Why white children are not getting into grammar schools

[deanstreet]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/11/why-white-children-are-not-getting-into-grammar-schools/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_fb_photo_not-getting-into-grammar-schools

Interesting thread apart from the OP. My husband and I are not from the UK and have noticed that other parents often have different attitudes about education here. We support both of our children with the limited homework and projects that come home. I have heard many white British parents saying that they ignore the homework or didn't realise that a project was assigned because they do not read the emails from school. This is for children in EYFS and KS1, where the parents appear to be well educated themselves.

I also notice that they prioritise a more well-rounded approach, favouring other activities such as sports or music over academics. For example, a student who did not meet expectations in reading. The parent chose to add another sport whereas I would have considered withdrawing from an activity to spend more time reading at home.

I don't say this in judgment as these people are my friends and their children could be better off in the long-term. They will eventually read, could pick up more resilience from sports, and don't need to sit the 11+ or go to grammar school to be successful in life.

I agree with the PP who said that it starts long before tutoring for 11+. I have a fundamentally different attitude towards learning and education than many people here.

Not only to grammar schools have disproportionately low levels of disadvantaged pupils, differences persist even when you control for prior attainment. The study cited below was conducted in selective areas (like Kent etc.). The reasons for this have been well explained upthread. This specific study is a bit old, but I would be amazed if there has been substantive change since then.

However, Burgess et al. (2018) find that even comparing children with the same achievement, there remain large differences in the probability of accessing a grammar school place in selective areas, depending on family socio-economic status. Their research shows that comparing two pupils who are both at the 70th percentile of attainment in Key Stage 2 tests at age 11 (combining externally assessed English, maths and science scores), the pupil from the most affluent fifth of families has a 50% chance of getting into the grammar school, whereas a similarly attaining pupil from the most deprived fifth of families has only a 15% chance. At the 80th percentile of attainment, the gap is even greater with children from the best-off families having a 70% chance of attending a grammar, compared to only 25% for children from the worst-off families. Even scoring at the top 10% of attainment gives the child from the poorest fifth of families only a 50-50 chance of getting into the grammar school, whereas the child from the richest fifth of families will be admitted 6 times in 7.
In summary, access to grammar school places is strongly related to family background and this remains the case even when comparing children with the same achievement on national tests at age 11. Whatever advantages grammar school attendance conveys, it is very much concentrated on pupils from affluent backgrounds.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/research-projects/2020/sep/inequality-access-grammar-schools

Bloody immigrants, coming over here and working really really hard....

& i know some people wont appreciate the guardian link, but the stats are clear.

A quarter of England’s 160 state grammar schools have fewer than 5% of their pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM), compared with 22.5% of children nationwide. In contrast, only 13 of England’s 2,877 non-selective state secondary schools have fewer than 5% of pupils receiving FSM.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/21/poorer-pupils-still-missing-out-grammar-school-places-england

@Owlbookend - what about the top sets in comps? How many on FSM there? And SEND. You will likely find similar. And parents tutoring to get into/stay in top set.

Do we first recognise that the large comprehensive is now to be re assessed?
Secondary Moderns were discarded because they became a sort of dumping ground. They provided the factory workers doing assembly work on production lines. That work is no longer out there.
The teaching profession is capable of teaching in a different way to how it taught in the 1950s. It probably is already. But we need to give the schools the means to discipline and exclude the trouble makers who make life so difficult for those who do wish to learn.

Someone tell Reform they will soon put a stop to it.
They are 'colonizing our grammar schools'.....

Proportions might have changed, but better off children have been over-represented in grammars since the post-war period. It has never been a level playing field. If you are interested in this issue from a historical perspective, I suggest reading the book below. It is a really interesting read. A readable study written in the 1960's conducted by an author from a working class background.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Education-Working-Class-Pelican-S/dp/0140208119

@Araminta1003 if you look at the figures in the study you will see that isn't the case. Yes, higher income children are more likely to be in higher sets, but the effect is much more pronounced when you look at gramnars.
Furthermore, in n a comprehensive set movement is possible. The 11+ is a decision made based on a single test taken at age 11. Movement is much, much less likely.

PS @Araminta1003 We may have some differing views on education, but your phrase 'PE style army loonies in SLT commanding others around' made me smile. DD has a deputy head who is also a PE teacher & im pretty sure this is how she might describe her. According to DD she gives very long boring assemblies that mainly focus on important issues such as skirt length ......

I’m South Asian and my DC passed the 11+, but we chose an independent school instead. The intake at our local grammar is largely Indian and Chinese, so the findings don’t surprise me.

