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

Mintyy, It all started with the OP who is the "recently retired teacher" ;-).

When every kid in every school sat the 11+ within school time and was allocated a school as a result

However, when I was growing up in Belfast in the early sixties, the non-grammar school that everyone who failed the eleven-plus went to in my area was a total waste of time, no books, no curriculum, just babysitting the kids until they left to work at a factory.

"an orderly education"? What- learning how to become an orderly? Not a particularly aspirational ambition, is it?

I don't think neat, methodical education is something to be desired. Spontaneity and being guided by what is inspirational is surely far more desirable.

Flabbergasted at deeply stupid and ignorant posts on this thread.

smokepole
I did not have the foggiest about my life choices till I was 23

segregation based on parental prejudice at 11 is a crap way to get the best out of people

Talkin. Three types of schools offering, three different types of education.

1. Grammar offering a highly academic education expecting 90%+ to go on to higher education.

1. High school offering an academic with a vocational bias leading to high level employment at Managerial level through vocational based degrees and training.

1. Community offering high quality sporting opportunities , training skills in much needed careers Catering ,Plumbing, Building. An environment that keeps those that struggle in a typically old fashioned school , motivated this could be supported by local businesses . Football and other sporting clubs could also be involved in offering vocational training .

I know you will criticise my ideas, but you have constantly said we need kids learning skills such as Plumbing and Building. You have also on many occasions stated that some of your best clients are the ones who have achieved the lowest academic qualifications. These clients have in many cases gone on to have a high standard of living despite academic qualifications.

"having just recently retired from the teaching profession"...I would have thought you would want to put your feet up and not pose a series of questions on a parenting website ??.

where is the evidence for Chaos in on selective areas

what happens to the kids who do not "pass selection"

note how short the "grammar school halcyon era lasted" (1946 to 1976 fwiw : an utter anomaly in UK schooling)

I'm a bit scared of living in a society that ditches 30% of children into disorderly schools. What on Earth do you think that 30% will turn out like? They would be fairly justified in becoming an enraged underclass, thrown on the scrap heap at 11.

You were able to use "clever" ways to beat the obvious ban of selective schools in Liverpool then. Liverpool now has two of the best state schools including Belvedere. It shows that schools should be able to select children that suit and buy in to the ethos of the school concerned. The other thing that socialists and anti selection people don't get, is that nobody would benefit from closing great schools just out of ideological beliefs.

Thank God. I agree with what you say that 70% of the school population. However, I said on the "To really regret the grammar school thing" thread, that they should be three types of school Grammar, High and Community offering different types of education. This of course was not liked by the vast majority of posters on here.

I am intrigued how The Blue Coat School in Liverpool managed to stay a selective school from the 70s to the present day. This is remarkable considering its location in the most Socialist City in England.
I am also amazed that Derek Hatton and Militant Tendency did not destroy such a school as Blue Coat.

Parents want selection, whether its fair or not (it will always happen), I think it is part of the an evolutionary drive to gain advantage for our own DNA. Nothing is going to stop them trying to game the system and I dont think it is even fair to do so.

So I think we should get rid of the worst types of selection and allow the ones that are most fair.

Ban selection by income eg private schools, expensive houses in exclusive catchments. Ban religious selection. etc.

Allow academic/artistic/vocational (etc) selection, which gives disadvantaged children the best chance for improving their life chances.

Unlike previous decades we should ensure that our efforts effort are put into ensuring all types of school are as good as the best.

benefitted?

Sorry, Just realised OP is just on a wind up. Sad.

Well said Minty.

My school was a GPDST one : they were geared up to prepare us to marry well or become teachers ; everything else was beyond their imagination.
And yyy to the demographics of selective schools in the halcyon era.

Typing went adrift as using iOS update - anyone know how to get rid of stoopid autocorrect crap on keyboard?

I would add to that post that demographically speaking the kids who went to grammar schools as a whole were those whose parents would have been able to pay for secondary education prior to 1944, ditto those who go now. Never was a group of parents happier than when their school fees were effectively abolished overnight once the 1944 Education Act was passed. When direct grant grammars were abolished in the 1970s,demographically simply stayed at the same schoolspaid once again.

Tall girls or short girls?

There were many bright kids, usually girls, who were forced into poorly resourced, largely demoralising secondary moderns in order to allow all the goodies to land in the laps of those who by some fluke had passed the 11+ through whatever combination of circumstances. I wish people would stop holding the system up as a success simply because their Uncle Jimmie or whoever was rescued from blue collar work by it. It wasn't a success. It almost killed large industry and engineering in this country and doomed a generation of girls to be typists when they should probably have been going to university.

Anyway, this is a bollocks thread, with a goady OP written in a confusing way, not laying out any theories , proposals or well argued critiques, and seemingly based in a rag bag of rather bitter anecdotal subjective experiences.

By a teacher.

Back to selection by height.... and other sensible proposals.

"both got into grammar school and their lives were totally different as a result."

Yep, same for my Dad. His miner dad wasn't even literate.

But that was then. When every kid in every school sat the 11+ within school time and was allocated a school as a result.

Now, competition and tutoring and self-selection in choosing to enter such a competitive process ensures that the vast majority of kids in grammars and super-selectives are middle class, or working class with a work and education ethic that would ensure that they were supported wherever they went.

Now good comps serve bright children of non-wealthy or non-educationally aspirational parents far better than an 'exclusive' grammar system.

Which is rapidly becoming elite state funded education for the middle classes.