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Grammar Schools

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high priestess fnord

i think the whole grammer school system is stupid. even if you pass the exam then they dont have to give you a place. if there is a mistake in the marking of the exam paper (this happens quite abit) then that could be the childs whole education down the pan, they are automatically labled "stupid" put in a chav school where they are discouraged from taking higher level gcse exam papers even if they are bright enough to do them (well in my area at least). the whole system is a joke. it stops people from disadvantaged backgrounds getting a reasonable education because you need money to move into the area in the schools catchment to be garanteed a place, you may need to pay for a remark of the paper, all the wealthier kids will have had private tutoring (like all the politicians kinds for example), its all geared up for people whos parents know how to play the system and its deeply unfair.

In my area there is no pass or fail. The best students get a place. No arguments.

Surely if there were no grammar schools then no one would get pushed to do higher papers?

In my area, more funding goes into (per pupil) the high schools than the grammar schools.

If there were grammar schools natioanlly, there would be no catchment area. As it is, the catchment area for my grammar school is a good 5mile radius.

The tests are supposed to be verbal reasoning. The only tutoring i got was how to take the test, you can get that in a book for about a 10er.

Reply 581

high priestess fnord

or you could just teach in sets like the private schools do.

Reply 582

ro-ro

high priestess fnord

automatically labled "stupid" put in a chav school .

Because assuming if you go to the school with the less able kids there will be more chavs than at grammar schools. So you label all the kids who don't get into grammar school chavs?

That's healthy.

My comprehensive school had kids from some pretty rough council estates and yes it had trouble however I know someone who went to a private school (which I'm sure you wouldn't label a chav school) who got bullied to the point of suicide then transferred to state school and had no problems.

It's not all black and white. By giving non grammar/private schools negative connotations your labelling children. May I draw your attention to becketts labelling theory, negative labels in education become self fulfilling prophecies and hold children back.

Reply 583

high priestess fnord

benisright

In my area there is no pass or fail. The best students get a place. No arguments.
Surely if there were no grammar schools then no one would get pushed to do higher papers?

In my area, more funding goes into (per pupil) the high schools than the grammar schools.

If there were grammar schools natioanlly, there would be no catchment area. As it is, the catchment area for my grammar school is a good 5mile radius.

The tests are supposed to be verbal reasoning. The only tutoring i got was how to take the test, you can get that in a book for about a 10er.

1) then why was i rejected and then when (after special needs and private education etc) suddenly accepted when i got good grades? the local comprehensive didnt even realise i was dyslexic ffs. my younger brother on the other hand got top grades on the verbal reasoning (after tutoring because before he was only getting borderline marks) and three years later he is still #1 on their *waiting list* no alternative school given

2) surely if everyone was put into one system insted of two then they would be given the same opportunities? atm in my local comp it is assumed that as u didnt make it inot the grammer then u have no interest in doing the higher paper. u must seek out extra help outside of lessons on the charity of a sympathetic teacher.

3) if it was only 5 miles for mine then none of the village kids would ever get a look in.

4) even inteligence tests like those for mensa can be practised for minor improvement, verbal reasoning is one that you can make huge differences to by practising.

Reply 584

ro-ro

You were rejected because you didn't demonstrate the fact you were the best. With tests and better education and people understanding your special needs it helped you show you were the best through grades so you got in.

If enough people are the 'best' some people won't get in. They can't take more children than they have capacity it's just unlucky and unfair to not get in. That's not the grammar school system, that's poor funding which is also essential to mantaining a good split education system.

Catchment areas under the grammar system are ridiculous I agree on that.

Reply 585

high priestess fnord

ro-ro

but it took private education to get me to that point. had my parents not had money i would not have probably had to quit school at 16 with no education and no job prospects. my IQ is high even if most of the time it doesnt show. why should bright kids be denied a reasonable standard of education? you dont even get good special needs lessons unless you go to a grammer school. which imo is just plain silly.

the same with my brother. ffs he wasnt even given a school despite proving by there standards that he was well above the average garmmer school entrant. my parents had to write to schools in the area and in the end they were offered a crappy comp 50 mins drive away and no transport to get him there. is it me or is that ridiculas?

