Worried we made the wrong choice about grammar school

[catweasel44]

DS1 started the local grammar school in September.

He wasn't heavily tutored, although he did have one for half an hour a week in year 5 (with no extra homework). It shouldn't be relevant but I feel it is.

He is very bright, very capable but not very motivated. We worried about sending him more due to attitude than anything else but decided that the structure and expectations might make a difference.

His half term report was OK - not struggling with the work but organisation and effort need improvement.

However this weekend he's been miserable. He forgot he needed to read a book, he got a detention last week for forgetting his homework again (although he had done it).

He says he feels like he is letting himself down.

Is this normal? We are trying to be as supportive as we can and help him with organisation etc but I worry that we are expecting too much, and he would have been happier bobbling along at the other school.

I think I'm hoping you will come along and say everyone feels like this in their first term.

Dd2 is at a very excellent girls independent. They expect an hour a night prep in year 10. She's predicted top grades. But the teaching is excellent clearly unlike your grammar Mountford

Well the school is a national award winner ....

mountford100 Suddenly 75 minutes a night looks quite reasonable

I'd say 75 minutes is more reasonalbe than 90 minutes at least.

Do you children play instruments or do any sport?

mountford100 Well the school is a national award winner

I bet it is, given the huge amounts of extra work the kids are doing outside of school hours.

"Suddenly 75 minutes a night looks quite reasonable amount doesn't it Bertrand..."
Nope. That looks crap too. There is something very odd this "the better the school the more homework it sets" mantra.

And I have no idea what a "national award winner' is in school terms!

Well that escalated quickly!

DS doesn't have anywhere near that amount of homework.

Well that escalated quickly!

DD did get top grades with 20 minutes per subject. Never spent 90 mins until she was older. If you are bright you can whizz through it provided you are not a perfectionist.

Mountford: a small correction - it’s Norman Stanley Fletcher. You obviously have not done your homework! 0/10 for tonight’s effort!

Do your children play instruments or do any sport?

DD has a singing lesson but did piano and drums lessons before at primary but just for fun. Currently she has gymnastics on Saturdays which she loves and badminton club on Fridays at lunch which she also loves. So 3 clubs a week but its quite hard to fit things round when she has 2 hours a night homework. School day is 8.30pm to 3.30pm but we take her there which is 20 mins but she gets the bus back and tends to not be home until 4.30pm. I think the teaching in the day is fine though its all set at a very high level. The English seems to be old English and words averaging 10 letters.

I do wonder if its really necessary. She is certainly learning a lot but she's energetic and its wearing her out. Its possible its due to parent pressure. School is around 95% Asian and they value hard work. Though I do suspect there have been complaints about the volume as we got a letter round saying if your y7 is spending more than 1.5 hours on homework a night please contact the school. After that the homework has gone down a bit but is still at 1.5 hours a night. She's not a perfectionist and the tasks are just big. There's 3 subjects a night, occasionally 4.

My least favourite homework she's had was one were she was asked to put photos of herself in order, one for each year of her life each showing an achievement. Then the kids had to compare with one another. I just take normal holiday photos for the most part and tracking those down was more than the 30 mins, I certainly don't have lots of "achievement" photos.

Gosh Lily, that does sound like a waste of time homework. A lot of effort for the whole family!
My year 8 gets little homework. Many nights none at all. The school he is at has a small high ability cohort and larger than average 'lower' ability.
[However, with school support many do well as much disadvantage in area and barriers to learning to overcome].
The home work tends to be rather clever I think as worded in way that can be accessed at many ability levels. Not worksheet/ pointless homework but meaningful and sometimes rather exciting as a child can go as deep as they like. With maths, there are challenges for more able and extension work in class.
A school such as my sons has to work bloody hard in school hours and not rely solely on parents and homework.

Mine's at a very successful grammar and has an hour a night, often less. I certainly wouldn't want more, especially with travelling time included. But I do wonder if teachers really get how challenging juggling all the different times and requirements is. I would mess up every day if it was me!

I think they get less homework at grammar schools because they are expected to be self-motivated learners and do more on their own initiative!

I think they get less homework at grammar schools because they are expected to be self-motivated learners and do more on their own initiative!

