Ballot to abolish grammar schools

[zeolite]

With all the talk on catchments, here is the second ever ballot to abolish grammar schools (the first was in 2000, on Ripon Grammar, which failed):

www.reading107fm.com/newscentre/local-news/petition-launched-to-scrap-two-reading-grammar-schools-247

What do MNetters think?

[takes cover now]

Q:..."In areas that do have a GS, all parents have equal access to if if they make the right choices. And it's the parents responsibility at the end of the day. If the only reason a child doesn't have access to a GS is because they don't score highly enough in the test, then generally, they are not suited to a GS education. "

No, they don't. All parents do not have equal access. Not if they can afford to pay a Prep school's fees or nab an expensive private tutor. You might say 'But the truly gifted will get in anyway'. Perhaps, but they may well find themselves amongst rather less clever DCs who have been tutored to within an inch of their lives to get in, taking the place of a smarter DCs whose parents weren't in a position to manipulate their way in.

If the playing filed were level, I wouldn't have such a problem with the existence of GS. If the entrance exam was genuinely un-tutorable-for (see, with my GS education, I can make up words!) and the GS intake truly represented the academically most able, well yes, I could see a place for them. But why not integrate those DCs into a true Comprehensive?

You know what I think? I think that if all state schools could 'chuck out' their disruptive and disengaged students (to a PRU, for instance), we'd all be a lot happier with our 'clever' DC going to the local Comp.

As it is, GSs divide society, breed a sense of superiority in the 11+ 'successes' and can engender a life-long sense of failure in the rest. At eleven years old.

And you dont have to be "truly gifted" (whatever that means) to get into grammar school - you need to have been taught how to jump through a particular hoop. Nothing about a love of learning or intellectual curiosiit or genuine academic ability. Just a test. Which you can practice. On one day of your life. When you are 10.

Pah.

Seeker - it is true to say that the schools in bubblecoral's area are comprehensives, not secondary modern - there are not really enough children 'creamed off' by one girl's and one boys' grammar to make that much difference.

DS got into Reading School, DD didn't get into Kendrick (the girls' grammar) two years later; she went to the girls' comprehensive in Wokingham and her GCSE results were pretty much identical to DS's, and actually quite a lot better than many who did go to Kendrick. I'm actually not really sure what that proves - that the Kendrick's exam is flawed? that DD's comprehensive school had better teachers? Last time I looked, DD's school had a better value added score than The Kendrick, though not better than Reading School.

In fact the only school that had a better value added score than Reading School was the Catholic secondary - maybe someone should be challenging their admissions policy?

FSM is irrelevant. The difference is between interested parents that are engaged in their childs education and those who are not. That is not something that costs money.

Parents don't have to put their child in for the 11+ and risk them 'failing' in many areas. If that is the way it's done in other areas that I don't know about, them maybe that should change, but that's not the same as opposing grammar schools altogether.

Only one of my children is likely to benefit from the system, but the other has every chance of success because I care enough and am willing to put time and effort into enouraging the other, equally valuable, things that he is good at. Again, that is not something that costs money or that can be judged on my eligability to claim FSM.

Even if my child had not been granted a place at GS, I would not be able to see that the system is unfair. I would still be glad that there are children out there getting a good education, because it benefits society in the long run. And it wouldn'tbe any skin off my nose, I'm in control of the opportunities and support that my children have with their education, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

At the very least, it is no more unfair than plenty of other systems that are in place in this country.

you need to have been taught how to jump through a particular hoop. Nothing about a love of learning or intellectual curiosiit or genuine academic ability

If that's truly what you believe, then it explains a lot. But as has already been stated on this thread, many Reading school students don't come from prep schools. And apart from doing a couple of practice papers at home, my ds was not tutored. There are countless free practice papers on the internet, so that opportunity is available to everyone.

FSM is not irrelevant. The single most reliable indicator of children';s academic performance remains, sadly, parental poverty.

Financial poverty equals poverty of opportunity.

It sounds (apologize for my ignorance) that the system in Reading is not quite as ghastly as it is in Kent - althought I would need to know more about the impat on secondary places generally. But a huge education authority that seperates children into (largely) middle class sheep and (largely) working class goats at 10 cannot, I submit, be defended by anybody.

Some children can jump throught the hoop without help, of course.

I didn't, did, I? say anything abotu prep schools?Surely that's a different argument.

And you are wrong. Not everyone can access past papers. there are many parents who can't, or won't, or are too tired, disengaged, disadvantaged, depressed - to do that. A fair system would make sure that a child would not suffer because of their parents' deficiencies.

But how can you judge parental involvement? That's a lot more difficult to measure than FSM's and the outcomes of parental poverty versus parental disinterest.

There really isn't much of a system in Reading. You just apply to one of the GS's if you want to. I think you can apply from any area for Kendrick, but Reading School (the boys one) has designated areas. The designated area is huge though, and they take boarders from anywhere.

