Fed up with the education divide ?

Drom waiting to hear today , no post this morning - we are overseas so waiting to be on UK time to email. Feeling truly miffed if it is true what will be will be!

I'm going to guess St Paul's Girls' School

Tolstoy - my Dd is not at a feeder nor has she been tutored but we hoped level 6 was enough

@Tolstoysjudge- please pm the school ( if yr not happy to post here) I think my Dd had the same exam yr right it is GCSE level.
She did come out telling me the girls in her group had practised the math paper- all from the same feeder. I didn't go further asking her as I didn't think it would be the case, is yr Dd at the feeder? Is she due to find out results today too ?

johnbunyan I don't agree there was ever a consensus or a golden age of social mobility in the 1950s and 1960s. You are trying to widen the ideological and social divide while muscling in on education funding which Gove is throwing around, with his £1 billion overspend on academies conversion, millions wasted on free schools that are undersubscribed or never opened, etc. You want a slice of the cake. You want to grab that slice by offering selective places and cherry picking your pupils. The private sector has been static for years but the proportion of internationally recruited pupils is going up and you are all worried about the future.

If you're not actually suggesting going back to some bipartite system or 'assisted places' but the nationalisation of private schools (e.g. as free schools), I'd say whether that is feasible depends on the individual school. We have absolutely no idea about what value a 'non-selective' private school might add because there's no intake or prior attainment information in the performance tables, they aren't inspected by Ofsted and they hide behind 'equivalent' exams like iGCSEs. So there would have to be a whole long list of requirements:

(a) not set up in areas of surplus places or would skew the intakes of existing schools
(b) scrupulously fair admissions complying with an even tighter version of the Admissions Code - no faith criteria or academic selection for new schools, no feeder schools
(c) all financial and employment information 100% transparent - no profit-making allowed and no private ownership, no blurred lines between head, governors and management and no nepotistic appointments
(d) inspected by Ofsted and publishing full exam and financial data, with all the usual school census info
(e) all teachers qualified
(f) full health and safety and compliance and fully accessible to pupils with SEN, with playing fields, canteens and all the other amenities I'd expect of a state school.

(I may have forgotten some conditions there.)

I didn't read all the posts yet, sorry, but...
what is this outbreak of generosity from the private sector?

Is the government making plans to make us pay for good state education, while only schools in special measures will remain free? They were making noises...

That would really solve the problem with discipline and everything. Social segregation is not illegal!

MI, I could, but I get a bit yawny myself when different opinions in a discussion are dismissed in a procession of terms like 'bang on' 'yawn', 'dictated to' 'preaching' 'over dramatic' etc.

Can we just discuss?

My DD just sat for a well known indie some of the maths questions were GCSE level.......shes 10 years old!!!
Also a feeder school had given the exam paper to their children before the test. Entrance exams are not a level playing field in fact they are very unfair.

In our local average town there are 3 comps and a bunfight if you're out of catchment to get into the best.Said catchment has far pricier houses to rent and buy in further out.

It's the same all over.

Yes and I wish people would stop banging on re how much a level playing field the comp system is,it isn't.Thanks to the unfairness re primary education too many kids get a double whammy of unfairness.

I do wish people would stop beating this knackered drum of 'you only like your local comp because you bought a place near its leafiness/you have no standards'. For the record - and other people will on this thread will attest to this, including Blu whose comp is similarly unleafy - my daughter's school is quite, well, grimy. And full of kids on FSM.

Yes in an ideal world.We don't seem to live in one though.

From you will need to cover the year 6 content by the exam or he/she won't be able to answer some of the questions.He/she would also need to cover the quicker old fashioned methods of recording(pages of gridding and chunking will be very time consuming and they get extra points for showing their workings).

Must admit I've never really seen the point of 'choice', as the solution to education/health service problems.

"Would you like miniBoulevard to go to the good school, or the crap school?"
"Ooh, I think the crap school please, she likes a challenge..."

Could we not just try and think of ways to make all the schools good?

I'm going to assume that Level 5 is ok, as that is assumed to be pretty good in the May of Y6, and grammar school tests are in the Sept!
But I am probably wrong
Back to topic - I think something that this Government and its supporters are not good at taking on board is that if they basically say "Stuff the working / non-working classes / anyone who didn't go to Eaton and Harrow etc etc" then those they do care about are going to be living in a pretty unpleasant country. Eg riots, poorly qualified workers, more crime, and so on. I'd rather pay more for a decent country in which most people are reasonably content.

Sorry you're preaching to the wrong person.

Dp and I were those kids at poor comps getting good results.It was shit,my dc won't be doing the same.

Oh and you're conveniently forgetting your little utopia doesn't exist.Rich parents buy up the best comp places so there is no broad section of society.This is a far bigger problem as pointed out by Sutton.

For many families who can't afford to buy places in the best comps with property or religion going for grammar is the only option and costs less.

Yep but I don't think I should be dictated to as regards which school my child goes to.

I like choice and lots of it.My 3 may end up at 3 different schools.

Bless you Retrobear - you are right. Each to their own. Dog eat dog. There is no such thing as society.

It's attitudes like yours that have got us where we are today in relation to inequality, which impacts on the happiness of everyone you know, not just the poor and the weak.

Clever, motivated and well supported children are proven to do well in all educational settings. Fuck, I know of children who have gone to some if the shittiest comprehensives in the country who've emerged with FANTASTIC gcse results.

Comprehensive schools need a representative intake to function as they ought to. Just like any other social institution, they struggle if they're deprived of talent.

So are you saying that you don't care about how our society develops? Whether there are enough doctors and nurses and electricians and hairdressers and plumbers....

Great Mart however we don't all feel the same and nor should we.

Covering level 6 is an obvious advantage?A lot of the 11+ content is that which is covered in year 6 and involves speedy old fashioned recording.So if your kids are at a pretty mediocre primary gridding and chunking in a very laid back manner alongside taking a leisurely approach to covering topics and aren't into pushing the brightest you're much screwed given the 11+ is in the Sep of year 6.

Education. Not deduction.

Thief thing is we all have a vested interest in the deduction of all children. Or at least we do if we care abut the society we want to live in, and the society we want our children to live in. Us,ni want a good education for my children- but I also want one for other people's children. Because frankly, I don't want to live in a society with a significant poorly educated underclass

And sorry just why should I as a super involved parent be held responsible for other kids?No thanks.I'm sick to death of battling for my own kids when no other buggar bothers but just whines.When they go to secondary I want to put my feet up thanks.

How exactly would 1 or 2 kids not being there have an impact on other kids?More importantly why shouldn't kids go to schools that suit them and not be held responsible for children they'll never meet?

Utter madness.

I don't think you need to be at level 6 to pass the 11+ do you?