Grammar Schools...... would you like to see a return?

Pantglas2

The tories have always believed in choice - state funded education, health AND private/selective schools/hospitals for those who can afford better.

Socialists believe that no one should have a choice, especially those prepared to make material sacrifice to enable a better standard, except when it comes to themselves and their families of course.

And that’s what makes them hypocrites according to my dictionary - a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

State funded education with classes of 30+, where school budgets are cut so staff, buildings and children suffer. A system suitable for the poor, the hardworking and underpaid.
Private education, small classes, huge playing fields, extra curricula activities for the rich and privileged.
Everyone should have a choice -not just the rich.
Tory-a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess

Chardy my son did not go to a Grammar School, he is not a lesser person, he enjoyed his School, and did not feel inferior as he did not want to go to the same School as his sister.

The tories have always believed in choice - state funded education, health AND private/selective schools/hospitals for those who can afford better.

Socialists believe that no one should have a choice, especially those prepared to make material sacrifice to enable a better standard, except when it comes to themselves and their families of course.

And that’s what makes them hypocrites according to my dictionary - a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

growstuff

foxie48

LullyDully

Not all grammar schools are in affluent areas. There are some in inner city Birmingham, much sort after as it happens. A very good comprehensive/ academy is the best bet. ( I went to a GS, quite narrow in those days, must be better now. )

Four of the six Birmingham KE grammar schools are not in affluent areas but they draw from across the city they do not have a catchment area, the three associated Academies are non selective and do draw from the local area. Comps, whether they are academies or not, also draw first from their catchment area and good schools are always over subscribed. FWIW, academies are not necessarily better than LA schools Better is also quite subjective, a "good" school for one child might not be a "good" school for another.

Of course the academies are selective. They don't have the most able in their intake. They're secondary moderns in all but name.

I agree that academies are not better than LA schools. They're just branded differently and probably have a high-earning CEO.

Academies are as non selective as the comps in the LA. Most LAs do not have grammar schools. The main difference between Academies and Comps is the funding + a bit more freedom in the curriculum and the ability to employ teachers who do not have QTS, ownership of land and buildings etc. I've fairly recently taken the school where I was COG out of LA control into a mixed academy trust. My local secondary academy is totally non selective, they take pupils in the catchment area.

Pantglas2

^They’re the hypocrites not the Tories - we know they believe in getting the best for their kids and have always been up front about it. Not so the socialists who preach one thing and do another on the sly!^

See my earlier post Trisher - we know exactly what we get with Tories but Labour do say one thing on education, health - fairness, equality blah Di blah, except when it comes to their own families - hypocrites!

So what you get with the Tories is an underfunded, inadequate system with huge class sizes because their children won't be using it whereas Labour politicians demonstrate they want the best for children including their own.
Isn't it more hypocritical to pretend you want a system that educates everyone but cut budgets, so schools lose staff and children suffer?

Simple question to all those in favour of grammar schools.
Would you feel the same if your child/grandchild ended up in the secondary modern school?

Growstuff of course going to the Grammar helped your daughters friend, your daughters friend if anything like our Grammer School is the norm and not the exception.
I am glad your daughter has done well.
Every School however good or bad has has clever, or hard working pupils.

I think might prove varian that a bright child will probably do well wherever they attend school.

I failed my 11+, my parents, particularly my dad, were really upset with me, as far as they were concerned, that was it for me, and my dad, who had always encouraged me, and helped me, lost interest overnight.

The sad thing is, to a large extent they were right, I was happy at school, but can’t pretend the standard of education was very good. It was quite a progressive school in many ways, but most pupils still left at fifteen.

So for me it’s a no. I think the grammar schools were excellent for those who attended them, but to tell 10 year old children, that their life choices are limited, because of how well they did or didn’t do in an exam is wrong.

I know also two girls like that *growstuff" , contemporaries of one of my children, who were both in the top set at primary school.

One went to the local comprehensive, the other to a private school. Both did well in A-levels and ended up on the same course at the same university where both got identical degrees. I'm not sure what, if anything, that proves.

rafichagran My daughter went to a comprehensive school and, at the age of 28, has a senior job in a respected organisation. She didn't need to go to grammar school. Her best friend from primary school was about the same ability as my daughter, but did go to grammar school. Despite going to different secondary schools, they both achieved almost identical GCSE and A level results in almost identical subjects, went to similar universities to study the same subject. Both are doing well in their almost identical careers, so I can only conclude that going to a grammar school didn't benefit my daughter's friend that much.

Ellianne

^That’s not necessarily true around here, Ellianne.
Quite a few parents are willing to pay junior school fees, in the hope of thereby getting into the grammars.^
What I said Witzend was that independent junior schools do not intensively prepare children for grammar schools as was suggested. Children who are applying for independent senior schools are given mock interviews, past papers etc. That is very different from the exams set by grammar schools.
Also I beg to differ that it is mainly grandparents who are paying the school fees these days in London. It is the high income people who form the majority.

I guess it depends where you live. In Essex, some of the indie prep schools do prepare children for the four Essex grammar schools.

I agree with you Witzend. I tutor quite a few children of parents who have chosen to send their children to state schools and are using their money on tutoring when it's needed. That's not usually because the teaching is "bad", but pupils just need a bit of confidence or maybe they've been ill and have missed schooling. I tutor modern languages and class sizes are usually too big, so a little one-to-one help works wonders.

PS. I'd love to be able to do what I do for free, but unfortunately I do have bills to pay. I do occasionally help parents I know are struggling financially.

^That’s not necessarily true around here, Ellianne.
Quite a few parents are willing to pay junior school fees, in the hope of thereby getting into the grammars.^
What I said Witzend was that independent junior schools do not intensively prepare children for grammar schools as was suggested. Children who are applying for independent senior schools are given mock interviews, past papers etc. That is very different from the exams set by grammar schools.
Also I beg to differ that it is mainly grandparents who are paying the school fees these days in London. It is the high income people who form the majority.

