26 Hoards at all of ours,sorry to disappoint

Why would I be disappointed?

2StripedSocks Wed 10-Aug-16 21:31:26 Why on earth would any school need your husband. The head makes a speech, head takes questions

So was the HT the only person that parents were able to talk to at all the open days you attended?

2striped
Why on earth would any school need your husband
To con the parents that school offers things it does nor

Bearing in mind that all kids can apply to at least 3 schools, were there genuinely 3000 sets of parents there
or was it nearer 300 - ie the usual MC/MN sharp elbowed brigade who think that the chamber orchestra group are truly representative

We also had show lessons in some classes during the tour.
snigger .... bet that was not set 5 core maths ..... let alone the "off timetable" or - heaven forfend, the ones studying hair and beauty

2StripedSocks Wed 10-Aug-16 21:48:00 Why bother doing anything if the parents visiting are going to go written off for just going?

Have you been misreading the posts in this thread? Who exactly is criticising parents for visiting schools?

2striped
You misunderstand how the economics of a school work.

Bright kids with motivated parents are cheap and easy to teach.
Schools want them in as they free up resources for the ones whose parents never darken the door, who are in need of support and remedial work and truant officers and the pastoral team.

Schools that can fill themselves with MC kids are laughing.
So they try.
But the reality is that less than 20% of the cohort attend such events
(by year 11 pre exam evening you learn to count the heads)
and the ones who are not there are the ones who consume resources.

Exactly the same ones that grammar and private schools exclude

snigger .... bet that was not set 5 core maths ..... let alone the "off timetable" or - heaven forfend, the ones studying hair and beauty

Yes, when I last did a tour of a school, we were shown exactly that group (set 5 maths). The staff were pretty pleased too with what they were achieving with them. The attitude of the staff towards the less academic children was a factor we took into consideration. Even though we expected our own children to be in the higher sets for most subjects, we took it as an indication that the staff felt that each child had something to offer.

This was just your "bog standard" comprehensive too.

2StripedSocks Wed 10-Aug-16 21:56:46 Saw most of my dp's classes at ours so far more than 20%

Were most of your DCs class at the open day at the Grammar?

peregrina
Good. So it should be. DCs school were open and honest and supportive of the fact that 1/3 of year 10 and 11 go to college 1 day a week as extra GCSEs are a waste of everybody's time.

Thing is most of us only go to a very few open evenings - I've been to the grand sum total of three at one school and 4 at 6th form colleges - all in one county and system.
DH for his sins has been at lots over many years in many counties.
Hence (through him) my deep cynicism about them.

Also my very, very deep cynicism of the real "added value" of any sort of selective schooling.

DD got 3 x A* and 10 x A GCSEs at her comp.
I'll tell you DS's results in a couple of weeks.
I'm not sure how a grammar would have got her higher exam results
and I'm absolutely certain that a selective school would have narrowed her outlook on life.

Its one of the real anomalies of the education boards on MN that too many posters cannot see beyond a very narrow "academic" set of outcomes
and thus do not value the diversity that makes the UK an interesting place to live.

It's not the academic outcome that concerned me so much. Although if dd was in the wider able group then of course it would. My issue is the utter boredom that comes with it, losing interest in education, and never learning how to deal with challenges. If eg dd decides she wants to do medicine, then while she'll have a much wider range of subjects than at the shit school, her chances of a place would be no better than at the shit school, because that would be taken in consideration when they questioned why she had pursued a dozen vocational/ non academic subjects on top of the core. However the chances of her wanting to apply from the latter are lower. And the chances of coping with something like medicine, when you've spent 7years without ever having to try at school are even slimmer. And that's before you consider the social impact being a lone outlier has on other personality types.

Lurked
DDs subjects were all but one academic (2 english, 2 maths, 2 latin, 1 mfl, 3 science, 2 humanities) and she was NOT the top in her year.
I genuinely wonder what people expect from a selective school that she was not going to get there.
Her A's (results next week) were sciences and maths - predictions in the A* / A range
with the outlier kids predicted 5 x A* at A2

at the same college where people do hairdressing and PE

Boredom - sorry, does not compute. Once DofE and orchestra and Rock Challenge and the rest were thrown in, there was no room for boredom

and from DHs experience, DCs comp was nothing special.

Well my view, having had all my DC go through the state selective system, is quite the opposite of yours TalkinPeace: I don't think any of them would have achieved anything like their achieved grades had they gone instead to the alternative (either of two comps), nor would they have gone to the universities that they've gone to, nor would they now be in the careers that they're now in. So I think mine have a lot to be grateful for, as do I. As for the narrowness of their outlook - it would be hard to find DC with a broader or more tolerant outlook on the whole, and that's reflected in the careers that they've chosen. I think I recall you complaining that your DD didn't get an offer for her chosen course at her first choice of uni so I don't think you can claim her schooling has ticked every last box.

if we were to have a vote on mumsnet I bet we'd get over 80% in favour of grammar! (I have no scientific proof of that - just by going by the responses on these kind of threads).I want a school like saltys. A really good quality school stretching to highest capabilities. And I want more differentiated schools that can can tailor to more individual cohort needs.