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

[BertrandRussell]

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

[Dozer]

Interesting that the issue of higher housing costs around popular comprehensives was raised today. People where I have lived (London and then home counties) pay a LOT extra, eg £100,000 on a 3 or 4 bed family home, to live near the popular schools.

Tutoring by parents is still tutoring, and requires time and has a high opportunity cost.

[MumTryingHerBest]

annie1959 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.

It's not like that now, I bet.

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.

How on earth did he pass the 11 plus if he is not good at literacy?

[HarrietVane99]

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.

Which is exactly what happened under the pre-comprehensive system. Grammar schools, with sixth forms, for the academic, technical schools for those with an aptitude for more practical, technical subjects, secondary moderns for the less academic, but still offering a good all round education, including a mfl, plus typing, shorthand. In my borough there was a post 16 technical college for those wanting to go on and do vocational subjects. People from all three types of school went there if they wanted to stay on in education post 16 but not do A levels. One or two from the sec mod would join the grammar school sixth form every year.

[MumTryingHerBest]

What is it with people trying to sell the Grammar concept off the back of their own experiences 20 or more years ago. Am I to believe that the Grammar schools today are stuffed full of non tutored children from low income families. It's nothing like that, your buying into something that doesn't exist any more.

[Pab78]

I didn't say it was useful but it's certainly an eye opener! My DD has several children in her form who are seriously struggling and have been since the beginning of year 7 and they have all been very open about how much tutoring they had for the test....... DD also tells me none of these are really enjoying the experience and challenge....Anyway I digress......

[Pab78]

fabulous01 that's wonderful to hear!

[EddieStobbart]

The German education system has been criticised for selecting so early.

Educationalists say the attainment gap which opens up across social groups in the early years is the biggest barrier in terms of UK attainment. If a young child isn't read to or well socialised then that child is going to have to have incredible levels of intelligence to be equal to their more advantaged peers. So off to vocational training they go - that's wasted talent.

[yougottheshining]

Mumtryingherb it was never like that even in the glory days. If you look at historic socioeconomic data, the vast vast majority of pupils at grammar schools were as middle class in the 60s as they are today. There was no golden age of fabulous equilibrium.

[sandyholme]

The posh people who came up with the idea of Comprehensive school are ' 'geniuses' . They managed to keep the public schools in business for generations , but perhaps more brilliantly they got the left to do their bidding for them !
Hold on a minute they were all lefties who went to public school themselves .

Like it was said that Cricket saved the country from Revolution ( i.e the big house and the local game with the village once a year meant the 'plebs were happy) .

Comprehensive Schools saved the Public School system.

It was always supposed to do that, but some people are to blind to the facts .

[HPFA]

I think we sometimes confuse two types of "house price schools". There are areas in cities where house prices have risen because of particular schools and they do seem to be quite socially exclusive.

This isn't quite the same as schools (often the only one in town) where prices are high because all house prices are high in the South-East. So house prices are high in say Wantage in Oxfordshire but as its a one school town it has 16% disadvantaged pupils which is actually close to the national average of 18%.

So I don't think it should always be assumed that a comp in a wealthy area is getting good results just because of that.

[EddieStobbart]

And it was middle class parents with DCs didn't get into grammar school chewing the ears off Tory MPs that got them abolished in the first place.

The grammar school threads on MN generally feature a section of posters whose DCs don't currently have a grammar option but feel their DCs would pass the 11+ and thrive. Bertand was accused of only being negative about grammar schools because their DC didn't get in. Would those posters who feel their DCs would get in still support the system if they didn't?

[SideEye]

The headteacher of a non-selective school my friend works at (in a grammar school area) disagrees with the 11+ and so his own children attend his school and are both very able by all accounts. They are in their top sets and have other similar ability children. They are doing extremely well.

But Bertrand you chose for your children to sit the 11+ didn't you? And one attended a grammar school as well. If you felt so strongly about it, why not just opt them out of the test and send them to the non-selective school? What was it about a selective education that you wanted for your own children?

[annandale]

There aren't three types of children,academic technical and vocational. There just aren't.

