Anyone know if the % of low income kids going to grammar is any different to historical levels?

[tricot39]

That's it really..... Following from the other thread aboout the sutton trust report it struck me that bright low income kids have probably always had a hard time getting into grammar. I just wondered if there was any difference in % now that tutoring is more widespread amongst those with more disposable income?

I don't know but I would suspect it is more difficult now. My parents were from very low income families but got into grammar schools. We had no grammar schools where we lived so they worked longer hours to try and send us to a selective private (a lower one - not one of the really expensive ones but enough for it to be hard for them). I know a lot of people who 10 years ago would probably have paid private all the way through, now they pay private junior school and hope for grammar entry.

I think it probably is. I don't think there was the huge disparity in parental support we see in school now. Homework (in primary) would've been minimal. Children were expected to go outside and play after school.

I can only speak from experience - I went to an all girls' grammar school in the 1980s and there were 4 or 5 girls from one of the nearby council estates in my class - there were 4 classes of 30, so 10% or more say. This school is now a super selective with a greatly increased catchment area and places for out of catchment top scorers - current number of girls on fsm is only 2.6% - 6 years ago it was 6.2% - as the catchment area increases, the number of girls on fsm decreases.

How would they have measured 'poverty' 40 years ago?
In my area, some schools get over 60% of Y6 into grammar; some get less than 5% in. Guess which schools are in a deprived area! Guess which schools ask parents to tutor their children!

Just look at % male unemployment in 1971 vs. 2011 origin postcodes, would nicely indicate relative deprivation levels.

Given that they think 2 year olds living in poverty should go to school at 2 because they're so far behind I should think so.If this is the case how many would actually be of the standard required tutoring or not?

Also I suspect the benefit system has a lot to answer for.My dad was a very poor grammar school boy.He knew there was no safety net so worked bloody hard.

There is also the lack of outdoors and reading due to screens across the board.Both help raise standards immensely and I suspect poorer families have less of both due to cost and lack of green spaces in poorer areas.

Primary schools have a bigger impact than tutoring imvho and poorer kids are more likely to go to shite primary schools.Ban private pupils from sitting the 11+.

There wasn't any discrimination in the days when the 11 plus was universal. If you passed it you went to grammar school or a grammar school equivalent regardless of your parent's economic status.

Home work in my late 1950s primary school was non-existant! And we certainly weren't heavily coached in top Juniors...

I don't recall there being a preponderance of privately educated pupils at my grammar school and I don't think that parents went in much for extra tutoring.

This topic has come up on another forum I'm on recently;out of interest I found an example of the kind of paper I would have taken and it was pretty straightforward (but then, I passed it all those years ago). I'd be curious to know what a 'modern' 11 plus exam looks like. Anyone have any links to free examples?

both my dps went to grammars in the 1950s from working class background. dad from the penbury estate, Hackney.

mum in law also went but had to leave at 16 to get a job.

My DM went to grammar school back in the late 40s. My GPs werent well off at all. They had only moved to the area in the previous year and had a small nursery growing tomatoes and cucumbers. The school she went to was a direct grant grammar school which I think took 35% of its intake on 11+ and county exams and the rest were paying boarders.
There were 6 from her primary school that passed the exam. Unfortunately my DM never got round to taking exams. She had a medical problem that she had grown out of, but my DGM was worried the stress of exams would bring it back so she took her out of school at 15 and got her a job at the local sawmills

Grammar schools pre 1970 are not the same as Grammar schools today.
For a start they are predominantly in a few pockets of the country
therefore an utter irrelevance to most parents
but in those areas have progressively become havens for the aspirational middle classes

I suspect that this website has had an impact on the matter - because sharp elbowed mums have been able to compare notes without being overheard at the primary school gate

I went in the 1970s, we were all from a very wide range of backgrounds and looking back I can't recall any of us caring in the slightest about each other's 'socio-economic' situations - you either liked people for who they were or you didn't. Maybe some came from private schools, but they were in the minority if they did. I don't recall it costing my parents any more money for me than it did for my comp-educated sisters. I remember some other kids calling us grammar girls 'snobs' but it wasn't really serious or worried about. What I do know is that a couple of boys I knew who passed the 11+ weren't allowed by their parents to go to the boy's grammar because it was supposed to be 'snobby'. Everything is so different now - people tend to care more about what you have materialistically and what you look like than what you are like inside. Private schools are probably more comparatively expensive now so those with money will try and do what they can to get their children into a decent school and there are also a lot less grammars now so competition for places is fiercer. Today's state primary education system is practically useless for most children - it's even worse for poorer children because the default position from educationalists is that they are automatically disadvantaged academically simply because they are poor, therefore automatically placing these children at an academic disadvantage!! So, yes, I think there is a much lower % of poor children at grammars today, and our society suffers because of it.

Where I live we have grammar schools available and all children take the 11+ unless their parents pull them out. I went through this system nearly 50 years ago. The grammar school pupils were much more of a mixed group then but my God were we coached! In school! No-one had private lessons but every morning at school, for 2 years, as we did 10+ and 11+ we did verbal reasoning, maths, and English as required for the test. Also timed tests at home to get up to speed. History, Geography, Sciences, Drama, were either virtually untaught or we might do a bit of music and art in the afternoon. Although we all took up our places at grammar school, it was very common for poor people not to take up the place, and still happens now believe it or not! I was not aware of a single child at my grammar school who had come from a private school. There were none where I lived.
The cost of my uniform was astronomic. At the time my Dad earned about £22 a week and my uniform was 3 times this. That's why poor people couldn't go! Poor children suffer now because they don't have tutors, the schools are not allowed to coach, and their general knowledge is insufficient. Doing the national curriculum is not enough, you have to have a quick, agile mind, read enough to have a good vocabulary and be numerically good as well as the ability to do the tests in the time allowed. It is very unfair to children whose parents cannot coach, or afford to coach, and who are not exposed to all the things they need to do to enhance their chances. All the children should have after school coaching clubs for free to level the playing field. I believe Cambridge University has found that far more level 5 middle class children get a grammar school place than their poorer counterparts. Guess who go to the poor schools too!

