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??

Masters don’t necessarily go to people who are the most all round intelligent.
Sure, but nor do grammar school places.

They are given to people who want to do them and don’t want to get a job just yet.
I don't think they are 'given' to anybody. You have to have done pretty well in your first degree and then applied to study one. I guess it's slightly more straightforward if you are just staying at the same university for another year – I recommended DD go to a different university in a different city as a more proactive decision.

There are lots of reasons for doing a Masters beyond your slightly dismissive approach. They include, but are not limited to, a desire to study something in more detail, wanting to slightly shift from the direction suggested by your under-graduate degree, realising that you will need further qualifications to pursue the career path you desire, an interest in conducting some original research…

I’m also mystified that people think Bucks secondary moderns are somehow full of low achievers who are useless.
Who's saying that? I'm certainly not. What I am saying is that if you separate out the top 25% of the cohort (as determined by the 11+ at least) and send them to grammar school, then by definition the remaining 75% are deemed to be lower achievers (again, as determined by the 11+). Even if this is the case at the age of 10, there is no guarantee that it will be true at the age of 16, or 18, or 21.

@TizerorFizz yes absolutely you could call me hypocritical however I didn't say it was OK for me and not for others. I have to do the best for my kids in a system not of my choosing. I am not going to send my kids to a poorly performing school which does have a reputation for shocking behaviour which impedes the ability of other kids to achieve their potential. Some parents pay to avoid these schools, others suddenly become 'religious' for a couple of years, I chose the selective route. All of which should be unnecessary but it comes back to my point that what is right for an individual working in an existing system is not right for the majority. Most motivated parents will try to find a way to 'play the system' to do the best for their own kids hence the high performing schools are popular.

Of course the kids in those schools are disadvantaged by the system, I'm not denying that. But what also disadvantages them can be parents who are not motivated to support them enough either by academic expectations or managing behaviour by supporting the schools behaviour management.

There is shocking behaviour in all schools including the grammar which my DS attend. The difference is the magnitude of it and how it is dealt with. We can't deny that these schools exist and should be investing what we can to improve them. However the timeline for such improvement would not work for my DC.

I think what strikes me about grammars is that there are people who really, really want them. They are prepared to move or to have their children catch a train or bus to get to one, even if it is in another county. If there is such demand, it's weird to restrict them only to certain counties.

I remember when Theresa May was PM there was a proposal to allow councils to make some schools in their borough or county grammar schools. Except Labour said Absolutely not. It didn't happen in the end but, if it had, only those living in areas with a Conservative council would have had new grammar schools.

A lot of grammars appear to be single sex? Certainly more than comps? (What proportion of comps are single sex?)

I wonder whether if they were made mixed sex then
a) kids wouldn't have to travel so far to get to their nearest
b) some demand might drop off from people who want them more because they are single sex than for the educationally selective nature?

Do we have another inequality, whereby bright girls get to have single sex education but other girls don't? (iirc 'studies' show girls do better in single sex, whereas boy do better in mixed).

@thing47
In schools, as defined by government stats, there are high achievers, middle achievers and low achievers. If you know anything about education at all, you must know this! Therefore no secondary modern in Bucks is bereft of high achievers. They obviously have the majority of middle achievers and some low achievers are in them and some in special schools. If is therefore wholly wrong and somewhat offensive to say 75% of DC are lower achievers in the secondary schools. Very many parents would not agree with that. In some areas of Bucks it’s nearer 80% in the secondary moderns. So please be accurate. High achievers can do well in secondary moderns.

@TeenPlusCat

I agree. Few comps are single sex. My DDs thrived at single sex. Some parents see their value. Single sex grammars here are sought after. A few are co Ed and serve one town only and are very old, eg RLS Buckingham and WBS at Marlow. Other co Ed’s are Burnham, SHF Aylesbury and Chesham. 8 are single sex but paired. Parents have views on what they prefer and choose but Buckingham parents get co Ed and there no other choice.

@Mumski45
I’m sure most parents want DC to do well but plenty don’t have the resources to escape from the worst schools. You have a very low opinion of other peoples DC, the parents themselves and the teachers.

@CruCru
The regulations around admissions for each school prescribes how each school determines who should get in. The “restriction” was the Labour government who got rid of the grammars. They are not universally popular. They won’t return in any number.,

I’m not sure that I agree with you there, TizerorFizz. I think that many people who choose private school for secondary might not if they also had access to a grammar school.

@TizerorFizz
Of course most parents want their children to do well. Children with involved parents who don't have the resources to escape the worst schools by moving into more affluent areas can go a long way to improving their educational achievement.

How on earth did you deduce that "You have a very low opinion of other peoples DC, the parents themselves and the teachers" as it is most definitely not true. I have said nothing at all about teachers and actually have a very high opinion of them. I feel particularly for those in the school I am referring to as they have an impossible job. I may have a low opinion of some individual parents and their lack of interest in their children's behaviour and education but I don't think you are right to make such a sweeping generalisation.

