Are grammar schools better for above average children?

[celticclan]

I'm talking about your bog standard Grammar in somewhere such as Bucks not Kent (not super-selective schools). Are they better for the top 30% than comprehensive schools? In what way?

I'm personally not keen on the Grammar school system but lots of people are and I'm interested to find out why.

[Talkinpeace]

that is the exact reason why Dover is ........

well Dover

I lived there for a while.

[beatback]

You mean the sort of town where everbodys been but nobody has been. JUST A TRANSIT TOWN!

[DownstairsMixUp]

I think they just need to go, TBH. Plenty of other boroughs perform fine without them, and infact, loads of boroughs WITHOUT them perform far better than Kent, even Havering is above Kent and it always had a rep of being a bit shitty when I lived there (and it's where I was educated) I just think they need to phase it out and concentrate on putting all schools in these places up to a good level.

Also selecting kids at age 11 to go grammar might make it more likely that they get 5 good gcses but kids will decide what path they take as they get older, you can't set it for them at 11. My OH went to a very selective grammar school in kent and it was something ridiculous like less than 40% of kids actually used their gcse's to further themselves and go to uni etc etc.

Also, 11 is far too young to determine how a child will always perform. Lots of kids at grammar schools end up scraping by with C's because people change, and vice versa, a child at age 11 may do their 11 + and feel very nervous and not sure of their abilities, but may gain this as they age. I know that 100% happened to me, I wasn't predicted good grades at age 11 but I gained confidence around my mid teens and ended up doing very well. Just concentrate on making ALL state schools good, not just tutoring kids to get into the super selective grammars!

[forehead]

Good post Downstairs.
I have no problem with Grammar schools.
However, I do feel that 11 is definitely too young
to decide.
My dsis was put in the bottom sets at school.
At about 13 years old she pulled her socks up and now has
a PHD.
People develop at different rates. A child who was thought of as academic at 11, may not be the same at 14.
One must also remember, that even if your child passes the 11 plus with flying colours a very academic grammar school may not be right for them. They may in fact benefit from attending a school which is less pressurised. Alternatively, there may be those who just scraped the 11 plus, but would thrive at a grammar school.
I think it is vital that students look at their child as an individual and decide what is right for them.
However, I do accept that I am fortunate to live in an area which has a decent Catholic school and therefore I do not feel the pressure to get a grammar school place for my kids.
.

[beatback]

Forehead. Although i believe very much in Grammar Schools i can accept that different people mature and develop at different ages whether 11 is to young i dont know, what i do know is that they should be different ages to transfer if a Grammar School becomes the right school for a particular child and pupils who are struggling at the Grammar School should be able to transfer to the right school without any stigma or embarrsment. Grammar Schools should not be about social status and class and should only be about teaching the subjects at a different pace . Because of the stupid target of trying to get 40% of kids going to University, Grammar Schools were they exist have become honey pots to the aspirational and pushy, partly out of fear that the COMPREHENSIVES/HIGH SCHOOLS will not enable their DCs to access University. A lot of the problems of low aspiration and achievement in these COMP/HIGH Schools are created by the troublesome 5% of pupils who infect many pupils in to thinking its un cool to be bright and therefore become C/B students when in the right enviroment they could be A students. Even though the bright students are separated in sets from the troublesome 5% their influence still spreads though the school and the kids who are not totally focused on their study"s are still infected by them.

[beatback]

That there should be different age transfers available to Grammar Schools if it is the right school for the pupil.

[GrimmaTheNome]

That there should be different age transfers available to Grammar Schools if it is the right school for the pupil.

yes, ideally...but how would that work in practice? To allow that, the GS would presumably have to turn away people for whom it is right at 11 (given that they are always oversubscribed). DDs GS has had some pupils transfer in from other local schools, but I think that this could only be possible because a few of the original cohort have moved elsewhere (only one has transferred out because she was finding it too hard).

[curlew]

">That there should be different age transfers available to Grammar Schools if it is the right school for the pupil."

I think that's called a comprehensive school, isn't it?

[beatback]

GrimmaTheNome. You would need to have spare places available(NOT LIKELY TO HAPPEN) i know at both Selective and non Selective Schools. The pupil who left your DDs Grammar, did she suffer from embarrsment and stigma caused by other pupils and perception of not being quite good enough for her chosen school.

[curlew]

Grammar schools never- slight exaggeration, but hey ho- have spaces!

[exoticfruits]

Equally they should be moved to the secondary modern if they don't cope. It is wrong to keep a place you got at 11yrs if you are not up to the standard.