My son is at a top 100 grammar (though not super-selective) and got huge amounts of homework in year 7. Since then, it's been pretty low, and far less than I'd have expected. Year 8 was practically none most days. I expected it to ramp up in years 9 and 10, but it didn't. He's in year 11 now. Last night, he had 30 minutes for just one subject. The night before, he had none.

Looking on the online system, there are homeworks set, but they''re usually "finish the worksheet from class", or "finish questions x,y,z from the text book". DS usually tells me that he's already done that in class!

Self motivation seems to be a problem for many there. My son won't actually do a "homework" unless it's formally set. So, he won't take it upon himself to revise, or read the next chapter, or whatever. It sounds like most of his classmates are the same. But if a teacher does set a homework such as "revise for test on xyz", he'll do it and get good marks in the test. There's quite a divide in the teachers. The "old school" style teachers who've been there years/decades tend to be the ones who don't set homeworks and then do the ranting and raving when the class don't score well on a surprise test. The more modern teachers, who are more likely to have recently joined, are the ones who set specific "revision" homeworks.

So, there may well be an "expectation" from the older teachers that the kids use their initiative, but I think society is changing and the modern reality, as seen from the more recently appointed teachers, is that there is less initiative being shown generally, so more intervention is needed.

I'm sure grammars vary as much as comprehensives. Lily2007, it sounds like perhaps your daughter's school isn't a good match for you as a family? You seem to disagree with the ethos, which will make it difficult for you to support the school in future. If you think your daughter would do just as well elsewhere and she's not particularly enjoying it/making good friends, perhaps it would be sensible to move her?

My son's school also seems to set huge amounts of homework, but I can see the progress he's making and he's getting to grips with it. A lot of it is online and marked instantly which is more satisfying I think! And they've lots of opportunities for earning merits by getting 100% which still seems to be motivating him! He's least motivated to do homework which he thinks won't get looked at - only one subject really - and quite understandable!

One difference for him is that he was home educated before so he has no primary friends at different schools to compare notes with. Also, he was used to doing work at home!

My son is also loving the opportunity to play table tennis in the playground and at the after school club so this is a major upside of that school in particular, despite the long journey.

If you don't think your daughter is thriving in any way or benefitting from the experience, maybe you should change course?

Thanks CrazyCrofter I'm seeing how it goes at the moment. I'm quite happy with the ethos, its my daughter who isn't but I can see where she is coming from and do think 2 hours a night in y7 is excessive. I would prefer she stays at grammar but the comp isn't bad.

Results wise I expect she would do well at either, possibly slightly better at grammar but GCSEs aren't that hard for bright kids so in reality there maybe no difference in results. Though I think they are making GCSEs harder. The comp did though get no children with an A at all in a few subjects and one of the classes my friends just changed her DD out of saying the teacher couldn't control the class. I think you can work round that though. Another parent told me her DD had 6 science teachers in one year and a history teacher teaching science GCSE and Head at both comps resigned last year. I'm not too bothered about this but after 4 Heads at their primary I very much appreciate the stability the grammar offers.

Up to y4 she was quite self motivated at primary but then stopped under peer pressure which is now removed at grammar. She started talking in text speak, with a local accent to fit in, won't do anything after school and this friend's family have SS involved, prison, drugs, suicide attempts and this friend is still encouraging her to go to fields in the dark though I'm banning it. There are two comps and the friends at one are sensible but they meet as a group and DD is very attached to this one girl. I feel for the girl but want DD away from that.

She has lovely friends at the grammar so no issue there and academically she's learning a lot. If she's still unhappy after a year I probably would change her over to the comp as my son is going there (boys school is an hour away) but I'm reluctant not to give it a good try first.

My son's school also seems to set huge amounts of homework

So a Grammar School that is educating bright DCs is setting huge amounts of homework, Why?

Surely Grammar school DCs should be able to grasp the concepts covered in KS3 fairly easily and quickly, why does the school feel the need to ramp up the work at this stage?

I would understand for yr 10 & 11 when they are working towards GCSEs (granted a number of Grammar schools have now moved to 3 year GCSEs so possibly yr 9 too) even then those DCs should not be finding the work so challending that they need hours of extra work, every day, Surely?

I'm not sure why they set so much homework in y7 and in year 8 its supposed to go up again.

They do GCSEs over 3 years so can understand a lot in y9-10-11 and I had a lot from my comp then.