I think you are missing my points which are

1. What is right for individuals is not always right for the majority. Eg girls do better in single sex education but boys generally do better in Co-Ed. Some high achievers do better in an environment where they have stimulation, competition and lack of distractions whereas in comprehensives the middle cohort can be better incentivised by having the ability to mix and learn from higher achievers. One size does not fit all.
2. Parental involvement is a significant factor in the success of most children and in the behaviour of children in the school environment.

@CruCru I agree that there is a significant demand for grammar schools where they exist, particularly in areas where there are few grammar schools and no full grammar system. However this demand for individual schools does not outweigh the dislike of a system which allocates kids to what is perceived to be a 'better' school at age 11 when many kids are not ready for the test. Teachers in particular are generally not in favour of the grammar system as what they achieve for individuals does not improve the outcomes for everyone.

@CruCru
I don’t think you realise that parents choose private when grammars are available. Me for one. DD passed with a very high mark but we wanted something different from the schools on offer. Single sex or co ed grammar. It was personal preference like everyone else. However in the south of the county in particular there are DC who could go to grammars but don’t. We have some highly successful preps which feed major private schools.

@Mumski45
I’m well aware girls do better at single sex and mine went to one. Boys seem to do pretty well at our boys grammars here! People fall over themselves to get boys into DCG at Amersham. I would not think anyone there thinks their boys would do better at co ed. there’s one just down the road in Chesham but DCG is usually seen as the most sought after school.

If a school has poor discipline then often SLT are to blame. Often in a truly shocking school (which is your description) it’s u likely to be full of the best staff. I have never been into a school I would say was shocking. If you think teachers and SLT set the ethos and are responsible for behaviour standards, it is difficult to see how they are doing a good job. They might elsewhere of course.

Here few teachers go from secondary to grammar. It’s interesting that teachers stay in their type of school.

Hi TizerorFizz

I’m sure they do. I’m thinking of people who send their children to independent day schools rather than famous private schools. Not having the choice of a grammar school has not made those people send their children to the nearest comprehensive - they’ve just opted out of state education altogether.

@CruCru

Yes I’m sure you are correct. However in Bucks there are few day schools to choose from. Some have also become selective. Eg Pipers Corner for girls. Day schools for boys in the South of the county don’t exist. You would be travelling elsewhere. Stowe takes day pupils in the north but Berkhamsted has become much more difficult to get into. Both Berkhamsted and Pipers have their own preps and will ask Jess academic DC to leave before senior school. This, to some extent, explains why reasonably clever DC do go to our secondary moderns. You need deep pockets or be just below grammar cut off score. This is why some people get so anxious about the grammars. In truth the leafy lane secondaries are all great.

So according to you @TizerorFizz the 11+ does a good job in selecting the 'brightest' children and most children go to the schools which are right for them. In the south of the county around 30-35% of children go to grammars but nevertheless there are loads of high achievers among the remaining 70%? I'm not quite sure how you square that circle to be honest.

So yes there are some high achievers in the secondary moderns, you are right, perhaps 10%. That's a very different environment from a school where it's maybe 80% high achievers. I didn't say they were low achievers, incidentally, I said lower, it's a comparative term, there's nothing offensive about it. And again we're talking about the 11+ split here, things can change a lot over the subsequent 7 years of secondary schooling, and beyond.

Lots of secondary moderns do a fine job, I agree, but there really isn't any mistaking the attainment gap between the grammar schools and the secondary moderns in terms of exam grades. And yes I'm fully aware that children can do well at secondary moderns, thank you, as 1 of my children went to one. The fact remains that her cohort was one of the first to do 10+ academic subjects for GCSE and then stay on and take 3 academic subjects for A level. That is a relatively new development.

@thing47
You seem incapable of looking at how the government differentiate between children and what high achieving means in educational terms when looking at stats. It’s rather pointless continuing this conversation if you don’t understand this basic description of DC in schools.

The Misbourne School has offered A levels since the 1980s. You simply don’t know what you are talking about. It’s not remotely new for secondary moderns here to offer A levels. You are really talking rubbish right now.

Here’s a breakdown of DC attending The Amersham School, Great Marlow, Chalfonts Community and The Misbourne. All in the south of the county and high percentages of high achievers.

Last one.

Wow yes those right 2 have much higher amounrs of high achievers than round here!

@ChildHeadache
I’m fully aware that these schools are in very nice areas! I’m just saying that these children are not failed by the schools and neither are they failures or disadvantaged. Once DC move on from the 11 plus, very many are not failed in secondary moderns any more than they are in some comps. I do think we have a number of schools that would like to improve their progress 8 score too.

This is probably the best secondary modern but it’s in the north of the county and selects on CofE attendance. None the less, these DC are not grammar DC.

