Fed up with the education divide ?

but you shouldn't need to make a choice or move to a catchment area etc. The standard of teaching / schools and opportunities that exist at Grammar should be available to Comps. Schools are tax payer funded and should be providing its customers equal opportunity.
Get primary school children up to the same level when they leave for secondary. In the French system they insist a child needs to repeat in primary if they are not making the grade at a particular year so that at secondary all have solid foundations. Alternatively have tests at Primary level entrance as per the Indies to see whether the child is ready for school and if not they start a year later so they are not struggling from the start.
Have more support/mentors in primaries so teachers can teach.
Fact is you cant change the society you live in and some parents don't care so unfortunately the education system will need to pick up the slack and put in place systems to support unsupported children and give them aspirations.

The idea that private schools should be abolished is unrealistic. What about those children who have parents stationed overseas? What about those overseas students who want a British style education but cannot enter UK mainstream schools. The specialist private schools providing drama or music, dance etc.

I've come across a number that choose private because they can just about afford it and don't want to take a gamble with an average child in an average school. Equally the Snob value of only wanting a private education for status. And then there are very academic kids who don't want to be held back and should be entitled fulfill their potential.

My DS has high IQ and left Primary with a Level 3 English - he has dyslexia. Now in English top set at comprehensive. Sad to think that some would have him relegated to a non-academic school or a school with no top set (secondary modern).

IQ is clearly not the be all and end all but it can correlate strongly with academic achievement, etc. I think there is a ceiling beyond which you couldn't be trained.

Trying - the biscuit was aimed at Vanillachocolate.

"What do you call a Primary School that lets a DD with an IQ of 138
enter high school with Level 3 C for English and 3 B for Maths...."

I don't know. You can have a high IQ and still be dyslexic.

But if we are talking about a child with no special educational needs, I would probably, unless there are other factors I don't know about, call it a pretty crap primary school. Next?

trying I agree private schools are absurd in 2014. They probably contravene human right through institutional discrimination.

That's a helpful, considered comment, horse.

(Vanillachocolate)

(pressed too early) that the existence of separate schools for the rich that offer advantages not available to those who cannot afford to pay for them, can only ever lead to reduced social mobility.

OP, I don't want the "the state and independent systems to grow naturally together" and don't think "much greater co-operation" between the two is desirable. I'd like to see private schools abolished. I think that their charitable status is fundamentally unfair as they are not charities and only help the rich and I think that there is no way that private schools can "increase social mobility" - by definition, they reduce it.

So I think your OP is nonsensical - clearly, you'd like to flatter yourself that independent schools can inspire/help/teach the rest of us. Actually, the reverse is true. It's easy to teach if you have small class sizes/helpful parents/no pupils with SEN etc. Plus better salaries for teachers, better resources, and less pointless forms to fill in/hoops to jump through. And if your pupils live in homes with ideal study conditions, and frequently have paid tutors to fill in any gaps in your teaching!

The fact remains,

I know plenty of children with high IQ that don't know how to climb a tree. How intelligent is that, really?

...Speaking of something arbitrary and non transferable...

Horse, you are trying too hard. Maybe it's time for bed . See you tomorrow.

The only people that can't be trained in getting high IQ are those with neurodevelopmental problems. Other than that it is a measurement that measures ability to do IQ tests, as others have said. If every child was trained to pass IQ tests every child would be more or less as intelligent as the next.

Educational psychologists use a range of tests, IQ is only used as a broad measure in wider research. I know plenty of children with high IQ that don't know how to climb a tree. How intelligent is that, really?

Talkinpeace. It was the only tool I have or had to fight the education my DD was receiving.

I thought you believed in a Bell Curve that demonstrates peoples Intelligence, surely that is linked to tests or exams....

What a rubbish. 11+ are IQ tests. Common entrancement are IQ tests in part. Aptitude tests in job selection are IQ tests. Educational Psychology reports include IQ tests. It does not matter how you call them, but they do work and they are used.

Morry, good for you to have your DD tested. Now you can prove it's the school that is crap, not your DD 'achieving in line with her ability'.

IQ tests are an utter irrelevance
they did not count towards my O levels
they did not count towards my A levels
they did not count towards my degree
they did not count towards my accountancy exams
I will never subject my children to them

IQ tests are a marketing ploy of Mensa.
They have no place in education or school selection

Eh? Defensive about what? I don't think I've ever taken an IQ test. All I said was I thought they'd been discredited as a test of anything bar the ability to do IQ tests.

Oh don't rubbish IQ tests, it degrades the debate... Makes you look defensive...

And yes I am quite happy with my comprehensive. It is a good school. I am happy with it not because I don't know better but because it is a good school.

(Blu, I didn't get a first from Oxford. It still galls me. Can't even blame my comp as it got me in with a top marks scholarship...)

I always worry about kids whose parents have them IQ tested
its such a pigeonhole
and so utterly arbitrary and non transferable

Not that I actually mind the idea of a bit of a Bolshevik revolution, mind, as long as it is a nice non-violent event with decent snacks.

Ouch Vanilla. I must have struck a nerve. No idea which one, still don't understand what you are saying. Maybe that's because I went to a comprehensive school.

I thought IQ tests just tested your ability to do IQ tests?

And who are you calling desperate? I may be middle class but I'm not desperate. Don't need to be. Stop imputing desperation just because you want desperation.

Horse. I have a question :

What do you call a Primary School that lets a DD with an IQ of 138
enter high school with Level 3 C for English and 3 B for Maths....

Horse,

The applicants for selective schools are not the same breeding as they used to be. The underclass now have an equal opportunity. The bolshevik revolution is happening right now - but it's still leaving a wake of unfairness and segregation behind it. .... ha, ha

Your post is a good attempt at a manifesto, but unlike the communist manifesto by Karl Marx, it's incoherent and conflicted as to what it argues for and against. That is why the divide exists. People like you proclaim general principles which are internally contradictory. When it comes to walking the talk, they don't act on their manifestos, but on self interest. The whole thing is just hot air on a middle class desperate mothers forum.

You can't argue for choice, but against public or selective schools. You can't declare that underclass has equal opportunity and argue for change.

What I believe is that on MN people are quite happy with the divide. Some like their outstanding comprehensives, I like my super selective grammars, others like their public schools. It works for our respective DC. What's not to like?

Every time a novel idea is proposed to address the problem, the messenger is bombarded with mud.

I think Vanilla is saying we have to keep everything the same or there will be a bolshevik revolution. True conservative thinking.

Her reference to commie specialist subject schools is interesting, and backs up what I thought was my idea, thought up over a cup of tea and some spare time. Divide by specialism of subject - a bit - ie. not a selective super-race of doctors in one school, but potential nurses, beauticians and vets in one school working at subjects and levels that appeal to each individual's personal preference - but all ability levels mixed into one school. We already have that in many London state schools and it's working well.

Assimilation and homogeneity will never take place, we are all individuals and that will never be an issue as long as ALL children are given the confidence and support to thrive. yes there were experiments in the 1970s but it wasn never given enough time to progress. Some of the most interesting and fulfilled people I know were part of this experiment. Their education did suffer but they all caught up later.

Until now we have had a system that benefits certain people because they know the system. Things are slightly changing now because we have league tables and the internet - if there is any revolution it's happening right now because the bolsheviks have the information that was denied to them by the ruling elite who previously kept it among themselves.

This is why people like johnbunyan and Vanilla are probably a bit off kilter. The applicants for selective schools are not the same breeding as they used to be. The underclass now have an equal opportunity. The bolshevik revolution is happening right now - but it's still leaving a wake of unfairness and segregation behind it.