24th April 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
It’s recently been reported that King Edward VI grammar schools might face a legal challenge from parents in response to the school’s decision to lower entry requirements for local disadvantaged students. In an article on the TES website, it’s claimed that this has highlighted an issue with our existing primary schools, which is that they don’t explicitly prepare students for common entrance exams.
In a survey of parents, two thirds said that they would send their children to a grammar school if they earned a place. This may be seen as elitist, but statistics into future success shows that students win a place at a better university and have a higher earning potential if they attend a grammar school. Years ago, every primary school prepared their students for the 11+ so the race for a grammar school place was seen as a fairly equal, albeit difficult, one.
Joe Nutt, an educational consultant and author of the article points out that as long as primary schools are no longer offering dedicated help for entrance exams, parents will seek other ways to give their children an advantage, and this explains the growth of private tuition. He puts it that, rather than seeing this as a middle class parent not being worried about disparity, it’s actually a way of showing that they care.
The Sutton Trust expressed their worry that a quarter of students across the UK and 40% in London use a private tutor at some point in their education. The argument is that middle class parents can more easily afford tuition and therefore it lowers social mobility. Nutt argues that with 39% of students from selective schools going on to attend highly selective universities, compared to 23% from comprehensive schools, what choice to parents have but to hire a tutor, if the schools themselves are not preparing students in the same way.