Come and tell me some of the benefits for children in going to a grammar school

[piprabbit]

DD's school have suggested that she should sit the 11+ as she has the potential ability to go to a grammar school.

DH is not convinced that going to a grammar school will be especially beneficial for DD. I tend to think that it would probably be a Good Thing, but I don't have a cogent argument as to why it is a Good Thing.

Neither DH or I went to a grammar school, so it's all outside our experience.

Please can you tell me why going to grammar school is a Good Thing (assuming DD is capable of keeping up academically).

Thanks.

teacher - no need to apologise! It was I that displayed a shattering lack of reading comprehension (slightly worrying in the context of the work I'm supposed to be doing today. ah well.) :)

I'm not generalising either. What I am saying is that my individual DC planted instead in their designated comp, with their characters and abilities would, I'm utterly certain, not have achieved anything like their current results. Perhaps that's due to a deficiency in the way I've brought them up, or a natural lassitude, but I think it's more likely that the grammar is working some magic for that type of kid which the local comp is not.

"
"If I wanted to get into the 'as a whole' argument, which I don't really because I'm neither the mother nor the employer of people 'as a whole' but of individuals, I would perhaps put forward the view that it's not necessarily good for society as a whole to condemn its high fliers either to failing to reach their potential or to go off to be educated with the poshos"

And are you saying that this is what happens in the vast majority of the country where there is no selective education?

"the grammar is working some magic for that type of kid which the local comp is not."

Well, if the comprehensive doesn't have many kids like that it's not going to be geared up for them, is it?

Yellow,

So what you are saying is that, while children can and do achieve very good results from your local comprehensives, the children who achieve those results are temperamentally different from your children?

Which is a little different from your original point that such results were 'unheard of' from your local comprehensives, but absolutely a valid point that the results a child obtains can be as much a function of their temperaent and character as of the schools 'quality' on paper.

I can see that in reverse - in that my DS is likely to get better results from his comp than he would have done from the all boy's grammar a few miles away, simply because the whole 'macho / testosterone' atmosphere of the latter would have been deeply unsuited to him (and last time he was unsuited to a school he ended up under the Ed Psych as a selective mute).

Well you can never really know, can you? I mean, yellow can feel sure based on what she knows of her children, and we can feel sure about other things about our own, but ultimately it's all speculation, right?

I doubt, Yellow, that all your children (I can't remember how many you have, sorry!) would have grown up so academically able if you had all that many deficiencies in the way you've brought them up though!

PIPRABBIT. You are very fortunate that the Comprehensives, are quite good. My DD narrowly failed her 11 plus,and was allocated a School with a 27% 5A*TOC so if she fails, you have at least a decent,Comprehensive School to be allocated. I would give it a go.