Are Grammar Schools in England a good idea?

Question

I went to a Grammar School myself from year 10 to year 13. Undoubtedly they themselves are a good idea but it is more about the deprivational effect they sometimes incur on surrounding comprehensives.

Answer 1

Grammar schools are a great idea. Why not take the children who are more intelligent and give them a more thorough education?

Ok, so kids who failed the 11+ and were excluded from Grammar schools felt like failures, but life is hard and we can't all win at everything.

All that happens now with comprehensive schools is that the good are held back by the not so good. Teaching a class can only be done at a rate that can be understood by the slower learners. it does not work vice-versa and bring up standards. We all have our own ability levels and they can't be changed.

Answer 2

Considering that Home Schooling can be *very* taxing on the parent doing it...and since some form of Schooling is a good idea to avoid being put in jail...yes.

As to whether individual Grammar Schools are any good...you'll have to do some research with the School Boards, and Ministry of Education.

Answer 3

I failed my 11+ and went to secondary school for two years. They got me a grammar school place after the first year but then I had to have another year of secondary school as there was no vacancy. I spent my third year in the bottom set grammar school and was then promoted to the top set as I'd run off with all the prizes in my third year.

Secondary school was great I enjoyed it tremendously, but could not study science at GCE O level as I had no background.

Comprehensives are better for kids who are like me.

Answer 4

depends. i go to a comprehensive and we scored the most GCSE results in our region with students on an average getting around 12-13.5 GCSE's, the local grammar on an average got 0 and the highest they got was 8. seriously, around 3/4 of the school got 0 GCSE's from grades a*-c. but, they say that grammar schools are actually achieving better than payed-for schools.

Answer 5

Grammar Schools gave a chance to bright kids from poor families to reach their potential and have a solid education, instead of which they now are in "bog standard schools" where they are picked upon or bullied by class mates, labelled "swats", taught lightweight subjects, and where they are pulled down to the lowest denominator, whilst parents who can afford it (or those who can't but bleed themselves white to do so) send their kids to private schools to avoid just that.

Answer 6

Yes.
Grammar School's give you as good a start as other schools. If you check the results from Grammar's you'll probably find that they're all very high.

Answer 7

They are good anywhere. The cleverest children are taught together, regardless of how wealthy their parents are. Teaching (how shall I put it?)...less bright pupils in the same class can only hold the clever ones back.

Answer 8

They would be if they were open to everyone and other schools did not have their expectations lowered because of them.

The only reason they fell out of favour was because the selfish middle classes and small town tories manipulated the systerm in order to keep places for their kids and deny everyone else.

As usual, it is human greed that spoils everything for everyone.

Answer 9

yes. as long as you're clever enough you can go. why should you have to learn with people who don't care about education? not that everybody in a comp doesn't but even so. it would just be a total waste of potential

Answer 10

I'll say! I went to one and it gave me a damned good education. (Mind you, its standards were very high and it was back in the day when teachers had more rights than pupils.)