Some of the kids at my DD's grammar did about 2 hours a night at primary from c. y3 to prepare for the grammar exams, it's not impossible some of these kids only get the results with lots of hard work though DD has said only 2/30 are noticeable. The school has issued warnings saying if your child needs lots of prep to get in they won't cope but that's not entirely true. When DD asked around she was the only one who hadn't done a massive amount of prep and 27/30 who have seem to be fine.

I think the grammars are under massive pressure to get results, the teachers job maybe results linked, may also be parental pressure at ours. In theory its supposed to be 1 hour to 1.5 hours but some of the tasks are more like 2 hours once you've factored in going to the shop to get all the things you need which I have included in the 2 hours as if she didn't have homework we/she wouldn't have to do this. Maybe other parents have a room with 6 different coloured modelling clays etc permanently stocked but I don't.

Self motivation seems to be a problem for many there. My son won't actually do a "homework" unless it's formally set. So, he won't take it upon himself to revise, or read the next chapter, or whatever... So, there may well be an "expectation" from the older teachers that the kids use their initiative, but I think society is changing and the modern reality, as seen from the more recently appointed teachers, is that there is less initiative being shown generally, so more intervention is needed.

I could have written the first sentence (and subsequent ones) myself. This was DS's problem up until Year 11. He learned the hard way (less than stellar results) that lots of extra work was/is required in addition to the not over-taxing homework.TBQH his school's results this year took a bit of a dip (he was certainly not alone in under-performing). I think they've finally accepted that some pupils do need to be pushed more, rather than left to rest on their laurels (and potentially not do as well as they could/should) or self-motivate to study.

I think the grammars are under massive pressure to get results

I think you will find that all schools are under pressure to get results.

If Grammar schools are full of bright, hardworking, motivated DCs being taught in classes with little or no disruption, I dont see why Grammar schools would be under more pressure than any other school. In fact I would expect there to be a lot less pressure to get results.

DS1 has just started Y7 at a grammar school which is usually near the top of the league tables each year.

It is notorious locally for handing out tons of homework right from the start of Y7, so I expected a fair amount each night. In reality, DS spends less than an hour each night, usually more like 30 mins, and much of it is just finishing tasks from the lesson that day which he's already completed in class. He still moans about the amount he gets though! What did help was him meeting up with friends who have gone to the comp instead - he's realised that they get just as much homework, if not more.

The disorganisation, forgetting things and getting detentions for silly things is all very normal for Y7. Even the most organised children struggle with the transition to secondary and the extra personal responsibilities they gain. DS has dyspraxia and ADHD so finds these things difficult - strict routines, printed checklists for each day, wall charts in his room and using his laptop to send reminders to himself have all helped with this enormously. I think the slightly stricter rules and routines at his school actually help rather than hinder him as he is always very aware of what the expectations are. He'd sink into chaos in a more lenient school.

I'm sure all schools are under pressure but the grammars results are significantly higher than the comps, 76 percent A/A stars in all subjects compared to 5 A to Cs for 50 percent of the comp kids, obviously very different intake but the grammars are getting results the same as private schools with similar intakes, much smaller classes and much more funding. I would have thought there would be more pressure on the grammar as there's nothing to blame if they don't get results, intake are bright, they've worked hard, they behave so difficult for the teacher who's future will be linked to it. I could be wrong though, probably a teacher would know best the relative differences but the teachers certainly seem under a lot more pressure than in y6 at DDs primary to get results.

but the grammars results are significantly higher than the comps

I don't think it would take a genious to work out that the Grammar school gets higher results.

100% high ability = high results
30% high ability = lower results

It really is as simple as that.

I would have thought there would be more pressure on the grammar as there's nothing to blame if they don't get results

How on earth could they fail to get results - high ability DCs, hard working, motivated, heavily supported at home (and a willingness to throw in a tutor or two if DC is lacking confidence or isn't sure they will get the predicted A*) and little or no class room disruption.

I could be wrong though

Yes, perhaps your are:

The comp did though get no children with an A at all in a few subjects and one of the classes my friends just changed her DD out of saying the teacher couldn't control the class. I think you can work round that though. Another parent told me her DD had 6 science teachers in one year and a history teacher teaching science GCSE and Head at both comps resigned last year. I'm not too bothered about this but after 4 Heads at their primary I very much appreciate the stability the grammar offers.