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?

Firstly, there aren't any schools like the ones you list where I live. There is one that selects a small number on musical aptitude but it is also a Christian school so is selective on a number of bases.

Secondly, sport and music require different, specialist teaching by different, specialist teachers.

You don't need a specialist teacher to teach different children of different abilities Maths or English. Some teachers might prefer teaching very able children and some might prefer teaching children who need more support, but they are teaching the same subject and syllabus.

And since you can put the 30 children who are best at each subject (at that point in their education) in one set per subject, they don't need to be in a separate building. So Jemima who is brilliant at English but not so good at maths and therefore wouldn't have passed the 11+ can be in the top set for English and the 4th set for maths. And Toby who is brilliant at maths but not so good at English and therefore wouldn't have passed the 11+ can be in the top set for maths and the 4th set for English. And Sadia who came to this country as a refugee at the beginning of Y6 with little English and therefore wouldn't have passed the 11+ can move from the lower sets to the top sets as she learns English.

the point I was trying to make was that everyone develops at different rates so assessment at 10.5 does not fit all or reliably measure potential.
Personally I just want excellent, inclusive, local schools for all and I don't believe grammar schools are the answer.

Summer borns get extra point added in the 11plus.

Not in my LEA they don't!

For me school is 60%learning 40%social education. I want my children to learn to thrive in all environments, with children not as academically talented, with children who may be disruptive. That's just my (slightly odd!) opinion though!

I think my OP is more about, not whether these specialist schools exist near people, but about - in theory people seem to have no problem in sending DC to a specialist school if they are excelling at drama or sport etc. So what's the ideological difference in sending them to a specialist school if they excel academically?

If our local grammar school actually selected children for their intelligence, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.
As it is, the vast majority of pupils there are there because they were tutored for at least 1-2 years.
There are very few genuinely gifted and talented pupils.
Many of the students are tutored throughout their school lives as they are not able to keep up otherwise.
This is great for them, the ones whose parents can afford the private tuition fees, less good for the genuinely gifted pupils who cannot compete against aggressively tutored average pupils.
It's a system that encourages elitism and divisiveness, and I for one don't support that.

Why is it so bad to teach 'the bright kids' in a school tailored to their gifts/needs, but it's OK to teach the musical ones or sporty ones or technologically minded ones in a school tailored towards their gifts?

It's more of a philosophical question than a 'does this happen in your area?' question!

Twunk yes you are right - hadn't considered that.

As it is, the vast majority of pupils there are there because they were tutored for at least 1-2 years

I've never met a child at either of our local grammar schools who wasn't tutored.

So you're asking people how they would feel about a type of school that actually doesn't exist?

For the record, I think that schools are there to provide an education, and to provide as many extra curricular activities as possible. And I object very strongly to selection by any criteria at all. I also think that school admissions are badly in need of reform, and places should be allocated either by lottery, or by fair banding, if a open and fair way of doing that can be devised.

Most children aren't "gifted" they're average and for average children there is very little between those who will get into grammar school and those who miss out by a point or two. It is horribly unfair on these children

As the schools barely exist these days (there's one not far from here within has a handful of music places) then actually I think that is germane.

Because it's easy to have 'no problem' with a unicorn.

And no-one is proposing expansion of music/sport type schools, so there's nothing to take issue with.

Or is the current proposal going to include expansion of selection by specialism?

Because you're setting out your child's future path before they've even entered puberty and limiting their choices.

I went to a grammar school and hated it. I wanted to go to the local comprehensive that my sister went to. I wanted to be in a mixed class, to do metal work and wood work and drama and go to tech and do a btech in construction. Instead I was stuck with a class full of girls doing Latin, dressmaking and calligraphy and got to do A levels in home economics and divinity.

Weird question OP. You're asserting that grammars are fine because they take kids at 13,14 and 16 as well as 11 - EXCEPT THEY DON'T.

And people are happy to send their talented kids to schools that select on musical or sporting ability - EXCEPT THEY DON'T.

Because all schools are set up to challenge children academically.

Grammars are set up to perpetuate social inequality.

Specialist school status was scrapped. Which schools do you have in mind?

Even if my child was good enough to get into the Manchester Utd Academy I would still want him to get a good academic education. Even for kids in the Academy the majority won't make it. A job in sport such as being a PE teacher needs good academic qualifications so having an education centred around sport wouldn't help you choose that as a career.

Other than a very small number of professional musicians and sportspeople most well-paid jobs in these areas would also demand decent academic qualifications surely.

I don't know where all these great jobs are that don't demand good academic qualifications.

Why are we trying so hard to find alternatives to great well-resourced comps which use proper setting where needed?

PigPigTrotters here here, you eloquently reiterated the point I was trying to put across rather clumsily earlier on

Ok, philosophically most children and adults arn't just musical or bright or sporty, some will be good at all those things and some will be good at none of those things listed. The list of talents and variety of schools could go on for ever.

