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?

Not one of the grammars near to me, just over the county border get 100% GCSE pass rate. I always find that really confusing.

The comp my children went to (where they got all As and As) got 100% pass rate for their high achievers this year. 90% of all children got C or above in Maths, 94% got A-C in English Lit and 78% got A-C in English Language. 52% of children on pupil premium got at least 5 GCSEs, including Maths and English A-C.

Never once were our children bored. They weren't allowed to coast, drift or daydream, they all had to knuckle down and work hard.

Striped, so long as you are happy for your kids to get what you want for them you have to accept that other kids are sacrificed to achieve that.

The problem is choice.
We have two grammars and 1 huge comp to chose from.
How is that choice? One of those grammars would be considered best fit for my eldest. The other grammar and the comp, I know they would struggle with it.
If it was three comps it would be choice to find the best fit

*"If you have children who are very able I do think it is better for them not to be the one bright child in the class. Similarly if you have a child who just misses grammar school, surely being the top of the top set would be a positive."

This really does completely sum up the "believing three impossible things before breakfast" aspect of the selective school lobby!*

I actually thinks this beats the "A in a grammar is better than an A in a comp," which I never thought would happen.

I live in a grammar school area and I absolutely want my dd to get into grammar school. But what I'd much prefer is for her to go to a true comprehensive like I did. That choice is denied to me in Kent. And soon it seems for everyone else too.

Indeed. And the grammar school lobby insist that that lack of choice means you support grammar schools. They will not accept that a secondary modern is NOT a comprehensive.

Being top of top set is a disaster for a MN bright kid, they need to be sent to a special school for actually bright kids to confirm just how bright they are. This has the added bonus that the mediocre kids left behind haven't got true genius to compare themselves to so they get the confidence boost of thinking they're bright because they're top of top set. We'll ignore the fact that they've been labelled a failure aged 11, their school is called 'St Pleb's School for Not Very Bright Kids', and that the top of the top set kid might actually be as bright as the MN kid but who has been put in the 'wrong' school because of a flawed system.

Noble Brilliantly put.

Striped, so long as you are happy for your kids to get what you want for them you have to accept that other kids are sacrificed to achieve that.

But that's absolutely not the fault of the parents, many of whom are anti-selection, but who, within a system they can do nothing about, want their children to have the best education open to them. I really can't stomach this guilt-tripping over the 11+. In many areas, mine included, the alternative schools to the Grammars are performing poorly. WWYD? Truly you would sacrifice your own children's education on the altar of your principles?

A local girl at a comp (not the grammar school) got 8 A* in her GCSEs, there's a local legend going round that a grammar school parent wrote to the MP complaining about lesser schools taking different exams in order to give the thick children a chance, as she couldn't believe that a lowly comp school girl could do better than her own grammar school child. (Obviously these are not my words!)

I'm all for choice, but if it's only a valid choice if you have money in order to access it, its not available to everyone.

If I lived in an area like the one I grew up in, with a grammar school system, I would send my children to grammar schools if they could get in.

But I am lucky enough to live in a local authority with no grammar schools and excellent comprehensives, and I would like as many people as possible to have the opportunities that my children have. This is why I am against any increase in the numbers of grammar schools.

2StripesSocks: but we are all here to tell each other how we think and people can't be blamed for listening!

I could take exception to your apparent assumption that grammar school kids would not have to 'work their arses off' to stay alongside many of DS's top set comp kids...

But that's absolutely not the fault of the parents

No, the shitty selective system that sacrifices the disadvantaged in favour of the already advantaged (as the evidence shows) is not the fault of the parents and I totally don't blame them for sending their kids to a grammar, I would too.

However, if they are supportive of the grammar system, then they should either admit the cost as evidenced and say they don't care so long as their kids are ok, or they should change their mind.

if they are supportive of the grammar system, then they should either admit the cost as evidenced and say they don't care so long as their kids are ok, or they should change their mind.

I don't need to change my mind. I'm not supportive of the Grammar system, because it's divisive and leads to the emergence of 'sink' schools.

I live in an area where the Grammar system is entrenched, is divisive, and has led to the emergence of 'sink' schools.

On that basis, all my dc have taken the 11+.

There. Where does that leave us?

Letitia, I agree with you about separating a view on individual choices from a view of the system. Many people I know and love have their kids in schools that would not be part of the system if I ruled the world, and of course they have made the best of the choices on offer! They are legal, paid for by the state, part of the provision, why shouldn't they?

I think the difference at this point is that if you made a decision to tutor, move house, take up religion or go for a school type that ideologically you feel about, now U.S. The time to make your voice heard in favour of better provision in the type of schools / system you would like, rather than calling for more loopholes and escape routes away from those schools.

Letitia: write to Theresa May , your M.P et al, and tell them about your view on the grammar system and how you would like it replaced, not extended!

What about children who excel in one subject area but are average, or worse, in another?

As an example, I'm shit hot at verbal reasoning, but cannot for the life of me get to grips with NVR - I have Asperger's, so presume there's a neurological reason for this. It certainly isn't because I'm thick. I have four As at A-Level and a good degree from an RG university.

But poor NVR scores would probably have barred grammar school to me, and who knows how different my life would have been then?

Thankfully there were no grammars where I grew up.

Dd1 is exactly the same, and in top sets for English/languages/humanities, middling sets for maths and science, at an 'outstanding' comprehensive. She has every chance of achieving her potential there.

Dd2 is NT and a bright all-rounder, top of her primary school class in all subjects. She would have made it into a grammar school, but I don't think her potential is any greater than dd1's. DD1 certainly runs rings around her in any kind of philosophical/political discussion (and is only a year older, so age isn't a massive factor).

All these posters who are afraid of comps, have you had a kid go through the comprehensive system? Loads of kids get a full raft of A*s and As; top sets are all kids working at that level. No reason why a kid can't achieve their potential and compete and be challenged in a decent comp.

Very good point, LordTrash - and this would apply to many, many pupils. There are loads who are great at literacy but not so good at maths and vice versa. A comprehensive system with setting allows pupils to be in the right class for their strong and weak subjects.

2stripedsocks- please could you explain why a child who can effortlessly achieve 10A*s at a comprehensive would have to work hard for the same results at a grammar?

How about we keep comprehensive schools and then have a grammar school in every borough, and only the children in that borough can apply, and either teachers from each school recommend a certain percentage of pupils, or there is a set of standardised tests each year to show improvement and the most improved and the best of each school and they are admitted?

Great Fairy.

If I had Balcarrass,Grey Coats or a similar comp near me that was outstanding and stretched the more able instead of being criticised for not doing so, there they would go.

It's not like that. It's a comprehensive school where they're getting improving results year on year because the teachers value all children.

I get sick to the back teeth of this attitude on MN that bright children, who work hard get criticised, or bullied, at a comp. They don't, because there are actually quite a lot of them there. DS1 was the top performing boy in his GCSEs. He was not bullied, never criticised, had loads of friends, from all backgrounds, and loved school.

But what would be the benefit of that over a borough with good comprehensives working together with a borough-wide system of enrichment opportunities for children who are gifted or talented in a variety of areas which is what is available right now in some places?

"Child A is 99.9th percentile and benefits (emotionally) from being immersed in a school where that is closer to the norm.

Child B is 80th percentile and is towards the top of his school but with many peers at the same level."

Or you could send both children to a good comprehensive where they are each put into sets with other children performing at the same level. Simple really.