I knew dd's school was high achieving but....

[seeker]

...I've just discovered that she has been assessed as level 6c at the end of year 7 in maths, and she's in set 4 of 6! That must mean that there are around 75 girls in her year who are at level 6b or higher!

I think the real argument here is that the league tables are ridiculous. Of course the grammar schools, and in particular the super selective ones, are going to be top, it would be a disgrace if they weren't, but there may be children in an 'underperforming' school who actually out perform some of the grammar school ones by getting 8 As or something but, as they are in the complete minority, it makes no difference to their school's overall performance in the league tables. Equally, there may be grammar school pupils who actually fail a GCSE (my DS1!)and this is NEVER reflected in their performance overall. I can see why teachers are in despair over these tables, and it is self perpetuating because people look at the league tables and want their children to go to the highest performing school, and the teaching there may not necessarily be better, just the intake of children is better IYSWIM.

I have 4 older children Just one didn't go to a selective school. He has never once been told or made to feel he is a failure. I worked as an LSA in a failing High school and despite that being the case there was no attitude of failure from the pupils.

I lived through the comprehensivisation of the 70s, and I don't want the same thing to happen here in Kent. It makes me so when people spout off about how divisive grammars are yet don't apply their principles to their children, a la most of the Nu-Labour politicians. There are comprehensives in Kent for those whose leanings are that way.

I do agree in principle with Seeker but unfortunately I am not prepared not to send my DCs to a grammar school if it is there and they get a place (for several reasons). Once there is a choice, a decision has to be made. If there were no choice then it would be much easier (and fairer). In my area, to be honest, we actually have too much choice!!! But there is no guarantee that if all schools had equal intake of different abilities then the children would all miraculously become more intelligent and/or get better results. Some of them might actually hate the kind of academic teaching the children receive in grammar schools and react against them. You do have to be very self motivated to actually get the best out of a grammar school education, there is no 'pussy footing' round those who don't understand things they are being taught first time etc. However, in my DCs personal situation, the benefits of being happy outweighed the 'hot housing' element, you can always choose to ignore that bit of it!

That's the POINT, evenhope, there aren't any comprehensives in Kent. There are grammar schools and secondary moderns. You can't have a true comprehensive school when the top 23% have been creamed off to the grammar school.

I don't know which bit of Kent you are in but in Ashford and Canterbury there are schools calling themselves comprehensives who have traditionally refused to even consider anyone who has sat the 11+. They have their own admissions criteria (including 20% of places allocated on ability) and they are violently anti-grammar.

Evenhope, the rules at the school you're talking about have allegedly changed in the last 2 years as it was illegal. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Stupid entry tests are done from books and according to dd some of the feeder schools had obviously done the test before! Test was also illegal this year as it didn't take into consideration new changes to DDA. There are no schools in Ashford like this, though some of the high schools with results as low as 17% are hugely over-subscribed. All non-selective schools in our area were on that govt hitlist a few weeks ago. There are still about 10 places at the girls' grammar (or were after the appeals took place) apparently, though more boys passed than there were places for this year (something like 179 for 142 places) so I don't know where they've all been sent off to.

swedishmum I live in Ashford

swedishmum I live in Ashford

Evenhope - are you talking about the Chaucer? If so, then they do take children who have taken the 11+ and failed, they take children on proximity, and they take a percentage on the strength of their own test, which is supposed to highlight a particular aptitude for tecnological thinking. It is also a school that a lot of parents who disapprove of the 11+ choose, becasue it has a very effective grammar stream. They can no longer discriminate against people who don't put them first on the list 9as they used to) because schools are no longer told by the authority where they were places on an individual's application form.

But it is still not a true comprehensive, because, however you cut it, 23% of the children of the county are creamed off into grammar schools.

I love DD's school

She "failed" the 11+ & so didn't get into the uber-competitive v.highly nationally ranked girls grammar - best thing that ever happened.

Her school does very well (70% ish 5 GCSE A-C grades) but has a 10 from intake and 10 sets for Maths! It has it's problems, a Yr7 girl is pregnant as well as the 3 6th formers, and some of the kids know where to get drugs etc, but we have just returned from a great Parents evening on Uni Admissions and how the school will help them etc. The teachers are so dedicated & it shows.

DD also got better grades than anyone at the Grammar school in her GSCE's!

Evenhope, didn't think anyone else lived here (I'm about 6 miles outside)! Do we have a school more local that uses an entry exam? Which high school did you work in? I've worked at one and turned down a job at another - simply because it was a very bitty timetable and I'd have spent all my time/money travelling.

Hi Milliways, I think we are in the same neck of the woods.... I wanted to mention that my DD also recently tried and 'failed' to get in to the uber-competitive girls' grammar you referred to (it begins with K?).

My DD is now very happily going to go to our local comp (it is also massive, 9 forms of entry, but very popular and successful) and I'm fairly confident that DD will go straight in to the Top set for Maths, whereas at the grammar, she almost certainly wouldn't have done so.