Therefore all state schools should do their best for all children, whatever their talents or lack of. Private schools can do what they like.

The NHS is a state run organisation catering for everyone in this country if they wish to use it, sadly it can be a postcode lottery for some services. There's not a huge amount of choice hospitals either. Certainly I don't have to pass a test in anatomy before I chose which hospital I go to, thank goodness. Again I would want all NHS providers to provide excellent care across the country.

Forgot to add - no-one whose child is good at music and sport and capable of getting into a grammar is going to choose the music or sport school.

This talk of specialized schools just feels like an attempt to fob us off frankly. Why do people find it so hard to understand we don't want our children to be defined by failure at 11?

Again, what is so difficult about identifying all the great comps in the country which ARE NOT all in rich areas and copying what they do?

What type of grammar schools are we talking about?

We have grammar schools here...the top 3ish % get in. The top few in ONE test taken at ten years old. There is no other entrance until sixth form.

The other schools aren't poor schools, but they obviously don't get similar GCSEs results.

If there was a school specialising in sports or dance and DC had to be heavily tutored to get in, above normal lessons, even the very talented ones, and it was based on one performance? I would run a mile. It would sound like a crap school to me, but more importantly like a crap way of selection for entrance.

I guess I'd have to look at the Alumni...which I did when choosing a secondary school... surprisingly our local grammar hasn't turned out anyone noteworthy. However, the comprehensive my DC attend has.

I failed to get into grammar school. I ended up top of a secondary modern where my friends aspired to jobs which involved answering a phone. I spent four years dumbing down so I wasn't always top of the class. I would also have hated being bottom of the grammar school which was the alternative.

I don't think you can compare schools specialising in art or music with grammar schools; schools aren't mostly about music or sport. They're mostly about academic subjects.

I don't agree with selectively educating children based on ANYTHING at that age. Why define your child as a 10 yr old? What if the passion for music aged 10 disappears aged 13? Why cut choices? Education should be as wide as possible for as long as possible. What about those children who didn't pick up a musical instrument at all until they were 12 but excelled immediately? Should they be written off because they didn't attend a specialist school? Same for kids who struggle academically at primary but blossom aged 13.

I discussed this at length with my yr 13 tutor group this morning. They couldn't think of a single positive to expanding grammars.

The grammar schools in Bucks have late entry points, eg y8 if you do not get a place via the countywide 11 plus, but only if they have spaces. The schools then set the exams and take reports from the secondary modern though. It is not a test set by the LA. There are also arrangements made for children who transfer into the LA who are suitable if places are available. Anyone with good enough GCSEs can apply for 6th form, subject to places being available. It is not true to say children do not transfer and I have neighbours whose children transferred at 12 and 13.

Many children stay put though because often the parents know the grammar schools are not really suitable and, believe it or not, quite a few of the secondary moderns here are quite good with 55-75% A*-C ( including English and Maths) passes at GCSE.

Most parents will appeal if the child just misses the magic pass mark (121). It is quite normal for a child 3-4 marks below that to be offered a place and the children with 120 sometimes are allocated a place without appealing. Therefore, 117-116 it is most likely the child will not be quite good enough for the grammars but will do well in a secondary modern, most of which have 6th forms offering A levels.

I would not advocate change though. Wrecking comprehensive schools is a bad idea and grammar schools do not aid social mobility - it is top class comprehensive schools that do that! It is also often the case that deprived areas have comprehensive schools with only about 10% high achievers. My local secondary moderns have around 30% and that is with 20-35% in the grammar schools. A grammar school in a deprived area will rob most comprehensives of any high achievers they have and some of them still will not be grammar school material as clearly demonstrated by the numbers of high achievers in secondary modern schools around here.

Tutoring, and paying for it, is a middle class occupation and it is the reason why poorer children do not get into grammar schools and parent apathy and lack of ambition. Lots of children just want to go to the nearest school with their mates, so no grammar tuition for them. In my LA the primary schools are forbidden to tutor so the prep schools get huge numbers to the grammar schools because they make it their business to tutor. The only fair way to select would be for everyone to have access to tutors. The chances of success in life are skewed away from the children of poorer and less ambitious parents but that is what needs to be tackled by high class education for all in the schools we have now.

I am utterly opposed to Grammars. The international evidence is quite clear. They don't promote social mobility. They just educate a few selected children when we should be wanting an excellent education for all our children. Bright middle class children in non grammar areas do about the same as bright mc children in grammar schools. Poor children do much worse in grammar areas.

I oppose the grammar school system and we don't even have it here!

Grammar schools create division, and create second class schools where the less academic children, or those unable to afford tutoring, go.

What we need is good quality comprehensives, where the high ability children are catered for as much as the lower ability without any consideration for how much money their parents have. I know grammars are not fee paying, but when tutoring is an almost essential part of gaining a place it can hardly be claimed that children from wealthier families do not have an unfair advantage.