Oh I do hate the 11+

[LemonWeb]

The grammar schools are lovely in my area. Lovely schools, excellent results, lots of contented children doing all sorts of art and sport and drama and little disruptive behaviour.

So we let the dc do the 11+. DC3 doing hers this morning as I write this. And the same feeling this time as twice before: I see all these lovely kids being taken up to the school gates by their mums or dads, and I know that most won’t end up at that school. It’s just such a horrible high-stakes thing for children this young, and I know that most of the kids queuing up will have spent some time doing practice and tutoring and the test will have been hanging over them all summer.

I feel so conflicted on this: my elder two are both at selective schools and having a blast, and dc3 wanted to go to the lovely girls’ grammar with the excellent art department so I have let her take the test, but I really wish we didn’t live in a grammar area: it just feels like so much pressure for 10-year-olds, and most of them will come out of the process without a grammar place. I worry that if dc doesn’t pass, she’ll feel a sense of failure whatever I say.

I don’t know what a better system would be other than fully comprehensive and excellent schools everywhere.

@Mrsfrumble

Non-grammars in a grammar area are not comprehensives.

I’m interested in why you think this @DietrichandDiMaggio. Surely they will still teach a range of abilities, which is what comprehensives are supposed to do because, as others have pointed out on this thread, not every academically able child will pass or even sit the 11+, even in an 11+ area.

They are called secondary moderns and their results are limited by the kids who would have been their top sets going to grammars.

Think of the kids who are grammar material but don't have the parental support for tutoring and taking them to the exam.

@RampantIvy

I’m interested in why you think this @DietrichandDiMaggio. Surely they will still teach a range of abilities,

But not the full range, just up to the cut off point for the 11+.

That presupposes that every child who is capable of passing the exam does so on the day, which we know isn’t the case. They’ll be children who were having off day, children who haven’t had sufficient support or preparation and those who are just “late bloomers” and aren’t mature enough to handle the pressure at 10. Also children whose parents don’t agree with the system so don’t even sit the exam.

I went to state grammar school in the 80s. Entrance at 13+. We did not take an exam. Offer of a place was based on our last year at primary school and first year at secondary school. No mad tutoring, just professional opinion of our academic performance over 2 years. Eminently superior to what we have now

@Changemyname18

I went to state grammar school in the 80s. Entrance at 13+. We did not take an exam. Offer of a place was based on our last year at primary school and first year at secondary school. No mad tutoring, just professional opinion of our academic performance over 2 years. Eminently superior to what we have now

This would seem to make the most sense to me. Admission based on how children are doing at school, their potential and suitability for grammar, rather than a single test on a single day.

It would also be more 'tutor-proof' and could take into account overall ability/behaviour through KS2 for example. Although there might be more brown-nosing from parents, which would be intolerable.

They are sitting in my area today, some kids are sitting for two counties and a super selective not counted in the 11+. I do find it sad that so many won't make it into these schools. They are ridiculously over subscribed.

We're in a kind of hybrid area and we are very lucky we have an excellent not selective single sex provision that we will get into.

I don’t know what a better system would be other than fully comprehensive and excellent schools everywhere

We create the society we live in. Shouldn't this be exactly what we provide ALL children with.

The people I know with children in grammars are all affluent, paid for tutoring and ship their children further afield to grammar schools. They can afford to navigate the system and up their childrens chances of passing 11+. I feel sad for the children in the grammar school area whose parents couldn't afford tuition and who lost out on those places.

Interestingly friends have told me there is still disruption in their classes (one child having a meltdown and throwing things in the classroom as they didn't come top in a test) so they are not entirely havens for uninterrupted study. If the grammars have a wider catchment, especially in Covid times, it can be far harder for children to socialise out of school with classmates.

A system that makes any child feel like they are 'clever' or 'not clever' at the age of 10 should have no place in society in 2021. @LemonWeb I hope your dd does pass as it would be awful to spend the rest of your education feeling academically inferior to your siblings.

@Mrsfrumble

Non-grammars in a grammar area are not comprehensives.

I’m interested in why you think this @DietrichandDiMaggio. Surely they will still teach a range of abilities, which is what comprehensives are supposed to do because, as others have pointed out on this thread, not every academically able child will pass or even sit the 11+, even in an 11+ area.

@Mrsfrumble take a look at this schoolsweek.co.uk/secondary-moderns-have-dramatically-improved-their-ofsted-grades/

In grammar areas the high achieving children are concentrated in grammar schools, which means you also have a higher concentration of lower attaining pupils in the secondary modern schools in the area. The children are not evenly distributed between schools. Attainment is one of the measures that schools are graded by (progress is now also considered) so more grammars are outstanding and more of the secondary moderns fall into requires improvement.
Schools are not properly comprehensive in grammar school areas because they have fewer of the most able pupils.