Bad form to pick up on someones grammar. I dont appreciate the sarcasm.
How are you so sure it's a typo, I dont wax lyrical about how clever I am unlike some.
Like I said I was a very young Mum who wanted a good life for my children and myself, hard work and a good education which my daughter got at the grammar school.
So Varian you can Sod off. That nasty post said more about you than me.

foxie48

LullyDully

Not all grammar schools are in affluent areas. There are some in inner city Birmingham, much sort after as it happens. A very good comprehensive/ academy is the best bet. ( I went to a GS, quite narrow in those days, must be better now. )

Four of the six Birmingham KE grammar schools are not in affluent areas but they draw from across the city they do not have a catchment area, the three associated Academies are non selective and do draw from the local area. Comps, whether they are academies or not, also draw first from their catchment area and good schools are always over subscribed. FWIW, academies are not necessarily better than LA schools Better is also quite subjective, a "good" school for one child might not be a "good" school for another.

Of course the academies are selective. They don't have the most able in their intake. They're secondary moderns in all but name.

I agree that academies are not better than LA schools. They're just branded differently and probably have a high-earning CEO.

I think it has also changed in rural areas Witzend

I remember speaking to a farmer's wife forty years ago who told me that her children had to go to private schools because if they went to the village school they would be alongside the farm worker's children and it would be awful if they were not as bright as them.

Fast forward to now. Her son runs the farm and still makes a good living but his children go to local schools, partly because, having spent a million pounds on a state of the art milking parlour, he can't afford private school fees, but also because they no longer employ farm workers so don't need to worry about their clever children!

The truth is that while a minority go to grammar school, the majority don't.

If an area has 25% going to grammar school, it is not true that all those 25% are "academically able". Those at the bottom of the quartile (ie the pupil 25th out of a hundred) are more similar in ability to an average child than the genuinely able.

So where do you draw the line? The one who is 25th will be labelled "academically able". The one who is 26th will be labelled as something else, despite errors in assessment. The reality is they will be almost identical, but one will have opportunities the other won't. Any half-decent comprehensive can be flexible and wouldn't make that sharp divide. It just isn't possible to categorise children at the age of 11.

I went to an extremely selective direct grant grammar school, where 75% of the girls were fee-paying (I had a free place). My children went to a comprehensive, where they did well. I sincerely believe their education was as rigorous as mine was and, on the whole, better.

LullyDully

Not all grammar schools are in affluent areas. There are some in inner city Birmingham, much sort after as it happens. A very good comprehensive/ academy is the best bet. ( I went to a GS, quite narrow in those days, must be better now. )

Four of the six Birmingham KE grammar schools are not in affluent areas but they draw from across the city they do not have a catchment area, the three associated Academies are non selective and do draw from the local area. Comps, whether they are academies or not, also draw first from their catchment area and good schools are always over subscribed. FWIW, academies are not necessarily better than LA schools Better is also quite subjective, a "good" school for one child might not be a "good" school for another.

That’s not necessarily true around here, Ellianne.
Quite a few parents are willing to pay junior school fees, in the hope of thereby getting into the grammars.
Senior school fees are typically quite a bit more expensive.

IMO fewer and fewer of the sort of parents who would have paid fees a few decades ago, are now doing so. Fees are relatively considerably more expensive, and of course the cost of housing has also shot up. Many of the sort of people who could once have afforded them - even if it was a struggle - can’t even think of it now.

Our dds both went to a highly selective independent senior day school in London. Most of the parents were certainly not rolling in money. Dds’ former school friends, virtually all graduates, are now nearly all married with school age children and very few of them are going private. If they are, it’s often the grandparents who are funding, or substantially helping with, the fees.

Personally I think it can only be a good thing that so many such parents are sending their children to state schools. Our Gdcs will certainly not be going to independents.

Welbeck I think you are right about Finland.

Fund all schools properly.

Grammar schools by their nature make some children fail before they really begin to develop.

suziewoozie

rafichagran

My daughter was never tutored to get into the Grammar School, she took the 11+, passed well and got her place in a very much in demand selective School. No money for her education was ever paid out, although as I said up thread I would if I had too.
I am happy with the Selective system.
My daughter is a very respected journalist and her education and personality got her where she is today.
I was a teenage Mother and both her Father and I married young, divorced now, and I am/was grateful for a system that helped her education and got her where she is today. I have a son as well, he did not go to a Grammar School, the idea horrified him. He had no jealousy of his sister and is not a lesser person.
Keeping the Grammar's in my area has my full support.

Of course not all are tutored but many many are and so the system is intrinsically unfair.

Not only that, but some of them continue to be tutored once they get to grammar school. I know that because I tutor some of them.

I seem to remember Ms Abbot had famously criticised colleagues for using selective or fee paying schools.
She then put her son through City of London an independent school.

rafichagran posts "Keeping the Grammar's in my area has my full support."

Pity about the grammatical mistake.

I'm sure it can only have been a typo.

rafichagran

My daughter was never tutored to get into the Grammar School, she took the 11+, passed well and got her place in a very much in demand selective School. No money for her education was ever paid out, although as I said up thread I would if I had too.
I am happy with the Selective system.
My daughter is a very respected journalist and her education and personality got her where she is today.
I was a teenage Mother and both her Father and I married young, divorced now, and I am/was grateful for a system that helped her education and got her where she is today. I have a son as well, he did not go to a Grammar School, the idea horrified him. He had no jealousy of his sister and is not a lesser person.
Keeping the Grammar's in my area has my full support.

Of course not all are tutored but many many are and so the system is intrinsically unfair.