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Secondary education

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Original poster

Another thread about tutoring

547 replies

PooshTun · 19/05/2012 17:02

Elsewhere there is a rehash of the usual tutoring versus no tutoring arguments.

There are those who argue that schools should not select kids based on a 11+ since it favours kids that are tutored as opposed to kids who have natural ability. As the saying goes, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions ie how would you fix the selection process?

Please, if you want to simply ban selective schools then start your own thread. I am interested in ideas from parents who are in favour of grammar schools but think that there should be a better way of allocating places.

I agree that the existing process is unfair but in the absence of a machine that measures true intellence or a test that you can't possibly be tutored for I don't see what can be done to make the whole selection process fairer.

OP posts:
seeker · 23/05/2012 10:19

Yes. Why?

Hullygully · 23/05/2012 10:21

That's why Chukra (now 11 plus forum) was set up - a free resource for past papers and online tuition to give all kids a chance.

Of course you need lengthy access to a computer...

pickledsiblings · 23/05/2012 10:24

Because it is gestures like that that can make a difference.

Don't the Heads of Primary Schools seek out good schools for their bright pupils? I am sure you know that that is a big part of a Prep School Heads remit.

seeker · 23/05/2012 10:43

But somebody's access to a vital resource shouldn't be dependent on a charitable gesture from Lady Bountiful!

SoupDragon · 23/05/2012 10:52

"parents who for whatever reason can't support their children through the 11+ are so going to be able to find an independent school that offers 100% bursaries and apply for one!"

They are also unlikely to be able to support their child though education full stop. Being able to be an involved and committed parent doesn't stop at the point you get your child into X school.

MarysBeard · 23/05/2012 11:00

I don't think poor = thick or rich = clever, but there is a link between how well parents did at school & how well their kids will get on...but the purpose of school, or free education for all anyway, is surely to try and break the chain of, say, low expectations breeding low expectations & ensure that the whole of society becomes better educated.

Schools have had some success with this if you look back to the Victorian era...though there is still a way to go and more recently society has become less equal again.

MarysBeard · 23/05/2012 11:03

However the purpose of some schools & universities seems to be to ensure the so called "elite" are self-perpetuating...partly the reason for the lack of good politicians at the moment...

Original poster
PooshTun · 23/05/2012 11:07

seeker - If that is what you believe then why do you think that removing selective schools will increase the opportunities available to poor people?

That poor under achieving kid will still have the same parent that is "too tired/depressed/demoralised to be as supportive as they would like". Except now he will be in a class that is next to another class full of ex GS kids.

To use a silly analogy, you don't wan't to improve my tennis game. You just want the professionally trained kids to have a cheap wooden racket like mine so that their advantage is minimised.

OP posts:
seeker · 23/05/2012 11:12

No. A disadvantaged child in a comprehensive school at least has the chance to break into the top set. He has no chance at all if the top set is at a different school which he has been told at the age of 10 he is not good enough to go to.

seeker · 23/05/2012 11:17

And to continue your tennis analogy. You are in the position to give your child a flash carbon fibre racket- another child might only get a broken wooden owe from home. So that child needs to be in a school where the carbon fibre ones are available. Not where they have all been taken down the road to be given to the kids who have one already!

Original poster
PooshTun · 23/05/2012 11:31

Seeker - Do you want to have a word with the posters upthread who think that there is nothing wrong with comprehensive schools? I'm asking because you seem to think that being in the top set of a comprehensive makes that child a lesser person then a GS kid.

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seeker · 23/05/2012 11:34

No I don't. If you are in a grammar school area there are no comprehensives. There are a couple of places where there is a supselective that only takes the top 5%, so I suppose the other schools there could be called comprehensives. But this does not apply to most grammar school areas.

Metabilis3 · 23/05/2012 11:39

@Marysbeard Exactly. the elites are once again self perpetuating (and check out the proposals for tax reform from the IOD - abolish inheritance tax and increase BRIT to 30% but abolish the higher rate(s) - yet another move in this direction). For a vanishingly brief period - from the Butler Act till the impact of Crosland was properly felt - this was challenged by the existence of the 11+ for all (working class kids could and did get scholarships to grammar schools before 1944 - both my parents did - but it depended on factors such as where you lived and, in my mum's case, being billeted as an evacuee with wonderful educated people who completely transformed her life). But now, it's the same old same old. Those who can buy privilege - either through buying in a good catchment area or by going private - are utterly determined to cut off the access of anyone else who might benefit from a proper academic education from getting that education. And then they tell those people that it's for their own good and it's 'fair'. One of the bigger cons that has been perpetrated on the public.