@Changemyname18

I went to state grammar school in the 80s. Entrance at 13+. We did not take an exam. Offer of a place was based on our last year at primary school and first year at secondary school. No mad tutoring, just professional opinion of our academic performance over 2 years. Eminently superior to what we have now

That assumes that all teachers agree what the most important criteria for grammar schools are, and that they are objective in evaluating these criteria. I don't know about this country, but there have been numerous studies done in the United States about Gifted & Talented programs which demonstrated just how much the demographics of the participants changed when the criteria changed from teacher recommendations to exam results. Particularly where the exams were administered to all students, minority and lower income representation went up dramatically. Minorities and lower income students were still under-represented compared with their share of the population, but not nearly as under-represented as when the selection was based on their teachers' expectations of them.

But maybe the professionals in this country are beyond these biases

my 3 are all at grammar.
It is incredibly difficult I think to devise a system that works for all.

In a good comprehensive system, the evidence shows that kids do best in mixed ability classes. Or at least most of them do. the ones that do less well are the top 10%.
So the school has a choice, teach in ability sets, and then top ones get good results, but it is less good for the other 90%, or teach in mixed abililty classes, then the 90% do best, but the top 10% not.

But the same dilemma applies in other areas. Girls do better in single sex schools, but boys in mixed. And so on.

And then you have an area like ours where the local school is all from a large council estate, and the level of emotional and social deprivation is extremely high, which colours and effects what is happening in the classroom, and the expectations and ambitions of the kids.
My kids went to the local primary, but in the end we sent them out of area to the grammar for secondary.

Difficult choices.

@Changemyname18

I went to state grammar school in the 80s. Entrance at 13+. We did not take an exam. Offer of a place was based on our last year at primary school and first year at secondary school. No mad tutoring, just professional opinion of our academic performance over 2 years. Eminently superior to what we have now

except it is really dependant on the teachers.

We know that teachers regularly underestimate the outcomes for kids from poorer backgrounds, and overestimate the outcomes for kids from 'middle class' backgrounds.

That was one of the big complaints around the teachers allocating grades in 2020

In a good comprehensive system, the evidence shows that kids do best in mixed ability classes. Or at least most of them do. the ones that do less well are the top 10%.So the school has a choice, teach in ability sets, and then top ones get good results, but it is less good for the other 90%, or teach in mixed abililty classes, then the 90% do best, but the top 10% not

@steppemum I'd be interested to see evidence for this, could you link please?

In my local comp they have sets for certain subjects (maths) from Yr7 & mixed ability for everything else but of course by Yr10 there are more lessons set by ability/predicted grades/ curriculum for papers they will take.

The general results for secondary moderns would improve if the top 10-30% pupils don't go off to study separately. There would also be more emphasis on improving these schools, instead of those with the economic and social means and know-how bypassing them entirely. Better still they would be comprehensive with good provision for children throughout the ability spectrum (as many comps in areas without grammars are.)

@RumblyMumbly

In a good comprehensive system, the evidence shows that kids do best in mixed ability classes. Or at least most of them do. the ones that do less well are the top 10%.So the school has a choice, teach in ability sets, and then top ones get good results, but it is less good for the other 90%, or teach in mixed abililty classes, then the 90% do best, but the top 10% not

@steppemum I'd be interested to see evidence for this, could you link please?

In my local comp they have sets for certain subjects (maths) from Yr7 & mixed ability for everything else but of course by Yr10 there are more lessons set by ability/predicted grades/ curriculum for papers they will take.

The general results for secondary moderns would improve if the top 10-30% pupils don't go off to study separately. There would also be more emphasis on improving these schools, instead of those with the economic and social means and know-how bypassing them entirely. Better still they would be comprehensive with good provision for children throughout the ability spectrum (as many comps in areas without grammars are.)

sorry, I don't have a link to it, at the time I read it is was in a peer reviewed journal, so not a Daily Mail article.

I do agree about the issue with secondary moderns.
When grammar schools were set up, the original plan was for
-grammar
-technical schools - with apprenticeships for trades
-secondary modern with access to O'levels and other qualifications too
and then the grammars were set up and the rest forgotten. That is why the whole system failed.

