Another thread about tutoring

[PooshTun]

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.

They are disadvantaged because they can't move up. Take my brother, failed at 11 did nothing much at secondary modern. Passed at 12, suddenly the teaching appealed to him and he loved Latin and Greek and at 13 he was in the express, high flyers, stream. He was the same DS. My other brother passed, no cleverer, simply quick- he had to be as the youngest or we missed him out of things!

"I don't think the unfairness is overstated by those of us who were thrown on the scrap heap at 11yrs old.(and don't tell me we weren't because that is what I felt at 11yrs)."

Ah ha! The fog is finally clearing.

I failed the 11+ and I went to the local comp. The first week two older kids tried to stick my head down the toilet. Didn't find it funny then. Don't find it funny a few decades later :o

Anyway, at no point did I think I was on the scrap heap. I was in the top set for everything and I finshed school being 5th out of 150 kids. Now I am 'comfortable' with two kids at private school. Despite a bad start, life has been good to me.

Perhaps this is why we belong to different camps. You appear not to have realised your dreams and/or potential and you appear to blame it on the 11+. If that is the case then is it fair to blame it on the selection process? I mean, other posters have gone on about how they went to a comp and then went onto Oxbridge or became a doctor. If you feel that you haven't achieved anything of note then perhaps the selection process did place you in the right school.

Apologies for the Tough Love.

"They are disadvantaged because they can't move up"

But why is that a disadvantage? Does the top top set have magical rulers and pens? Do they have a better view out of the window? Do they have better qualified teachers?

"Seeker - Maybe you have answered the question up thread and I missed it but you still haven't answered my question. You talk about a child being disadvantaged because he is not in a GS but you don't say why. Is it because you perceive GS teachers as being superior or because they are better funded or ... or ....?"

Grammar schools teach subjects that high schools generally don't. Grammar schools often play games and offer cultural experiences that high schools don't. Grammar schools offer an academic peer group to an academically bright child that high schools don't.

Interestingbthat you recount you head downnthe loo experience to characterize comprehensive school-I thought that was a traditionally public school piece of barbarity!

"Grammar schools teach subjects that high schools generally don't."

Apart from Latin, DCs subjects are pretty much your standard ICT, French, Geography etc but even if Serbo Croat was available to a GS kid how does does that put a French speaking comp kid at a disadvantage later on?

"Grammar schools often play games and offer cultural experiences that high schools don't."

DS does water polo but so what? Your comp kid might be a natural water polo player and could perhaps gone on to become a professional if only he had the chance but only a small number of kids would fall into this scenario. As for cultural experiences the parents have more money so there are more school trips. DC is off skiing in the US with the school next year for example. The extra experiences aren't free so your kid isn't gaining anything by coming to my school. Also, the Rev Jesse Jackson came to our school but once again, so what? These are all nice to haves but it isn't going to improve DS's GCSE marks.

"Grammar schools offer an academic peer group to an academically bright child that high schools don't."

You don't have a very high opinion of kids that go to comps/high schools do you? It might surprise you to know that DS and his mates spend their time swapping links to gross YouTube videos.

As for bullying, I don't think that public schools have cornered the market on that :)

So why aren't your children at the local high school, PooshTun?

To borrow, and then tweak, an idea that someone had some pages back ... why not give DCs at state schools first dibs on places at state-funded grammar schools? If not enough state school DCs pass the test, then offer to the highest scoring prep school DCs.

I didn't go to a comp- I went to a secondary modern- it can't possibly be comprehensive if the top are missing.
It was an excellent secondary modern, the Head was high up in Scouting and his aim was to to turn out well rounded citizens. The behaviour was the best in town. There is absolutely no way that anyone's head would have gone down a toilet- I don't think this ever really happened anywhere except possibly public schools of the past. My best friends from the secondary modern, who are still friends today, had in one case parents who were both teachers and in the other an army officer father and two siblings at boarding school.I was in the top set for everything and I finished up third overall. I went on to the grammar school for A'levels and did fine. I could send my DCs to private school if I wished.

I have utterly no idea of the view from the window or which pens they used, but of course it was an advantage to be at the grammar school - otherwise why are people paying for tutors?! I was third with little effort- had the top been there I would have had to have made the effort.
You do not need to apologise for tough love. I did achieve my ambitions - why did you assume that I haven't? I was at the wrong school, my primary Head said so at the time.
It didn't make any difference to me in the long run, except to make me more determined, but I don't see why DC s have to be 'failed' at 11yrs and why they have difficulties placed in their path.
I would have been bitter if I had gone to a school with poor discipline and bullying- luckily I didn't.
And for the umpteenth time- you were not at a comp, and if they tried to stick your head down the loo it was a pretty dire school at that.

It is a free country,RiversideMum a d state education is open to all. There is no difference between sending your DC to a fee paying primary, engaging a tutor or home educating for a place.

And actually, the vast majority of children at state grammar schools went to state primary schools.

Can I just check, we all do know the difference between a comprehensive school and a high school/secondary modern, don't we? Because if we're not all using the same words to mean the same things, this conversation isn't going to get anywhere.

@seeker - We placed DS in a private school because the comp that he was allocated wasn't a good one. There is a very good comp nearby which we would have loved for our kids to gone to but it was a faith one so we didn't qualify for a place.

As I said upthread, some moms had catchment post codes we would have killed for. So we aren't against comps. We just thought that the comps in our catchment area wasn't where we wanted to send our kids.

@seeker - I was arguing selective education versus non-selective education. Apparently exotic has branched off into comp v secondary modern v GS.

