The Great Grammar School Debate

[lizziec]

[Poll #688924]

Please post your own views in comments below


I apologise for the gross generalisations that follow

As has been mentioned in another post somewhere, someone wasn't sure if they wanted to work at Grammar schools. I personally can't help feeling that grammar schools are actually terribly elitist places in their current form and they just won't admit to it.

The fact is that the 11+ is not the great leveller it might once have been seen as, more a tool for stressing out 11 year olds and allowing middle class parents with money to avoid sending their darlings to the "sink schools", which only exist because of the 11+, which works to cream off all the brightest kids meaning there are many schools in Kent that have poor results because many of the children already see themselves as failures and give up, nor do they have anything to aim for because none of the kids who really can achieve stuff are there so the schools just end up drowning in a mire of bad feeling.

Basically Grammar Schools get a large number of their children from middle class families who have had their children coached to pass the test. This story about it is really quite shocking, which reveals that parents do not just have their kids coached, but also cheat, or at the very least contemplate cheating. The unsuccessful ones are also coached to get through appeals, all of which means that grammars are essentially there for those who can fork out hundreds or thousands of pounds for such services, meanwhile, those from poor backgrounds who really could benefit lose out to these children because they've never seen such a test before, while children who may be less intelligent will get through because they have.

This story also makes me angry - I work at one of these schools at the moment and the staff are working hard to improve the school and the kids expectations. How are they supposed to improve if parents who can afford to be coached through appeal avoid them like the plague.

Not to mention a quote from it that sums up my entire argument: "He describes his daughter as "not particularly academic". In an effort to get into a good school, she sat entrance tests for five schools but she did not get a place at any of them." That poor girl. I can only imagine the pressure and stress she was put under for that :(

On thinking closely about the issue I think I actually prefer Private Schools. At least they say up front that they are about how much money you can pay. Grammar schools seem rather dishonest in that respect.

In truth, the whole issue makes me feel very stompy. I can't help feeling that it would be much better if we just abolished grammar schools now :|

Comments

[deusmetallum.livejournal.com]

Maybe keep the 11+ but make it optional. If you want to go to grammar school then try this test, but you don't have to do it if you don't want to.

[amabat.livejournal.com]

It is optional, or at least it is in this part of Kent

[dark-weaver.livejournal.com]

Was optional in essex. At my school 6 took it in my class, 16 in the other class. (3 passed in my class, 0 in the other).

[amabat.livejournal.com]

The majority of pupils at grammar schools are there because they have worked to get there. Most of the ones I met weren't coached for it, I did a couple of test papers in order that I was comfortable with the format of the exam.

There are some who were coached in order to get there, ussually about 2 per class, with 31 in each class.

My two brothers were the same.

If my brothers had failed the Kent test they would have gone to Chaucer. Chaucer Technology school is not a sink school. It is not as academic as the grammar schools, but surely that's the point. Even the grammar schools have no provision for the extremely bright, they only cater for those who jump through hoops. Sending everyone off to their local school is not an appropriate answer. There has to be some element of choice. I wouldn't have gone to chaucer because 40% of that years intake had spent the past 5 years bullying me. My primary school couldn't cope with me, the grammar school had issues, going to Chaucer would have been a major problem for me. I could not have been happy at that school.

The grammar school environment is not as elitist as people suggest. The only selection is at 11, and that becomes irrelvent after you get there (although by the third week you can spot those who are only there because their parents are pushy, they really do stand out and don't gain anything from it).

If the grammar school system is stopped, then the middle class kids with pushy parents will send their kids to private schools, and there will be no where for the intelligent kids who can't afford to go private to go. Grammar schools are still a way out for people, and they are still needed. The 11+ is a better method to get entry as it means each pupil only has to sit one test, instead of the five you mentioned. The appeals process does allow for students who have underpreformed on that day to move up. The ones who loose out are the ones with pushy parents.