@TizerorFizz There's no need to be rude just because I am not entirely in agreement with some of the things you say. I live in the area we are talking about (and always have done), I used to cover educational matters and I have had a daughter go through a secondary modern school from 11-18 and a son at a grammar school at the same time. I believe I am fairly well qualified to recount my differing experiences of those school systems. I gather your daughter is at an independent school? I don't comment on those because I have no knowledge of them.

I don't dispute the fact that a number of children do relatively well at Bucks secondary moderns, which is what the tables you posted show, but that does not in and of itself mean that their exam results bear comparison with the grammar schools, which is the main issue under discussion on this thread.

Ignoring the sensationalist headline on the story below, you'll see the figures for GCSEs grades 5-9 – every grammar school exceeds 94% while the top secondary modern is just under 60%, going down to below 30%:
www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/17978801.best-worst-secondary-schools-bucks-2019-gcse-results/

Regarding A levels, I was actually quite careful in my wording. I said taking 3 academic A levels was a relatively new development. At DD's school (which was not the Misbourne), they had to reorganise the entire way they taught GCSEs because of issues around children wanting to go on and take science A levels, which there had been no demand for prior to that. This was 2015 – I consider that 'relatively recent', though of course other people may not, it depends on your definition.

There are probably lots of times when I don't know what I am talking about, but this isn't one of them as I lived through it, in real time

I feel there should be more grammars and in that way more choice. Instead the govt limits grammars making the competition for spaces ridiculously hyper as a result of false scarcity and then creating a huge and undeserving market for fee paying schools. Even very mediocre fee paying schools can charge huge sums especially in counties without selective schools.
DC who don't wish to be in selectives or wish to pursue less academic or less formal education should be supported to do so. I don't think DC need a degree to be nurtured to be the best musician, stylist, designer, artist, plumber etc. People should be able to do what they have the most interest and skill set in with the require teaching/tutoring/nuturing. My understanding is that most grammars are poorly funded and funding mostly goes to non grammar schools. Yet the grammars still deliver better results. Surely they should be funded more adequately. China, Russia and many countries in the world are selecting their most brilliant scientists, engineers, biologists etc to make use they get the first discoveries and improvements. Sometimes it seems an enemy country has infiltrated our government and are destroying the country from within.

OP.

The per capita funding is the same, whether grammar or comprehensive.

Comprehensives generally have far more pupils on Pupil Premium (because it is now well known that middle class parents use their greater wealth to pay for tutoring etc), and grammars usually have a below representative number of students on Pupil Premium. Because sociology-economic equality isn’t a feature of grammar schools.

So the overall budget might be higher. But Pupil Premium money has to be spent specifically on those pupils.

Grammar schools get better results because the results reflect the intake. They don’t have the students whose grades bring down the average.

This isn’t hard to understand.

Students who are capable of and achieve excellence do so equally well in comprehensives.

Kent , a fully selective county, does not achieve overall better results than comparable non selective counties.

Yes that's right, the 'raw material' which grammar schools have to work with is generally of a high standard so you would naturally expect the exam results to reflect that. If you're genuinely interested in the quality of a school, OP, the teaching and the added value which they bring, you can look at things such as the Progress 8 score.

Also, while grammar schools might not benefit from the government funding as @HomeHomeInTheRange explains well, they often have access to wealthy parents who will happily contribute to school fund-raising efforts so the notion that grammar schools are somehow poorly funded is erroneous.

I went to a very average comprehensive school and got top grades across the board and have two oxbridge degrees. In theory I'm a poster child for the comprehensive system but in reality I feel that my education was hugely lacking. I have many colleagues who were educated at grammar schools or independent schools and their broader exposure to subjects and experience of extracurricular activities is wildly different to mine and I feel that I have been let down by the system. At school I constantly had to hide my ability and interest in subjects and I was not stretched at all. Comprehensive systems would work fine if there was rigorous setting and the bright children had as much support as the other ability groups - the reality is that they typically do not. Peer groups have a massive impact and grammar schools allow bright children to thrive. My son is now at a grammar school and loving the challenging work he is receiving. He is doing work in year 7 that I would only have accessed at gcse level.

@thing47 but those contributions from parents to prop up the low government funding doesn't have a negative impact on other state schools. The distinction is important as one of the many criticisms of grammars schools is that they somehow take disproportionate resources that should go into making all state schools equal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Given their results, they are actually a very efficient use of government funds.

I went to a very average large comprehensive school, achieved excellent grades and went to a top university DESPITE my school. There is a trend of posters saying things like "my DS is at Cambridge from a standard comp and it didn't do him any harm so it must be fine." No, a very focused and able DC with supportive parents will find a way through but that's not the point. I agree with what @sunshine7891 said, although getting better grades and probably having more potential than a number of my expensively educated peers at University , I felt at a disadvantage in terms of breadth and depth of learning from my school. I would be considered one of my school's classic success stories but I still feel that they failed me. And this is not about any chips on shoulders as in my career I have probably out-performed most of them.