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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Research about grammar intake..

69 replies

seeker · 29/11/2011 07:29

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?

OP posts:

Hullygully · 01/12/2011 17:49

seeker - can you not speak to the head and suggest that all possible candidates are either coached/helped, or parents spoken to?

Trouble is, most state primary heads disapprove of the system.

randommoment · 01/12/2011 17:54

I have read this thread from top to bottom and remain completely bewildered by it.

VivaLeBeaver · 01/12/2011 17:54

I still have no idea if schoolhelp thinks grammar schools are a good thing or not. very confused.

Hullygully · 01/12/2011 17:55

I don't think school help knows either...

Original poster

seeker · 01/12/2011 17:57

In Kent, schools are expressly forbidden to offer any sort of coaching beyond a familiarisation paper. Some schools do, obviously, but they wren not supposed to.

OP posts:

Hullygully · 01/12/2011 18:05

It's daft though, isn't it? (Am also in Kent) as the only dc it disadvantages are the ones without clued-up parents.

At my dcs school ALL the kids had coaching (mine didn't apart from papers at home)

ElaineReese · 01/12/2011 18:19

@Slavetofileofax I think every child should have access to a grammar school

Does the problem with that need pointing out?

slavetofilofax · 01/12/2011 18:33

Elaine, err, yes it does, especially if you aren't going to quote me in the context of me post.

Seeker I think after all the posts I have read of yours about grammar schools, I finally understand why you feel the way you do about them! I would probably feel the same as you if I saw that every day too.

ElaineReese · 01/12/2011 18:38

The only way you can make every child has entrance to a grammar school would be to get rid of the entrance exams, surely?

Even if every county had the 11+, not every child within it would have access to a grammar school, would they?

slavetofilofax · 01/12/2011 18:49

I didn't say every child should have entrance to GS.

And access to a school does not mean getting a place there. It means having one in your area that you could access on a daily basis, that ideally regularly accepts children from the area in which you live.

ElaineReese · 01/12/2011 18:53

Oh, so there should be one nearby every child, which the vast majority could fail to get into?

ElaineReese · 01/12/2011 18:54

You said they should have 'access'. So does that mean access in its lesser used sense as 'the chance to be turned away from'?

jeee · 01/12/2011 18:55

Why does nobody ever call for a return to the Secondary Modern system? Because that's the reality of the 'Grammar school' system for the majority of children.

slavetofilofax · 01/12/2011 19:15

Nobody calls for the secondary modern system to come back because it was crap, but it's not teh only alternative for what we have now.

The system doesn't have to be full of secondary moderns and grammars. It works fine in the area I live in, and we have one boys and one girls grammar school, which takes the top 5% over a huge area. The rest are good comprehensives.

So does that mean access in its lesser used sense as 'the chance to be turned away from'?

No. In ds's school dictionary, (I checked!) access means a way in, or the right or opportunity to use something or see someone.

That's how I meant it.

Obviously.

tallulah · 01/12/2011 19:29

The flaw in your argument seeker is that primary Heads have to say whether or not they agree a particular child is grammar ability and the parents have to agree to put them in for the test. If nobody for that particular estate goes to grammar that suggests that either their parents don't want them to sit the test, the Head won't endorse them, or they just aren't clever enough.

ElaineReese · 01/12/2011 20:28

No, the rest are not comprehensive, because the top 5% have been taken away.

How does the 'right or opportunity' to use something work, if the very function of the thing in question is to reject the majority of children to focus on the few? Would a child have access to it regardless of how good it was as passing tests? No it would not. So every child would NOT be able to access a grammar school. Ever. That's the whole point of grammar schools!

slavetofilofax · 01/12/2011 21:15

Of course they can access it! If they don't get a place that is a different thing. We are obviously using the word in two very different ways.

If every child were to actually get in to the GS, it wouldn't be a GS would it? And there is a reason for that. A super selective GS education simply won't suit the majority of children.

And why shouldn't very intelligent children be catered for differently to those with below average academic ability? Not catered for better, just different. Children are not all the same, and we shouldn't try to educate them as if they are. They all go on to different types of FE or jobs, so why do we expect them all to fit in to the same school mould. The point is to try and do what is best for each individual. Fair does not mean the same.

The top 5% are taken off, but only if their parents choose for them to take the test, and many don't, because the rest of the schools are comprehensives! I know there are areas where that isn't the case, but I can assure you that it isn't like that here. And that 5% is taken from such a wide area, over four counties, that it makes no difference at all. Private schools will make a much much bigger difference to the comprehansives than the one GS ever could.

Original poster

seeker · 01/12/2011 22:43

If it was the top 5% it would probably work out ok- 95% makes damn nearly q comprehensive school. But in Kent, which I think is the biggest lea still to hqve the system, it's 23%. And a school without the top 23% of the ability range is by no stretch of the imagination a comprehensive school.

OP posts:

slavetofilofax · 01/12/2011 23:00

I completely agree Seeker. I'm sure you and I have had this same converstaion before and come to the conclusion that our two areas are very different, and that the types of GSs have a very different impact.

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