[dark-weaver.livejournal.com]

(accidentally posted half finished)

I personally went to a grammar school. Now, I'm prolly gonna sound like i'm boasting, soz if i do! I took the 11+, without doing any work towards it, and came around the top 200 in the county so had the pick of the schools in the area. It was quite nice because I went to a school with a 98%+ pass rate instead of 26% pass rate. I probably wouldnt of got into kent if I'd gone to the other one, but who knows.

The 11+ itself is flawed, as I said, i passed it easily, but only because it was basically the stuff I was good at. Admittedly at the school i was considered one of the cleverer ones, but someone else considered at the same level, failed the 11+ and ultimately went to the local school where she probably did considerably worse than she could of.

Even more against it, at my school there were some total numpties, people who only got like 1/2 GCSEs.

Something like the 11+ is needed, but maybe something that is less based on one test, and more how you seem to perform over time, yeah it would suck still, but unless we can somehow get a perfect school system where people of varying levels can all be taught together and achieve their own personally maximum.....

[cgaqualla.livejournal.com]

In the area of Cornwall I come from, there are only high schools afaik (though obviosuly some schools were still though of as better than others. I got kinda head-hunted by the best school in my area who wanted me to go to them. I said no). There was no 11+ to be taken. Standard of teaching was still high, as were pass rates

[cgaqualla.livejournal.com]

just double checked, and apparently my old school is classed as a comprehensive school (and is now also a language college)

[unhamburger.livejournal.com]

I took the 12+ and passed, went to the grammar school in my town, directly next to the secondary school where those who didn't pass went.

If i had gone to the secondary school i honestly believe that i would've been ripped to shreds, physically and emotionally. Theres no way i would've survived and even thought about A-levels, let alone a degree. I had a tough time personally through my secondary school years and didn't reach my full potential, but at least i got the chance. This probably had more to do with the ethos of each school, the secondary school has a good pass mark, it just wasn't for me.

They now do the 11+, which i think is probably too young, if you're going to "select out" brighter pupils maybe 14 is a better age? i honestly don't know.

The main issue surrounding the grammar school for me was the amount of people who were bussed in everyday. My town is surrounded by loads of small villages, so fair enough they were bussed in. However, most people came from nearby Milton Keynes (which was lacking in higher pass rate schools at the time, dunno what the situation is now). Having a lot of people bussed into what was essentially a small town grammar school put a lot of pressure on everything. Surprise surprise the secondary school only really had people bussed in from the villages.

If i had to make the choice again, i'd go to the local grammar school everytime. However, i don't agree with the system because of the pressure it puts on 10/11 year olds, most of which comes from parents from what i've seen. I think we're a long way off having schools everywhere which can cater for every pupils indivduals needs across the board sadly, i'm not even sure that would be the best option.

I'm not even sure that all makes sense \o/

[ingridgirl.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that your choice was probably the better one for you personally if the school next door had that bad a reputation. What i think is a big problem with grammar schools is that people assume that they are automatically better than other schools around which simply is far too big an assumption. the 3 main non-religious based schools in our area were mine (not grammar but got the best results of the 3) the grammar school, which did ok, and the 3rd school which was known for the fighting and drugs and such (although we did have such things still at our school, it wasnt anywhere near the same extent). I guess if the comprehensive i went to was taken out of the picture i'd have picked the grammar school over the other purely on reputation... but then i think a lot more of my friends would also have applied to that than did. everyone wanted to go to my school! heh!

[slimeypete.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I wasn't aware that grammar schools still existed until I read this. There is a school called PGS in Portsmouth which has "Grammar" in its title, but AFAIK it's actually a full-blown private school. Other than that, all of the schools I've heard of are either standard comprehensives or church schools. There was never any mention of the 11+ at our junior school.

I suspect that the quality of the school you go to doesn't matter all that much, to be honest. My secondary school was pretty shit (39% pass-rate, making it one of the worst in the area) and it still produced a few straight-A students. I got respectable grades (nowhere near as good as the ones that they predicted I'd get, but that's my own fault). Most of the people who got crappy results were just not very interested in academic stuff, and probably never will be.

I knew some parents who sent their kid to PGS. You know of the guy, actually. His name is Bart.

