Non grammar school areas - do you regret not having had a child have a chance of grammar school?

[mids2019]

I live in an area with no local grammar school but am aware of other parents that have made decisions to move into grammar school areas with their children gaining successful entry.

Does any one else sometimes feel they would have liked their child the opportunity to take the 11+?

I sometimes feel my children are vaguely aware of grammar/private schools where the 'bright kids go' and dont want them to feel educationally less esteemed.

@ContessaVerde

Good point

does a successful entrance to grammar bolster self esteem and increase assurance that you are on course for a certain academic path?

Great for them. It’s a giant “fuck you” to the 80% though, especially bright kids who on a different day, or with better prep would have got in who are now told very specifically that they are not academic. If you did the test at 7+ or 13+ you would get a different cohort. Anyone successful at 11+ Should get as good academic experience in a comp top sets. Getting a whole cohort of 10 year olds to sit a test so 20% of them (who already know they are bright) can have the assurance that they are in fact bright is pretty shitty.

does getting into grammar not feel like a first major academic achievement with a certain kudos with it?

It did feel like a major academic achievement to my DD and gave her a huge amount of confidence, especially as we chose not to tutor her for the 11+. She feels privileged to be a pupil at her school and works very hard to keep up her grades.

@Shadedog

Again good point.

Not that I think the pressure that got heaped on my kids in year 6 was good for their love of education, their self confidence or self esteem. But their results dictated the grades they have been targeted at secondary, and were a passport into the top stream in year 7. If as a cohort they don’t get something close to their targeted grades, then ofsted will pull the school through the mill.
I feel like there is enough of the grammar ethos of dividing the kids in sets, and marking their progress against a flightpath dictated by SATs in the mainstream sector these days that our kids can’t escape it anyway.

While there are some powerful arguments against the grammar system it is slightly concerning that comprehensives may not have that academic focus (at least for certain cohorts).

Comprehensive schools will want each child to get the best results that that individual child can. If you mean that comprehensives are not mainly focused on academic results then that's probably true. I'm not sure that thinking you are a failure because you "only" got a Level 8 at GCSE (as has happened to a friend's daughter) because the grammar school is so focused on everyone must get top grades is a necessarily a good thing though ... Fine if your child thrives on that competition and pressure, but what about those that don't? I got stellar exam results at school but left with dreadful self esteem and self confidence. Much easier to get better qualifications later than it is to fix mental health problems.

I live in a non grammar area. Kids go to the local school. Two nice but dim boys go to the further away private school. The one girl goes to the bright girls school, but her mum did too so whatever. Everybody is happy.

‘Comprehensive schools will want each child to get the best results that that individual child can.’

I stopped believing that the first time my child brought home an assessment report in which their target grade was lower than the grade they were achieving. I think if they reach a certain level many teachers will say job done and stop bothering.

Are you sure the kudos is something the child feels or it’s for the parents benefit

I would worry what sort of child thinks that getting into grammar school gives them some sort of kudos over other children.

Countess of fitzdotterel
The targets will have been set in yr 7. Ofsted measures school on if they get close to the targets. If your kid overshoots, this will make up for another kid underachieving, so of course the school will keep trying to get your kid to do better. It’s easier to push the engaged, moderately bright kids to do really well by overloading them and overemphasis on results than it is to get unengaged but moderately bright kids to give a shit.
Guess who comes out of it feeling shit about themself though.

I stopped believing that the first time my child brought home an assessment report in which their target grade was lower than the grade they were achieving. I think if they reach a certain level many teachers will say job done and stop bothering.

Target grades like this are computer generated based on SATS. You may as well ignore them at an individual level. Teachers still keep teaching and wanting the child to get a higher grade. If for nothing else, it makes the school's progress 8 look good. Grammar schools are also state schools and use the same methodologies for calculating target grades, so are as likely (or not likely) to stop teaching if a DC meets their targets.

@Bythemillpond

Are you sure the kudos is something the child feels or it’s for the parents benefit

I would worry what sort of child thinks that getting into grammar school gives them some sort of kudos over other children.

No child would think that getting into grammar school would give them kudos over another child who didn't.

All three of mine went to grammar schools…have never regretted the decision,they all are very academically bright and also worked hard with the prep. The downside is when children have been tutored to an inch of their life and then struggle by year 8 ..this happened to a few of the children in their year groups.

Do primary schools push the idea of grammar?..ours didn't possibly because of the distance to grammars made it so not many would consider this but possibly because of a political viewpoint?