For many immigrant families, education is basically the only reliable route to stability. We came to the UK with debt, no property, no inheritance, no networks and no “people who can open doors”. If our kids don’t do well academically, there isn’t a fallback.

We don’t really grow up seeing state support as something to rely on, so education feels like the one lever we can control.

So the mindset becomes very simple: work hard at school, go to a good university and secure career. It’s not about gaming the system or ability - it’s about risk.

@Owlbookend https://www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion/all-news-opinion/over-150-comprehensive-schools-more-socially-exclusive-than-the-average-grammar/

Yes - some comprehensives are in very affluent areas and are exclusive. Most arent.

A quarter of England’s 160 state grammar schools have fewer than 5% of their pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM), compared with 22.5% of children nationwide. In contrast, only 13 of England’s 2,877 non-selective state secondary schools have fewer than 5% of pupils receiving FSM.

Look at the stats above. 13/2877 comprehensives have less than 5% of FSM. That is less that 1%. 1/4 of grammars have less than 5% of FSM. The difference is stark. Grammars nearly always have lower FSM %s than nearby non-selectives.

Nobody disputes some comprehensives have very affluent intakes. However, they are relatively rare.

I have DCs at different schools in the same local authority - one grammar with 8.4% fsm, one comp with nearly 4x that at 29.3%. The English not as a first language rates are triple at the grammar, another grammar in the same LA has an fsm rate of 5.4% with nearly 50% English not as a first language.

I haven’t RTFT but anecdotally, where I live I think the white middle class parents aren’t bothering with grammar schools as much as they used to. They prioritise well-being (maybe because having a reasonable amount of financial security gives you that luxury) and a relaxed childhood, over 11+ pressure. There are some very good comprehensives around us, and so the kids go there instead and probably do just as well.

EAL not as a first language when you can pass a selective test in English as well at age 11 is an advantage though? High IQ child? Learning several languages/music etc is a likely long term advantage for the brain.

EAL in itself means nothing. Child arrived from Somalia last year with not a word of English vs middle class fully bilingual kid with two medic parents/French parents etc.
Now FSM is being widened from 26/27 as well it loses its meaning too.

I dont think it is helpful to keep spamming a thread, so will stop posting links now. All I will say is that my understanding of the stats are that:
*FSMs are on average lower in grammars overall than in non-selectives.
*The differences are not fully accounted for by differences in the prior attainment of different income groups.
*Some comprehensives in high income areas have low levels of FSMs.
A selective school in a lower income area might have higher FSMs than a non-selective in a very high income area. However, in almost all cases it, it will not have higher FSMs than a nearby non-selective school.

Anyway, wont keep on. Back to the winter olympics 🛷

Exactly. On another thread, posters are lamenting how the UK is becoming less white, overrun by low earning benefit scroungers with no education who don't integrate and hate women. Some of us have heard this for years, and now Reform is bringing it back.

So some of us Asians with no family wealth or connections and funny forrin names, got an education , encouraged our children- both boys and girls- to get the best one they could, and also encouraged them to earn well and pay their taxes. Never rely on the state. Bust down the walls of Oxbridge and LSE. Break the glass ceiling. We integrated.

In return, we are now called sharp-elbowed at best and abusive at worst.
What would people like? Do you want uneducated foreign benefit scroungers or highly educated doctors, lawyers and engineers? You can't have it both ways.
Or is it that we should integrate just enough to not be on benefits, but not enough to take the grammar school places or jobs you see as your own?

Also the two very non-diverse schools mentioned in this article are single sex which tends to be more popular with ethnic minority parents. They will choose these schools over other selectives because of their single sex intake.
The two other selectives I can think of in this area of London are a girls Catholic grammar which surprise, surprise, has a lot of Irish and other European-origin girls along with other Catholic minorities - and a coeducational grammar which is much more representative of London kids in general, albeit with a bit of a weighting towards minorities who tend to push their kids hard academically.

If this study was in Kent then the fact that most of those passing to grammar spent their junior years in private education is likely to be a huge factor. For example, the main feeder school for Cranbrook has always been Dulwich College. Cranbrook's intake is at 13+ rather than 11+ so a high proportion attend prep schools rather than state primaries.

💯 spot on.

My two white children are at our local grammar school which is overwhelming South Asian. Interestingly the different races mix in school but not so much out of it. It’s a shame.

The boys may have academic ability but judging by some parents comments, they have absolutely no common sense!

I'm not getting that from either the article or the posts in this thread.

From what I've seen everyone wants the best kids to get into Grammar schools regardless of race or how many generations the family have been here. And that's exactly what's happening as demonstrated by the article.

Who doesn't have common sense?
Your boys?