← Back to context

Comment by dijit

4 days ago

This is just incorrect information.

> By the end of the 1980s, all of the grammar schools in Wales and most of those in England had closed or converted to comprehensive schools. Selection also disappeared from state-funded schools in Scotland in the same period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_school

There are private schools that call themselves grammar schools (paid schools, not state funded) and some grammar schools still exist in Northern Ireland.

But the system that defined what a grammar school is - has long since been abolished, and all free-access grammar schools were completely gone from my area before I was even born.

—-

EDIT: seems like the some state funded selective grammar schools exist but they are not exactly distributed evenly.

So, I am wrong; and this situation is actually significantly more class-enforcing than it used to be. Amazing.

10 comments

dijit

Reply
robertlagrant  4 days ago

> all free-access grammar schools were completely gone from my area before I was even born.

That's because you lived in an area that didn't have the 11+ exam. I did, and I went to a state-funded grammar school in the 1990s. It's still there, famously.

Nursie  4 days ago

I have a friend who teaches at a state funded grammar, and that wikipedia article includes a whole section on Current British grammar schools, which are selective and state funded o_O

illwrks  4 days ago

There are plenty free non-fee-paying Grammar schools all around London. There are some private fee paying schools that were historical Grammar schools and still have it in their name.

The only issue is that Grammar schools are super selective these days, based on my own experience there are at least 10 applicants for every single place, as well as multiple rounds of tests to filter out children. In the end it’s a lottery of sort too as local councils decide who is awarded a place.

simonbarker87  4 days ago

My neighbours kid took the 11+ two years ago to go to a state funded selective school in Warwickshire. 4 of my friends went to a grammar school (slate funded) in the 2000s and that school still exists in the same form it did back then.

Most grammar schools are gone but there are far from none.