Social mobility and grammar schools

Oh Anniebach,of course there will be some.

I take it you do not support grammar schools.

No I am so against grammer schools Granny2016, children should not have their future decided on one exam. And for a child to feel a failure when only eleven is brutal .

Anniebach, both of my brothers failed the 11 plus and at no time did they feel that they were failures.They enjoyed their secondary school,there was lots of sport and practical subjects which suited them .They were very intelligent boys.
Neither was there any difference of feeling at home while I was at the grammar school.In fact,I think they pitied me the amount of homework.

They also benefitted from a widespread apprenticeship scheme,which is sadly lacking.

The curriculum today is far more suited to some than others.
I have concerns that there are many pupils not interested academically,who would benefit/enjoy an education centred more on practical skills which would help them into suitable work.

I

You are speaking of two Granny2016, how many the same year your brothers failed who were affected in a very negative way? It suited you and your brothers , it badly affected the lives of so many children

Anniebach....I did say in my original post that 11 was too young and suggested 13.
I think all pupils should be given the opportunity to develop before being tested.It is a big leap from primary to secondary education,and a time of significant personal changes.

Children today are monitored on their development and progress from nursery into primary and are tested many times with SATS before they even reach 11.That is extremely hard on some young children.
My younger daughter did work placement with pre schoolers.
She asked me why they could,t be allowed to "just be children".

Grammars give some pupils the opportunity of a different education.
A good deal of our university spaces are taken by pupils from comprehensives, My daughter and sister were two of them.

Though very bright,I was practical rather than academic.It was very hard for me at the grammar,often I didn,t like it and was pleased to leave,but feel I would have achieved far less without the constant pushing I received.
Looking at a list of current grammar schools,they seem to be concentrated in quite limited areas.
Expansive changes would possibly meet with strong opposition.

We don't need to return to the grammar school, secondary modern era to offer good apprenticeships. The large, local engineering firms where many young men were apprenticed are largely a thing of the past. Sixth form colleges offer excellent courses for apprentices. The realissue is finding yourself an employer though things do seem to be improving.

I'm opposed to any moves towards the reimposition of grammar schools for all the reasons given above. Granny2016, you're right that the curriculum doesn't suit everyone. It never did but today is much better than yesterday. It's just wrong to put 80percent of children in a box that suggests they aren't very bright, based on one short and frankly odd exam, at the age of eleven.

Well I "passed " the 11+ and went to Grammar School in 1937 , I was 10 yrs old . My Sister and Brother both followed and passed it too . I went on the 3rd level , they both dropped out at 15 even though they were as clever as the rest . One worked in a shop the other finally got into Nursing but was thrown out for being drunk , so maybe the 11+ wasn't helpful , but I certainly made the most of my education . My DC all passed it too and went on to 3rd level , all lovely sane people

oops 1947 , I did grow up lol

No one is suggesting that people who went to grammar school aren't sane, just is it the best way of educating children and of course it isn't. Children develop at different rates and have different abilities. Some will excel at all subjects and in a comprehensive system will be in the top stream for everything, some will have particular talents and particular difficulties and will be placed in the relevant stream for these. There is space to progress up if a child develops their skills and down if they require more help. The only way to truly bring about social mobility is to make sure that every child is offered the same opportunities, anything else is discrimination.

Daphnedill....my dad passed his 11 plus but didn,t go to a grammar school.Grandparents could not afford uniforms and equipment needed and wanted him to go to work earlier.
Dad had a full time manual job,and mum worked a twilight shift. They never had a car and rented the house.
Both parents were extremely keen on our education and we had many books in the house.
I did a degree in the 60,s and my sister in the 70,s....we both had fellow students from working class backgrounds,including my 'husband' whose parents worked in hosiery and car mechanics.

Of course,there were plenty of students from more comfortable backgrounds too, It didn,t feel unequal,but I don,t think we considered it much either.

Yes trisher, true.

