Grammar vs Non-Grammar.

[Delectable]

Everyone I speak to about schools speak highly of Grammars. They move house for Grammars and speak proudly of their children's Grammars.

I watched an Episode of Yes Minister and when asked why the govt abolish Grammars Sir Humphrey the civil servant said it's so the govt didn't have to pay Grammar teachers more for the results they got compared to other schools so it was presented as an "all teachers are remunerated fairly" scenario.

So I've been wondering why did the govt ban the creation of new grammars??

No different to streaming or setting, just using a different building.

I don't think that is necessarily true Clarry.

IME a GS has a set of parents with fat wallets, often happy to contribute to the school by monthly direct debit or otherwise (we chose not to sign up to the direct debit funding scheme), that is what taxes are for isn't it?

But many do sign up because getting a child to the GS is actually saving them the five figure sum they would have paid for a private education otherwise.

The provision and facilities are very different to the other state schools nearby. It is essentially like a fee free private school.

This situation isn't balanced at all by other schools locally being academies and their business model/operating for profit/shareholder benefit.

Local kids that don't get into the GS have very different opportunities.

I wouldn't choose to live in a GS area if I wasn't here already, we were here pre kids and it didn't enter my head when we moved here.

@clarrylove

No different to streaming or setting, just using a different building.

It is absolutely different from setting, as with setting you can move up or down as needed. When they are separate schools you can't.

Furthermore, with setting a dyslexic maths genius could be in top set for maths and bottom for English. You can't manage that with the grammar system.

(Most schools I think don't 'stream' straight away from y7 these days, purely because streams are harder to move in and out of and you want children to have time to develop and 'unwrap' differences in primary school quality.)

The provision and facilities are very different to the other state schools nearby. It is essentially like a fee free private school. DS's super-selective seemed very much a 'poor relation' in comparison with state-of-the-art facilities at many local comprehensives. They had a super active PTA which made lots of money to provide learning/sports equipment that you'd have thought would be a usual part of all schools' basic income.

Furthermore, with setting a dyslexic maths genius could be in top set for maths and bottom for English. You can't manage that with the grammar system.

You can Teen. DS is an exact example of it.

@Ahenandherchicks

Furthermore, with setting a dyslexic maths genius could be in top set for maths and bottom for English. You can't manage that with the grammar system.

You can Teen. DS is an exact example of it.

Only if they get in.

Maybe dyslexic wasn't a great example, but you get the gist. Someone ace at English and rubbish at maths or vice versa wouldn't mass the 11+ in the first place, and wouldn't have 'peers' to be taught with.

@clarrylove

No different to streaming or setting, just using a different building.

Of course it is It is very different.

Someone ace at English and rubbish at maths or vice versa wouldn't mass the 11+ in the first place Actually that happened to DN in a leafy comprehensive. Due to not being good at maths (scraped a 4 in the end) she was 'condemned' to what was clearly the less able 50% of the cohort BUT was always excellent at English. Parents had to make a big fuss when it got to looking at GCSE options to get her moved over to the other side. Vindicated by her mainly 9, 8 and 7 GCSE results.

NewModel But at least she was able to be moved ....

I think streaming is wrong before y9 at the earliest (our comp streams only for GCSE years, before then for timetabling it splits into 'equal ability' halves and then sets within that.)

Ds's grammar school was a toxic place. Bullying, zero pastoral care, behaviour problems and there were serious drug issues there. It's not had an Ofsted since 2011 and still claims to be 'outstanding'.

2 of mine are at grammar and two in comp.
The 2 at grammar are differently bright, not just flat out brighter. Our (grammar area, not superselective) 11+ selects for high speed problem solving and calculation and has a decidedly mathematical bias.

Grammars don't cream off the top 35 percent in a grammar area. They cream off mathematicians and all-rounders. They definitely miss highly creative types or linguists who don't also excel at maths. My two "11+ failures" are creative, sociable types doing very well at the comp. My two 11+ passes are good at maths/physics/computing and much less socially competent.

The 11+ emphatically does not accurately videntify all the "brightest" and cream them off. It ignores artists, creatives, actors, linguists, musicians and favours fast thinkers, decent spatial awareness and those good at maths.

If they really wanted the top 30 percent they would be taking the 5 percent best at maths, the 5 percent best at languages, the 5 percent best sportspeople, etc.

I found this article interesting
www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/28/john-bercow-ive-changed-my-mind-grammar-schools-must-go

@clarrylove

No different to streaming or setting, just using a different building.

As already pointed out, GS's are totally different to setting/streaming in that they're a one-shot all-or-nothing cut which:

(a) is made based on a single test when the child is aged, on average, 10 and a half, a test that kids from lower social classes in most cases do zero prep for, as opposed to continous assessment over entire years and in-house exams;
(b) can't be done on a piecemeal basis, e.g. 'you'll go to the GS for maths but not for PE' in the way that setting decisions are;
(c) can't, without huge disruption, reflect the many cases where kids' progress picks up, or stalls, in their early/mid teens.

Not ever setting would be pretty much a nonsense. An all-or-nothing one off cut based on a single test taken at aged 10 and a half

I love all the boasting about firsts and Cambridge and RG universities which are selective. Yet the parents haven’t wanted tutoring or selection when DC are younger. Yet getting ahead and above others is perfectly acceptable at 18 or later. Double standards! Why not go to the local college along with everyone else if you don’t believe in selection?