[amabat.livejournal.com]

in canterbury they still have selective schools.

they have three grammars:
Langton Girls
Langton Boys
Barton Court

then they have
Archbishops CofE
St Anselms Roman Catholic
Geoffery Chaucer Technology School
Canterbury High
There's a Steiner school round here somewhere
and Frank Montgomery which could be any thing.

They also have Kings school and St Edmunds, which are Private.

tbh if you live in Canterbury you have choice, and none of these are bad schools (Canterbury High is not that academic, but it has far better sports facilities than the others.)

The grammars have the test at 11, and there is a chance to transfer at 13, although I'm not aware of anyone having used it.

When I was there the grammar schools got no extra funding per student. The major difference was that it was an attempt to pool brighter students together to teach to their ability level. It was also meant to be top 25% went to grammar schools.

[lizziec]

The Montgomery was, for a time, the worst school in the Country.

Look at this.

[amabat.livejournal.com]

The major reason so few people considered Frank Montgomery when I was going through the selection stuff is it's location. The kids this side of it go to Canterbury schools, and the other side of it has it's own set of schools. There are very few people for whom it is the most obvious school to go to.

That was when it was considered to be better than canterbury high.

[pornqueenie.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree on this one a little bit, not that i dont understand how you feel...

I went to grammar school and at no time did i get pressured by my parents or my teachers or any other person, it was a personal decision, i wasnt coached, wasnt given extra lessons, nothing...

This isnt to say that coaching doesnt happen, and to be honest, i believe that parents like that would do that regardless of whether their child went to a grammar or a comp school...

Like Jo said my only other option for schools was one called Woodlands that was a complete and utter dive, and there is absolutely no way on earth i would have wanted to go there. I do believe there are comp schools which are perfectly well rounded and respected but there does need to be that option for brighter students to go to grammar..

I think that if you put everyone into the same school then the underacheivers are going to feel worse off than they do now as there would be a divide which would cause considerable trouble, with the way it is now classes can be taught at an appropriate level...


Thats not to say that i dont believe that undue pressure is put on some children, and maybe it is too young to do the test, but in the long run maybe look at it as a way of preparing children for whats to come, it only gets worse from then on...

I do feel its awful that some kids get so much pressure, i remember a girl in my class who got something like 80% on a test and phoned her mum to tell her, and her mum was disgusted! I was outraged by this and think that the behaviour is attrocious..

I dont think that it would make the blindest bit of difference is there were grammar schools or not, that behaviour would still carry on, even if we all went to one school the brighter students would still be pressured to do well, or in some cases, worse, sent to a private school and isolated from other children there age.

XXXX

Hope your ok by the way

[kimble.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Buckinghamshire, where the 12+ (they change over a year later than the rest of the country, though they're in the process of changing this, thus ensuing chaos as secondary schools get lumped with half a year of microscopic kids they don't know what to do with, and middle schools get a significant chunk of their budget taken away) and grammar schools are the norm.

As someone who did very well out of the grammar school system, I have somewhat mixed feelings. I seriously doubt I'd have coped with school had it not been an environment where academic achievement and individualtiy were tolerated, if not actively encouraged. However, I don't believe that verbal reasoning tests are a reasonable way of assessing one's suitibilty. I found them fairly easy, friends of mine (who were perhaps more academically able than myself) had to struggle to scrape through. All bets are off if you're dyslexic, dyscalculic or similar and not lucky enough to have been diagnosed as such.

My brother, who is somewhat less academic than myself[1] (and arguably low-level dyslexic) didn't stand a chance with the 12+. However to this day I believe he would have done okay in a grammar school environment, as he was generally prepared to work hard if given a little encouragement. When he inevitably failed, he was sent to the school for failures[2], lost half his friends (because they went to a grammar school and were therefore gay and not to be associated with), and by all accounts considered himself a failure. My parents were either unaware of this (they're not the most observant of people so this is quite likely), or as I'm sure he percieved it, unwilling to do anything about it - they'd already got their favourite child in a grammar school, so he wasn't important. I was only aware of it with hindsight. After a year or two without any self-esteem worth mentioning he basically stopped making an effort, except in the two subjects where he liked the teachers, and devoted most of his energy to being a chav. This ultimately resulted in a mediocre set of GCSEs (which when compared to my collection of As only served to reinforce his views) and some very poor A-levels which in no way reflected his true ability.