So right Trisher, my grandson was in the top stream for maths age 11, younger granddaughter was in fourth grade , struggling with maths age 11, she worked up the grades and is now sitting A levels maths, if she had sat the 11+ she would have failed because of the problems with maths , elder granddaughter was great at maths age eleven, she too worked through the the grades , has finished her first year in university and last week attended a presentation at her old high school for her outstanding achievements in history . If she had sat the 11+ she too would have failed . Both girls would had their education limited if there had been the 11+. Elder grand daughter received 97% in her end of first year studies in university

I went to a Grammar school, DH was at a Secondary Modern, I went on to further education, whereas DH signed on as an apprentice engineer at 16. He has always earned more than me, so ultimately our differing education means nothing.
Our DS went to a Grammar school, because we live in the catchment area and he passed his 11+. We didn't move to the area because of the school system, in fact we bought our house from DH's parents, they were moving and we were engaged and looking to buy!
DS is still in contact with his friends from infant/junior school who went to the Secondary Mod, they didn't lose touch because of being at different schools.
We also made sure that he never thought of himself as in any way superior because he was a 'Grammar School Boy'!
Our DDiL went to a Comprehensive, but went to the same Uni as our DS, in fact that's how they met.
Our DS was not tutored to pass his 11+, he was always expected to pass anyway, but I believe tutoring to pass the exam is cruel. If the child is tutored and doesn't pass, they may feel as though they're a complete failure, and if they only pass due to being tutored, they may struggle when they actually get to the Grammar school.
If DS hadn't passed the 11+, he'd have gone to the Secondary Mod, better to shine in a Secondary Mod, than struggle to keep up in a Grammar!
Some of the boys our DS was at school with were pompous little a**es, but they can be found anywhere, most of them were just normal kids, sweaty teenaged lads!
There were boys in his year from all walks of life, some of them lived in houses worth well over the million mark, others came from a council estate.
The late, great Harold Wilson was a Grammar school boy, passing the 11+ and being educated at Royds Hall Grammar school in Huddersfield, followed by his sixth form years at Wirral Grammar School for Boys, where he became the school's first Head Boy!
Some people have entirely the wrong idea of Grammar schools, it doesn't matter whether the parents are wealthy or not, it's just a way for bright, gifted and talented kids to get the best education for them, their economic background doesn't, and shouldn't matter!
If we in this country lose our Grammar schools, it will be a tragedy, but I suppose jealousy will always be a part of life. It's not a case of 'have and have nots', it's more a matter of 'I can't have, so nor should you'!

Jealousy?

*Juggernaut8 all history and a bit outdated. If you imagine there are 'all walks of life' in today's grammar schools you are mistaken. And extra tuition is now the norm. No one on a low income will make it no matter how bright, when they are in competition with children who have seen and been coached through past papers.

Apprenticeships have also changed.
I was talking to someone yesterday whose graduate son was very pleased to have started an apprenticeship in Jaguar Landrover. Most schemes in technical industries require A levels. And they would be looking for science and maths at that.

Iam64.

For some years I taught City and Guilds and Open College students.I am very pleased to see that the college now offers an extensive number of apprenticeship courses,they are extremely valuable.

We do not know for sure if the grammar schools will be extended but I feel that it is 'on the cards' for discussion.
As you say,80% of pupils now,do not attend a grammar school.I am pretty sure that most pupils at a comprehensives currently find it quite the acceptable way to be educated,it being the overwhelming majority.Many areas do not have grammar schools.

I could see the problems you mention occurring,if there was to be an extensive number of new grammars ,and the ratio was greatly reduced between the two types of schools.
The cost would be enormous,and there would be much opposition to it from within the profession /unions.
I wonder what current pupils /students think of it?
Many of us commenting were a part of the old system.