Reply 586

benisright

1) Stop saying ffs. 2) You live in the countryside, its not my fault!

I don get most of your argument. Because comprehensives are crap, we should ONLY have comprehensives?!

Grammar schools are there to help the most able. By helping the most able you move them away from the comprehensive so they can get more specific teaching. We do not fund Grammar schools anymore than Comprehensives (in fact less)

The schools in your area sound messed up to be honest. My grammar school doesnt do special needs lessons, because there arent any special needs kids. Sorry to make a generalisation, but with 1000 kids applying for the 120 places at my school in south london, you dont get any special needs children. Anyway, Dyslexia doesnt need any special training, it just needs the teacher to be aware of it and not pick on you because of it.

All the problems you state could be solved by the re-introduction of grammar schools. Its not my fault the grammar school falls outside your catchment zone, its the fact that grammar schools were taking away that fails you there! If you have grammar schools you would have one near you. You cant complain about a system if you dont even have it there and then support abolishing all grammar schools because comprehensives are bad.

So in short, yes it is ridiculous. Its ridiculous the Labour Government of the 1970s got rid of your grammar school. Its ridiculous that your local comp has to deal with people like you wanting to do better, but then have to deal with people who have special needs cases and then people who dont want to learn.

Oh and its a 5mile radius, because in our area, that takes up a considerable amount more people than in your weird countryside, we can fit probably 500,000+ people in that area. You wouldnt come close by the sounds of it.

Reply 587

Sianey

I think all this talk about the compulsory 11+ and secondary modern is irrelevant. That system was unfair, and so it was gt rid of.

The current system isnt unfair, do kids in comprehensives do worse because they dont have incredibly bright kids to compare themselves unfarourably to? I doubt it. In fact I think its the other way round, I had friends at my grammar school who thought they were intellectual failures because they struggled, they then left at 16 and went to either comprehensives or less competitive grammar schools and are now doing much better being at the top.

I was down to go to the local comprehensive if I didnt get into grammar school, and I'm sure I'd have been happy there, but grammar school suits me down to a T, I'm surrounded by people who are nearly as much of a perfectionist as I am. It also suits the kids who would struggle at comprehensives because they would be bullied for being "weird". My friends and I think some kids at my school are slightly strange for spending every lunch in the library, but you think that would just be accepted at a comprehensive?!

On the other hand my brother was never even considered to go to grammar school, does he feel a failure because of this? No, he has access to the help he needs to succeed, which would be totally ignored at a grammar school, and he is blossoming at his comprehensive.

Therefore whether a kid should go to a grammar school or not should only ever be decided on the kids preference, and on their personality. But the access to grammar schools shouldnt be shut off to everyone.

Reply 588

benisright

Your first paragraph!!! Just because a government got rid of something in the past doesnt make it irrelevent. It was not got rid of because it was "unfair". Never trust so strongly our politicians. It was got rid of because it was unfair and the socialist government at the time did not like the selection process deaming some better than others.

You also act as if every area has a grammar school and therefore they can benefit as you have. They dont, many areas now do not have Grammar schools and every aim is going to be made in the next 20 years to abolish the rest of the grammar schools. This is what i am angry at, i do not want to live in an area where my child will go to one school, or go to one of Tony Blair's "specialist" schools. I want him to go to a school catered to his needs, either a Grammar or a High School.

Children at comp's do not do better or worse because there are kids who do better than them and make them feel bad. They do worse because teachers spend unfair amounts of time on the smarter children, if the teacher did not have to solve complex mathematics problems for child A, then they could spend more time teaching pythagoras to child B. So Child B would improve.

Reply 589

benisright

And to the person who mentioned complete streaming.

Nice idea. Would never work

Anyone here get a free education, where they are streamed in every one of their classes?