God knows we don't live in a utopia in the UK. The tripartite system in practice was riddled with problems just like the current system. However, it really did produce a rigorous classical education for those few who benefitted. The problem for a long long time was the same as the OP, what about everyone else? There weren't enough grammar schools for everyone who would have been able to do that kind of work, so e.g. in Wales you had to be top 10% or something to get a place, in Kent more like 25%. 11 is a poor age to choose academically between boys and girls (why is it such a great system again?) so of course the numbers were manipulated to give boys with lower marks places. And of course the great expansion of white collar work stopped and dissatisfaction with the system grew.

I'll admit that I'm sure whatever they decide to bring in now won't be the same as the past system, how could it be, apart from anything else the LEAs are a shadow of themselves.

[BertrandRussell]

"But Bertrand you chose for your children to sit the 11+ didn't you? And one attended a grammar school as well. If you felt so strongly about it, why not just opt them out of the test and send them to the non-selective school? What was it about a selective education that you wanted for your own children?"

I wanted my top set children to be in the top set. Unfortunately, in wholly selective areas, the top set is in a different building.

[Eolian]

I live in Cumbria but near the Lancashire border. There are grammar schools nearby in Lancaster which we could have applied for. Dd is a very very bright, decidedly mc girl. We decided not to go down the grammar school route because it would have meant a longer journey for her and none of her friends were applying. She has just started at the good comprehensive 5 mins down the road which is in a normal, inexpensive area. It has a socially mixed intake and does pretty well, as many comprehensive schools do, in spite of the challenges they face.

The problems in schools are largely to do with idiotic government interference, lack of teachers due to same, and poor behaviour resulting from social and family problems. I fail to see how having grammar schools will solve any of that. It might create some schools with better behaviour at the expense of worsening it in others, but that's not much of a noble aim.

[SideEye]

There are top sets in non-selective schools, which is where the kids of my friend's headteacher are excelling. It's just down to choice in the end. Not all able children go to grammar schools.

[BertrandRussell]

SideEye- yesterday of course there are top sets in secondary modern schools. However, at my ds's schol there are 7% high ability children in his year.

[EddieStobbart]

Stripping out the "top set" is shown to have a very small positive influence on that set and a large negative influence on the rest.

[MumTryingHerBest]

sandyholme Thu 08-Sep-16 20:20:17 The posh people who came up with the idea of Comprehensive school are ' 'geniuses' . They managed to keep the public schools in business for generations , but perhaps more brilliantly they got the left to do their bidding for them !

They weren't very clever thought. With Grammar schools they could have all had a private education for free and saved themselves a fortune.

[HarrietVane99]

However, it really did produce a rigorous classical education for those few who benefitted.

Annandale, what do you mean by 'a rigorous classical education'?

[AmeliaLeopard]

The main reason I'm not totally opposed to grammar schools is that (imo) specialist schools can be a good thing, in that the schools can be smaller while still providing the same quality of specialist support / teaching.
For example: one of our local secondary schools is excellent at pupil progress because they take a high proportion of pp children. These children are (on average) achieving below the national average when they enter the school. They also attract a lot of government funding. This is spent on a range of specialist interventions aimed at children from poorer families and the children leave having caught up (to an extent - the gap is still there, but it is significantly smaller).

On the flip side, one of the other local secondaries is struggling to stay open because behaviour and results are now so poor that parents will do almost anything to avoid sending children there!

[sandyholme]

Seriously Bertrand was that the 'best' non selective school available 7% high attaining children!

There must have been a school within 10 miles or so with a larger no of high ability children.

Even my old school has '25%' high attaining pupils.... and got 52% GCSE in 2015

[BurnTheBlackSuit]

The choice seems to come down to:

-Have a system that benefits the brightest and disadvantages the rest

-Have a system that benefits the rest and disadvantages the brightest

And which side of the choice you are on depends on if your child/children are the brightest or the rest.

[SideEye]

Well 7% out of a school of 850 is 60. Over 10 in each year group and so a third of the top set presumably. I wouldn't think a child would be disadvantaged from being in that set if they were able.