Our area is a little different. We have a few grammar schools, in different towns which take in kids from a very wide area. 11 + is opt in only, and not done in schools, and many able children don't sit it. This means that the remaining schools are all truly comprehensive.
Some are excellent, and then the house prices in those areas are 2x as high as elesewhere, and the whole school is full of kids who can afford to live there.
Is that any better?
We live out of area and our kids travel in to the grammar. Our county (where we live) has no grammar schools, but our town has very poor secondaries. I don't think that they are poor because they are comprehensive. Our second choice school was a comprehnsive in the next town over.
So we are selecting by being able to afford transport for 3 kids.

Is that any better?

I am not convinced that parental choice is a good thing. I think as a society it has polarised the schools. But as a parent, with choice available, I will choose the best for my kids.

@Mrsfrumble

Non-grammars in a grammar area are not comprehensives.

I’m interested in why you think this @DietrichandDiMaggio. Surely they will still teach a range of abilities, which is what comprehensives are supposed to do because, as others have pointed out on this thread, not every academically able child will pass or even sit the 11+, even in an 11+ area.

I am in a grammar county and non grammars are most definitely NOT comprehensives. It’s not to do with the teachers or how they teach it’s because of the pupils that go there. True comprehensives have a very wide range of abilities. Some will get into Oxford and Cambridge for example and some will struggle to gain even 1 or 2 GCSE’s. I went to such a school as a teen. In my county now, the top 25% of academic pupils are taken by grammars. The rest go to non grammars. So now you have the lower 75% rather than the full range of 100%. GCSE results are very low around here for the non grammars and very high for grammars. Virtually all ‘academically able’ kids here go to grammars. Even if they have an off day they get in on an appeal because teachers can vouch for their level of work for the previous year.

@steppemum

Evidence of how unfair the grammar system is from the Education Policy Institute 2016:
'The attainment gap barrier appears to be exacerbated by the widespread use of private tutoring in order to prepare children for the 11-plus; this may also be contributing to the under-representation even of high-attaining FSM pupils at grammar schools'
'The existence of this under-representation is not contested: as outlined in a recent EPI report, only 2.5 per cent of grammar school pupils are eligible for free school meals (FSM, a proxy for disadvantage), compared with 13.2 per cent across all state-funded secondary schools.'

Also from the Education Policy Institute 2016;
3. We also found that pupils who attend grammar schools do no better than similar pupils in high performing comprehensives (those in the top 25% for value added). We also compared the attainment of high-performing pupils who attended a grammar school, with those who attended a top performing comprehensive school (these are schools in the top 25 per cent as measured by value-added progress).

We found that, for these pupils, there was no difference in their results. For the remaining children attending top-performing comprehensive schools (the middle and low attainers), their GCSE outcomes were much better than similar pupils in selective areas (those that did not attend nearby grammar schools). Top-performing comprehensives are much more socially inclusive than grammar schools and deliver good results on average for all pupils

Okay thanks. I understood how the system was supposed to work, but thought that these days there’d be more able children in the secondary moderns for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. I’ve never lived in a grammar area; where I grew up there were no selective state schools at all and the local private schools had mediocre reputations, so the comprehensives were truly that.

Rumbly, I am not disputing any of that, I agree.

But the issue wasn't comprehensive schools per se, it is mixed ability teaching groups or selective groups right up to GCSE level. That report doesn't address that. We have no way of knowing if those successful comps stream or not. As I said, the report I saw was dealing specifically with the issue of whether of not children should be taught in mixed ability groups within one school or in streamed groups. It was not about selective schools.
Some comps ability stream, and some don't.

And the issue wasn't with top 25% of kids, which is a pretty broad range, it was with the top 5-10% being taught in a mixed ability class. Which is a very elite group I know, but it is still an issue.

I have used the grammar schools, but I am very ambivilant about the system, it is a real mixed bag. For us, there isn't a high achieving good comprehensive within reach. (well, maybe one, just) But the grammar doesn't have a distance criteria, so we went over the county border, and my kids travel to it.

If your only option is a poor comprehensive, or a struggling comp with high staff turnover, or a busy comp with massive amounts of kids needed support, your quiet clever child is not going to thrive are they?

Which is why people continue to strive for the grammar schools.
maybe not right for whole of society, but trying to do what is right for their kid.

I grew up in a grammar/secondary modern area, where I went to grammar school and now live in a properly comprehensive area, and I'd choose the comprehensive system every time. DD is very able academically in most areas, but her heart is in practical subjects, and she's able to go to a school where the practical subjects are valued and she can be pushed academically.

@steppemum

Rumbly, I am not disputing any of that, I agree.

But the issue wasn't comprehensive schools per se, it is mixed ability teaching groups or selective groups right up to GCSE level. That report doesn't address that. We have no way of knowing if those successful comps stream or not. As I said, the report I saw was dealing specifically with the issue of whether of not children should be taught in mixed ability groups within one school or in streamed groups. It was not about selective schools.
Some comps ability stream, and some don't.

