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

Sara1954

Lizj
Same for me, I was only ten when I took the exam, like thousands of others.
Separating children at that age, based solely on a couple of days of tests is shameful.
The combined disappointment of my parents and grandparents, was very hard to handle, and I’m ashamed to say, I’m still slightly reluctant to admit I went to the SecMod.

Yes to see my strong Mum crying because I “failed” will stay with me forever.

The system in Scotland where I happened to be when 11 years was the High School or Secondary school. You had to pass your qualify exam at a certain level to go to the High School, considered as more academic and where you could sit the Higher exams required for University entry.For those not making the grade the secondary school offered much more in the way of technical/commercial skills culminating in a Leaving Certificate. The secondary was organised in groups eg A,B,C, those in A being the brightest and the studies graded accordingly. Anyone in a B, C group showing aptitude would be moved up a level to achieve potential. After 3 years this could be followed by Technical College and eventually Uni. There was a stigma attached to the Secondary v High School system and when the comprehensive system was adopted this was hoped to lessen the stigmatisation of children academically. Unfortunately the comprehensive system has it's own faults eg mixed level classes or streaming according to ability. The grammar school system openly perpetuates academic divide.

grandMattie

i feel very ambivalent. Both DH and I went to grammarars.
Both my elder children went to grammar school in Kent where there still is the "Kent Test" - 11+ by any other name. The younger went to an excellent comprehensive as the local Secondary modern was dire.
What worries me is that intellignet/academic children need to be stretched, and non-academic children need to be nurtured. The two don't really mix as the less academic/intelligent tend to be disruptive.
Ditto for single sex/mixed schools - boys do better in mixed, girls in single sex.
So what is the answer?

The two groups can be taught in the same school. Most comprehensives have some form of setting, so pupils are not taught in mixed ability classes.

It is not unknown for able pupils to be disruptive and they can be very clever about it. A decent discipline system should sort them all out, although this needs proper resourcing and leadership.

I went to a Girls Grammar and definitely support them. Our sons went to a former grammar school which had gone independent, so we had to pay for the same education I got for free. We consequently drove beaten up cars and had no savings until they left school but it was worth it.

My daughter is at a super-selective grammar school (no defined catchment so families move from all over the country to help their children achieve a place). She is registered blind, adopted from the UK care system and has a diagnosis of neo-natal abstinence syndrome due to her exposure to heroin and methadone in the womb. I am a single parent and my daughter is on free school meals because we’re a very low income family. She had no tutoring for the 11+ exam because I couldn’t afford it at £35 an hour.

I am grateful every single day that her grammar school exists and that she has a place, mainly because, regardless of the academics, the pastoral care is so wonderful. My daughter has experienced and continues to experience much disadvantage in her day-to-day life so I have no qualms in evening up the balance and sending her to the very best school for her.

Flo53
One of my daughters spent a year in a very good girls school, we loved it when we looked around, we thought it would suit her very well.
We knew it was academically very good, but thought that as long as she passed the entrance exam, she’d be fine.
We were wrong, she struggled academically right from the start, the only help they could offer was for her to give up everything else, and concentrate on her school work.
I will always remember her spending the Christmas holidays on a project, doing lots of research, and presenting it well, only to have it rubbished by her teacher.
It was a great school in many ways, lots of girls did amazingly well, but her next school had their work cut out building her confidence back up.

My son's teacher recommended him to take the entrance exam for our local boys grammar. On the day of the exam we were shown into a waiting room where other children with parents were waiting. Many of these children were wearing uniforms from some of the top private primary schools in the area. I know that these children are rigourously trained in taking entrance exams to top schools and I couldn't help thinking that poorer children from the local primary schools might not have that advantage. Grammar schools are really good IMO for very bright children from the state sector, but if parents of posh kids who can well afford fees for private schools choose the Grammar state funded route as the cheap option then it really defeats the object of poorer kids getting in.

Where I live we have always had Grammer Schools, nowadays children do not have to sit the 11 plus, my Grandaughter decided not too, and is in top stream at an excellent Academy. My friends Grandaughter took it and starts at Grammer School in September, So it’s down to choices, we’ve had children, can’t stand word kids, who have gone to Medical School, Oxford, Cambridge from both schools. Can’t see what the fuss is about.

I was very fortunate to be in the position of attending a secondary modern that had a grammar streaming attachment. This meant that as I managed to progress through the years of schooling I had the privilege of achieving that degree of education I would not have had the experience of otherwise. And for that I am so grateful. Just wish there were more of these still being used and being available for more rounded education for late achievers such as myself. ??‍♀️

Where I grew up, for those who passed the 11+, there was an option of a Grammar School OR a Technical School.

As a child, I always wanted to go to the Grammar School - which I DID do. The Education that I received was excellent, BUT, thinking back ...................... I would have been better at the Technical School.

I think I must have read far too many Enid Blyton books in 'my formative years' - my Grammar School was like a 'snobbish version of St.Trinian's' with a building that looked like something out of Harry Potter .

I think that there is far too much focus on academic subjects these days. It’s reaching the point where one needs a degree for almost any job, no matter how menial.
My GS is intelligent, but not interested in going to Uni. All he wants to do is to train as a plumber. Instead of being forced to sit GCEs he would have been far better off in a technical college, from around 14.
I went to a girls’ grammar school. I was painfully shy, and the lack of male contact blighted my social confidence and led me to marry the first man who asked me!
My parents took no interest in my education, and resented their limited income being spent on expensive uniforms and equipment. They insisted that I left at 16, so I gained no advantage from going there.
Although grammar schools can be a big plus for some pupils, I think that pupils gain much more from being ‘set’ in groups according to their abilities, with flexibility to move to a different set, as needed.

