11 Plus Exams Forum

Pinched from Surrey, but may be of general interest:
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/re ... -01398.pdf

very interesting - thanks for posting it

Thanks for posting that Pippi - it makes for very interesting reading indeed.

It is a shame that the report is so dismissive of the proportion of non-white children & non-native English speakers attending grammar schools. It does make good points about the proportions of some ethnic minorities attending grammars, but it is typical that it fails to give any plaudits for the already high proportions of GS children from the other minorities. By omission, they must be Indian and Chinese - no surprises there, of course.

The proportions of SEN children at grammars are hardly surprising either, and the report does acknowledge that, but it immediately makes a comparison with the proportion of GS children receiving free school meals, almost as if there is some direct link!

The anti-grammar propagandists are alive and well, and living in Whitehall.

"The anti-grammar propagandists are alive and well, and living in Whitehall."

It's not propaganda - it's fact. The number of children eligible for free school meals at grammar schools, for example, is shameful. Particularly as grammar schools were established to help disadvantaged children step up out of disadvantage - not to save the parents of the privileged minority school fees!

I agree with you completly Katel, but I find it very depressing that there is no recognition in the report of the role that GSs have already played in lifting some minority children out of the "Secondary Modern" under-achieving group.

Sally-Anne - could that be because that was a phenomenon that may have existed in the 50s and 60s and maybe 70s but just does not exist any more? Or am I overly cynical? Certainly there is little evidence of any children not from solidly middle class privileged backgrounds at my dd's school. And I can look round my son's year 3 class at his VERY socially mixed on the edge of a big council estate primary school and make a list of the children who are going to grammar school. And there won't be any from the estate - well, maybe 1.

Sally-Anne wrote:... there is no recognition in the report of the role that GSs have already played in lifting some minority children out of the "Secondary Modern" under-achieving group

There's this rather barbed comment on p6:

Contextualised Value Added results, which look at the progress made by pupils and adjust for various factors such as SEN and deprivation, show that across the entire secondary age range pupils at grammar schools made slightly more progress than similar pupils nationally, although the difference was less than one grade in one exam per pupil.

If I was an anti-Grammar propagandist living in Whitehall, that's the bit I'd focus on!

I'm surprised that the % of children in Grammar schools was highest in 1947 (38%).

[The "evidence" from our kids' schools is identical to yours, Katel]

katel wrote:It's not propaganda - it's fact. The number of children eligible for free school meals at grammar schools, for example, is shameful. Particularly as grammar schools were established to help disadvantaged children step up out of disadvantage - not to save the parents of the privileged minority school fees!

Minorities always benefit minorities. Since subsequent governments in a matter of decades managed to rapidly reduce grammars into a tiny minority, it was to be expected that in the finale these would become mainly populated by the offspirng of well off people.
The solution to this problem is to drastically increase selective schools rather than eliminate them; the latter strategy amounts to someone curing a headache by chopping the head off!!

As I have posted before on this forum - Bright man meets bright woman and they eventually marry (nowadays - ??!!??) and have bright children. Dim man meets dim woman and shacks up (!!??) and has dim "kids". QED
Why would anyone imagine that there is any social mobility nowadays?
Also, there would appear to be a horrible correlation between those who got into DD's school on appeal and who were borderline and those who are either outright failures and/or have a bad attitude problem!

not necessarily, A friend's son got into grammar on appeal, is just finishing his post doctoral work on polymers and is being head hunted by several chemical firms..