I'm not sure what that means in general. I suspect that there are an awful lot more people like my brother than there are people like me, which is probably a good argument for the comprehensive system. At the end of the day, half the people at the top end of the bell curve will learn in spite of school. The other half are a small minority who are perhaps better off in small private schools. The bottom end gets delt with (or not, as the case may be) by the special needs system.

On the gripping hand, go back to 1993 and show me that last paragraph, and watch me assassinate myself in horror :)


[1] This is a tricky one, I was always a one-sided scientist type who could do reasonably well in the humanities with a bit of work, and struggled to grok languages. My brother was more generic, not very good at maths, and although he was very into history, he suffered from poor writing skills.

[2] Actually, it wasn't a bad school, the pupils covered a very wide range of ability - the uniting factor being poor performance on verbal reasoning tests.

[barakta]

I come from Greater Manchester which does not have 11/12+ and 'grammar' schools are all private as far as I know. In my experience private schools pupils were usually kids of medics, aspiring chinese, educated asians; and a handful of people who had special needs and or got bullied in mainstream school.

In my area there were 3 main schools, two nominally CofE (I won't rant about the defaultness of christianity in schools grr) and one Roman Catholic. One of the CofE schools was immediately opposite the RC school. The other CofE school (Marple Hell was in a different 'village/town' thing. In 1991 out of ~66 kids in my yr 6 class, ~3 went to the RC school, ~5 went to the Other CofE school, a handful went to various private highschools/moved/other and the rest of us went to Marple Hell.

In 1991 Marple Hell had the better reputation than the other CofE school (they were similarly sized, and had a similar range socioeconomic intake), the fact that it had been at one time TheGrammar school probably helped this 'reputation'. Werneth the other school had just changed it's name from 'Bredbury Comp' and had the remnants of its old comp days lingering in its reputation. These days the reputations have reversed, Marple Hell started going downhill before I started, continuing through my time there - sadly the grades are still reasonable because there's enough middle class liberals with 'bright' kids who will get <5GCSEs.

My parents considered pulling me out of Marple Hell because of bullying, lack of support for my SEN and a general unhappiness with the school as an institution. I wasn't especially academic until after year 9 when they stopped pissing aboutand being all vague and actually taught us stuff with a structure (for the SATs which didn't happen and GCSE choices).

I was lucky I had excellent teachers during my GCSE, three of them really put themselves out for me, and all except two of the rest were better than good. I was ill during most of yr 10, and some of yr 11 - if I hadn't have had good teachers I'd probably have told everyone to STICK their education and refused to leave the house. Good, decent, ethical teachers DO make a difference wherever they are.

Regardless of the school, comp, grammar, private, most formalised education of children (and adults) is crap. We rely heavily on a very limited range of skills without considering whether there are other better/alternative methods which could be utilised. Teaching methods have transformed from 50's style rote learning, through various "oh they'll learn by osmosis isn't it fluffy" phases and god knows what else. If you don't happen to function better than adequately in the learning style/teaching style en vogue then you will inherently be disadvantaged.

I am, articulate, obnoxious, non-conformist and ultimately different from many people. I wouldn't have fit into many schools well, although arguably I'd have been bullied less. There are countless others like kim's brother, or worse off who don't have the social, financial, academic and life opportunities that I always knew were available to me (then, or later in life).

It shouldn't be about everyone getting n GCSEs, it should be about giving the notably disadvantaged people in our society a fair chance at doing whatever they want. Not labelling people as 'estate kid, ergo thick', not assuming that because someone isn't 'academic' that they are 'stupid'.

Maybe we have a choice between mediocrity for all (comprehensive system), or elitism for the few and failure for the many in the grammar school system. I recommend that when you have time read John Gatto an American ex-teacher's online book http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm it has a number of good points about pedagogy now and in the past (specifically related to US education systems).