Is this a reasonable question to ask a Secondary school, and should they be able to give me an answer reasonably quickly?

[seeker]

We like in an all selective area, and 23% of children go to grammar schools.

Would it be reasonable for me to ask the High School what % of their cohort are likely to start year 7 with level 5 SATS?

Well you see Mayslips, your point would be well made if the school of which I have experience wasn't populated with a lot of MC kids, not a Grammar school to be had in the county or an Independent school for miles.

missed the bit about the 11+

I know children at F* that have got As in gcse, and have gone on to degrees.
and one who's doing a masters.

i am impressed with the facilities at W*

I didn't say a few MC kids would solve the problems of all schools (!) or that a school with MC kids can't have bad behaviour (I went to a private school so believe me I know that family background is no guarantee of good behaviour!). Nor am I saying that all state schools would be perfect if every local child went to them. But schools are affected to some extent by their intake, and by how much people with power are forced to care about whether they're good or bad, and their intake and that concern for them are both affected if certain types of children never go there (and in some areas that is 'never' not just 'not quite as many'). So, private/selective school choices have effects, as well as causes. I think criticisms of state schools that don't at least briefly acknowledge that fact are missing out an important point, that's all.

Lots of generalisations about non grammar state school parents. They're not all low income, low aspiration! Very insulting.

When the grammar school system was universal, many many working class parents proved staunch supporters of their childrens' education. Those same children now head up some of the most successful schools, universities, the legal system, political parties etc. etc.

I don't imagine that working class or immigrant aspiration shrivelled and died with the demise of the grammar school system, it simply made it that much harder to realise.

I don't think anyone has siad that on this thread yellow have they?

Yellowtip (with a possible exception for one poster) I don't think you can justify your comment.

I'm certainly not saying that. There's a difference between power and resources and character, and some parents have power and resources that others don't, and that can feed back into schools regardless of people's characters. Or it can be used to buy alternative schooling. How many people do one rather than the other makes a difference.

I'm not sure it's explicit, but it's certainly implicit, yes.

'I'm sure there are schools where middle class flight has had an impact'.

That sort of comment carries with it the implication that the middle classes act as proselytizers, spreading the virtues of aspiration without which the working classes go to the wall.

I know some extremely indolent OEs and other public schoolers who've relaxed into parentally subsidised comfort in their twenties - a bad advertisement for their education, that's for sure.

I mentioned aspiration in my post only because that's the sort of thing some critics of state schools say - the point I was making was that if they believe that to be the case (that state schools are rubbish because pupils have low aspirations), then they should acknowledge that their collective act of rejecting certain schools (because they think their kids are more aspirational and will be dragged down) can have a role in that. Not that I think aspiration is some kind of moral virtue. People do vary in their aspiration, and it is related to some extent to what they're used to seeing around them. We don't all start as blank slates unaffected by our backgrounds. My children are very unlikely to grow up thinking of 'cabinet minister' as a realistic, normal job possibility; others from different backgrounds are far more likely to think of that it is. The same goes for running a business (big or small) - no one in my family has ever done that, we've only ever been employed, but to others that will seem much more normal. It's not insulting to me or my kids to acknowledge that.

yellow you appeared to have deliberately cherry picked that comment out of a longer post where I question its general validity and application!
You have deliberately missed the point where I say I dont believe a few middel class DC can make a difference tp the state schools I'm involved in.

Talk about scrabbling to score points.

But you can't win on MN. Some posters will lambast you for abandoning the state system when you should be doing your utmost to help improve it, only for other posters to tell you state schools don't need your help thanks very much for asking.

It's much like those arguments that say it's wrong to buy privilege, only to be shot down buy those saying you've wasted your cash

I suppose it depends whether you class 'aspiration' as a fundamental character trait (with moral judgment attached) or as something determined mainly by environment (the examples of what friends, families and neighbours do). Personally I wouldn't call it a fundamental character trait.

But let's be very clear here the person who started this thread was not a private school parent with no idea of the state system. It was seeker a strong defender and user of the state system.

I don't think seeker's problem is a state v. private one, it's a skewed state v. normal state one. But she has been challenged on why she doesn't solve the problem by going private. At least that's how I understood it.

Yes, that's right.

seeker is as much a critic of the grammar system as she is the private system. She considers both entirely unfair on the majority of DC.

I think we all consider both of those systems entirely unfair on the majority of DC wordfactory, do we not?

yes, in this area, it's very unfair on the children.

whether you go to a good or bad school is decided by the passing of one exam when you're 10/11.
it's even worse now you take the exam at the beginning of year 6, instead of in january.

but it's horrid that if you don't pass that exam, you're essentially thrown on the dump.
at 11 years old.

it was one of the reasons why the comprehensive system was invented.

word the idea of trying to score points on MN is a very curious one. Is that what I ought to be doing ?

pickled I don't consider the grammar system inherently unfair provided the alternative is as good, but different. It's targeted. It's pretty bad at the moment because there are reservoirs of selection here and there which queers up the rest of the system. A decent overhaul is very long overdue. But there has to be an exam to select at some point: why not at the start of Y6? It's not really viable to leave it much later.

" But there has to be an exam to select at some point" Why?

@pickled I certainly don't consider the existence of grammars to be unfair on the majority of DC. I consider the lack of grammars to be unfair. And I have one DC at a superselective, one DC at the local comp where practically everyone from the primary school goes, and one DC still at primary and who knows where she will end up (probably one of the other two schools mentioned, but there is a markedly less selective grammar off in the distance the other way so maybe she will end up there. Or even go posh. I might have had a big promotion by then, who knows. And her best friend goes to the very posh school and she would likely get a scholarship - especially if, instead of a promotion, I downsized my job (a very real option in a few years time)).

The comp is getting our input for what it's worth. Why should DD1 be forced to go there too?

The evidence in Trafford is that the kids in high school do very well, I believe.

Seeker- "but there still has to be an exam at some point" why?
How else do academically selective schools select? Lots of children are working at level 5 and beyond, fwiw, in my dd's year 6 class there are roughly 60% at level 5, with at least 10 pupils being given level 6 extension work.
They must all still take the exams, some will pass easily, while who knows, others may not? How would you like the system to work?

seeker I can't quite make out if you are in favour of grammars or not. Because (forgive me if this is simplistic) if you despise the system, how come your DD is at one and you put your DS in for the 11+ too?

Why an exam? Well it seems a pretty reasonably way to select again.