If you're anti grammar schools, then please answer me this:

[Proseccocino]

If your child had a gift for music, then you might send her to a school which excels musically.

If your child had a talent for sport, you might send him to an academy which excels at sport, one where he can really focus and develop in the area in which he is better than his peers.

And so on....!

So, if your child is intelligent, academically gifted... Why is it bad to say you would send her to a selective school where she can study along with other bright students?

If it's OK to separate children according to ability in sport or music or drama or technology, and send them to specialist schools which excel in these areas - why is it a different story if their talent with their academic ability?

zzzzz It will only be stressful for the families of children who aren't genuinely gifted academics and are just trying to 'game' the system.

Parents have claimed their DC has been refused a place even though they have an A in their chosen subjects*

If this is true, then unless the course is full, it is illegal.

My two sat their 11 plus today in an area where we cannot get into the outstanding comprehensive. If we had the money to move to the area we would apply to the comp. The alternative is to send DTS to the SM school with poor GCSE results and poor behaviour that is 2 miles away.

The GS is accepting 20 per cent PP this year and is lowering the qualifying score for those who have been in receipt of FSM at any point during the past 6 years.

Isn't it perfectly usual to have to get certain grades to move into 6th form?

SideEye Sat 10-Sep-16 14:35:34 If this is true, then unless the course is full, it is illegal.

More details are available here:

www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=42996

Grammar Schools are not full of 'gifted' children. The Grammar Schools where I am are among the best in the country. The pass mark has averaged out at about 72% over the past 7 years.

BertrandRussell Sat 10-Sep-16 14:40:07 Isn't it perfectly usual to have to get certain grades to move into 6th form?

It isn't clear what the requiement to say on is though. They use their own iternal assessments and details are not published. One parent claimed her DC had A* in maths and was still not allowed to study Maths.

If this is true, then unless the course is full, it is illegal.

I think the only requirement is that external candidates are treated equally with those already at a school, therefore the selection criteria have to be transparent. QE Barnet don't accept external candidates so presumably can do what they like.

JasperDamerel A grammar school would concentrate all the gifted academics from across the whole city. And it would benefit my local area because there would then be a possibility of getting in, whereas currently there is none.

What's a "gifted academic"?

There are no specialist music or sports schools where I live.

I would think children who are better at music or sports could just join a youth orchestra or athletics club etc. unless they are in the top 0.01%, in which case provision could be made. If academically gifted children want to give up their free time to do extra academic work then let them get on with it.

Most children are not so academically gifted that they cannot be catered to in the comprehensive system. Maybe a few are, but we are talking about kids who are studying degree level physics or classics at age 11 and learning 5 languages for fun, not the ordinary 'top set'. These children would also be so bright that the grammar system would struggle too. The top 20% are, in general, not so bright that they need 24/7 separation from kids who scored 1% lower.

Some children are intelligent and academically gifted in one subject and not another. Why should a child who is brilliant at maths but struggles in English be left in a secondary modern because her English scores made her a failure at 11? It would be like rejecting a brilliant violinist from these fictional music specialism schools because her trumpet isn't up to much, and then shoving her into a school where violin isn't an option because it damages your fingers for essential things like oakum picking or assembling assault rifles or packing boxes in Sports Direct.

All comprehensives DO NOT stretch and challenge gifted academic children. Mainly because the top set is really just a slightly above average set, if your lucky.

But the grammar school is still going to be these same kids from these top sets (and also second sets, third sets etc).

People in favour of grammars seem to think they offer something fundamentally different from the top sets of comprehensives. This may be true of some super-selectives but it is simply not true of schools taking top 20-30%. Grammars taking top 20-30% are simply the top 20-30% from the existing comprehensives.

FWIW I went to a highly selective (top in the country) school. I was miles ahead of anybody else there and didn't really get appropriate academic provision until graduate level. A child who really needs something substantially beyond standard curricula is typically not going to get it in a grammar. That child would be far more likely to get individualised tuition if the education budget would be increased, so that more resources could be allocated to the child. Reorganising schools takes money from the education budget which could be spent on actually educating children.

A 'gifted academic' is someone who is enthusiastic about learning academic subjects, has a natural talent for leaning academic subjects and achieves exceptional results in those academic subjects.

20% of the population does not satisfy your definition of "gifted academic".

In fact, very few of my undergraduates (whose academic results are well within the top 1% nationally) come near this definition, in terms of enthusiasm.