Reply 590

City bound

Throughout this thread the recurring argument is about the margins. Every contentious point seems to reffer to someone that just issed out or developed latter in life. It's something that is unavoidable with a slective system. However problems occur in the minority of cases when you consider the bigger picture. There will enevitably be wrong decisions made. However this is not a sufficient reason to be against grammar schools. The vast majority of the children that enter are obvious choices; a smaller proportion, but a majority just the same, that attend are special needs (i.e. have an IQ of 130+). There can be no denying that those who attend recieve an appropriate education. One that is target at their ability level. Just simply streaming by overall ability is not enough, the gulf between the most and least able students is still quite large when individual subjects are considered, even at grammar school. Hence there are still "sets" for individual subjects within most grammars; especially in subjects such as maths.

To deny an intelligent child specialised education is as bad as denying it to the other area of special needs (i.e. an IQ of <70). When the government tried to shut a large number of special schools for the lower bracket there was outrage. Not so for the grammar. Pity doesn't go both ways in Britain. The public will only feel pitty if those involved are worse off than themselves.

Reply 591

SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian

The Ace is Back

Eh?

What constitutes private education? Big private schools? Small, after-school tutors? Home tutors? Summer schools? Home teaching by parents? Music lessons? A poetry society? I think it would simply be impossible to get rid of all forms of paid education, simply because "education" comes in so many forms.

Reply 592

frost105

high priestess fnord

There are always appeals and many grammer schools do 12+ exams to join the school in year 8 (thats what I did). In Bucks and Wirral every kid gets a place and the secondary schools in Bucks did really well.

Reply 593

amie

benisright

And to the person who mentioned complete streaming.

Nice idea. Would never work

Anyone here get a free education, where they are streamed in every one of their classes?

I did actually, when I was at my secondary modern during Yrs 10 and 11. Well, except for Media and Drama where there weren't enough people to justify streaming us into separate classes. But in both there were certainly divides within the classes anyway, a big part of both of those subjects was group work so the higher ability kids would work as one group on more advanced work, and the lower ability as another on less advanced stuff.

It worked well, I don't see why you say it wouldn't? I had friends that were middle/bottom stream for Maths and Science but top stream for English and German. It was great, they got their education at the right level for each subject.

Reply 594

City bound

Complete streaming does work when there are sufficient numbers. In my eyes the logical conclusion is to stream by overall ability and then by aptitude. Hence providing both the most appropriate environment and the most appropriate education for each child. It is true that the environment is different in grammar schools and comprehensives. However this is a good thing. There will always be the full spectrum of people at a school as long as the entry is not purely fiscal. The variations are of the proportions of each area. There are more quiet studious types in a grammar school, but that is not to say that everyone is like that.

Reply 595

benisright

I dont see how every school has the organisational ability to stream everyone. It seems like madness, in a comprehensive with 250+ in a year to stream every class according to each subject. Most schools have enough trouble timetabling lessons without full streams...i know my school is moving to 7 period days to help their problem.

Reply 596

City bound

You've hit the nail on the head. A truely comprehensive school is too unwieldy. Streaming within lessons IS a necessity, end of. It is must easier for the teachers when the pupils are roughly similar to start with. My grammar had very few admin problems. I have lost count of the number of teachers who have told us, in one of those veering off the point moments during lessons, how wonderful it is teaching at a grammar because the comprehensive system is just too wide reaching.

Reply 597

ro-ro

benisright

Anyone here get a free education, where they are streamed in every one of their classes?

Yep, everything except PE (but I wasn't on GCSE PE so I don't know if you got streamed for that) and Drama because there was one class of 12 kids so streaming would have been a piss take.

Streaming needs teachers who are adaptable to teach the sets so they teach to people's abilities and ways of thinking.

I was in the top stream of Math and had to be moved down because the teacher couldn't teach me in the right way. He'd repeat stuff at me that I didn't understand and I don't learn from repetition so I fell behind, got detentions, got sent to heads, etc. I moved down a set and excelled and was top of the set and they later said if I had stayed on higher I would have got an A but I took intermediate.

Reply 598

SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian

Who gains in the abolishment of grammar schools (baring in mind they are funded the same or lower than comps)?

Reply 599

City bound

no-one gains from abolishing grammars. The main argument against grammars is "not everyone is clever enough to attend therefore no-one should benefit". Defies logic really.