What do we think about grammar schools giving priority to state pupils?

[Hathor]

A reported in the news today
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5671757.ece

Bet that is a good one for debate. Discriminatory or fair? I am undecided, although I suppose the whole grammar system itself is discriminatory.

Twinset

I think lots of comps do offer a really good education and I went to one myself. Most children in my son's class didn't bother to sit the 11 plus and would prefer for their children to go to the comp. They still expect their children to go to university, and they can achieve the results at the comp. I don't see an issue with that.

I don't think we can generalise about the grammar system because it is so varied; something is going on in Poole, and there is probably a lot more to come out about why they have made that decision.

Agree MillyR - all of the grammar schools around the country now operate with their own LEA sets of admission rules - some take into account local boundaries - some are purely on exam placing etc and some operate individually within their LEAs.

We would need someone from Poole to come on here and explain whats going on down there.

Raven

Yes, I couldn't afford a tutor; I bought books and it cost less than £30. You can do a lot of tests online for free and internet access is free at our local library. It is not a cost issue. My kids have always done lots of stuff at home such as fraction bingo, reading and code breaking spy books. Switching to past papers was just a continuation.

But some people would rather do other things with their kids as they think the 11 plus is not that important. And I think there is nothing wrong with that.

After DD "failed" and we realised how brilliant our local Comp actually is, we thought DS may just decide to go there as well. However, after visiting the Boys Grammar and christening it "Hogwarts" he was determined to go there, and whereas part of me couldn't face all that again (with possible rejection) I couldn't deny him the same chances his sister has had.

Our comprehensives are full of very bright, motivated children with supportive parents. There does seem to be an attitude that comprehensives are sink schools! They are very successful in my area, pupils regularly go to Oxford or Cambridge and top universities.
My DS went to the university of his choice, for the subject of his choice-if he had been to a grammar or independent he would have done the same.
I am very anti grammar schools and deliberately moved away from a grammar school area before my eldest was 11. I was very disillusioned, it is possible to get children in, with extensive drilling who shouldn't be there.
I still maintain that a really intelligent child (highly academic and above average)would win a place on their own merits. If they don't it is a national disgrace, it means that pushy parents are getting mediocre DCs a place at the expense of the the truly intelligent from disadvantaged backgrounds.They then defend grammar schools by saying that it is a way out for poor children, when they know perfectly well they would take the place for their own child if they could!

I have no objection to comprehensive schools but I do have serious objections to comprehensive schools that don't support their pupils, whether they are bright, average or need extra help. Unless my ds has sex change between now and 11 this is what he will have to go to if he doesn't pass the 11+ and hasn't been excluded from state grammar because he is a prep school boy.

Many many parents I know scrimp and save and sacrifice to pay the school fees up to 11 in the hope that their dc will win a place at grammar. I can just about afford school fees but there is no way I can afford them at secondary school level unless my ds is bright enough to get a scholarship. To say that all parents who choose private school at primary school age can also afford secondary school fees is rubbish.

I also don't believe in tutoring. In my day we did a couple of past papers in class and that was it. I had friends who passed but weren't expected to. They spent a miserable year at grammar before moving to secondary. I would rather that my ds was happy in school and I doubt that this would be the case if he was bottom of his class. Tutoring for 11+ also potentially means tutoring throughout grammar school life. I know of children who were so heavily tutored that they passed 11+ despite being near the bottom in their primary school class. What is the point of that? Just imagine the pressure that they are put under by their parents to achieve when academically they probably aren't up to it.

One of the heads I spoke to when I was doing school visits said how hard it is for parents to understand that their children aren't as bright as they like to think they are. I wonder how much of this tutoring rubbish is down to parents trying to make up for what they failed to achieve at school.

I hope when the time comes I am strong enough to support my ds as the person he is rather than what I think he should be or what I would have liked to have been.

Probably the problem comes in the comprehensives if the top is creamed off for the grammar, in my area we still have the brightest at the comprehensive and they do well in the league tables (never near the top because they have all abilities -but they do at least feature in the lists in the paper). It has done just as well for my dyslexic DS as my academic DS. However we moved to our present house purely because the schools were good.I accept that they are not the same elsewhere.
I agree totally with the tutoring MollieO.
People have the assumption that grammar schools are better, they are not better for their DC if they don't have a high IQ. They are only for the top band of DCs, they are selective, they are not for the average or slightly above average.
Most DCs are average-if they were all above average that would become the new average!!

