To believe that we need to create two hundred more Grammar Schools for the Shires of England.

Teacher here. I publicly and privately criticise grammar and private education. Don’t presume to speak for all teachers.

Your comments are reductive and often inaccurate. The idea of some ‘sink’ schools only facing a handful of children ‘bright enough’ to get a few 6s is a completely back-to-front way of thinking. What constitutes a ‘bright’ pupil? Someone with sufficient privilege to have gained a good grounding in knowledge and skills within and beyond school, making it easier to accelerate progress? Someone with a sufficiently stable home life to have the emotional self-regulation to be able to behave? Someone with parents who value education enough to instil that value in their child?

At what point is a child considered bright and, conversely, when do we write them off because they’re just not bright enough? Is it when they show sparks of potential before their home life goes down the drain? Is it just a shame, but never mind, when they fail the 11+ because of this? Or, within reason and allowing for some innate natural variation, is ‘bright’ mainly just a product of the multifaceted privileges I’ve described?

There are many pupils in what you call ‘sink’ schools with the potential to get far better outcomes than they do and under-achievement is a product of complex socio-economic circumstances that go far beyond school. Well-run comprehensive schools can and do support good pupil progress - you may know that state schools have recently started to outstrip private schools in England in rates of pupil progress from starting points. Nonetheless, there are multiple factors outside of schools’ control affecting achievement at every stage that require wider societal reform and much better funding of more comprehensive services. Thinking of children in terms of ‘bright’ and ‘not bright’ is incredibly simplistic.

Equally, there is very little evidence that grammar schools did/do much for social mobility overall. They largely took/take already privileged children, usually those with some of the ‘protective’ factors I’ve outlined which made them more likely to already be on track for success by 11. There’s no evidence base that these children would’ve been less successful in comprehensive schools, and nor could there be - because they went to grammar schools and it’s their outcomes there by which we judge those schools. Equally, there’s evidence (e.g. Institute for Fiscal Studies) that the trade-off for pupils not getting into grammar schools in grammar school areas is slightly worse outcomes than their comprehensive school peers.

Survivorship bias is useful in understanding why we often over-attribute success to the grammar school system. Look at the work of Hungarian statistician Abraham Wald to help with conceptualising this.

You’ve also mentioned behaviour in secondary moderns being better than in some comprehensives today. I’m unsure what your data set is for that, but this seems to be another example of oversimplifying a complex issue. Taking just one aspect of this, there’s evidence about the decline of authority-based relationships in which context it would be expected that behavioural standards would now be harder to uphold in all schools than they used to be.

Grammar schools might be an appealing option for parents who (understandably) want to feel their child is in the best possible environment, but they’re not the answer to the issues with our education system or wider societal inequalities.

Lastly, you are criticising some posters for needing to lighten up (I paraphrase). You’ve asked a very serious question though, so you should expect serious answers. Most teachers work very hard, and many in challenging circumstances. When people fight to improve life chances for disadvantaged young people, then offer you thoughtful responses borne of years of experience, and provide supporting evidence, it’s advisable to at the very least listen to them rather than taking the inaccurate, simplistic and patronising view that all state school teachers would secretly want to privately/grammar-school educate their children if only they could afford to.

Let’s face it, comprehensives are selective. My boys went to an outstanding school, in a beautiful village, with many other privileged middle class children who have professional parents pushing them . It’s just selective in a different way

That’s representative of local demography.

Mine went to a south London comprehensive with a distance catchment that included as much high density social housing as it did modest private housing. The % of FSM /PP was way above national average. Numerous first languages spoken, plenty of recent migrants if refugee status.

In my DC’s top sets were 2 students whose siblings had been killed in gang attacks, and one who lived his A level years alone in a flat after his mother disappeared. Alongside the offspring of media types, teachers, a barrister etc.

And that was one of the many London comprehensives that also represents local demography and does well achievement-wise by all students.

You don’t need any of those to attend catholic schools in NI though so the religious factor is irrelevant.

Again I do not think you can compare this using only data from England when it doesn’t have a legitimate grammar system. NI has a legitimate grammar system where almost half of children attend and the GCSE pass rate is significantly higher than England.
Given NI is generally poorer than England, has significantly less well of families it is surely the grammar system that produces these results?

For the ‘shires’ ??? That’s hilarious! We need less schools, not more. So let’s focus on making the ones we have as good as they can be.

I live in a grammar school area. My children did not go to a grammar school I deliberately did not make them do the 11+. Both have achieved very, very well academically and are in successful professional careers earning well above the national average wage in their twenties.
They did well because they were happy, unlike many of their peers they did not spend their time in primary school being tutored. I instilled a love of reading and - like the families of most teachers - significant cultural capital.
Many parents pay for tutoring and then think job done and take their eye of the ball. I also have some concerns about teaching in grammar schools.

Imagine the extra heights they could have reached if they actually did the 11+ and went to the better school.

What do you mean when you say "fully selective"?
Did you go to a Grammar School yourself?

It's worse than that, @redange . The phrase is their utmost. Their is no such word as "upmost".

All 4 of my DC got into grammar school. The alternative would have been to have to move house and pay a huge amount of stamp duty for a nice catchment school, our local coed is the worst in the entire borough, that is a fact both in terms of attainment but also behaviour/disruption.
So it was far cheaper to go the grammar route, we did not externally tutor. There is lots of information online and I have plenty of friends who are teachers who DIY. If you have a high achieving child it is not rocket science nor particularly arduous to get in. Older 2 got straight 9s and A stars, 3rd one got 2x8s and rest 9s and predicted all A stars. 4th one still in KS3.
What is different for the kids who are high ability in grammar schools is KS3. It is a whole 3 years. Mine were bored senseless by the end of state primary, again full marks. I figured they deserved to be laterally stretched in KS3, which all of their grammars did. They moved far faster through the mandatory content and did a much broader curriculum in KS3 for those bright kids. Also all the tests were greater depth questioning style from the get go.
It is KS3 when things go wrong mostly. That is the stage the Government need to focus on. For all kids. If you have a good home then mostly KS3 is fine, but if you don’t, that is when many go off the rails, get into wrong groups, develop school aversion, hormones are all over the place. It is also when the absence figures start to rise. The absence figures compared to prepandemic for persistent absence are bad.

London had over 71% of GCSEs 4 and above this year despite pandemic disruption. There is something happening in London which means education is succeeding for the majority. That is the other thing the Government need to look at, regional disparity.
So KS3 and regional disparity and absence figures. You don’t need to build mass grammar schools. If they wanted to amend KS3 for higher ability, they could. Unfortunately in most school Year 8 just aren’t the priority and that needs to change, at least pastorally.
Every child whatever their starting point or demographic deserves to reach their full potential via education. It should not be on the parents to provide that but the State.

Of course.
But it doesn't follow that they are in favour of academic selection - just in favour of behavioural selection.
Teachers know first hand how a lesson, or a whole class, can be completely destroyed by a tiny handful of badly behaved children.
So they send their children to selective schools in an attempt to get away from the bad behaviour.

school transport would be the issue in rural areas. The rural county I live in only provides school transport to the nearest school not the catchment school. Children are pretty much guaranteed a place at the catchment school based on the catchment map but in many cases won’t get a place at the nearest school so the child isn’t getting free school transport. A grammar school policy here would limit it to children with parents who can drive them or pay for a place on the bus if a place is available.

I work in a grammar school area. Lots of our kids come to us at 11, feeling simultaneously that they've failed, because they didn't get to g school and also superior to the others, because they almost got in. They still achieve, but it takes a while to get over the sense of failure- especially if siblings have got in.

As the birth rate falls though, g schools are expanding their catchment and lowering the bar for entry, therefore diluting their academic intake.

A good comprehensive allows all to achieve, by offering a wide range of courses. But that takes money. My own school seems to have the balance almost right. My dc school has, over the last few years, veered much more towards vocational: hairdressing, construction and engineering were the big wins at gcse this year; academic subjects not so much. Which isn't great for my dc.