Interestingly, the only girl from my DD's primary who got in to the grammar had - by her parent's own admission - been 'preparing' for the entrance tests for many years but she still only managed to scrape in from the reserve list! That's how 'Rat-Racey' it has become in our area and I admit that, sometimes, I wish we hadn't even tried.

I don't like the regular grammar school system - how I feel about the super-selectives would scorch the page!

My DCs are at an uber-competitive academically selective school. I've got very mixed feelings about how good it is for them.

On the one hand, I think it is hard for their confidence. The top sets are tough places to be, to get to the top of the top sets is really quite difficult for them and sometimes it can be discouraging.

On the other hand, the school pushes the children to the extent they are really quite a long way ahead of others - new entrants into DD's year (5) had to spend a couple of terms having quite intensive support to catch up. So I do feel they are being stretched.

Milliways post makes the point I was alluding to in my previous post. There are children who 'fail' the 11+ and who go on to achieve highly, even higher than those who went to the grammar school. There are certainly children at the local comps here who achieved better GCSE results than my DC. However, the original discussion was about all children being able to receive a 'grammar school type education' I think, and it not being fair to the ones that don't pass the 11+, but I think the fantastic results in general(as opposed to the dire results from non selective schools in some areas) from grammar schools are down to a combination of top % intake plus grammar school style teaching. This way of teaching would not necessarily work with lower ability children, and I think many of the teachers in these so called 'failing' schools are a lot more dedicated and better at teaching than some of those in the grammar schools.

I think a lot of very good results in schools are achieved by spoon feeding children. I don't think that is the same as a good education. A friend of mine teaches at a very high achieving girls independent school. And she frequently talks about that problem. Or rather it's not a problem because they get good grades.

Hi Seeker, completely agree with you about the so-called super-selectives. The grammar school that Milliways and I are talking about, does not have a catchment area, therefore, competition for places is ridiculously fierce. I think I was guilty of being naive and under-estimating how hard it was going to be for my DD to get a place.

Also agree with what Bagsforlife said and numerous other posts.

Interesting. I was talking to the head of year 7 at dd's grammar school at Christmas, and I asked about the difference between state primary and prep school children. She said that generally the prep school children knew more, but the state primary children were much better at finding stuff out.

nkf that's exactly right. Many of the children who don't get into the high achieving grammar here go to independents where they also come out with the 10 A*s etc because they have been taught the correct exam technique, and believe me there is an awful lot of 'helping' with the coursework. It is NOT the same as having a good education, but it gets the results, whether they are meaningful or not and, unfortunately, it is just a means to an end to get to the right university. My DS1 had to suffer the indignaty of many people (esp girls) who didn't get place at the grammar school, getting much better results than him, just by doing as told! (deservedly so, I am not putting down their results but just pointing out that its not all down to raw intelligence!)

Hi Docbunches - yes it is K!

However, my DS tried & gor into the Boys Grammar (which RustyBear & I refer to on here as Hogwarts!) which at least has some form of catchment and a much more all rounded approach to the education system.

I just really feel for any kids who are stuck with the oh so wonderfully new sports academy on the other side of town. The difference in the schools in our area is staggering & so unfair.

swedishmum no I was referring to the one you'd already alluded to (I think) (starting with H in the village of T).

DS1 went to CC under the previous Head who was lovely. Friends with children there now are not impressed with how much it's gone downhill since he retired.

I worked at the North back in 97. It has improved tremendously since my day- back then it was dire behaviour-wise. There were a lot of staff changes when the new Head came in (after I left) and I don't know who stayed and who went.

Milliways - Well done to your DS for getting in to Hogwarts! I know a few boys that go there; also, two boys from my DD's class are going in Sept. Even though it is possibly slightly easier to get in to than the Girls' equivalent, it was still a great achievement by your DS nonetheless!

Re the Academy; as you know, it was actually over-subscribed this year due to another school, quite near to where I live, being closed down. So, it just goes to show how desperate the situation is (although in the Borough where I live, we are fortunate to be quite spoilt for choice).

I've lived in Brussels for 23 years now so none of my children have attended school in the UK and of course much will have changed since I went to school there. However, the general impression (and I stress a general impression so please don't all jump on me ) that I get from the news/conversations with families living in the UK is that if you have money your children will have the opportunity to go to a good school, either because they will pay for them to go privately or because they will have a "nice" house in a "nice" area and therefore the local schools will also be "nice". If however you live in a less desirable area, the chances are high that the school will also be less desirable and that your child will end up there because of the catchment system.

I lived in the same area as evenhope and went to the same grammar school. Our parents couldn't have afforded to send us to private schools or to move house to a nicer area. The GCSE results for this school, as evenhope said, were 16% in 2007. This is the school that I would have ended up in (my parents still live in the same house) had I been born 30 years later. It would have been pretty difficult to achieve the results I received in that school today. I doubt very much I would have been living over here for a start.

It is very difficult to be anti-grammar when you have had such a positive experience and know that your life would have been very different had you been born a generation later.