Granny16- most areas of the UK went comprehensive a very long ago... so the option is not available for most children in the UK. The problem with comprehensives is not the system per se, but lack of funding which create huge class sizes. You don't have to go back to Grammar and Sec Mods to address this. If the GVT forces schools to have intakes of 30 per class- that means that when setting, in order to allow for smaller class size for SN groups- you have to have 33+ in top sets. At our school- we couldn't physically sit the children at desks in some classes - with some students having to sit at the end of desks! Just a question of funding! Same for apprenticeships, etc.

My GS is 10 and lives in an area where the division still exists- and yes, due to poor funding and large class sizes- DD and SIL are paying for him to get private tuition to prepare him for the entrance exams. They both went to good comprehensives, and have done VERY well- they disapprove of the system, but feel they have little choice.

btw, I taught in great comprehensives since 1982 (mature student)- and all were very well organised- and with staff that worked so ahrd to ensure all kids acheived their potential- at whatever level. But the greatest handicap to achieving this was class size- and there was nothing we could do about that.

In one school I taught at, which was very popular and with much new building going on- we had to take 30 pupils per class in reception up to the end of June - and by September, with new families moving in- we ended up having 32 to 33 per class. Setting was made very difficult due to this- as described above. All classes were built and furnished for 30 max per class. WE often had to play the numbers' game- and children who would have had the ability to be in set 1, would have to stay in set 2, with knock on effect down the line- as it was physically impossible to put more than 33 in any one class- and yet SEN needed to be in a class of 15 max.

15 being the normal class size here where I live now. Teachers here would go balistic if they had to teach a class of more than 20! (Switzerland).

Granjura,
The changeover occurred between myself and younger sister.
She did very well in the comp.It had been a grammar and was bilateral.
We are without state grammars here and I had not realised that there are clusters in some counties.
Classes of 30 are far too large in any school ,but there seems to be little chance of the additional funding required to resolve a widespread and ongoing problem.

The over riding worry for me in the comprehensive system is that it is considered to be an equal educational opportunity for all pupils.
It is not,and intake areas do play a large part.
I moved from a good catchment area to one with social problems because the housing was affordable following a divorce.
I found work teaching part time in a private school.My own daughter asked if she could enrol and I explained that I could not afford the fees.
I was not aware that my 14 year old was truanting as she was being seriously bullied,even in the classroom.
It was revealed to our GP when she lost a dramatic amount of weight.
Thankfully,she was moved to the school in our previous area and was very happy.
Her original school was overwhelmed with problems and bullying was rife.

Re your GS.
I would not criticise any parent who pays for education.Many go without for years to fund it.
At the end of the day,it is ones own children that matters.

Funding is a political and social choice, and the UK trails behind most European countries- it also has a much higher proportion of private schools- one of the main attraction of which is ... small class size.

The problem with private education being an alternative for the most affluent and influent - is that those who do have influence just do no longer fight for the education system- and a great education for all.

Where I live, and where I was born and 'bred' - there are/were NO private schools. All the kids went to the same school- and the affluent/influent 'elites' ensured that the funding and systems benefited the education of their children, AND that of all. It makes a massive difference.

@Granny2016

I'm a bit confused about your Dad's age. The 11+ was introduced after the 1944 Education Act, so your Dad must have been born after 1934.

You then say that you did a degree in the 60s, so you must have been born in the 40s or very early 50s.

Are you sure he did the 11+ or did he do a scholarship exam, which was the system before 1944?

Both my parents went to grammar school. My mother passed and won a scholarship, so her parents didn't have to pay fees. My father passed the entrance exam, but didn't win a scholarship, so his parents paid the fees. It was the latter group who gained from the 1944 Education Act - children who passed the entrance exam, but whose parents would have had to pay fees for them to attend.

The other big group who gained were those pupils who gained a place at a direct grant school. These were independent schools, but had to reserve at least 25% of their places for state-funded pupils, who were selected by the 11+, not the schools' entrance exams.

I was one of those pupils and had the most appropriate education available at the time. However, my children went to a comprehensive and received an education far superior to mine, academically and socially.

@Granny2016

You just said it yourself - you couldn't afford private school fees and nor can most people, however much they scrimp and save.

