Worst forms of selection in schools: Views of M'snetters

How many 'super-selectives' are there though? A handful in London, and possibly Birmingham? So they are not really going to be applicable to the vast majority of children.

I do wonder about those who offer opinions as to 'comps do this, or that', (usually derogatory), actually know what happens in a comprehensive, and send/sent their children to one.

The uniform for our grammar is as cheap as could be. Nothing special at all and no expensive blazer and plenty of second hand stuff available through the PA.

Talkin if Peter Symonds is a Sixth Form college then how does looking it up help me to find out how large your DD's Y11 cohort was? .

So again (and why is this so contentious?): please can you say what percentage these 40 students are of the entire GCSE cohort at whichever school your DD attended, and when you say 13 A/A, is that 13A/A full GCSEs? It's not possible to reply to your 'challenge' unless you supply that info. If you recall, you were the one to issue this challenge, not me or happy or Word.

Amber I'm absolutely certain that none of the comps we would have access to would have given my DC anything like the same education or results or opportunities even though at least two are good comps, and not in any way touched by the grammar which as a super selective has a very limited impact on schools locally, unlike Kent. The students at those schools just don't emerge with anything like the results my lot have got, and it's a fact that although my DC are clever enough, they're not off the scale on the whole. Word is spot on about resources. Very able kids do best in a selective environment. They might do fine in a comp, but they do best in a grammar.

Mum to be fair, teaching kids in the way which is most appropriate to their ability is hardly contravening anyone else's human rights! That's a touch dramatic. I'm pretty sure the DC in question would have significantly more issues with selection for leafy comps by wealth than selection for grammars by ability. Why is selection by ability an equality of opportunity issue? It isn't really, is it?

amber an average super selective takes an ability range of about the top 5% or less. In an average comp, that would be what? 10 pupils per year max? In some comps it would be far less. That's not a decent cohort.

As for comps teaching to the middle, well common sense dictates that the majority of resources will and indeed should be used to benefit re vast majority of pupils who sit squarely in the middle of the ability bell curve.

Obviously resources should also be funnelled towards those who struggle to access the curriculum at all ( though the SN boards attest this is not consistent).

The last concern will be those DC who are bright and already achieving well.

A super selective recognises that these DC need something different and channels resources that would otherwise be unjustified.

Word - no, a comprehensive cannot and should not privilege the very bright over other pupils, in terms of resources, structure or anything else. I'd question your view that they can't provide a like-ability cohort for those pupils, though. Most comprehensives will have a critical mass of very bright kids, although clearly the number will diminish if some are being creamed off by selective schools...

Those issues are a different thing, though, from my objection to people claiming that comprehensive schools teach to the middle, or to the lowest common denominator. Where is the evidence for that?

Seriously - yes, to the covert selection by uniform. I know people who passed the 11+ who couldn't afford to go, because of said uniform: serge tunics which required 2 metres of fabric at £40 a metre in today's values, or £100 if bought ready made. Only available in the one shop. The garment then had to be dry-cleaned.

(Ghastly - in bottle green too, I have never been able to wear it since.)

I'm not sure what's happened to Riis thread, but to answer the original question, the worse form of selection is covert. £100 blazers and £38/ 2 pack of blouses with no second hand shop.
'Twas ever thus. My uncle remembers one cockney/year in his south London grammar school in the 50s. Parents were interviewed and the 11+ was a MC screening tool.

amber no doubt molio will answer in due course but the reality is that comprehensives cannot divert the resources to the very bright in the way a super selective can. Nor can it provide the same like -ability cohort. Nor can it organise it's structure in the same way.

Nor should it of course.

A comp has to cater for all abilities, a super selective does not.

Molio DC is hopefully on her way to a future as a lawyer in Human Rights. I would be very interested in your DCs take on the point of exclusive rights to local schools based on wealth and/or academic ability (one of which you appear to have bought into).

"there's a complete absence of plain speaking on forums such as this"

What would you like to speak plainly about?

'Corn hairstyles blood' (that's how they speak)

Please feel free to speak plainly

FWIW I strongly suspect that the OP is a he

Molio
My DD is at Peter Symonds I live on the edge of Southampton. Work it out and look it up.

Amber: I suspect their experience is of Kent 'comprehensives'. While they are not like the Secondary Moderns of the 1950s, they are still not comprehensives.

My old school is now a million times better as a comprehensive than it ever was as a grammar school. It's fortunate that it's in an area where there are no nearby grammar schools or independent schools to cream off a certain percentage of the more academic/better behaved.

Oh good, the OP has added racism to her long list of prejudices.

