Research about grammar intake..

[seeker]

Someone told me that the had been some research recently about the "quality" - for want of a better word- of children starting grammar school declining, indicating an increase in coaching to the test of less suitable candidates. But she couldn't remember where she hqd seen it. Any ideas?

seeker if you saw offence when you didn't like a point of view, that's your problem. "The most offensive thing", well wakey wakey lovey.

You do seem to have a blockage with the point that in some grammars, the intake is of a "quality" far above the original top quartile concept, and lack of catchment is the main driver of so called super-selectives. Tutoring will not provide access for anyone who is not of that potential. These are simply academically selective non-catchment schools. Kids there do not struggle intellectually. Luck plays a part in any selection process.

Perhaps you live in one of the few remaining authorities that have a fair few grammars, and tutoring affects the 75-80th centiles. If that's your reality, well, it's not the reality of most of this country.

Hey ho, RL beckons, on to home #2...

We poorer classes found out that foolish competitiveness only gets bad outcomes. The emotional bruising apart. So we actually SHARE...

but must go, back later!

Well, I didn't even understand that!

Unless what you are saying is "My children are in a super- selective and doing great so fuck everyone else"? But I'm sure you're not- it only sounds that way.

slave grammars can be expected to do just that (go into deprived areas to reach out to bright kids). Indeed the way things have gone, they have a duty to do just that.

Pate's is a very good example.

schoolhelp I'm not sure what you base your views about the intake of super-selectives on: unfortunately intensive tutoring can skew the intake at these schools as well.

well seeker I think you know this is not about my kids, because we failed to get into the catchment comp we wanted, and they had reasonable fall backs [albeit with some inconvenience] if they hadn't made their grammar. But we're all old enough to know [even with my mental age of 5] that people tend to hear what they want unless they try harder.

You started the thread about the "quality" of grammar school kids. Which did not chime with the kids I see. But I see that in those residual grammar school counties, you'd get boundary issues at a lower level, hence the comments about children, who cannot be blamed for being lucky on the day.

What is it you don't understand about my community helping each other out, with what we discover about schools? It's not really that different from MN, except there is the bonus of a RL person and kids with RL needs. Makes up for our overcrowding, more than occasional missed meals [thank heavens for FSMs], swimming lessons, what are they?, but there is time to talk despite the grind, because there is no TV, no games, no heating, only hot water from kettles, so we do a lot together as a family to get ready for the world every day. The medical schools love it when you've spent every holiday for several years looking after a dying relative, because you know at 17 what dying is truly like and what the grind really is, but I guess some would see that as an outrageous advantage.

"fuck everyone else"? They're doing it very well already without our help. Just don't even fool us into thinking abolishing academic selection is helping. You have problems understanding what we value and the choices we face daily.

Are there two completely different threads going on here?

Well certainly schoolhelp's posts to me seem to bear absolutely no relation to anything I've said on this thread!

well seeker you seem bent on saying grammar school entry testing is the main factor denying brighter disadvantaged kids their social mobility. And ignoring the fact that it's the closed catchment aspect that matters to RL disadvantaged kids.

But you carry on focussing on what you want. Why not try to start a ballot, believe that's been tried twice and failed so far?

It's certainly not the catchment that prevents kids from the housing estate (an area of significant social deprivation) less than half a mike from our local grammar school getting in. But you carry on believing what you want to believe.

So are you going to walk the talk and get a petition to ballot for abolition? Surely "they" would sign and get to the school that way?

Pardon me for sniggering.

Can I just ask why you're so hostile to me, schoolhelp?

Not you, seeker, only the idea that academic selection contributes more to lack of social mobility than selection by distance. I think you mean well, we see different choices.

I think you may live in a grammar county, we don't. Good comp entry is much harder here than non catchment grammar. [We don't like the process for independents' bursaries either. Actually we can't afford it, almost all charge £30 just to apply, only one or two don't.] But it's free to apply for a grammar, and the travel is similar to the nearest undersubscribed comp... I'm happy for every single child that makes the grammar, if they were tutored they didn't choose those parents, did they?