The comprehensive allows for movement, either way,which is much better.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

The usual situation at DD1's school is that everyone who gets in does Very Well (this year, who knows, of course :( ). The issue lies with the ones who didn't get in but would also have done Very Well, rather than the ones who do get in. Sadly. Grammar schools are not allowed to expand, at the moment, and that is the real problem - I reckon you get get a whole 25% more kids going to DD1's school (ie a whole extra form at entry) without lowering the standard at all.

[GrimmaTheNome]

You would need to have spare places available(NOT LIKELY TO HAPPEN)
as I said, really hard to see how to do that in a school which can't take everyone who passes the 11+ who wants to go there. Schools are physically limited in size - already they've taken one or two more than can really fit in some classrooms (28 desks, 28 lockers, 29 pupils)

The pupil who left your DDs Grammar, did she suffer from embarrsment and stigma caused by other pupils and perception of not being quite good enough for her chosen school.

I don't know - DD reported it to me as a simple matter of fact that one girl had decided to leave.

[curlew]

"The usual situation at DD1's school is that everyone who gets in does Very Well (this year, who knows, of course ). The issue lies with the ones who didn't get in but would also have done Very Well, rather than the ones who do get in. Sadly. Grammar schools are not allowed to expand, at the moment, and that is the real problem - I reckon you get get a whole 25% more kids going to DD1's school (ie a whole extra form at entry) without lowering the standard at all."

which is why they should all be at a efficiently streamed comprehensive school.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Curlew No they shouldn't. This is a top performing SS serving a gigantic geographical area including 4 (or possibly more) LEAs. Disperse them all to their 'local' comp and you'd get probably 2 or 3 per school. They would be outliers, they'd be forced to work at a slower pace than they are easily comfortable with, and they would be completely let down by the system.

[Talkinpeace]

Russiansonthespree
I have to agree with Curlew

round here the "grammar" kids are the top sets
late maturers move up the sets over time
early maturers or those who were over tutored slide down the sets

but they stay in their same pastoral tutor group, with their friends, and the sports and arts and transport all in place
rather than the pain and cost of changing school

AND parents relax and support their children, safe in the knowledge that EVERY child has the chance to get into the top sets at any time

[Talkinpeace]

Russians
They would be outliers, they'd be forced to work at a slower pace
a nice piece of self aggrandisement for which there is no evidence at all

they are not 'outliers' they are merely the tail of the normal distribution and the next kids along the tail are within 0.1 IQ points of them

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Talkin I have a child at the comp my DD1 would be at if she wasn't at the SS. She would most certainly be an outlier there, and she would be as isolated as she was at her primary school. It's not self aggrandisement at all, it's actually a bit sad. And she would most certainly have been forced to work at a slower pace since the kids at her school do all their GCSEs at the end of Y10, which is not the case at the comp. I don't agree with the Kent/Bucks system, and I can see why people think the outcomes from a completely comp system in those counties would be better - but that is not the case for the SSs.

[GrimmaTheNome]

which is why they should all be at a efficiently streamed comprehensive school.

That throws up problems too - setting everything is difficult logistically (so you may end up with too much of a mixed ability in non-core subjects) and streaming can be a disaster for pupils who are strong in one area but weak in others.

there just isn't a one-size fits all solution. Breaking parts which do work well for the pupils they serve doesn't seem too helpful to me.

[curlew]

Why is setting so difficult? Lots of schools manage it fine. And if it is difficult, then surely the solution is to sort it the difficulties with setting nationally rather than maintain an antiquated, divisive system in a few pockets.

[GrimmaTheNome]

How can setting everything not be logistically difficult? working out the timetables for GCSEs to allow pupils to do the combination of subjects they want seems to be difficult enough. (Of course, quite a lot of schools don't seem to allow pupils to do the subjects they really want, instead getting very constrained 'option blocks')

Its not something that could be addressed 'at national level' - the devil is in the detail.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Grimma Oh they very could address the GCSE timetable thing easily at national level :( And it would look like this: Every child does 2xEng, 1 MFL, 1xmaths, 3xscience or 2x science 1xhistory 1xDT 1xRE (maybe. Or 1xGeog). Bye bye music, art, drama, extra maths, kids studying more than one additional language etc etc. Unless you go to posh school then you can do good stuff.

[curlew]

Sorry, what I meant by at a national level is that all schools should be expected to do it. How individual schools manage it is up to them, but there should be setting in all schools. That would mean grammar schools were no longer needed.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Curlew No it wouldn't it would just mean that some kids were not having their educational needs met by the state system (as is already the case in those areas with no access to super selectives).

[GrimmaTheNome]

I've never come across a comp which doesn't do some sort of setting or streaming. I'm sure some manage it better than others but you hear problems with it (combined with 'option block' woes) all the time on MN. The commonest is probably the 'top set only allowed triple science' - with strict limit on numbers determined by the size of one or two classes.