Would you send your child to a grammar school ?

[HeGrewWhiskersOnHisChin]

This is going to be quite long and rambling but I wanted to find out how much of my own experiences are clouding my judgement.

Okay, where we live there are not any great schools unless you are in the correct feeder schools, which we aren't as we moved to the area after Reception.

I know people say that all the time, but it's true - I'm not a snob I promise!

There are a few grammar schools within a commutable distance, and after researching all the local schools, look like the best choice.

I say choice as they are not necessarily an option for us. DD is bright, on the top table (apparently), but as I said already we live in a really deprived area. Half the children don't even wear the uniform let alone turn up for school. If she were at a better performing school she might be more average, I don't know.

So anyway I was going to do a practice verbal and non-verbal reasoning test with her just to see if she had any natural aptitude or not, and then consider whether we should try for a grammar or not.

BUT... She doesn't want to go to a school like that, she wants to go to one with normal people.

Oh the irony! Her words are exactly I said to my very working class parents and my head teacher after turning down a place at a grammar school. My dad was angry but my mum let me make my own mind up.

Subsequently I went on to a 'normal' school and academically I achieved as well as I would have at the grammar, but but but I can't help thinking that if I'd have mixed with girls from the other school, I may have not ended up pregnant at 18 living in a council flat !

I know my DD is very easily led, even more so than me (she gets it from her dad's side) and I think when she goes to secondary school she'll be more interested in boys and makeup than getting As.

So what should I do?

I said it'd be long!

Oh just remember another one at a grammar school.

A colleague's son, who is a super selective grammar. He's just got a BCCD at AS level. He THINKS he can go somewhere like Exeter to study Law

He hasn't got a bloody clue and and IMO the school have failed him spectacularly. He's got to upper sixth and he knows absolutely zilch about what kind of grades he needs.

Bless him, Minty!

I am just so very thankful for my expensive house in a posh area with an amazing comp... Counting my blessings and my leaves .

Yes, if they were very bright, which mine weren't.
If they don't need extra tuition to pass the exam.
If you live in an area where they are the norm, they aren't here.
If the other schools weren't suitable in some way.
If I wanted to, yes.

Yep, leaving too now...off out to get some grub.

If you all have children who are at really great comprehensive schools, then that's great ".

It really is like bashing your head against a brick wall, isn't it?

Just seen the make up and boys bit.
The nearest grammar to us was in the paper a while back as it had a surprisingly high amount of girls pregnant at 16.
It was all girls and when they had free time they were doing what all respectable parents would stop if they only knew.
So girls can be put off education and led into seeking boyfriends whatever school they go to. Short of a chastity belt there's nothing you can do to be 100% certain it won't happen to yours.

Yes Curlew, it certainly is.

Curlew... Yes.

For the record, I am also not saying you don't get lots of nice, hard-working kids at good comprehensives. I currently work at a comprehensive which, according to Ofsted, is outstanding in all categories (very hard to achieve with Ofsted's new standards). It honestly seems to be a very good school. However, I still find the apathetic, couldn't-care-less attitude of quite a lot of the students depressing. And at another 'good' comp at which I recently did some supply work, half the kids couldn't even be bothered to bring a pen or their books to lessons.
Apologies - I have drifted into tired, grumpy teacher Friday rant. Also, my opinions may be coloured by the fact that, before that, I worked in a private school for 10 years...

What, and you still feel a bit guilty...?

None of this proves anything new to me

Basically, as usual, it depends on the grammar/comp/indie/area/kid/etc. Blanket assumptions are a bit daft, I think, as are sweeping judgements.

One thing I do know, is that I agree with Minty (oh I love your ds!) about explaining our mad, mad system to a 10 year old. It really does strike me as the height of insanity.

I've been watching some ace talks on education on TED talks....and am even more convinced of the insanity of the current system. 'Academic inflation' is a good description.

1grin] at TOSN

Nit . No, don't feel one bit guilty. Worked 8 years in London comps at the start of my career. Going to a leafy private school was like sinking into a comfy duvet... Would have gone back there if they'd had any jobs going!

I think all I have got from this thread is a rather depressing feeling that according to some of you,a lot of averagely bright children who would have liked to achieve are doomed if they enter the majority of secondary schools.

And that the presence of the less academically gifted kids is really what holds them down.

That's a really damning attitude,so please tell me I'm wrong here.

FWIW I think if you have an intelligent child who could only perform in the protective environment of a GS,their life skills may be somewhat lacking when they enter the big bad world.

Add message | Report | Message poster noddyholder Fri 20-Sep-13 17:42:22
I always though grammar schools were for those who couldn't afford private. The fur coat no knickers brigade !

THE post of the year

Just saying.

Mine went to/are at a comp (as boarders). My DDs got straight A/A* and are now at first class universities. There were/are clever, not clever, disruptive, not disruptive throughout their schooling. The obvious pairings do NOT go together in a lot of cases. They also have friends from some of the so called 'elite' public schools who were expelled/denied sixth form places. Grammar school/private school no more gives you guaranteed RG bound young ladies and men than comps give you badly behaved reprobates. To suggest otherwise (as is clear on this thread) suggests an element of arrogant ignorance.

Hmm - I might put it more like this: It is difficult to foster a really purposeful, aspirational and rigorously academic atmosphere in a school where many of the students do not see the value of that type of education, and particularly when their parents do not see that value either. These are often, but not always, the less academically able, and tbh, some of them are quite right that an academic education will not be very useful to them personally. Whereas those students who are bright, but tend towards the lazy/ apathetic would be much more likely to pull their socks up if they were surrounded by pupils who want to achieve, and for whom making an effort is respected and normal, not something to be made fun of. That's how I see it anyway.

I know that many people think that going to a 'secondary modern' dooms kids to low achievement, but as I recall, many of the ones near where I lived got better results than many comps, in spite of only having the lower half of the ability range.

However the uplifting thing is verysmallsqeak that there are actually a mere 64 grammar schools left in England and a tiny minority go to them. The majority are doing very well in comprehensives where they are educated with other like minded, high achieving, pupils with parents who expect the best and they do go to Oxbridge and RG universities- DS did and he wasn't odd, just one of many.
I am very thankful that we are in a grammar school free area.

I think you miss the point entirely homessweetholmes, that where there are no grammar schools all the pupils go to the comprehensive and they are in classes with similar type children. They have highly successful parents who want the best and they get it. Why the same children should act differently in two different buildings beats me- a child in a grammar school is surrounded by children of similar ability- a child in a comprehensive is surrounded by children of similar ability. They do set for subjects!!
The only odd occasion that my children have been disrupted in lessons I have phoned the school and it has been sorted.

Well not really. In the area where I live, many of the 'successful parents who want the best and get it' send their children to the many good private schools in the area, thereby creaming off many of the able and motivated children. And yes, I do think that some of the same children would behave differently in different schools, in the same way that a child's attitude and attainment might be changed (to a lesser extent perhaps) by moving him/her up a set.

It is chicken and egg really- in my area they are not creamed off because the comprehensives are good - I'm not sure what comes first.

I can't see why they wouldn't set for everything.

If they don't set it isn't like a grammar school- if they set then there is no difference.