"I hope when the time comes I am strong enough to support my ds as the person he is rather than what I think he should be or what I would have liked to have been. "

I agree, this is what everyone should be doing and not causing untold stress by trying to get their DC to jump through a hoop that isn't suitable in the first place.

Excellent post piscesmoon.

I work in a grammar school and the vast bulk of the intake come from state primary. However, it is a very successful school and in the last 2 years there has been a significant increase coming from private prep and also some poor mites coached to an inch of their lives who scrape through and then they struggle.

I'm no idealist. Every system has its faults unless you live in an area with one good school which every child attends. The random lottery in Brighton(?) is logistically fraught and, in the London Borough I used to live in, the state school intake is divided according to house price and also, broadly, according to ethnicity.

If this were to happen here (hypothetical as we don't have a grammar system) all that would happen is that instead of 15 kids from my outstanding graded state catchment school getting into the grammar,then 28 would.

It would not mean that any more kids from the struggling state primary in the socially challenging area 2 miles up would get in.

The kids who go to my catchment school are driven there in Range Rovers and live in 500k+ houses. The OFSTED states that on entry to Reception their attainment is well above average. What on Earth makes the government think that they need positive dicrimination? Believe me, they are well able to hold their own in the 11+ for entry into the highly selective independent senior schools.

This is just bullshit!

Exactly myredcardigan!

we will be tutoring for the 11+ and the common entrance (looking at independant or grammar).
The reason we will be tutoring is because dd's primary school does not teach maths etc in the same method that dd will be expected to use for the 11+.
We are not tutoring because we are middle class parents who do it because everyone else does.....

In my area, the two local comps are both failing and both under threat of closure. I have absolutely no intentions of sending my dd to either of those schools which is why we are going down the grammar/independant route.

Sorry, should have added;
dd is on gifted list at her state primary (although i don't think this means she is a genious ) so i am reasonably confident that she is intelligent enough to benefit from grammar school ed without the need for hothousing just for a test.
Hothousing i do not agree with at all by the way.

The socialists HATE grammar schools because they entrench privilege.

The conservatives LOVE grammar schools because they entrench privilege.

Discuss.

Oh.

You have.

I agree with children in local state primary schools getting priority (as long as they meet the standard, I'm totally against dumbing down to meet "class quotas") - although I know there's an issue with private tuition and I can also imagine kids being moved back into state schools at 9 to beat the system - it already happens at sixth form level to avoid any prejudice by universities against private schools.

My biggest gripe with most grammar schools, as I've posted on here before, is about what "local" means. To me, a school should serve its local community - not towns 10 and 15 miles away. Instead of picking the top 5% from a 30 mile radius to make sure they get the best (and then the teaching can be as rubbish as you like) they should be picking the top 25% from a 5 mile radius. That said, if only the top 5% are picked, that means there are an awful lot of very bright kids in the local secondary moderns, which is a good thing. We could do away with grammar schools if we had proper streaming in the comprehensives - but from what people say, that doesn't always happen - it's worth having the kids in the same school for all the extra-curricular activities. Or, we could move to a system where the kids choose at 14 rather than 11 - and note I say the kids choose. Of course, if they're never going to get above a GCSE grade G they should be quietly persuaded not to go to a grammar school, but most kids know what they want and where their abilities lie by the age of 14. Far more than at the age of 11 anyway. And why do we need tests at 11 - why can't we go on teacher assessment like they do in Germany (though they do it at 10 in some areas, later in others).

There's a grammar school in Kent where only about a third of the pupils come from the state sector. The rest come from local prep schools, and are effectively getting a free public school from age 13 up courtesy of the taxpayer.

Ladyarden, your post doesn't make sense. Why is it a free public school? Isn't that just an academically selective state school?

myredcardigan, technically you're right of course. But how many state grammar schools have two thirds of pupils from the private/prep sector? Not many I'd guess, but I could be wrong. If a state school starts at age 13 with state primaries in that county operating up to age 11, then you are indirectly discriminating against state applicants imo.