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!

I went to boarding school in the East Midlands, we were proper posh but didn't do Latin.

Played Rugger British bulldog though.

Arf, fingers crossed eh LaQ.

I'm not worried I know they'll be a mix of people.

I found it interesting that she is worried about it, as that is the main reason I turned down a place when I was in primary school.

I obviously regret it now and think if that's all that she's worried about then I need to get her out of that way of thinking.

They do Latin AND Greek for the first 2 years in Belgium. This freaks me out! And most of the decent secondaries have religious links and nuns in evidence. I am not greatly happy about this. I would rather see Italian and Spanish than Greek. Latin is more useful I think. Secondary school applications are done on a points basis. Points for living near the school, points for Primary near the school, points for siblings at the school.

I wouldn't have wanted Dcs to go to a school where they were in constant competition with other pupils, whether by having extra tuition or by swotting every night.

Some of those children aren't going to get into the sacred Grammar even if they have masses of extras, how shit is that, all that work and you still don't get in.

Greek and Latin are brilliant if you want to understand the root of words in English though- every good pub quiz team has a Classicist!

Tis true BoF, i'm the resident classicist on our quiz team

Yes when I went into grammar in the (very) early 80's no kids got tutored from an ordinary school background,only the kids from private schools.

As a result I was like a duck out of water as I was in a tiny tiny minority of kids from a normal school. I was unable to function on a social level with the others as they really were from a whole different world of riding and music lessons.

It's encouraging to hear things have changed,but I still hear a lot that makes me think it's the parents who can afford tutoring that are the ones who are most confident of securing a grammar school education for their kids.

It's a bit wrong when it becomes about the parents and their aspirations vs dcs' actual ability. But like I said, I am old and have to face the fact that social mobility is not what is was.

Depends where you live. Its not quite as mad up where I am.

It sounds ridiculously competitive.

I'm not in a grammar school area, and I'm relieved from the sound of it.

I was listening to something about social mobility on R4 today (while I was being awesome and Cleaning All The Things), and one of the speakers was saying that all this education malarkey is basically useless without the massive growth in middle-class jobs that we had in the 1950s and 60s. I think it was a reasonable point.

chicken and egg, bof. We'll never get enough 21st century industry without a well-educated workforce.

It is chicken and egg, yes, but we need investment in industry and science and all sorts to make the jobs available.

To be sure. Its not an either/or.

I think it's the parents who are the most confident altogether who can secure a grammar school place for their DC. By knowing the system and playing that system.

similar with 'good' faith schools come to that.

Anybody who says that there is an equal spread of socio-economic classes in grammar schools and secondary modern schools is in denial.