HandMadeTail · 23/05/2012 11:40

But what if I go to the school with the fancy tennis racquets on tap, and find that they have all been smashed, because the pupils at the school don't really get why anyone would want to be good at tennis, anyway, so I also think, oh, yeah, what's the point of my lovely tennis racquet, and do not use it to it's full advantage?

Okay, that's a bit tortuous, but my point is that some of the smart children going to grammars would sink at a comprehensive where it may not be cool to be smart. (not generalising about comps, but there is more chance of this happening at a comp than a grammar.)

And the smart, but nerdy children have as much right to a good education as anyone else.

seeker · 23/05/2012 11:43

"And the smart, but nerdy children have as much right to a good education as anyone else"

But they don't have more right. Which is the point.

Original poster
PooshTun · 23/05/2012 11:50

I believe in giving people an equal opportunity to succeed. You on the other hand want an equal society. It is a subtle difference.

I mean, you want to remove the Them and Us. I on the other hand am in favour of giving Them the opportunity to become Us.

To continue the tennis analogy, you want to give the poor kid a fancy racket. I want to give the parent the opportunity to get a good job and to buy his DC a better racket.

I wonder how much more mileage we can get out of this tennis analogy? :)

OP posts:
pickledsiblings · 23/05/2012 12:01

It doesn't have to come from the parents PooshTun. Primary Schools could do more to help raise the aspirations of their pupils. Letting the Year 5s spend the day in a Grammar School/Independent school sampling the curriculum and different teaching styles etc may motivate some of the brighter students to aim higher than their local Secondary Modern.

Metabilis3 · 23/05/2012 12:03

@seeker You want to give them less rights. Currently, in a few areas - not many - they have the right to get an education appropriate to their needs. You want to replace that with an education appropriate to other peoples' needs. Which might be great for the other people, who will no longer be labelled as failures by people who do not understand what the grammar school system is for (such as yourself) but not so great for the smart but nerdy kids.

Metabilis3 · 23/05/2012 12:03

Fewer. Fewer rights. Not less. Up all night with the whooping boy AGAIN. Sorry.

HandMadeTail · 23/05/2012 12:03

But my smart and nerdy child will be disadvantaged under your streamed comp system just as much as your poor with uninterested parents child is disadvantaged under the grammar system.

So your system is not fairer at all.

Original poster
PooshTun · 23/05/2012 12:09

In Year 6 our choice of secondary schools was briefly the main topic of conversation at the school gate. Some of the mums had catchment post codes I would kill for but they were selecting the lesser comp because their kids weren't that academic.

My point is this. Why is it assumed that all parents yearn for their kids to be in a more academic setting?

In Year 4 we had a new HM and one of the first thing he changed was homework. Each pupil would get one piece of homework a week and it should take about 20 min. The parents revolted because it was too much homework. 20 min a week was too much????? Not surprisingly the idea got quickly dropped.

Some people seem keen to fix an inequality that the 'inequal' person doesn't really care about.

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pickledsiblings · 23/05/2012 12:13

Yes PT, but the bight kid may yearn to be in a more academic setting if they knew that one existed that is.

seeker · 23/05/2012 12:15

No. I want fancy rackets to be available to all. Which is what a proper comprehensive school does. If you have your own racket and practice for hours at home you will still probably do better. But at least if the school has rackets for all the everybody has the opportunity.

It's particularly unfair if the state buys lots of flashy rackets and gives them all to a school that only 23% of the population can get into. And even mmore unfair if that 23% are drawn from the section of the population who are most likely to have their own flashy rackets.

seeker · 23/05/2012 12:18

"@seeker You want to give them less rights. Currently, in a few areas - not many - they have the right to get an education appropriate to their needs. You want to replace that with an education appropriate to other peoples' needs. Which might be great for the other people, who will no longer be labelled as failures by people who do not understand what the grammar school system is for (such as yourself) but not so great for the smart but nerdy kids."

Ah, but I don't assume, like so many people do, that a comprehensive school can't meet the needs of bright children. Many do.

Original poster
PooshTun · 23/05/2012 12:18

pickled - I totally agree about how schools could do more to raise the aspirations of their pupils. The problem here is that some/most/all (delete as you see fit) teachers have the same attitudes as the 'selective schools are bad' posters.

When we told our primary school that we were putting DS down for the 11+ their attitude was like 'too good for your local comp eh?'

A lot of posts have focused on how the school could do more to help the child get into a GS. But if the school was capable of doing more in the first place then there would be no need for GSs.

What I mean is that if a school is good enough to tutor a kid such that he could pass the 11+ and go to the GS then there wouldn't be a need for that kid to go elsewhere for a better education.

OP posts: