New South London Selective Schools

[saaflondonmum]

If Teresa May PM gets her way, will we have a return to selective education across the whole of South London and Surrey?

I know of senior members of staff in headship positions at two well known single sex Catholic schools that are considering applying for selective status by the time of the Tory party conference in the autumn.

[saaflondonmum]

One of the schools I refer to is a well known RC girls' school on close to Croydon/Bromley border.

[MarshHarriet]

So would these schools also open matching RC 'high schools', secondary moderns or otherwise non-selective? Are they interested in a faith education for a less academic intake?

[saaflondonmum]

I think they are talking about shifting admissions to accept the top 30-40% of the ability range with RC criteria too. The top RC state schools prior to the new admissions code used to take many children from the top of the ability range with very few at the bottom. Now these schools are accepting pupils who list them as their 2nd or 3rd preferences which the schools are not happy about.

A friend of mine her DS is in 6th form at The Oratory and they are apparently looking at doing something similar.

[deepfriedmarsbars]

Coloma Convent in Shirley?

[EnquiringMingeWantsToKnow]

I agree with PP, surely if the schools are committed to offering an RC education to children who need it but believe that education streamed by school is better then they should be opening an RC Secondary Modern. Or do only intelligent kids need an RC education? Are the less advantaged RC children (and I strongly suspect that in practice this disproportionately means Poles) better off in secular comps for some reason known only to the Catholic hierarchy?

[deepfriedmarsbars]

Oratory, Coloma, and Fisher were all selecting pupils until quite recently but agree with PP, wouldn't want any of the best RC schools to not at least be involved in helping to set up other non-selective RC schools.

Personally I think a lot of the best state schools will end up going selective if Conservatives get it through.

[MarshHarriet]

"Personally I think a lot of the best state schools will end up going selective if Conservatives get it through." Really shocking, if this happens. Kids of all abilities need, and deserve, to attend the 'best' schools.

It all makes no sense; Free schools cannot select on faith, and yet faith schools will be able to select on ability?

What a mess.

As for these RC schools - what would Jesus do? Suffer the little children of lower ability to gaze through the gate at their more academic friends? Possibly not.

[EndodSummerLooming]

I hope it happens my DD spent some time at a previously excellent cofe girls school in SW London and the broader admissions policy introduced in about 2007 more or less destroyed the school. Widening admissions just meant standards fell for everybody and the school became increasingly unpleasant.

[maxtrue]

I hope it happens my DD spent some time at a previously excellent cofe girls school in SW London and the broader admissions policy introduced in about 2007 more or less destroyed the school. Widening admissions just meant standards fell for everybody and the school became increasingly unpleasant.

This makes me so cross...just because some children are not A flippen star does not mean they are...badly behaved/ cause trouble/ bring the school down. What a shocking thing to say.
I hate selective always have and will.
BTW my precious kids could make the cut to private so its def not sour grapes.

[EndodSummerLooming]

If they had all been well behaved girls there wouldn't have been a problem though. If it had been possible to exclude the significant minority it wouldn't have been a problem. But it was a disaster.

[Blu]

So actually, Endod, what you are calling for is a system which selects the well behaved? And the non-unpleasant? Or to be precise, aims to protect high achievers from unpleasant children?

In your ideal academically selective school, what happens to the diligent, well behaved middle attainers?

"Widening admissions just meant standards fell for everybody and the school became increasingly unpleasant." Can you be specific about how standards fell for everybody? Do you mean the average % of A_C passes went down, or do you actually mean that the high attainers in the school started to do less well and high attainers got fewer GCSE passes, at lower levels, than before?

Or did the demography change? Once it was no longer selective did a certain band of parents decide not to send their children there any more?

I really am interested to know on which Christian philosophy parents who wish for exclusivity in CoE school you describe, or the Catholic schools that look set to jettison lower attainers base their decisions on.

Kent as a county does not, overall, produce better results than counties with non-selective schooling. If a school can't manage a mixed ability intake, then maybe they weren't actually a very good school in the first place, but just reflecting the raw material.

I suspect a ot of schools will be tempted to do this, though, just so the Heads can enjoy the reputation of running a 'good' school, when all the kids are of high ability AND have parents who went the extra mile to get them into a selective school - with all that that entails. preparation, possibly more expensive uniforms, possibly an extra bus fare, maybe even just getting round t filling out the supplementary entrance form.

[minifingerz]

Oh Coloma is already hugely successful in excluding poor and low achieving children. There's hardly a need for any more formal arrangements for barring plebs.

[HPFA]

I really cannot see the Church authorities allowing schools to become selective. They are already under pressure over the socially selective nature of their schools - I can't see them offering such an open goal to the opponents of faith-based schools. I cannot imagine Justin Welby standing up and defending C of E schools rejecting 80% of pupils. We all know the social mobility thing is nonsense - its just an excuse for Tories to try and get grammars back - Justin Welby is far too much of a washy liberal to play along with this.

I know there are Catholic grammars in N Ireland but I think the Church there would claim that they allowed a discriminated against community to compete with the majority. They can't claim that for England.