Why not make grammar entry fairer?

[belladonna22]

My kids are still young so I have no direct experience with entry exams for grammar schools, but why is it that the exams seem to cover topics that children haven’t yet covered in most state schools?

If their (stated) purpose is to enable the best and brightest to attend, why do they make it more or less essential to obtain private tutoring, thus tilting the scales in favour of better resourced and informed families? If Labour were serious about improving access to education, wouldn’t one policy be for grammars to limit exams to topics most children will be familiar with at that point in their schooling?

I think we should probably turn that question round: since counties with matched socio-economic profiles with grammars and with true comprehensive systems show very similar educational outcomes for their young people, why should we keep grammars?

I absolutely understand the argument, on the other hand, for better and different provision for the lowest attainers - special schools; vocational or reduced numbers of qualifications; specialist teachers and resources. They genuinely are poorly served in all areas.

Indeed. To be honest, I find the focus on getting high attainers another half-grade at GCSE rather distasteful. And I speak as the parent of high attainers.

yes it's nuts the exams are at the start of year 6 for year 6 maths content..
our grammar school offers free online tutoring to kids on FSM in local primary schools. There is a lower entrance bar for kids on FSM, forces kids and those living nearest to the school.

Sure sure, abolish the lot, why should bright kids get anything different to any other kid. We should all ignore our strengths and just become a big homogenous blob of mediocrity.

Oh, and any sports coaching schemes, they should go too - we'll just send a team to the olympics who've had normal PE lessons with everyone else.

School vs. school sport will just be randomly selected, no picking the best at sport.

No special classes for anyone. Everyone can just struggle along together - the ones who are bored because it's too hard, right by the ones who are bored because it's too easy.

This is a straw man argument. Grammars only exist in a few small areas - the rest of the country differentiates within the comprehensive system.

Differentiation is educationally important, but single point selection at 11 is a failed and outdated way of achieving that.

What bollocks. It’s all about opportunity. In my small town the grammar system cuts off loads of opportunities to 75% of children at the age of 10. Practically and psychologically that is such a bad idea.It’s socially divisive because it essentially means already privileged kids get more privilege, and underprivileged kids are reminded of their status. I suppose some people think that’s a good idea-rich man in his castle and so on….

How does preventing more privileged children do better benefit the disadvantaged?

Selection for grammar schools could be justified IF as a result, students as a whole did better, and if it was the only proven way in which able students could thrive.

The fact is, this evidence simply isn’t there. There is a very marginal improvement for the ‘most able and selected’ (not the same group as ‘the most able’) and a disadvantage for the upper middle and below, who are not selected, compared with fully comprehensive systems.

Very able students do well in many, many true comprehensive schools, up and down the country. What is very evident though is that ‘very able students who for whatever reason don’t do well in a 1-day test age 10’ don’t generally do well in ‘grammar / secondary modern’ systems, and would be much better off in a true comprehensive system.

The comparison with sport, music etc doesn’t really fly - as I know from experience as a parent, for those arenas, re-assessment and re-assignment is constant, not based on a test on a single day and then fixed. The journey ‘spotted, trialled, taken on, rigorously trained, re-assessed, kept, more training, re-assessed, dropped, return to lower level provision’ is a termly or annual cycle at every age for a young able child in sports / performing arts.

It doesn’t help that the 11+ is a really poor test, being neither accurate for the purpose it is used for, nor reproducible.

It’s being used, in theory, to identify ‘the most able 5/10/20% of children’ and differentiate them from the children at the 6th / 11th / 21st centile.

In fact, it selects different children each day, and each test (if the same cohort are given different 11+ tests, or even the same test on different occasions, different children ‘pass’).

It is good at screening out very low performers, those with SEN or life circumstances affecting learning or concentration, and those who are unprepared. So from the schools’ point of view, it’s fine for its purpose, as it removes from their cohort those children who are hardest to teach - those who struggle academically, those whose parents don’t engage with education for any reason or can’t afford coaching or who themselves cannot access the test content to prepare their children. There is no need for them to improve the test so it could genuinely do what it purports to do - identify the truly able and put a line between the ‘truly top x%’ and the rest.

Privileged children do not perform better in selective areas. And I thought grammar supporters claimed selection was better for clever children, not privileged ones anyway?

I’m just following on using the language and logic you used.

Allowing equal access to opportunities benefits both the individual and the nation as a whole. Having a system that benefits those who are privileged only benefits a small number of individuals but negatively impacts the majority and the nation as a whole.

This is a really important point - it is the single point of access at a young age that makes the grammar system so spectacularly stupid.

