Please can someone answer this simple question about state selective schools?

[Hakluyt]

If selection at 11 is such a good idea, why do wholly selective authorities not produce significantly better exam results than demographically similar wholly comprehensive authorities?

But didn't you put your dds through a 'SPAG boot camp'. That must? Have required? Some patience and ability at tutoring. Not to mention understanding of how question marks work?

Different people have different reasons for thinking it's bad. My reason for thinking it's bad is that it makes the cut at 25% and I think that's far too big a chunk to take out of the cohort. It won't help the really bright kids at all, and it will disadvantage the ones bumping around the middle of the range. The non grammar schools really are sec mods not comps, so there is less scope for the kids who just had a bad day at the test to put that behind them and still follow the same path educationally they would have been able to follow had they had a good day. It's just an incredibly blunt instrument.

Around here it would be unfair to allow a child to turn up to the 11+ without some preparation. It's just no one talks about it yet the well known tutors are booked up months and months in advance
Well that doesn't sound very fair!

But didn't you put your dds through a 'SPAG boot camp'

Um....no. I didn't. Did you? Really??

To be honest what tutors give(whether it be a parent,aunt or paid tutor) is neither here nor there.

You could plonk a pile of books in front of any child however only a few will do the work,mark it and go over mistakes to learn from them. Imvho those are the kids more likely to get in which is why I doubt we'll bother with my dd.She'll refuse to do the work,will never mark it and making her go over mistakes would end in carnage.She is bright(very bright) but she'd hate grammar school.Her brothers are a whole diff kettle of fish.

Interestingly we have friends with kids in top private schools who have forked out shed loads on tutoring.Their children just can't get over 50% in VR.Paying for tutoring guarantees you sweet fa.There is a lot of ignorance re the 11+ mostly from people who have never been though it.

So no one is allowed to prepare, just turn up and hope for the best, if a tutor isn't fair, what about doing past papers, what about allowing an accountant parent to help them with maths. Or is none of that allowed?

What about talking whilst eating together and reading to your dc.

The reason my dc rock reading comp and VR are the lang and reading opportunities we've given them.Going through a few VR papers for speed has made little impact tbf.It's often all decided on vocab. Even CPG can't give kids an exceptional vocabulary.

That said I do think some way to get kids in without the home advantages many have would be good.Focusing on tutoring is the wrong thing to focus on imvho.

But you need to be able to do them at speed and if you're not naturally that great you'd have to be very dedicated to go through them over and again.

To be frank anybody with the tenacity to study methods,go through them,go over mistakes continuously deserves a place on that alone.They're utter tedium.

Utter

Why does the Ipad keep doing that ie keep changing text after I've posted?

I think it very much depends on how the statistics are interpreted and presented.I live in a GS area and have seen statistics presnted saying the oppsite to your argument.
I believe any comparison is a nonsense anyway because:-
(a)no 2 boroughs are alike because of differences in ethnicity, income etc.

(b) there is so much leakage in both directions . What happens (here anyway) is the top 28% go to GS with the remaining places being taken by the most academic children from neighbouring towns..The lowest 30% go to the secondary modern . The remaining middle-ability children are bussed out to neighbouring towns with comprehensives.

(C) A highest level BTEC pass is, on paper, the same value as A* A levels in Further maths, physics , chemistry etc

I very much want to keep my DDs away from some of the children who end up in the high schools. The violent ones, the aggressive ones, the openly disruptive ones...yep, I want my DDs as far away from those type of pupils as possible. What parent wouldn't? I'm not sure an all girls grammar school would be the best option for avoiding this. Just wait until the teenage hormones kick in full swing...

Phineyj- it's a common misconception that it's more difficult for grammar schools to "add value" onto the students they take in. Expected progress from KS2-4 is 3 levels of progress regardless of ability. In reality brighter students often make progress faster (who'd have thought it eh?). Almost all of the students at our school who made 5 or more levels if progress in English and Maths were from the higher ability band, a few were from the middle band. Whilst some of our students from the lower ability band made 4 levels of progress (so got L3 SATs and a C at GCSE) none made 5 or 6 levels of progress. Many comps get most of their value added from the students who come in on L5+ not from the less able ones. FFT based value added is a bit more complex than just levels of progress but generally makes it easier to add value to bright kids.

Hakluyt, because what is actually being practised is a form of social selection, rather than anything with educational merit.

I want to dispel the myth that they is a vast difference between modern schools and comprehensive schools. There are modern schools that achieve results that only the highest performing comprehensives achieve and that parents would give their right arms for. Some of these 'modern' schools achieve up to 85% GCSE inc Maths/English and more amazingly up to 7% AAB in two facilitating subjects meaning up to 7% of their cohort are going to Russell group Universities each year.

