grammar schools. and the point is?

[threadbare]

im fed up hearing recently about such and such has got a place at the local grammar school. our local comp is an excellent school but when people get places at the grammar they start to dis the comp. its pi**ing me off.
(may have spelt grammar wrong so await tirade of verbals)

so students who struggle at private schools get lots of help , and thats a good thing but students who struggle at comps and get lots of help is a bad thing?
arent mixed ability groups a good thing then and isint this system just upping the standard continually and unrealistically.
what is the point!

Also, you are wrong in saying that 'the top set gets less attention as there grades won't have a negative affect on the school.'

One of the things OFSTED look at closely is the number of students achieving A*/A against targets. A school cannot be classed as 'good' or 'outstanding' if these targets are not met.

as i said kingrolo i'm 31 so it's been a while.
my cousin attended local comp and got excellent grades and is now flying through uni, he was not held back at all but he wasn't pushed either.
what about in areas where there are still lots of grammar schools so a lot of higher achievers go to grammar school, the few who go to the comp are going to stand out even more aren't they? imo cleverer pupils at comps get picked on for being swatty and doing their homework, that's not nice.

i think saying they get picked on it a myth (round here anyway).

threadbare - i don't think it's a bad thing for anyone to get extra help whatever school they are at.

thanks rolo my son loves his local comp school.

Why would you think mixed ability groups are a good thing?

xtc, it's true here. maybe area makes a big difference?

i don't know, guess it goes on in all schools to a certain extent

xtc- entrance to Grammar is based purely on academic results in our authority- absolutely no link to where a child lives, and some children travel miles and miles each day to attend their schools.
There are over 20 applicants per place, and roughly 5% of the population get a grammar school place- they are highly coveted.
The standard of schooling is excellent- our grammar schools are always in top 100 schools, several within top 20 usually.
This is in an authority with extremely high deprivation levels- amongst highest number of children in poverty in the whole of UK, if not the highest (cannot remember off top of my head).

I think grammar schools are a good thing, providing a high quality academic education for brighter children. For many years, grammer schools represented a chance for people from poorere homes to gat ahead in life, and I think it's a shame that this chance has been removed from so many children these days. The fact thats they're so over-subscribed theses days surely suggests that many parents feel the same way.

I never saw the logic of getting rid of grammars because secondary moderns were so bad. Why not do somewthing instead to make secondary schools better and provide a decent education that would make the most of the potential of the secondary modern pupils - for example a mnore technical education, laerning skilled trades, etc?

Apologies for the typos above.

Looking at the drafts of entry conditions for 2010 for some grammars, it appears that some that didn't apply distance criteria in the past will be doing so in the near future.

According to my cousin it's the pupils who are expected to get B/C grades that get left to their own devices in her school. The really bright ones are pushed to get A*s and the lower sets are helped to get higher grades but those that are just average aren't really bothered about.

I disagree scarletlilybug. I was a 'poor' kid who got to grammar but I would not want to see a return of such a divisive system, based entirely on performance on one exam on one day.

Secondary moderns still exist in grammar areas - they just have a different name. The attainment and quality of schools gets polarised. You can't say that just because you don't pass the grammar test you need to have a technical/trade education - plenty of those who failed the 11+ are quite capable of an academic route and vice versa. It's not all black and white - there are shades of grey.

Where I live now borders on a grammar catchment area, and the impact on quality of secondary schools is very, very noticeable.

because we live in a mixed ability world?

I have one child at a selective Grammar, and one at local Comp. Fortunately BOTH schools are excellant and both suit the individual child's needs very well.

Another of our local comp's was put on special measures this week - it is those kids I feel for! The gulf widens between the good & the failing - but 2 comps near here are very sought after, 1 is improving, 1 new failing & another 2 I would Home Educate before considering.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with you Milliways

Lol! But you live on the "right" side of the tracks, with more "good" schools.

You cannot have both 'Grammars' and 'Comps' in the same area. By definition the Grammars take the able kids therefore leaving the comps with an unequal mix - so they will not be the same type of comps as exist in the areas with no grammar schools. Course many comps in areas without grammars are similarly denied the children of aspirational parents by the prevalence of faith schools but that's a whole other thread.

You can have grammars and comps in the same area. I grew up in Salisbury which has a girls' grammar, a boys' grammar, a girls' secondary modern, a boys' secondary modern, a mixed secondary modern and 2 comprehensives. Plus private schools.

The point of this thread, apart from another opportunity to slag off grammar schools, is?

Georgimama is right - we used to live in Southend which had both comprehensives and grammar schools. Pupils did not have to take the 11+, and I have no doubt that there were children who decided not to sit it, but who would have gained a place at the grammar schools had they done so.

All of my ds's sat the 11+, and two passed high enough to be given places at grammar schools (they kindly chose different ones so that we had to get two lots of uniform etc), and the third didn't pass high enough, so was given a place at our catchment school, which is a comprehensive school.

We felt that the grammar schools had higher expectations of their pupils academic standards and behaviour - and in fact, for me it was the behaviour aspect that swung me towards the grammar schools. I believe that a teacher who has to spend a significant amount of teaching time simply getting the class to behave and listen, is not going to be able to teach them as well as one whose pupils know that they are expected to sit quietly and work - and it was my perception of our local schools that this was far more the case in the grammars than the comprehensives.

Now we've moved, all the boys are or will be going to the local comprehensive, and I am very happy with that indeed. This school has high standards of work and behaviour, and expects a lot of its pupils. If our local comprehensive in Southend had had similar standards and attainments, I would have been more than happy for all the boys to go there.

Dh and I have always chosen what we believed would give our boys the best possible ecucation, wherever we lived. Does that make us 'aspirational parents'? Perhaps it does, but surely that's a good thing? Are there any parents on here who do not aspire to the best education for their child? I doubt it.