The answer is to make sure that EVERY comprehensive is a good school. Rather than concentrating on 20% of the most able and motivated, how about concentrating on the least motivated (and most likely to disrupt)? We used to have such schools, of course, and they were hellholes. I think many older posters possibly forget that these pupils didn't attend mainstream schools until the early 1980s, nor did pupils with severe learning difficulties.

I found this article about Kent grammars schools interesting...

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2016/06/can-kent-county-council-improve-social-mobility-in-grammar-schools

This statistic is damning and shows that grammar schools don't work for the most disadvantaged:

Just 30% of Kent’s disadvantaged children achieve 5 GCSEs, compared to 37% nationally. In the rest of the country this figure is improving, in Kent it’s got worse three years in a row.

I found this section of the article really interesting...

^*Define exactly what ‘suitable for grammar school’ means*

The lack of science to the Kent Test worries me. GL Assessment who set the test mention there's a 90% confidence interval for their other cognitive reasoning tests, but they do not seem to quote a confidence figure for the eleven-plus exam. (This is hardly surprising, but there must be a figure!)

A grammar school pass uses an overall pass score based on 3 papers (320 was the pass mark last year) but a child will not pass the test if their result in any single paper is below a minimum score (this was 106 last year.) The maximum available score is 420 points. So any child who is a Maths genius might gain a score of 385 (way above the 320 pass mark) but still be judged ‘suitable for high school’ if they were bad at English and so got a score of 105 in that paper. The council publish results data on their website, and we can see some children with scores as high as 379 were judged ‘high school ability’ while children with scores as low as 297 are judged ‘grammar school ability’ due to HTA re-assessment.

I might support the HTA process if this could help my hypothetical maths genius - but a head once told me that children with messy writing are often dismissed by the panel when they look at exercise books. So in Kent this not-very-scientific eleven-plus approach appears to define "suitable for grammar school" as a child who is a good academic all-rounder with neat handwriting! Our grammar schools would be unlikely to accept an amazing poet with average maths ability, or any maths wizard with poor spelling skills; and if our young poet is left handed with messy writing they will definitely need to write an ode to secondary modern life.^

In Kent, where 33% go to grammar schools, the majority of pupils are little more than average. They are not receiving an 'appropriate' education, if grammar schools are supposed to cater for the exceptionally gifted, who probabbly make up 3-4% of a cohort. What is happening is that they are in schools where the least able and worst behaved have been removed. Maybe that's what parents want.

Trisher
I wonder how much first hand knowledge you have of the Grammar schools of today?
Until I retired five years ago, I was the Librarian at our local Grammar school, so I'm in a very good position to know exactly how the system works! I still 'pop in' to school on occasion to see the staff, and the boys who were in year seven when I left, and in September will be sixth formers.
There are boys from 'all walks of life' at the school I worked at, so it's not me who is mistaken!
As for your comment that 'No one on a low income will make it, no matter how bright, when they are in competition with children who have seen and been coached through past papers', you couldn't be any more wrong!
Two years before I retired a boy entered year seven, we'll call him N.T., his parents were seriously poor, lived in a very tatty house, in a horrible area just on the edge of the catchment area. His uniform was provided by the school, every year they collect good condition blazers, house ties, rugby kit etc from boys who have outgrown such, or are moving up to sixth form, so will henceforth be wearing suits. Only the staff concerned with the uniform scheme, the boy and his parents are aware of where the uniform comes from, everything is dry cleaned before being given out and I'd challenge anyone to 'spot the difference' between the brand new and the used uniforms! There's also a 'fund' for helping with the cost of school trips, and all extra curricular activities, this again is all provided quietly, unless the boys choose to tell their peers, no one would ever know.
N.T. is a very bright young man, who passed the 11+ with one of the best scores of his year and he got the chance that he so richly deserved.
He's starting Uni this autumn, reading Medicine at Cambridge, which rather proves how ridiculous your statement is!