Molio, how do you know the outcome for your children would be very different if they'd gone to a comp? I'm getting more than a little tired of this 'comprehensive schools teach to the middle' (or, worse, 'comprehensive schools teach to the lowest common denominator') crap. It's patently untrue, as numerous people with children in comprehensive schools have explained on many, many threads. Why do some people continue to claim it is?

OP can you clarify what you mean by 'corns in their hair'?

Molio selection isn't purely about the individual. One DC in particular is at the top of his year doing Medicine. We need research doctors discovering cures. Another DC is hopefully on her way to a future as a lawyer in Human Rights. We need lawyers defending those rights. There's a much wider programme here I fully agree with this. However, assuming the "wider programme" is successful employment, putting access to these jobs aside do you think your children will be able to perform better in them because they went to a Grammar/selective?

If children must be in a selective environment in order to perform to their full potential, will they also need to work in a company who only recruits the same in order to meet their full potential in the work place?

Oh and luckily for them my children won't have to take GCSEs, A levels etc as virtually all attainment is measured by continuous marking (even at university).

My children go to a completely comprehensive school with no streaming or setting either. Also no rules about hair styles (or uniform for that matter). Some of the children aren't even white! Mohicans are rather more likely than corn braids (the biggest minority group here is First Nations, who as a group are both socially and educational disadvantaged due to previous fairly horrific government policies and endemic racism).

Of my children's classmates some will go on to university, some will become apprentices and some will go straight into jobs. It doesn't damage my children to have friends who want to be mechanics even though they are academic high flyers. They have friends who live with parents who lead quite chaotic lives, friends who are in care or who live with grandparents due to alcoholism or drug abuse and also friends whose parents are doctors, teachers, university professors, lawyers etc.

I'm sure that their experiences at school are different than if we had stayed in London and sent them to a private selective school (mainly to avoid the sex or faith selection options we had locally) but I am very happy that we moved. Good comprehensive schooling can work for all children.

Molio in the absence of Talkin's response, my anecdotal impression from friends and family with DC in the Hampshire state system that a full house of A* in top stream DCs is relatively rare compared to those in grammar schools in nearby Reading.

PS is a very good sixth form college, has the reputation of attracting the academic with many of those doing ''facilitating' A levels having A/A at GCSE so actually selective for those subjects. I have just googled their results, about 34% A A grade A levels compared to about 65% in nearby Reading boys grammar school. That's very good for PS but includes a fair number of non-facilitating' A levels.
If you look at a subject like Further maths that would be expected to attract a similar ability range of students in both schools, 84% of Reading school got A* A grades in 2013 compared to about 50% in PS this year. For those who are interested in Oxbridge offers as a crude measure, 40-50ish get offers from PS from a year group of about 1800 ie 2-3%.

I think from that I would n't be persuaded that the brighter children in Hampshire do as well at school as those in state selective systems.
However it does n't mean that they won't do as well or better later on in life and end up in the professions you describe.

Talkin you're really, really being slippery here. How many kids in your DD's Y11? Is it so hard to say? And are the 13 GCSEs all full GCSEs?

Meanwhile I'll fess up as a selective state school mum, very much in favour of selection. My kids have 59 A* and 22A between them at GCSE (a nod to Word re. conflation!). And five at Oxford/ Cambridge. Had they gone to a local comp their outcome would have been very different and thus their future would look different. I'm hoping some might go out and make a difference socially too - selection isn't purely about the individual. One DC in particular is at the top of his year doing Medicine. We need research doctors discovering cures. Another DC is hopefully on her way to a future as a lawyer in Human Rights. We need lawyers defending those rights. There's a much wider programme here, and it's very clear that we need the brightest to do their best for the greater good. This idea that all kids need to be reduced to the same middling agenda in schools is not actually serving the greatest good. It's a small minded agenda.

And what happened to the ones that you threw on your own little scrapheap?

Have you ever been to one of the academies you refer to?

Are you going to answer any of the questions I have asked?

It is clear from the OPs generalisations, inaccuracies, prejudices and selective evasiveness that all is not as she would have us believe. If OP is so "glad" to have retired, why waste time posting on a namby pamby website. Perhaps OP would like to reply to questions that she is (not very skilfully) avoiding .

Googled hair corns I learn a new thing every day. I've always loved cornrows (the correct term it would seem) I've always called them extensions. I think they're very neat and tidy and on many women/girls stunning. As someone with very high maintenance hair they must be very low maintenance. OP what is your problem with cornrows?

happygardening - Mumtrying perhaps if you've got corns growing in your hair like the ones you get on you feet the pain of them being their effects your concentration?

Mumtrying perhaps if you've got corns growing in your hair like the ones you get on you feet the pain of them being their effects your concentration?