And the issue wasn't with top 25% of kids, which is a pretty broad range, it was with the top 5-10% being taught in a mixed ability class. Which is a very elite group I know, but it is still an issue.

I have used the grammar schools, but I am very ambivilant about the system, it is a real mixed bag. For us, there isn't a high achieving good comprehensive within reach. (well, maybe one, just) But the grammar doesn't have a distance criteria, so we went over the county border, and my kids travel to it.

If your only option is a poor comprehensive, or a struggling comp with high staff turnover, or a busy comp with massive amounts of kids needed support, your quiet clever child is not going to thrive are they?

Which is why people continue to strive for the grammar schools.
maybe not right for whole of society, but trying to do what is right for their kid.

@steppemum it's hard to tell without seeing the report you are referencing. I imagine that a lot of comprehensives do a combination of ability sets and mixed ability depending on subjects. For example PE is grouped by ability at my DCs school but humanities in KS3 is taught in mixed ability classes. Again it would be interesting to see a breakdown across schools to see what works best. In my limited experience I don't know any schools that do mixed ability for core subjects at GCSE, do you?

The point the report by the EPI was making is that good comprehensives work for all children. So we need to strive to make good comprehensives not accept mediocre ones for some children and knowingly allow children in secondary moderns to have poorer educational outcomes than they would if they were in proper comprehensives. The grammar school system perpetuates advantage and disadvantage.

I don't blame anyone for wanting the best for their child but I am blaming the continuation of a system that allows children in grammar areas, not attending grammar schools to be further disadvantaged educationally than other children.

I personally think the 11+ is not fit for purpose now due to the issue of private tuition, back when my parents did it really did select bright but not affluent children (my Dad was working class and lived in a council house). All the middle class kids being tutored and going across counties to take places advantage your child/ren but other children can be disadvantaged due to that process.

@cansu

You have said yourself what the alternative is. The conservatives however support an unfair and divisive system probably because if their kids do fail to get in they can afford to pay for private education.grammars provide a state version of private school. This is why the well off love them. It offers an opportunity to be apart from the riff raff for free!

But what did Labour do differently when they were in power? those grammar schools still existed, they didn't reform the system, the crappy struggling schools (as a result of the brightest being creamed off) had no new interventions. Blair didn't change anything, did he?

rumbly - fair comment.

by the way, my kids were not tutored, except by me.
And they are in receipt of FSM, but their grandparents pay their travel to school.
The towns where the good comprehensives are have very high house prices, too high for us.

I am very glad I don't live in a grammar school area. Two of my kids would get in, one wouldn't. She doesn't deserve to be separated out into an inferior school just because she's not good at tests.

@moch no Labour didn't disband grammars (wrongly imo for reasons cited above) however don't forget their prioritisation of 'education, education, education'

in the 10 years between 1997-2007 Between 1997 the core "per pupil" funding rose by 48% in real terms

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6564933.stm

When expressed as a proportion of GDP, education spending peaked in 2009-10 and 2010-11 at around 5.5%, its highest since the mid-1970s. The subsequent decline has took it down to below 4% in 2017-18
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01078/

@RumblyMumbly But we are talking about the grammar school system and the poor alternative if you don't get in. The poster I was replying to said the conservatives don't care because they can send their dc to private schools if they don't get in. My point is Labour had it's chance as well and did nothing. Funding may have increased (which is of course commendable) but we still had the same shit system of some going off to the lovely grammars and some sent to substandard schools.

My daughter was only tutored by me, and I’m quite cheap , but the point is that I’m educated so I knew how to research what was needed, how to teach her the right topics and frankly, the whole of her life I’ve been helping her develop sophisticated vocabulary are encouraging reading and puzzle solving, because I come from a background where education is very highly valued.

I agree with PP about the social divide in grammar schools. The ones in our area put qualifying children with pupil premium right at the top of the list though, so there is some action being taken to address the disparities.

@LemonWeb

My daughter was only tutored by me, and I’m quite cheap , but the point is that I’m educated so I knew how to research what was needed, how to teach her the right topics and frankly, the whole of her life I’ve been helping her develop sophisticated vocabulary are encouraging reading and puzzle solving, because I come from a background where education is very highly valued.

I agree with PP about the social divide in grammar schools. The ones in our area put qualifying children with pupil premium right at the top of the list though, so there is some action being taken to address the disparities.

yes I agree, I am an ex teacher so capable of doing the work required with my kids etc.

teh trouble with putting the PP qualifiers at the top of the list is that they still have to pass. Which, if you have a poor vocab and no experience of tests, is less likely.