There are of course some comprehensive schools that get 95% at GCSE and 25% AAB in two facilitating subjects. Lets forget both these types of 'super'
schools and concentrate on the average modern and comprehensive schools.you will find that the average modern school achieves around 45% GCSE inc Maths/English with the 'high ability' students averaging C+ or B- in their GCSE. The average comprehensive school achieves around 58% at GCSE inc Maths/English high ability students averaging between B- to B grades. When you compare , there really is not much difference in the outcomes of pupils attending your average comprehensive or average modern school.

We need to get away from this modern is rubbish comprehensive is good argument. I am pro selection but when DD2 was taking her 11+ (bearing in mind my worries about NVR) and DDs feelings if she failed, would have taken a comprehensive option . It does not make me like or want a comprehensive system, it would just have been a case of 'playing'safe.

The other thing that surprised me as I have stated on other threads, Is how well DD1s modern school did in educating her. The school enabled her to comfortably get on the competitive degree that she has wanted to do since 15 and eventually a career in the police.

That there is a vast difference....

I think the answer to your question, Hak, is that people who like selective systems, in whatever form, don't like them because they think they produce better results, but because they enable them to keep their own children away from those scary poor children. Some people are honest about this, some less so.

Even if selection were proven to lead to worse academic results, I suspect lots of people would do it anyway, and find ways to justify it (you can't really compare the results because our children take much harder exams / you can't really compare the results because those other schools just teach to the test / those other schools focus too much on academic subjects at the expense of the rounded education my child's school provides...).

"I personally think it much fairer to select the top 20% based on their SATs levels at the end of Yr5. A much fairer and consistent assessment of a child's true ability, I think."

Or, here's a crazy notion - we could keep them all in the same school, assess them throughout each year, and put them in sets for the next year depending on their performance. Avoids cruising, avoids writing kids off, avoids assessing them on one day's performance - what's not to like?

Amber, I like selection because my DDs are both 2E and need an appropriate environment in their school. I'm not afraid of 'scary poor children', I was one of those myself and trust me, I wasn't that scary. And nor were any of my friends. I actually find posh kids far more scary and objectionable than people from the sort of council flat background I come from.

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep Or, here's a crazy notion - we could keep them all in the same school, assess them throughout each year, and put them in sets for the next year depending on their performance. Avoids cruising, avoids writing kids off, avoids assessing them on one day's performance - what's not to like?

Isn't this what happens in many junior schools? How many state primary schools have academic selection? If it's not needed at primary level to get results why is it needed at secondary level?

LaQueenOnHerHolibobs out of interest, did any of the violent, aggressive and openly disruptive children go to your DDs primary school or did every single child from your DDs primary school go to the grammar? Only asking because if, as you seem to suggest, your DD is exceptionally bright and didn't need teaching-to-the-test to get into the grammar, then those very children you are trying to protect her from don't seem to have held her back too much so far.

I think divisions in school quality come about due to money, class and parental attitude just as much if not more than through 11+ exams. I have looked into the schools into Bristol, which is not a grammar area but has a very high level of social selection going on as most of the state schools in the city are quite poor quality (with a few very oversubscribed exceptions) and as a result many opt for private education or pay the high property prices to live on the doorstep of one of the few sought after comprehensives. I think academic selection by way of 11+ is probably fairer than this but I don't begrudge anyone doing their best for their child as I think that is completely natural. I don't understand people who are willing to put their "principles" ahead of their DC and I am a bit when people claim they disagree with selection and would always send them to the local comp out of principle. Often such people "conveniently" have access to a good quality state school. If it was a special measures school many would change their tune!

I would have no qualms about sending my child to a grammar, private or moving to ensure I was in a good catchment area. You do what you have to do. I have just watched Educating the East End on C4 and I would do all I could to avoid my child going to a school like that where lessons are constantly disrupted and the learning is minimal.

True, mumtryingherbest ...perhaps this underclass contamination of the 'best and brightest' only appears at puberty?

My exceptionally bright (natch ) DD seems to be getting on just as well in her primary school class with a couple of kids with well-handled SEN, as she does at home with her little brother with well-handled (I hope) SEN.

TsukuruTazaki I think academic selection by way of 11+ is probably fairer than this In the past maybe be some of the selective schools are so over subscribed that distance has become a tie breaker resulting in high property prices around the school. I see a lot of parents opting for private schools when their DCs don't get the 11+ mark needed to get into their preferred schools. The 11 plus does not make a jot of difference and even in 11 plus areas it still very much comes down to money, class and parental attitude.