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Original poster

People who are in favour of grammar schools....

999 replies

BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 17:28

....what is your proposal for the majority who are not selected?

OP posts:
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gillybeanz · 08/09/2016 19:14

Ontop

This is my point though. From what I hear other grammars aren't like this.
Lancashire has many schools with disadvantaged students and poor schools. 2 of my dc attended such schools.
Neither would have passed an 11+ they just weren't that bright, even if we'd had the money for a tutor, a grammar school in our area.
There are bright children everywhere and I believe they should have the chance of a good education, even if they come from a disadvantaged background.
I don't think it's completely inclusive, no school ever is but what I hear about Clitheroe is it does it's best to include all possible candidates.
My friend said it wasn't common place to tutor and she didn't as couldn't afford one.
They buy the guides for a few quid from Smiths so the kids know what type of format the test takes. My friends dd got hers for xmas of her gp's.

MumTryingHerBest · 08/09/2016 19:16

2StripedSocks The new CEM makes it almost impossible to tutor for

Rubbish. My DC did CEM. His marks went up with practice and his final score was high. If it was tutor proof his marks would not have improved with practice. What's more there is a list of words in cirlucation on the 11 plus forum that are know to have come up on the test time and time again.

mummymeister · 08/09/2016 19:20

a thread about grammar schools always seems to assume that its rich middle class kids that go to them. in my case, going to grammar school was my way out of poverty. we couldn't afford private school fees. we couldn't afford to move to a naice house in a catchment area for a naice school. going to grammar school gave me the opportunity to be academic and to learn. without it I know where I would be.

the system at the moment means that only those parents who can afford to live in the high priced housing around the good schools or who can afford tutors or afford private schools get the best shot.

at least under the old system someone like me had a chance.

there will always be good schools and less good schools. its a normal distribution curve same as everything else and is all relative.

kids that go to grammar school will be drawn from diverse backgrounds.

as to what to do with the others, some kids will move to areas where the best comps are, some kids will be educated privately and some will go to ordinary state schools.

if the govt really wants to shake things up then it should have a look at the german model and technical colleges where less academic kids are given more practical skills.

Pab78 · 08/09/2016 19:24

My issue is not with selective schooling per se but with the parents who obsessively, and by obsessively I mean employ someone to tutor their child for years before the test. My DD is at a selective school and had 9 hours of tutoring purely to learn how to handle the verbal and non verbal reasoning format. This was not taught in her Primary. It was quite a lot of money for me to find but I did it to give her some flavour of what to expect. This ridiculous tutoring from age 6 means that the whole concept of a selective school is lost.... Many many of the girls at my DD's school were at private primaries that tutor for the 11 plus and are known as 'feeder schools'.... Really doesn't seem fair!

2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:26

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mummymeister · 08/09/2016 19:29

no education system will ever be fair. Life isn't fair. if you try to support and compensate one group you always, in doing so, disadvantage another. education should reflect the skills needed in the workplace and I am not sure any of them really do at the moment.

there has to be a way to compensate for the over tutoring. not sure what it is but then I am not a teacher/education expert!

you could use the same arguments about unis. some kids have their personal statements written for them by professionals. their parents start in year 7 making them do things that will look good on their personal statement and giving extra tutoring so that they get better GCSE's and a levels so they get the better unis.

MumTryingHerBest · 08/09/2016 19:30

mummymeister a thread about grammar schools always seems to assume that its rich middle class kids that go to them.

Its not assumption, it's fact. The data is available to highlight this fact.

mummymeister in my case, going to grammar school was my way out of poverty. we couldn't afford private school fees. we couldn't afford to move to a naice house in a catchment area for a naice school. going to grammar school gave me the opportunity to be academic and to learn. without it I know where I would be.

Does this Grammar schools still have the same intake profile?

mummymeister kids that go to grammar school will be drawn from diverse backgrounds.

How do you propose this is going to happen?

I think you will be hard pushed to find anyone who will tell you the Grammar Schools, as they stand today, draw from diverse backgrounds. Some have more of a cultural mix than others, is that what you meant?

sandyholme · 08/09/2016 19:33

in cirlucation on the 11 plus forum that are know to have come up on the test time and time again.

I have heard people say that about numbers from the ' National Lottery' !

It is just a set of random numbers , in the same way CEM is supposed to be a random set of questions !

The truth is no exam can be 'fool' proof and just answering one more question correctly than previously will throw out average numbers out the window.

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 19:35

So. All these kids who don't get into grammar school......