Better than a First at a top university? Better than 4 As at A level? TBH I was quite happy with that. They achieved while being happy. They were also, for the most part, very well taught by excellent teachers.

Like a lot of people you assume the teaching at grammar schools is better, it really isn’t. I don’t want to be rude but there can be a tendency at grammar schools to rely on the students being clever and the parents being pushy so actual in class education is not as good. The craft of teaching is more evident in non grammars. I listen to friends whose children went to grammars discussing the education and am often quietly appalled.
If as a teacher you can’t get students who were academically selected through GCSEs you’ve failed.
Also, many grammars don’t allow all students to progress, they select again at sixth form - your child ‘only’ got 6s then they need to find somewhere else to go. They leave with a good set of results feeling like a failure.
Many, many children in grammar areas end up feeling like they have failed, failed the exam, in bottom set at grammar schools, kicked out at sixth form. Clever children who have done well all feeling like failures. It’s a brutal system that only serves a few students well.

The local comprehensive near us is dog shit. I remember just horrible behaviour from the youths. Causing a ruckus everywhere. Children frankly weren't very bright, so turn to causing a mess and ruining things for the smart kids.

So glad my kids went to grammars, received a fabulous education and have done good in their careers as well.

On another thread someone posted that their son wanted to do Further Maths A-level but the grammar school required a 9 and he only had an 8 so they wouldn't let him, even though it meant that he wouldn't be able to apply for top university courses that require it.

Not accepting an 8 for FM A-level is purely about protecting results and not about the kids.

Well there is only 163 Grammar schools in the whole of England
So the vast majority of students have no option but to go to a comprehensive
So you were very lucky that not only do you live in a Grammar school area but also your kids were bright enough to pas the 11+
Some comrehensives are terrible i agree and thats what needs to change
Making it a level playing field for all children not just a chosen few .

“On another thread someone posted that their son wanted to do Further Maths A-level but the grammar school required a 9 and he only had an 8 so they wouldn't let him, even though it meant that he wouldn't be able to apply for top university courses that require it.
Not accepting an 8 for FM A-level is purely about protecting results and not about the kids.”

@noblegiraffe - it isn’t about results but university destinations. DD2 did Further Maths and Physics OCR in year 12 with 2x9s easily achieved at GCSE. But she is not going to be getting an A star in either so she is dropping them. It is the elite university system that demands the A stars and kids channeling into their highest talents, not the schools. DD would love to continue with further maths because she enjoys it. But she is applying to Oxford for Law and it is them that may demand a set grade for FM so it is safer to drop it!
Same with some of her friends applying for PPE. They love the FM but are dropping it because of Oxford.

Middle class parents so your little darling doesn't have to mix with the hoi poloi.

OP

IMHO the single thing that would improve education in this country is to scrap progress and attainment 8. Let the teachers actually teach.

Not everyone can attain GCSEs in year 11, so they should be allowed to take other qualifications.

Some students are capable of attaining GCSEs earlier than year 11.

I think having the option of a state single sex (that isn't selective) is very important for girls. I can't speak for the boys so much but I assume a lot of ADHD boys would end up in single sex environments because their parents would hope it would be easier to discipline them or get them to do more sports and focus on lessons in chunks. Maybe starting the SEN focus on the single sex schools would be easier as you can break down the therapies in a very generalised way to tailor for the differing needs between the sexes.

YABU. Local schools for local children. Not perfect but better than any attempts to divide them and allow the better resourced to get preferred access.
OP says grammar schools for anyone who wants them. Well it doesn’t work like that does it?
We don’t need new schools. We don’t need to start restricting children from being able to attend their local school. And I include stupid religious discrimination in that.

Why would having a grammar school.besrby lift another school? Waddesden is CofE which is selecting in another way.

That is the most depressing post I have read in recent weeks and still doesn't justify telling a kid with an 8 at GCSE that they can't do FM.