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.

And that you have taken as a background for saying that "You will always have poor and pushy parents"...

No wonder Religion is blamed for so much.

In the grammar school children were in that Top Set, then a lot of other children won't be. It won't make a whole lot of difference.

At the school I went to, half the intake were children who passed the 11+. Thus you had, in effect, a grammar stream and a non-grammer stream. Crucially however, unlike a grammar school, you could move between the two on the basis of your end of year exams (and many pupils did move both ways). This happened up until GCSE choices. This meant that late bloomers had the chance to shine and those who had fluked the 11+ or peaked too early were sorted to the sets appropriate to their ability so they weren't left to struggle. Within this, maths and foreign languages were set according to ability rather than taught as a class.

However, I would say that this still failed the top end of the academic scale and those children would have performed better in a true grammar environment.

I'm confused. Are we talking another the 11+ to get into a state grammar school n those areas where it still exists, or 13+/Common Entrance for independent schools?

Because they are very different animals and can't really be conflated.

Soup - In my area the GS tests are for VR and non VR. The indies on the other hand add in English as an extra paper.

The GS tests are IMO more fair since you aren't penalised if English isn't your home language and mommy and daddy hasn't been reading you Beatrix Potter for the last few years of your life :0

Quint - Lighten up.

At least one of the local super selective grammars ditched the VR paper and does purely maths and English.

I'm using the term 13+ in the generic sense i.e. an exam one takes when one is 13 or more.

Tests can take one of two forms. A 11+ style VR/non VR form. Or a form where you are tested on your knowledge of taught material. I was making the point that whichever form you choose your complaints about the 11+ won't be addressed.

There are three grammar schools 'in reach' of where I live. One mixed, miles away in one direction, the other two are single sex grammars which are on adjoining sites. Miles away in the opposite direction. All are, I suppose, 'super selective' but the mixed one is much more so than the others. The mixed school has 3 papers sat over the course of one day - a VR, an English and a maths. The other two have 4 papers, over 2 days - 2 VR, one english, one maths.

In Kent the 11+ is both. VR, NVR and Maths.

Oh, and only 23% pass - not sure where somebody got the 50% from.

Seeker, only 23% passing must leave enough able DC to make a top set at the local Grammar. I can't see how it wouldn't.

"At least one of the local super selective grammars ditched the VR paper and does purely maths and English."

That sounds like they've dropped the idea of picking kids that have potential and are instead picking kids that they know have the ability to hit the ground running on day 1.

TBH, given the school, I think it makes very little difference in that respect.

Where I live there is a grammar and a comp.

The comp kids absolutely feel second class.

That is a situation of immense wrongness

@hullygully I bet they don't feel second class. But even if they did, how is that worse than a very academic child being held back by being forced to be taught in mixed ability classes?

I know kids at both schools. They do.

Why would a very academic child be held back if in a top set?

I think you have to accept that state education in the UK will never fairly educated children to the same standard. Within that system, grammar schools are the only type of schools where poorer children within them make more progress than wealthier children. In comps, faith schools and primaries, poorer children make less progress.

So I think we have to keep state grammars, but make entrance fairer so that more poorer children get in. I think VR and NVR are fairer tests than the school curriculum, because they are less culturally dependent than the mainstream curriculum and they are better at predicting academic ability for MFL, geography and so on than performance at primary school.

The problem then remains that there is no such thing as a test of innate ability and that any test can be tutored for. The solution is for all children to have out of school, free or sliding scale fee educational activities open to them, including learning reasoning skills. That should be organised by charities, with people who are able to tutor their own children being prepared to volunteer. It would be rather like the WEA used to be, but with a focus on children. But if you attempt to leave education entirely within the control of the state, there will never be a fair system, especially when their focus is results and league tables, not the individual child.

I have one child in a superselective and one going to a comp. I do not agree with having grammars that take in 25-30% of children (even though if I lived in such an area I'd have ended up with both in the grammar) because I think it is damaging to the non-grammar school. About 10% at the bottom and top in ability need a different kind of education. I also think there is too much setting in comps- I went to a comp that had very little setting and found it very beneficial. Again, I'd look at setting only the top and bottom 10% and educating everyone else together.

"Where I live there is a grammar and a comp."

No there isn't Hully. There is a grammar and a High school!

It is only people who don't live in grammar school areas who think that nobody feels like a second class citizen!

SeaHouses, it wouldn't be enough just to tutor children in reasoning skills. For them to have a fighting chance they would need to also have speed and stamina training in the form of mock tests the length of the exam on a weekly basis for months before the actual test.

oh yes

Basically, and I apologise in advance for the offence I am going to cause, it comes down to whether or not we give a flying fuck what happens to "other " children, or whether we follow the "looking after Number One" philosophy.

Do we want an equal and fair society, or are we happy with status quo.

Kids come out of comps with a string of A*s after being taught exactly the same curriculum as those in the Grammars (by teachers who have been trained in pretty much the same way) - what's unfair about that?

Then why have grammars?

The first year of secondary, when they were waiting to set us for the second year, was pretty much a complete mess. Quite frankly I feel sorry for teachers who are trying to teach say french to kids some of whom remember what they did at primary - and some who can't remember mon, ma, mes, ton, ta, tes, son, sa, ses however hard they try (it was one of my friends - and I spent half an hour trying to help her remember them). Kids with different aspirations in the same class was enlightening - 'boring' kids like me, and ones who were already drinking and having sex behind the youth club aged 11. The kids who were bright did absolutely sod all or worked and got bullied (and those that did sod all to avoid the bullying got into such bad habits that they found it hard to throw them off).

Would I have been better at a grammar school - yes without a doubt. I left primary loving learning, with unusually high concentration levels, and so enthusiastic about secondary school. I left secondary having done well thanks to transferring to a private grammar for 6th form. But 5 years doing the minimum amount of work so that any success was seen as one up on the teachers left its mark (I did homework / coursework in the morning during registration, fell asleep in lessons from boredom, read magazines etc!). I have never been able to apply myself diligently again - the habits got ingrained.

And would my friend not have spent hours in frustrated tears, if not comparing herself to me and the others who found it easy - again probably yes.

My mother went to a girls grammar school in the 1950s - and from low achievement families with no background in university education, the opportunities and confidence those girls got was brilliant. I also know of people of that generation who were transferred over from the 'secondary moderns'.

If there were more grammar schools, then surely the tutoring would get less crazy, and the kids who were from disadvantaged backgrounds would get more of a look in. I can see the difference between my mother who was in a grammar school area, and her cousins who were not - and it is amazing. As I understand it the 50s were the time of greatest social mobility and aspirations - and maybe we should be thinking of that as a proportion - as not everyone can be, nor should they be pushed to be, academically successful.

seeker - I went to a comp where apart from maths all subjects were mixed groups. In history there was two girls who would regularly disrupt the class. In French we had kids that obviously didn't prep for the lesson so the teacher had to constantly stop to help them etc etc

So exqueeze me for not caring too much whether those kids went on to live a prosperous and fulfilling life.

I believe that everybody should have the opportunity to excel. Some immigrants have seized the opportunity. Some of our indigenous poor haven't. After a while it gets a bit tiresome listening to those arguing that they are at the bottom of the socio economic educational. heap because The System is unfair.