IME a GS has a set of parents with fat wallets, often happy to contribute to the school by monthly direct debit or otherwise

Yes, this was our experience also @Ahenandherchicks. In fact, we had a direct comparison because DS's grammar school and DD's secondary modern were fund-raising the same target amount at the same time for very similar new buildings. The grammar school raised the funds in about 6 months, while the secondary modern took over 3 years – parental contributions were just of a totally different order because parents at the grammar school wanted their own children to benefit from the new building rather than the next generation…

@TizerorFizz

I love all the boasting about firsts and Cambridge and RG universities which are selective. Yet the parents haven’t wanted tutoring or selection when DC are younger. Yet getting ahead and above others is perfectly acceptable at 18 or later. Double standards! Why not go to the local college along with everyone else if you don’t believe in selection?

To be fair though @TizerorFizz there is a difference between selection at 10 and selection at 18 I think. I'm not saying all children have an equal opportunity – we know they don't – but at least by 18 they have more fully formed characters and have a much better idea of what interests them, and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. At 10 they have no idea, so it is much too early to make important decisions as to their future academic achievements.

One of my friends was one of the first to refuse a grammar school place where she lived and went to a comprehensive in a neighbouring borough.

The joke is that both the area she lived in and the area where she went to school are both wealthy areas with small amounts of social deprivation. So the exam results and university prospects in both areas were the same and decades later it is even more entrenched.

Just because you aren't in a selective area doesn't mean there isn't selection, and explains why some places with fewer amenities then you expect have high house prices.

Just because you aren't in a selective area doesn't mean there isn't selection, and explains why some places with fewer amenities then you expect have high house prices.

True. DD's comprehensive school with its average of 80% grade 4 and above GCSE grades including maths and English had a lot to do with the demographic of the local population.

I’m not sure there is a huge difference! Lots of parents tutor for A levels. I just cannot abide the self righteous pomposity of saying we chose the local Comp over a grammar but were absolutely not prepared to do the equivalent at 18. So the less good option is ok for others at 18? Of course these children would have been fine in most schools. I just don’t agree with running down grammars when you then rock up at Cambridge with your holier then thou credentials intact!

I didn’t tutor my DD1 for grammar. She did do a few timed tests with me as her state primary did nothing like that. Bucks primaries are not allowed to tutor but private preps do. I object wholeheartedly to tutoring. In my view all the primary schools should do it. Where hardly any DC pass, there should be 11 plus clubs after school for anyone with a squeak of passing. I’ve seen fairly bright DC not get a place when I was a governor but the tutored elsewhere do. They are often the ones who would actually have done better at a sec. In fact many parents I know have accepted that. Their DC didn’t pass but it made little odds regarding final uni. Although I’m mystified as to how one neighbours DC did Chemistry at Uni when the sec mod doesn’t do Chemistry A level and another did Maths, having got FM Maths which isn’t taught at the sec mod either. I have a sneaking suspicion they got had these lessons at the grammars!!!! Parents definitely could not teach these subjects at home! Well done them though!

@TizerorFizz come on. At 11 some kids really are still children (most in fact!). At 18 they're adults. Quite different. What a silly assertion
And it's not really boasting. it's just stating facts - that just because you don't go to a grammar (which lets face it are only available in a tiny proportion of the country) it doesn't mean someone can't succeed academically.

That must be where we went wrong then, I had no idea that people tutor for A level! Perhaps that's why DD has got stronger and stronger academically as she has got older – she is now actually competing against her peers rather than their parents .

just because you don't go to a grammar it doesn't mean someone can't succeed academically.
Indeed, we were told DD would never achieve anything academically because she failed her 11+ and had to go to a fairly poor secondary modern. As she recently got an absolutely stellar Masters from a world-leading post-graduate school, I don't think it is just me being a proud parent to suggest that judgment was incorrect.

At my DC's comprehensive very few kids were tutored at A level; most couldn't dream affording it. And we certainly didn't because it would have been a waste of money. I'm sure that picture is different in more affluent areas - particularly where parents perceive their children to be 'up against' candidates in grammar schools.

DD had a tutor for GCSE maths because she had a useless maths teacher. No tutors for A level or any other GCSE subjects.

@interferingma
Where did I say they would not achieve elsewhere? In fact I quoted young people who had!

I dislike complaints about grammars and then quite happy to boast about success at Oxbridge! These young people are judged by exams and it makes little difference if they are 10 or 17. Parents in many cases are over invested snd get tutors! I’ve seen it all my adult life for GCSEs and A levels.

@thing47
Who on earth tells a child they won’t succeed at a non grammar these days? Who even believes such rubbish! That’s a story out of the 60s! It bears no relation to the facts. Plenty of DC get masters these days. Luckily at university they concentrate what they are good at. I’m not sure it conveys huge all round intelligence but does mean DC is an expert in her field. Why did it matter about the 11 plus? She was good enough to get where she wanted to be and for you to be proud. My DD2 never sat the 11 plus. I’m not a lemming and it wasn’t right for her. She has artistic skills.

Mostly DC are in the right schools but everyone knows there is a huge cross over between top of sec modern and lower sets at the grammars (in Bucks). So why parents seek to boast about success at a sec modern isa mystery. Their DC were snd are high performers. You only need to look at the government stats on some sec modern a hols to see that! It’s never going to mean a child cannot achieve academically!

Tizer So why have grammars then?