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?

Proseccocino Fri 09-Sep-16 18:02:09 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.

As far as I'm concerned:

If I had a DC who was musically tallented I think I would be hard pushed to find a school that selects 100% of their intake on music ability (actually there is one near me but it is a private school).

If I had a DC who excelled in sport I think I would be hard pushed to find a school that selects 100% of their intake on sporting ability.

So why exactly would someone with a DC who is acacemically able feel they should be able to send their DC to school that selects 100% of their co-hort on academic ability.

zzzzz Fri 09-Sep-16 19:34:58 I don't really understand all the coaching though.

Which is why you're pro-selection.

It will seem like a good idea to a lot of people until a year before their DC sits the test (or 2/3 years in the case of some parents).

I don't know about state schools that select for music or sport. I guess they might be academies in London, and only a small % of pupils can be selected that way. I don't approve if all pupils are selected that way in a state school as young as age 11.

Funny enough I went to a performing arts school -- they didn't select for ability in PA. I have no relevant talent whatsoever, but my mother hoped I might find it by being there. So we were a mix of kids though most had PA interest and talent. Being an artsy school meant it was 70% female. Gay guys were able to come out & get voted most popular in the year group (in the 1980s). We had a really nice peer group. I lived in a neighbourhood where everyone's parents were either doctors, teachers or lawyers. My best friend was in an immigrant family of 6 in a 2 bed house in a poor neighbourhood (her dad was a ship welder & her brother slept on the living room floor). I became very academic after I started there, got accepted to a top university. Still considered one of the schools with best academic results in the city.

In primary school, if children aren't being challenged, then parents have a word with the teachers and expect the teachers to differentiate work so all children are challenged appropriately.

I don't see why, with the help of setting in larger schools, secondary schools can't do the same. IME selective schools are more likely to get lazy about differentiation.

zzzzz Fri 09-Sep-16 19:48:09 Mummy I'm not sure I understand your point?

Do your DCs go to a Grammar school?

Do you live in a Grammar area?

This is a tweet from Peter Hitchens - arch grammar-school advocate

Once there are enough grammars, there'll be places for all that deserve them.

Note "DESERVE" not "need" not "want". So when your kid fails its because they didn't deserve it. Despicable

I live in an area with Grammar schools. I don't agree with them on the basis that all over the summer 10 year olds have been attending the camps that have appeared everywhere, theres signs up for exam prep, for tutor schools for mock exam centres.
These are 10 year olds in their summer holidays!
So your clever children that should naturally pass and would excel at grammar are missing out on places as these tutored children are taking their places. These tutored children would perhaps continue to need tutoring to keep up but would have done well at the local comp.
Its not fair, its not right and its not within the ethos of the grammar school. I agree with the principal of taking a little test that you don't really know about and streaming. But i don't agree with this whole industry that there is about getting your child through the 11+. The stress and pressure these children are feeling is huge even if they haven't gone through a summer of tutoring to get them to pass.

My dd is not academically gifted at all, she would not pass an 11+. She is however very well behaved and tries hard. Already she is in the bottom sets for a lot of classes and ends up with all the naughty kids that don't want to learn.
Why should she feel like she is on the scrap heap for the whole of her school life even when she tries hard and behaves well.
It will just increase the divide between the bright kids and the failures.

Academically selective education is a cop out for an education system that is failing to fulfil its basic function ie develop all children to their best if their abilities and talents. They are a lazy option for people with no better ideas.

In my experience Grammar Schools don't take the most able they take those who are best at passing a very outdated test. Usually those children who have had lots of expensive tuition.

"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? "

You send them to a good comprehensive school. DD's comprehensive school bucked this year's trend of lower GCSE pass rates by achieving an 80% pass rate for 5 A* - C GCSEs including English and maths. OK, they might only have a handful of Oxbridge students rather than dozens and dozens, but quite a few go on to RG universities.

They also have (and have had) some incredibly talented sporty students some of whom are doing very well in the world of sport. Then there are the very talented music and drama students who are going on to greater things.

How has this been achieved? By putting the students into sets with other students of a similar ability to encourage them to reach their potential, by focusing on all types of sport and by having a fantastic drama department.

Grammar schools are not the only way to a good education.

Sadly, it is people who live in grammar school areas where the only alternative is a secondary modern where the students start off by feeling second rate and probably don't feel motivated to do well, who think that more grammar schools are the only way forward.

IMO the government should be spending their education budget on better comprehensive schools where every student has a chance to excel.

Jumps off soapbox.

Because the summary of the best available evaluation evidence suggests the following on streaming/setting, and grammar sold are an extension of this practice:

"Overall, setting or streaming appears to benefit higher attaining pupils and be detrimental to the learning of mid-range and lower attaining learners. On average, setting or streaming does not appear to be an effective strategy for raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils, who are more likely to be assigned to lower groups."

educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-or-streaming/

For context if relevant: I went to a grammar school.

I was in favour of grammar schools, as I went to one myself, and it seemed unfair to me that bright DC1 did not have the same opportunity as his cousins to attend a grammar. I've changed my mind.

During your school years, essentially the main focus is on academic achievement - although of course schools nowadays provide a broad range of activities, plays, sports etc. But really it's about doing as well as possible in state exams. The children who do well easily are automatically in the teacher's good books, and easy and a pleasure to teach no doubt. So I think there is an assumption, on the part of teachers and many parents and children too, that the kids in the grammar school have succeeded in the way the kids not in the grammar school haven't (at least not yet). And I think that's unhelpful to everyone, giving grammar kids a false sense of superiority and, as had been said many times, meaning the non-grammar kids often feel they are failures academically. Of course, when you go beyond school you learn that being academically able is no guarantee of success and that can be a hard lesson for a grammar school child to learn.

OP, these are my thoughts when we drop dd at school on a sunday evening.
We come back home and I think exactly the same.
They all know how extremely lucky they are to be there, and they work really hard.

Why are there no schools for the academically gifted?
My dd friend here is at a crap school that don't do anything for her because she is GCSE standard at Maths when she was 10. Poor kid doesn't stand a chance and will never reach her potential. I believe if we had a grammar school in the area it would be very beneficial to her.
These ideas that everywhere is the same and parents would tutor is bollocks and maybe applicable in Kent, Bucks? Other posh southern areas.

These ideas that everywhere is the same and parents would tutor is bollocks and maybe applicable in Kent, Bucks? Other posh southern areas.

I'm in a grammar area in the Midlands. People tutor.

My sister lives in a grammar area in the north east. People tutor.

Failing the 11 plus hurts th confidence of children. Sucess is dependent on how savy parents are. There is very little flexibility in the system. It is not easy to transfer underachieving children out of the grammar to make room for more able children in the secondary modern.

We live in a more dynamic society. The eleven plus disadvantages immigrants and low income families.

"I believe if we had a grammar school in the area it would be very beneficial to her."

A good comprehensive school would be able to deal with this. There were some extremely gifted mathematicians at DD's school. Some of them took GCSE maths at the end of year 9 and achieved A*s. They then went on to do other subjects in year 10 because it opened up a free option for them.

Why do people think that all comprehensive schools ignore the clever students?

Going back to an early post, younger children do not get "points added". Ever. In any area. The scores are standardised by age which means that children are compared to others born in the same month, so the raw score for qualifying may be lower for children born in a particular no the, but it might not be, it depends how they all perform. Google NFER age standardisation if you are interested.
Anyway, I digress.

"Success may be due to savvy parents but surely there are plenty of children at grammar school who aren't there because there parents coached them."

Not many!