I went to a grammar school in the 80s, it was full of middle class kids with a very light sprinkling of working class kids - the idea that it gave opportunities to poorer kids was bullshit back then I imagine it much worse now.

State education is under 80 years old. Before that, only low-income children bright enough to win a schoarship would have attended. From 1940-1970, it was probably at its most 'needs blind' - and that was the period which also produced the only state educated Prime Ministers.

i started grammar school in 1989
i was the only child from my council estate to go that year, and one of six from my primary school to pass the 11+.

at my grammar school, a good third of the intake was from one independent primary school, whose raison d'être was to pretty much guarantee an 11+ pass for all of its students. lots of the girls from this school struggled to keep up once there. so IME buying your way into grammar school is nothing new.

free sample 11 plus papers for Essex here:
www.csse.org.uk/
(they are changing for next year though)

My daughter has recently joined the 6 th form of a highly regarded grammar - she says only about 10 out of 120 in her year group are not from affluent backgrounds. Many have previously attended private "feeder" primaries or join the 6th form from private schools; a large number are from professional backgrounds. However, I would still assert that many of her contemporaries are, for what ever reason, significantly above average in their capacity to learn - the majority take 4 A levels (with a significant minority taking more).

My daughter will hopefully be the 2nd member of her extended family to go to university. I was the first, having attended a selective school in the 70s - both my parents and her father's parents left school at 14. Whilst not perfect, the grammar school system did/does provide some chance of social mobility.

Thanks, Suffolkgirl. I think I would have failed that at 11! The passage of Hardy alone would have been daunting reading (though I'm pleased to say that I recognised it as Hardy before I read the instructions which named it...)

And the maths was hard for my 11y old self.

It did provide social mobility for a minority of "poor" children but if you went to university Mitzi, that is not your daughter as you have broken the mould, as my sister did in our family. Both my parents were forced to leave their grammar schools at 14 and 15 years old in order to earn money. No-one valued university for them and this was repeated over and over again ensuring bright people never got a proper chance, even at a grammar school. It is a total myth that all grammar school pupils went on to university and compete with privately educated people. They did not! You undoubtedly can offer support and inspiration to your daughter and you want her to have the type of education you enjoyed, but I bet your daughter did not go to a failing primary school where if 2 out of 55 go to a grammar school, it is a record! It is children from these types of schools who need to be inspired but they need the coaching as well. We accept that poor achieving 4 year olds need help, but not under-achieving 11 year olds who should, but do not, get to a grammar school. Where I live, it is a total disgrace.

More than coaching they need a decent primary education which ensures they leave with a high level of numeracy and literacy.Without this coaching won't get you a place.

I really think private pupils should be banned from entering.There would be more places available obviously and I think standards in local primaries would go up.The sharp elbowed middle classes are often more confident,pushy,knowledgable and have higher expectations.More of this in lack lustre primaries would help all children.

Sounds horrible but there is no nice way of putting it.

Littlesiouxiesue - I am aware that I broke the mould rather than my daughter. I am not suggesting that she is one of the "poor" She has had a mixture of state and private education. I was (clumsily) making 2 different points:

1, that the majority who now attend are from wealthy backgrounds

1. without the grammar school system, I would not have gone to university.

My parents both did the 11+ back in the early 50s. Dad passed and Mum didn't. Interestingly, Mum got a second chance and did the 12+ and was moved to grammar school. Dad went to university and Mum didn't do A levels, but went on to train as a maths teacher for secondary modern schools. These kids didn't need teachers with degrees like the grammar school kids! Mum came from a pit village, and says many of the kids left to do factory/mining jobs because their families needed the money. Some left without taking exams. Work was plentiful. I went to grammar school too. 12+ in the 70s in a Bucks. There were a couple of girls from prep school - identifiable by their lovely italic writing! There was one girl who moved from the secondary modern school. Turns out she'd passed her 12+ but not well enough to get into her first choice so was offered a school further away and her parents couldn't afford the transport.

We are all forgetting that many of the sharp elbowed middle classes were supporters of comprehensive education because they didn't like it when their little darlings didn't get into grammar school. I think comprehensive education is fantastic. Our problem is that our media don't travel outside London much. And London doesn't have comprehensive education.

maizied
There wasn't any discrimination in the days when the 11 plus was universal. If you passed it you went to grammar school or a grammar school equivalent regardless of your parent's economic status.
It wasn't a straight pass/ fail though. There were also interviews where children were also assessed. New clothes were bought and children and parents were checked out. It certainly wasn't a academic only selection. The uniform was often very expensive too. Anecdotally London grammar schools in the 50s had a very mc intake.

Forget needing just decent primaries we need decent secondaries - we are fortunate enough to live in an area free from grammar schools - instead we have excellent state comprehensives that send kids to Oxbridge among many other excellent universities every year.

Noooo to comps.Not all send kids to Oxbridge.Choice is what parents want.Without descent primary education kids are fucked long before they get to secondary internationally let alone nationally.