I honestly think the impact on secondary schools is absolutely minimal, and there are plenty of children I know of that are could have had a very good chance of passing the 11+, but their parents chose not to enter them because the comps are very good, or because they don't like the GS system, or because they simpley feel their children would be better off in the comps. I think the many private schools in this area are likely to have much much more impact on the comps, and if we went into that debate seeker, there's probably more we would agree on!

I was responding to a different poster about prep school seeker.

I think your view on a fair system being able to ensure a child doesn't suffer because of their parents deficiencies is very admirable, but also idealistic, and one I would agree with you on. But it won't happen, it's impossible. Parents rightly have too much responsiblity for their children for school to be the only thing that defines their success.

If you have grammar schools you don't by definition have comprehensive schools.

Murky question of definitions here.

In a fully selective area, like some parts of Kent, this is certainly true. The top 25% of kids get into grammar and theres no likely reason why anyone who does get in, would choose to go to a secondary modern instead. So the secondary moderns contain the remaining 75% of kids and are by definition no comprehensives.

However in many other places, you have one or two grammar schools catering to an entire county or large area. They might well take less than 1% of the population, and some of them don't have catchments so the effect on the local area is further reduced by the places being taken up by children from other boroughs. The vast majority of even extremely very local kids will not go to them either because (a) they didn't get it, (b) they or their parents didn't want to go through the hassle or potential disappointment of sitting the test, particularly if they have a good all-ability option anyway, or (c) it's not geographically convenient.

In these cases, the effect on other local schools will be be minimal, certainly nothing like in a fully selective system. The other schools will still have an ability range across the entire spectrum, but will lose a couple of nerdy geniuses they might otherwise have had. They will be far close to comprehensives in reality than to secondary moderns.

These debates often get confused by people not distinguishing sufficiently between these two grammar school situations.

I would be quite happy if it was a level playing field but it isn't. Some DCs get in on their own merits but it is perfectly possible to teach them to jump through the right hoop.
I much prefer the system in Reading where it gets the very best from a huge area and so the comprehensives have a high top end. When you sent your DD to the Holt school, RustyBear, you must have know full well that she was going to a good school, with lots of clever girls who could have got to Kendrick if they took the test, they were not all failed grammar school-most never took the test in the first place, parents wanting a local school, knowing it performs well in the league tables and gets good results.

Every time I read one of these threads I just thank my lucky stars we don't have grammar schools here.

me too ,hogsback

When we moved toa grammar chool area 16 years ago, it didn't cross my mind that it wouldn;t have been abolished by the time my then unborn child went to school!

I didn't even know that the grammar school system still existed until I came on MN

It was abolished here years ago

confidence- a fairly recent OFSTED report for a girls secondary school in Salisbury stated that although the school considered itself to be a comprehensive, it by definition couldn't be because its potential top tier was creamed off by the girls grammar. It then went on to say what an effective and good school this SM was, anyway.

So even OFSTED inspectors make the distinction!

My parents saw both sides of the old, universal grammar schools. Mum got scholarships to two of them (which meant free uniforms - the only way her parents could afford it) but Dad didn't pass the 11+ despite being a maths genius (he still is) because he'd not got the self-confidence in exams and just sort-of folded.

Mum promptly left school at 16 after school cert because her father gave her an ultimatum - stay on at school and quit seeing Dad or leave school and keep him. What a choice! Poor Mum (they have been married 56y now).

I didn't have a choice. Comprehensive all the way by the time I got to secondary. Still didn't stop me going to Uni. But when I got there... the place was full of (mostly) public schools and by grammars, all of whom had had markedly better teaching and career advice than I had. There weren't many comps! (This was the 1980s)

Now I live in a grammar area, and I honestly think I'd help fight to keep them. I spent 5y in a non-streamed, fluffy comp where competition was frowned on. In hindsight, I wish I'd been able to go to a grammar, though in the end (and isn't this the point?) I ended up probably where I would have done anyway. Just the hard way.

But I'm the sort of personality who likes exams and competition. Poor Dad wasn't. Yet he gifted me only some of his maths ability and here I am a career (PhD) physicist. But I always wonder what would have happened if he'd had the same life chances as Mum... and how many other brilliant children there are who never made it through the 11+.

Bubblecoral - my point is that you seem to be implying that a GS education is better than other state school options. And I am trying to understand why you think that.

I am lucky, I live in an area with all comprehensives, ralistically the only other option is private school. Further, the comprehensive my DC access is very good. I full appreciate that not everyone lives in an area with such good schools.