There is either selective education or there are comprehensives - you can't have both.

I don't know the difference between a comprehensive and a secondary modern. I tell you, the system here is confusing to someone who wasn't brought up here

The only place that you can possibly have both is somewhere like Reading where they take only the very top percentage over a very wide area and many of the best don't even bother taking the exam.

Secondary moderns are schools where the children who fail the exam go. The name is now out because when people say 'bring back the grammar schools ' they gloss over the fact it means 'bring back the secondary moderns'. They are now called High Schools because very often grammar schools were called High Schools and it sounds better!
A comprehensive school serves all the children, regardless of ability.

@exotic - I failed the 11+ so I went to the secondary modern. A year later it became a comprehensive. Happy now?

:o at your toilet stuffing/public school remark. Kids at comps would never bully you like that, would they? :o

As for the other stuff, you sounded very bitter about being thrown on the scrap heap. Your comments fitted in with my perception of you from your other posts namely someone who felt that others have been more successful than you, not because of ability but because of a privileged up bringing

Around here we just call them secondary schools. I guess we are just simple folk :)

You should have made that plain in the first place. The year after I left grammar school it became a comprehensive. Things change.
You get bullying anywhere- if a school tells you there is no bullying it is one to avoid- it is how they deal with it that counts.
I have friends and relations who have a more privileged background, it doesn't bother me. I had a wonderful childhood and and a very middle class background. My nephew is just doing his A'levels- he has been privately educated throughout- he isn't doing any better than my DCs at the comprehensive- each to their own.
I just happen to be against decisions at 11 years- especially when they are unfair. Had I lived 3 miles away, in the next village, on the other side of the river, my marks would have got me a grammar school place.

Never judge someone by their posts- it is probably completely wrong. 11+ isn't something I discuss in RL- there is no need it has only cropped up once when a man asked me to sign a petition to bring back grammar schools I said 'No, I won't and he disappeared fast before I could get any further!
It hasn't done me any harm, I don't have a chip- I'm just not prepared to sit back and not point out that the selective system fails most DCs.

"You should have made that plain in the first place"

I said that my primary school year was the last one that took the 11+. I didn't realise that you needed a PowerPoint presentation to get across the point that the school was going to become a comprehensive one year later.

You escaped your life on the 'scrapheap' as you called it and went on to a GS. I stayed there until 16. Yet YOU are the one that is sooooo against selective education. So exsqueeze me for thinking that you was feeling a bit bitter about it.

"I had a wonderful childhood"

Hence the outpourings about being made to feel second best when you failed your 11+ :o

Your postings are so full of contradictions. According to you, pupils who are at comps are sooo screwed and are at a disadvanatge compared to GS kids. You then post that your nephew is privately educated (presumabaly a selective indie) but isn't doing much better than your DCs who are at a comp. Your DCs are obviously not at a disadvantage for having gone to a comp.

You definitely have a chip on your shoulder. Its just in a position that is not visible to you :o

The selective syste doesn't fail ost dcs or in fact any dcs - the grammar schools do very well and are vety popular. You have your anger directed at the wrong target, exoticfruits - the problem is not that grammar school education is poor but that the non-selective schools are poor.

Where your logic falls right down is that you imagine - based on no evidence whatsoever - that if the bright kids were all denied selective education then alll other schools would be fine and kids would do well. in fact, if you had all the bright kids at comps, you would have a lot of disatisfied bright kids in the top streams - and those in the botto streams who the system is failing now, would still be failed.

You draw conclusions from your own experience - of someone who should have got into grammar but didn't and still has a chip on their shoulder about it - that therefore the grammar system is fundamentally flawed. But in fact your posts bely this conclusion - you clearly still think that GS are so good that you have been disadvantaged by not going. What your experience does point to is a need to improve the admissions procedures - as my post way up thread demonstrated could be done by a number of means.

In your case, I don't think you were 'failed' by going to a GS - but you were definitely failed massively by your family - as a mum of a dd who applied for GS last year, i always made it abundantly clear that the test did NOT test who she was, that it couldn't read measure the inside of her brain - that it was just a fallible test, based on her performance on a single day, and that she would do well whatever school she went to - and I wasn't just saying that to be nice. I meant it 100%.

I am shocked that any parent can let their child sit these exams and let them come away with the concept that they are a 'failure' if they don't pass. No, they have failed a single exam, not life!

I went to GS - came top in the exam BUT know I lack loads of the other skills others take for granted - the quality of my typing you can see on these posts!, can't drive, ride a bike, etc etc. I have the hugest respect for people who can do all the practical skills i can't - I just happen to be v good at exams.

You need to get over having failed a single exam at 11 - how many others have you passed since? You're a grown-up now!

"the selective system fails most DCs."

I am sure that you have lots of empirical data to back up that generalisation .... or not.

"A comprehensive school serves all the children, regardless of ability."

No they don't. I know kids who are below average and I know kids that are very clever. Their comprehensive school serves children of average ability but not them.

At my DD's non selective Middle School, average is 'good'. There is a definite dumbing down of/by the brighter kids who have realised that they don't have to work that hard to be considered good. DD came out of her Level 6 maths SATs paper the other day saying that she wished she was encouraged to think like that in maths lessons. Thankfully, she is moving on to a selective Independent school in Sept.

I don't think that her bright peers that stay behind will end up failures but I doubt that all of them will reach their potential. Certainly not those whose parents are unwilling/unable to pay for private tuition to make up for lost ground.