Yes.

Whereas in a true comprehensive, re-assessment and movement between sets is much more fluid and accommodates eg those exceptionally able in 1 subject and less good in another; those who develop later; those who show early promise but hit a bump in the road; those who come from less-good primaries but thrive in secondary etc etc.

They actually did this (not for sports) in the Soviet Union - everyone had to study everything at the same standard, those who really struggled to grasp the concepts and those who were bored witless.

But they didn't have a class system in the society as a whole 😁 And they still had a couple of specialist boarding schools for exceptionally gifted mathmos.

"True lefties" advocating for abolishing grammars and private schools in a fundamentally unequal society just don't understand what they are talking about. First you need to have a revolution 😂

Hmm. I remember my comprehensive (admittedly many years ago). It wasn’t all that fluid. The top set was filled with middle class children who did not speak with the local accent. My friends were floppy haired girls who played a musical instrument. Once the sets were decided pretty much no one moved in or out of the top set - because they were working at a faster pace. The top set acted more or less as a grammar set.

Agree 100%.

Both our DDs went to grammar school, both had tutoring (because every child has some form of tutoring around here). They both walked into the 11+ exams very relaxed and confident because they knew exactly what to do.

Their tutor explained that he couldn't teach them to have a higher IQ, but that he would teach technique and a few tricks of the trade. He drilled it into our DDs that timing is absolutely key, because they only had 25 seconds per question. He insisted they knew their times tables inside out & back to front, to help with speed in the NVR exam.

But, the result of tutoring is that the (already) clever children, who are already articulate, who are already benefitting from having educated parents, push the 11+ pass mark up and up and up. Consequently, a very bright child but from a more humble background, with uneducated parents, who doesn't get any tutoring is massively disadvantaged.

How does setting differ to selective grammar schools? It remains higher attainment groups vs. lower attainment groups. There are only about 5% educated by selective grammar school in the England anyway. Putting all these children back to local comp, it won't be a large number. I don't see how this small number of children could help lift lower attainments group grades. It will only make the stats for local school look better.

I think the focus should be more on how to lift the lower attainments, or create better pathways that are more suited for students interests, outside academic work. Students who do not perform as well academically do NOT equal to not able.

Having had a DC move sets like a yoyo in several subjects, my recent experience of fluidity is very different - but I appreciate this will be school dependent, and also dependent on perspective. Had I only had other DC - who never moved set in any subject - I would have perceived sets as largely static!

Exactly the same in our local comp. The sets are rigid and it's almost impossible to move to set 1 even from set 2 because there is just no space.

And how a "grammar stream" within a comprehensive is more fair for the lefties than a grammar school is just beyond me 😂

My point about grammar schools is that there are parents who really want them. I remember the Dame Alice Owen exam - they take about 65 children on academic ability but over 1,000 take the exam. Are all these parents wildly misguided? Or just looking out for their own children? It’s high handed to say that there shouldn’t be any grammar schools when so many want them.

How does setting differ to selective grammar schools?

In any number of ways:

• You are either in a grammar school for all subjects, or not, whereas you can be in top set Maths but set 3 English and set 2 Science, depending on your ability per subject.
• If you improve or decline academically in a comprehensive system, you can move sets. If ‘your set’ for that subject is in a totally separate school, you can’t access teaching at your level.
• The same teachers and subjects are available across the board in comprehensive schools. Whereas because of the prestige, sixth form teaching and relatively compliant pupil groups at grammars, they may find it easier to attract teachers - whereas secondary moderns may struggle in shortage subjects and may not teach some subjects such as languages at all.

There are many more - careers and university advice; perceived status (being labelled as a failure at 10); funding and buildings etc etc. There is every difference between ‘sitting in a particular class in the same building in the same institution’ vs ‘removed to a different school altogether’.

The difficulty is that in a ‘grammar vs secondary modern’ system, it is entirely rational to want your child to be in the ‘grammar’ part. As I have said before, able / higher middle / middle ability children who fail the 11+ or don’t take it and go to what are effectively secondary moderns are genuinely disadvantaged by comparison with their peers in true comprehensive areas.

Also, there is a further group amongst whom grammars are popular - parents who are naturally inclined to private education but would obviously prefer it to be free. In many grammar areas there is a whole industry of private primaries selling themselves as ‘grammar crammers’ - pay for primary and avoid secondary fees. How many of the latter pupils take their grammar place - and how very few take their secondary moderns place rather than a private secondary-I don’t know, but they swell exam-taking numbers.

Sorry-I don’t understand. Hey ho.