However, academically, my eldest (Y13) has pretty much identical results to my nephew (Y13, King Edwards Bham) and my Godson ((Y13 Tiffin Boys). All 3 are intrested in maths and science and applied to 3 unis in common - they all got offers from all 3. 1 applied to Oxbridge and was rejected, the other 2 did not. They are all predicted A*/As in their A2 exams next week (if they buckle down to revising but that's a separate thread)

IMHO putting the money spent on GS into improving comprehensives is a better way forward.
Or more controversially, if you want to keep selection, then select those who are turned off by education, or who have additional needs that make it hard for them to concentrate and not disrupt others, in a normal classroom setting, and let these children go the GS and take advantage of the (usually) superb building and sports facilities. These are the children that we continue to risk becoming the next generation of NEETS if we as a society don't acknowledge that we are failing this group and try something new.

An interesting thought:

If you took 2 schools, a co-ed GS (with a local catchment, so not unnaturally super-selective) and a comp, both situated in the same type of area in terms of socio-economic advantage or otherwise, ie trying to make the only variable the 11+. Note these schools are not in the same town!

Do you think the top 23% of pupils in both schools (ie the whole school, on average, at a GS) would achieve pretty much identical results at GCSE?

I do. (I think I can safely assume the Comp DCs will have been streamed into ability groups in lessons- less clever DCs don't necessarily do triple science, for example).

So why do we crave grammars (those amongst us who do!)?

IS it snobbery?

Is it the feel that the rarefied academic atmosphere of the GS suits our less robust DCs?
Do we fear 'the rough kids'?
Do we think 'the standard of teaching in a GS is better', even though the outcome may dispute that?
Do we like the school's ability to 'select out' as well as 'in' (as long as it's not our DC who gets outed!)?

Why?

confidence is absolutely right, all grammar schools do not fit into the same sort of system, so seeker and I are probably arguing from two very different perspectives. I mentioned earlier in the thread that I would not be so keen to live in Kent with the system they have there, and I can see that that would be divisive as Seeker rightly says.

Jgbmum, again, read the thread and my posts within it. I have not said that I think grammar schools equal a better education. I have said more than once that what is best for the individual child is what I think is most important. In our case, and with the schools we have access to, the GS will suit my ds's needs better. As I have also said before.

Erebus, I think you are right. But I can't answer the 'Why?' any more than I already have. But again i think it comes back down to what suits the individual. I have nothing at all against our local comp, and I believe that for ds2, it would be a much better environment. For a few reasons, but one of the biggest reasons being that they offer a broader range of subjects as GCSE options. That would be a big benefit to ds2, but irrelevant to ds1, who is likely to want to do the more traditional subjects. So I'm just thankful that we have the option and the opportunity to get what is best for each of my children's individual needs. I think (and obviously hope) that they could well end up coming out of school with simelar results, but the routes they need to take to get there are not the same.

My comp wasn't streamed for anything other than languages and maths. Everything else was on a form basis. I clearly remember having to sit through interminable lessons with a couple of disinterested pupils playing havoc with the teacher and stopping any of us learning.

By the time I got to 6th form I was regularly going to the town library to work after school for a couple of hours to try and catch up on the syllabus.

I was the only person in the school who got an A in maths that year.

So no, I don't think the top 23% would get the same results in a non-streamed school

But a streamed one might.

Trying to think back 13 years as to why I wanted DS to go to Reading School...

Partly because his (state) primary school teachers all suggested it, thought he was likely to get in and do well there

Partly because DS was keen - his best friend's brother was there and his best friend was almost certain to get in, and DS didn't like the catchment comprehensive.

Partly because DH and I didn't like the catchment (boys') comprehensive, or its head, either - when the head was asked about bullying, he pretty much said that the only boys who got bullied were 'odd' or 'different' in some way. As DS was very short for his age, I wasn't too happy about his prospects at a school with that kind of ethos. (Having heard from DD what a gay friend of hers went through at that school, I reckon I was quite right. I must point out that that head has now left and I have no idea what the ethos of the school is like now)

We actually put as our first choice the co-ed comprehensive which was next to DS's primary and where about 60% of his classmates went - in those days the grammar application was completely separate. But we didn't live in the catchment and it was extremely unlikely that we would have got in.

When it came to DD, I felt it was worth her doing the exam, though I was much happier with the girls' comprehensive that was our catchment school, and DD actually preferred it - if she had got in to Kendrick, we might have had a hard choice as to whether to send her there or not.

Neither DS nor DD had a tutor, or did more than a few practice papers, and DS's opinion was that the few who struggled in his year were all boys who had been pretty heavily tutored in order to get in.

moonbells- don't think you'd find many non-streamed comps in GCSE subject any more!

My DS1's comp is unusual in that it barely streams, just in maths in Y7, then MFL in Y8. However, basically, DC's who are very likely to fail a particular GCSE course don't even start it so only the 'able' are in the relevant lesson.

Interestingly the school has the highest GCSE results for a comp in the county.

Final point: I think the whole 'tutoring for grammar' thing is relatively recent. I'm talking perhaps 10 years or so? Springing from the me, me, me thing of the late 90's, perhaps?

Certainly when I went in 1973 (!) there was one girl from a prep there, the rest of us came from the village primaries.

Why do people thing that "comprehensive" equals "non-streamed"?