I’m curious that the pro selection posters believe comprehensive education means bright pupils aren’t stretched. Comprehensives stream for academic ability.

Very few children from disadvantaged homes in Essex attend grammar schools.

A few years ago, I asked for a FoI request, asking how many pupils in all four Essex grammar schools received free school meals. There were 11 - out of a total of over 3,000 pupils. That's about 0.3%. Compare that with averages in other schools, which are usually about 10% and much higher in some areas.

Iam64

I’m curious that the pro selection posters believe comprehensive education means bright pupils aren’t stretched. Comprehensives stream for academic ability.

Exactly! People are mainly talking about a time when there were secondary moderns. Comprehensives are for all abilities and are not the same as secondary moderns. A decent comprehensive most certainly does "stretch" the most able.

langelei

I was very fortunate to be in the position of attending a secondary modern that had a grammar streaming attachment. This meant that as I managed to progress through the years of schooling I had the privilege of achieving that degree of education I would not have had the experience of otherwise. And for that I am so grateful. Just wish there were more of these still being used and being available for more rounded education for late achievers such as myself. ??‍♀️

But there are! They're called comprehensives.

The more academically inclined could gravitate to the Grammar School, the more practical or technically gifted could gain a sound education in the Comprehensive School.

That more or less sums up the old tripartite system from the 1944 Education Act, in which vast numbers of children were labelled as failures at the age of eleven. The post-war baby boom (my generation) highlighted the inequity of this. The number of grammar school places stayed the same, while the number of 11 year olds increased. It doesn’t take a selective education to work out why this approach was failing society and harming children.

In 1952, I sat the Qualifying Exam (known as the Qually) and proceeded to the A stream in the local authority Academy in my Scottish homeland. The main difference between the A and B streams was that the A class did Latin. There was some fluidity between streams. A friend who failed the Qually, despite being expected to do well, arrived in the A class after just one term and learnt as much Latin in a few weeks as we had in a full term. After three years we were sorted into subject sets and were able to take extra languages - at least, German or Greek. Pupils from the B stream who were good at Maths, for example, found themselves in the top set. I was in the middle set and managed to get out of taking Higher Maths, by deliberately failing the prelim (mock) exam. I am grateful for the education I received from committed teachers in this otherwise undistinguished Academy on the west coast of Scotland.

Sorry - got to ask - why did you not want to take Higher Maths?

Aepgirl

It was just jealousy and lowering of standards that were the demise of grammar schools. What is wrong with having schools for the more academically able and schools for those with practical and craft skills? We used to be a nation of manufacturing but now because all youngsters deem it their right to go to university, even if they are not suited to that, we have few who want to go into manufacturing.

Did you, and/or your children go to grammar schools and/or university?

Although this is very nice thread "the story of my education" is, by the very fact that we are on "Gransnet", history.

Education has changed so much and, unless you have recently been teaching we probably know very little about it. I know I'm lucky with where I live and where my children went to school as we have very good comprehensives and the snobs still got the opportunity to send their children to our local "Grammar School", still called that although it is a Comprehensive. We also have some good Independent schools. Three of the schools in the area are faith-based. We were able to get our children to the schools we thought suited them best.

But ... this too is history. When I hear about my GCs education it's amazing. When I hear about my friends GCs education it to is amazing and yet when we have a thread about how we go forward we hear all about education 50 or 60 years ago.

Time has moved on. If we are looking to improve education shouldn't we be looking forward rather than backwards? The future always demands different skills to the past but then, when they said we should teach all children to read people probably looked back and thought it was better when they were part of a small group that had that privilege; after all, it doesn't suit everyone to be able to read does it?

I'm not sure you need grammar schools to get a good education. What you need is a school that works for the academic together with one which works for those with vocational aspirations and a fluidity which will allow for all children to have an education that suits them. It would be expensive to set up but could revolutionise, keeping disengaged youth engaged and help our industry at the same time. There will always be children that fail at academia, there are bright children who will not necessarily rise to the challenge of an academic education but the best learning takes place when there is an interest in the subject they are studying. I hated history, geography and science at school but loved more practical stuff. Now I've grown up (I think) I love history and some science. We don't all engage with subject areas at the same age so I have wasted years of learning time when I could have been enthused.

You have put that very tactfully, Pippa ?. I can't help seeing it as 'I did it that way and was part of an elite. If others are allowed to do it too, I won't be elite any more.'

The same applies to expansion of university places -'Some people' should train to be plumbers, but obviously that didn't apply to me/doesn't apply to my children/grandchildren.'

They should never have been changed

Alegrias1

I'm in Scotland so I don't have direct experience of the Grammar School system and I've never worked in education. It seems to me that separating children at age 11 and basing their future life chances on an assessment done that early is not the right thing to do.

I went to a large secondary school where all subjects were streamed. If you were good at Match but not so good at English you went into the relevant stream for each one - you could be in Steam A for Maths and Stream G for English. So you got the level of teaching that was right for you and nobody got left out.

Its probably a utopian dream but I think all schools should be run that way

That seems to be the ideal. But in these days of not expecting children to strive to be the best it probably wouldn’t be approved in today’s climate of non competitiveness.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.