There's enough experience of the comp system for grammar counties to avoid the worst mistakes if they really wanted to change things. But that isn't what most people want, it seems.

schoolhelp I have absolutely no idea what your point is.

It's not often I say that.

I do want to understand.

could you write a couple of simple short sentences outlining it?!

So grammar schools should only be a step out of disadvantage for children who have committed and motivated parents who are literate, have access to the internet and understand how the system works?

Of course not. But it is unrealistic to expect every GS to do a huge amount to encourage more people to apply when tey are already massively oversubscribed, and are already taking a significant number of pupils from state schools.

It's great to hear that there are schools out there that do reach out to deprived areas, but I generally base my opinions on GS's on the one that ds attends, and I know they are all very different.

DS's school only takes 100 children each year, and I think children came from 64 different schools at the last intake. That sounds like enough diversity to me, because they cover a huge area.

It would be much easier for GS's to reach out if they weren't continually at the bottom of the pile when it comes to funding because of the results they get, and parents do have to take some responsibilty for their own children. It can't and shouldn't have to be left up to the state to sort out all the problems parents create. And tbh, I can't see how a child with illiterate and/or unsupportive parents would cope at our GS, and it would be almost cruel to try and make them.

How do you mean, slave? What if they were supportive but didn't speak much English?

Well, a good start would be devising a test which did not actively discriminate in favour of middle class children!

seeker, I think that was the idea behind using VR and NVR tests. And these tests would do that if all the children came to it cold. However now parents have got wise to the fact children can be coached for them, it probably discriminates more in favour of MC children than tests based on the maths and English that they are doing at school.

I don't think a test exists that would avoid the advantages problem.

I don't think a perfect test exists either, but I don't see how the test my son took discriminates in favour of middle class children.

The English and Maths papers were based on what is covered in KS2, and the NVR/VR test is just that.

I think supportive but non English speaking parents would have children that cope ok, I can't see how it would be any harder for them to do well than it would in a comp. If they were that supportive, they would learn enough English to get by, or they would get their children to translate things they need to know.

Seeker, why do you have such a problem with middle class families? By your definition, I am middle class, although it certainly doesn't feel like I am. I have a much bigger problem with those parents that will happily send their child to my son's school, but would have had no problem sending them private if they hadn't got in. There is no way I could afford private, even on a generous scholarship.

Grammar school isn't just about social mobility in the way you come across as thinking it is, it's about teaching children in a way that suits them best and enables them to fulfil their full potential. Why do you seem to think that GS shoudl be reserved for the poorest families only?

Anyone that can't afford private school, either prep or secondary, should have equal right to apply to grammar schools.

The difference coaching and practice makes to VR/NVR is massive. It seems to me harder to make a difference to maths.

In many ways I think the fairest way would be to use SATs style papers, given that at least schools teach towards these, so no child would go into them totally blind. And yes, as I've seen people here arguing, anyone can buy a couple of books and practice. But that assumes that parents realise that their children are not prepared for the 11+ in any way at state schools.

Only part of the test is VR/NVR, so the children that are particularly good at maths and English still stand a chance. At least in this area.

In our area (Kent) children have to pass all sections (they do VR/NVR and maths, with an english paper that's only looked at in borderline cases). If they drop a bit in one section they fail - even if they have high marks on the other sections. And honestly the NVR in particular is such a speed test that children who haven't seen a paper before are really unlikely to pass, no matter how bright they are.

I am so middle class I'm practically a caricature of myself. And I am outraged that every year at my children's very socially diverse primary school I can predict which children will pass the 11 +. it is always the children of professional or graduate parents. Always. We are on the edge of an area of significant social deprivation- and I have never known a child from that estate get into the grammar school. Never. Not one. The grammar schools have, on average 2% FSM- that's an average. Which means that some have less. Only people who think poor people are intrinsically less clever than better off ones could possibly think that was right!

Round here it's VR only and children don't stand a chance unless they've had some sort of coaching, the familiarisation done in schools is nowhere near enough to get the sort of score required.

In dd's year I can think of at least two girls from non-grammar backgrounds who would certainly have passed or been very very close had they had the year-long coaching some children received.