My daughter is heading rumours of kids who are going exams for schools (possibly for private schools or more remote grammars) and I feel maybe t some point I need to describe our educational system to her.

I get the slightly worrying feeling she feels the 'bright ' kids are taking these exams and if we don't explain the educational landscape then she my feel we
have made a conscious decision not to give her a chance at these exams. Again it seems a self esteem thing.

Again it seems a self esteem thing.

Hers or yours?

Seriously, you don't live in an area with grammar schools. Your kids will make friends locally. They'll almost certainly want to go to school with their friends (another reason why my SIL dropped any idea of entering the competitive grammar thing in her city, for her kids). There will be FAR more to their feelings of self-esteem than their academic achievement (one would very much hope).

My self-esteem, if anything, went down when I went to grammar school. I enjoyed being top of the class in Junior school. Discovering that I was nothing special, and actually less able than many, at grammar school, gave me one hell of a knock, and I pretty much stopped putting any effort in from then on. I significantly underachieved, much to my teachers' frustration, as they knew I was capable of so much more.
If I couldn't be the clever one, then why bother, said my 12-year-old self.

@saraclara

Thanks for the view point and I didn't think of it in those terms.

I was looking for a way to explain to her why some people take exams for school and not others.

I completely take your point about local friends and I personally missed out on that.

Maybe it is better to be too of the class in a comp rather than feel middling in a grammar?

Gemma2019

No child would think that getting into grammar school would give them kudos over another child who didn't

I should hope not. It is purely driven by the parents

Sometimes you have to look at the child and be honest about what would be suitable for that child. Not pushing what you would like onto a child and storing up a life time of misery

I live on the edge of a grammar school area. A few children from the next county take the 11plus exam hoping to get into this counties grammar schools. Having shown their approval of the system, perhaps when they fail the exam they should attend the (poor) secondary modern school in this county and not the excellent comprehensive in their county

Maybe it is better to be too of the class in a comp rather than feel middling in a grammar

I think you miss what a comprehensive school is.

Take away the grammar schools and everyone is in the comprehensive so the child would still be middling in the top few sets.

Yes.

I went to a grammar school, and certainly DD1 would have benefitted a lot from that kind of education. Not as clearcut for DD2 but overall I think it would have been better for her. While they're at a good comprehensive the education is just not as broad and rounded (and some of the teachers clearly wouldn't be able to teach to grammar school level).

I don't agree with selective education and I'm enormously glad that we don't live in a selective area. DD has positively thrived in her local state comp and expects to get straight 9s in her GCSEs this summer. It has been really good for her to be at school with kids with a wide range of academic abilities and to see that the kids who might be academically weak often have tremendous strengths in other areas. She is happy, confident and full of high aspirations for the future. In some ways, being an academic high flyer in a mixed ability school has probably boosted her confidence further. She has plenty of friends who are very like her, and others who are very different. I am really grateful that she had those opportunities.

Maybe it is better to be too of the class in a comp rather than feel middling in a grammar?

If your self-esteem is built around being academically successful, then absolutely.

If you have a decent, genuinely comprehensive school in your locality, then that's what I'd choose. My DD's went through their entire education with cohorts of kids they'd known since playgroup (plus others) and I think is gave them a great feeling of security and belonging.

Academically they did very well indeed, but their friends span different academic levels, so my DDs (not in their 30s) are not remotely judgy. My DD#2's close friendship group from school still hang out together, and spans the range from Cambridge lecturer to supermarket butcher.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘Comprehensive schools will want each child to get the best results that that individual child can.’

I stopped believing that the first time my child brought home an assessment report in which their target grade was lower than the grade they were achieving. I think if they reach a certain level many teachers will say job done and stop bothering.

DC's comprehensive isn't too bad there except for one particular department. We ended up making a complaint when DD1 was being assessed in Year 8 as performing two levels lower than the SATs result she'd obtained at the end of primary school.

But I agree, there are certainly some teachers who concentrate on the middle and they're all too ready to accept underachievement in those who are performing well but could still do better.

My DDs are NOW in their 30s! Not 'not in their 30s'!

I would have loved a grammar school for my children. But then that's because I am pretty confident that they would have passed their 11+. I think being made to feel like a failure at 11 must be very difficult.

However, I hate the intensive tutoring that seems to go on in grammar areas and I know that I might have found it difficult to resist having my own children tutored.

I wanted to send my children to a selective girls school with a 6th form. I couldn't achieve any of those aims within the state system in my area, so we went private.

I have a friend who lives in Buckinghamshire and was very envious that she was able to give her children exactly what I wanted for mine within the state system.