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2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:35

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yougottheshining · 08/09/2016 19:36

Grammar schools now and also historically have always had a cohort where the middle classes are over represented in the context of their potential intake. That's why the middle classes like them. They can't afford to go private, but at least this way, with a bit of judicious tutoring, they can keep the oiks away from their kids, because they're better than that don't you know. Grammar schools were never about social mobility. Some oiks did slip through, true but that was because of luck rather than the way the system was designed.

annie1959 · 08/09/2016 19:37

I went to a grammar school - I didn't have tutoring and nor did anyone else in our town as far as I'm aware. We had kids from all sorts of backgrounds, although all well-disciplined to study. It went comprehensive two years before my GCSEs with no streaming in some of those subjects, there was no 'stretching' for the more able. I was bored rigid and took my excellent results to the jobcentre at 16 because I could stand it no longer.

Like a PP I have a son who is good at maths and music but not literacy, when we visited the local comp they told us all their efforts in maths were concentrated on the less able because "the bright ones don't need it" -
grammar was the only option to take advantage of the abilities he has.

2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:38

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yeOldeTrout · 08/09/2016 19:39

I think every town should have a grammar

It wouldn't work well here, rural area, b/c each grammar would be only total = 160-240 pupils (assuming top 20% => grammars). Else one of our market towns would have the big grammar and the other towns would have mere comps. Parents would then have to face finding £500/yr to get kids transported to distant grammar, which they also might be loathe against because it means going to secondary school 'far away'. The distance issue is a huge barrier in most local parents' minds, they tell me, in deciding what school to choose.

What every parent actually wants is for their local school to be a good school.

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 19:40

So, basically, you don't care what happens to them so long as the "most able" don't have to share a school with them.

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Pab78 · 08/09/2016 19:40

Spend half an hour on the 11 plus forum and you'll be amazed at some of the posts and information sharing on the CEM test.

2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:43

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2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:43

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2StripedSocks · 08/09/2016 19:45

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sandyholme · 08/09/2016 19:46

All these kids who don't get into grammar school......

Nothing would change for them i have told you that previously on the other thread.

Though Bertrand you do not acknowledge that a hard core of about 10% are wasting everybody's time (including their own) in the classroom !

It is also very wrong to put children's problems with behaviour down to soley being socially deprived !

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 08/09/2016 19:49

"Nothing would change for them"

So they'd just stay in the school that isn't good enough for Mumsnetter's children............

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MumTryingHerBest · 08/09/2016 19:50

2StripedSocks But there is nothing is published by CEM,nothing at all. Nobody knows what is in it and it changes every time. Your ds's marks went up through fictional papers not papers published by CEM. They could well have been a world away from CEM.

My DC said the practice papers were pretty much the same as what was in the exam.

Professor Robert Coe, CEM director, says it is too early to judge the new test's wider social impact: "No test is completely tutor-proof,.

according to Lewin, the fact that it is modelled on what can be taught in schools means the CEM test is more amenable to coaching:

The gap between the percentage of state and private school pupils passing the so-called "tutor-proof" test has increased by more than three percentage points. About 20% of local state school pupils now pass compared to 70% of private school pupils.

Source: www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/16/state-school-pupils-worse-tutor-proof-11-plus-tests

yeOldeTrout · 08/09/2016 19:51

Work colleague failed 11+, then was top of the class at his comp for everything for years. There weren't opportunities to change schools; besides, he resented the toffs who got in & made fun of him because he didn't, he didn't want to then go to school with them. He still resents his 11+ experience.

My neighbour passed 11+. She promptly got ill, suffered brain damage (poorly understood & diagnosed). She went to the grammar but always struggled. She was humiliated for her low achievements & literally got called a dunce.

Terrible experiences for both.

EddieStobbart · 08/09/2016 19:51

Annie, if you were bored because there was suddenly no streaming 2 years from GCSE, I'm curious as to why you didn't have any personal motivation by then. Streaming should be a basic policy in any school I do think but even my DCs at primary school have streaming into 5 different sets.

All the people who walked the 11+ without tutoring, with such high ability why do you think you wouldn't have performed well at GCSEs if you hadn't been at grammar school?

fabulous01 · 08/09/2016 19:52

I am from a working class family and I and 2 sisters went to grammar school. My parents struggled with the bus money as we had to pay. We didn't have to pay other fees.
I fully support it. It gave us fantastic grounding and 2 of us went to university.
One sister went to an ordinary school but also went and did HNC and did well.
My partner works in state education and it is appalling. I fully support grammar