It would concentrate all the gifted academics who had sat and passed the test on the day of the exam and who had chosen (and been permitted by their parents) to attend the grammar school in one place. There will be plenty of very clever children who don't pass the test/don't sit the test/move into the area too late to get a place/choose or are told to go to school with their friends and siblings/ are afraid of being bullied for going to the wrong school/ can't access transport to the school/ don't want to go to the "snobby" school.

Some comprehensive schools are crap. So are some grammar schools, and some secondary modern schools, and some independent schools. "Comprehensive" schools in grammar areas seem to be, anecdotally, particularly bad. Kids in areas of high social deprivation get a very rough deal in education. But those children do WORSE in areas with grammar schools than in areas with fully comprehensive education, so this isn't about them.

The huge underlying problem with education is that there are areas of great poverty where the majority of people have not had a great deal of education, and there areas full of well-off graduates. And grammar schools have been shown to hinder rather than improve social mobility. I hate the idea of a lottery for school places, because I think that local schools are important for the community and kids without access to decent transport would miss out on a lot, and friendships would get broken up at an age when they are important. But I think it's probably fairer than introducing grammar schools.

I live somewhere without grammar schools, where most of the comprehensives are excellent. Far more children in my LEA have access to a good or outstanding comprehensive than would have access to a grammar. And I think that that's what education policy should be aiming for everywhere.

haybott as an example, local comp can't run an addition maths class because there isn't enough children at that level to make it viable. A grammar could.

A 'gifted academic' is someone who is enthusiastic about learning academic subjects, has a natural talent for leaning academic subjects and achieves exceptional results in those academic subjects.

If you want a school full of 'gifted academics', then you would have to have a super-selective school, with no real catchment area (otherwise you wouldn't get enough children), so absolutely not aimed at a local intake. How would that make it more likely for children to get in?

The top 25% of children in an area are going to range from 'gifted' to 'almost didn't pass', and (from much personal experience) a huge majority of them are going to be just as fixated on their consoles and social media as any other children, not studiously poring over their books night after night!

My blog was blog of the day this week again grammar schools.

My son took his 11+ this morning. About. 20% children will pass, 80% will not.

Some have been doing past papers under times conditions for months/years. Others are walking in completely cold.

Your question OP is a strange one. Most people who object to grammar do not do so because they don't want their child to be given the education they are capable of, but because they recognise that a system that may benefit your child may not be best for everyone.

People can have opinions which are not purely based on their own interest or their children's.

I went to a single sex grammar where I did brilliantly. However, when I entered the workplace I was completely incapable of dealing with people who weren't motivated or struggled to grasp things. I had absolutely no idea what to do. A more rounded education would have been far better for me long term.

In a grammar system, those who pass do very well but those who don't do proportionally worse than they would have done under the comprehensive system.

You are within your rights to say 'I don't care about that, I only care about my own child' but be very clear that this is what you are doing.

JasperDamerel, your just making the argument that because the grammar system might not be perfect for some people no one should be allowed to use it.

I am only arguing for grammars because sen schools for gifted children aren't on the table. I just dont believe in pretending everyone will be 'equal' in the middle, is the way forward for our country.

Mathsmum- SEN for gifted children needs to be provided but not by segregating the top 20%. That won't help them any more than being in the top set at a comp.

I'm pretty clever. I went to grammar school where I was consistently one of the top two pupils in my year. That makes me one of the children you claim are unsuited to comprehensives. But many of my very clever university peers attended comprehensives, and I am very pleased that my DC (one of whom is also very clever) get to go to a local comprehensive. Virtually all the schools in my LEA are good or outstanding. Their very clever pupils do extremely well. I am not talking about one single outstanding school which nabs all the middle class pupils. I'm talking about most schools bring excellent places for extremely clever (and above average, and below average) children to learn.

Imagine if we talked about health care this way (although it might not be long)

Let's assess everyone and decide the healthiest 20% with the longest life expectancy get access to a great hospital because they are worth the investment.

It's ludicrous.

JasperDamerel, Only I don't live in your LEA :(

I live in an area where if your not religious or rich you aren't able to go to a school that can stretch and challenge academic children.

So given the choice between my LEA's current state system of rich, religious or bog standard school, and the one TM is suggesting, rich, religious, bog standard school or grammar. I would choose the latter and continue trying to make all schools good.