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

Molio - they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp.

Err, why? Unless you are trying to say that able children don't go to comprehensives. (OK we have to define what we mean by comprehensive - a Kent Sec Mod isn't one, whatever it calls itself.)

they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp

Molio, that's a rather loaded way of phrasing that, isn't it? I agree with some of what you're saying, i.e. one teacher may be more effective at stretching high attainers, another at motivating kids who struggle, etc. Does that make one of those a better teacher than the other? I'd argue not. Does one of them deserve to be dismissed as 'fine for a comp'? I find that quite objectionable.

I'm not here to 'have ideas' Talkin. I accept that you're irritated by my being a bit dog with a bone about your 'challenge'. That's fine although evidently you don't like being wrong. But I'm not sure where your knowledge base about super selectives comes from? It's not sniping at all; it's being very faintly irritated by your insistence that I know nothing about an area I happen to be very familiar with. I tend not to make sweeping statements based on nothing.

Incidentally my DS got almost those results (6A* not including a Maths). I don't regard him as off the bell curve. He was surrounded by people like him both at school and definitely now he's at uni.

LaVolcan I shouldn't think for a minute that even the top selective schools have the 'best' teachers. but when they're recruiting new staff, they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp. And I completely agree that some of those teachers capable of delivering proper challenge might be hammered in a school with serious social challenge. Horses for courses, as ever. As for resting on their laurels: a school which does that will go downhill fast, certainly within a few years.

MumTryingHerBest
"Do the top universities in other countries display a similar mix i.e. private/selective/comp?"
TheWordFactory
"I don't know the answer to that. France certainly have a disproportionate amount of privately schooled pupils at their Grandes Ecoles. That said, private schools in France are not the same as here in the UK. The fees are low and the social mix within them far greater."

French private schools are selective schools whereas French state schools are not selective until lycee - and remain, generally speaking, much easier to gain admittance to than private schools. It therefore stands to reason that the highly selective grandes ecoles would have a higher proportion of ex-private school pupils than of ex-state school pupils.

Nevertheless, there are, IMO, many problems of inequity to entrance and success in HE in France and those problems are, when they are addressed at all, very poorly managed.

Molio your taking the wrong one to task here. I am the one you should be replying to.

Some teachers won't last a minute at the best schools, no, nor would some last two seconds at a really 'challenging' school, but what makes you so sure that the selective schools do have the best teachers? Undoubtedly some selective schools are resting on their laurels, or ignoring the fact that parents are paying for tutoring.

Molio Some teachers wouldn't last a minute at the very best schools but that doesn't make them 'bad' teachers necessarily. They might be fine elsewhere, just not in charge of delivering appropriate lessons to the brightest kids. I do find it interesting that you consider the very best schools to be those that educate the brightest children. QE Barnet does tend to get discussed on the elevenplus web site regularly. It appears to have a number of short falls that do leave people questioning how good the school really is.

Molio
I'm bored of your mortar lobbing.

The most "off the bell curve" child I've heard of lately left school at 18 with 7 A* A levels in Maths and science subjects : having been happily at state comprehensive schools right through.

Unless you have a constructive idea rather than just sniping in an unpleasant manner, please stop responding to my posts.

Talkin the top few % of kids need different teaching altogether if they're to be challenged and thus do as well as they can.

I don't see what your Head of French monopolising the top sets has to do with anything at all. What I said also has nothing to do with what makes a 'good' teacher. It's about which teachers are capable of challenging those at the very top end and by no means all are. Some teachers wouldn't last a minute at the very best schools but that doesn't make them 'bad' teachers necessarily. They might be fine elsewhere, just not in charge of delivering appropriate lessons to the brightest kids.

TheWordFactory
I fully accept that 'top ten' is probably a pretty poor admissions tool in the UK : the US education market is so different.

What I was more thinking along the lines of is to encourage all schools (even lovely ones like my local) to put their top ten students forward for taster fairs and Top200 open days - and for Oxbridge to make a point of inviting them - even if they will not make the cut, but to show them its not an alien place.

I know from friends who are there that departments like Physics are bastions of state school geeks - scary numbers of girls as well ....

you ma ynot get many more comp students to get the press off your back, but as a way of widening participation among schools who think "its not for us" it might be worth a punt.
And if each school sends a teacher you can (on home turf) get the staff to realise that the Bullingdon photo is as embarrasing to the Uni as it is to gorgeous Gideon, dopey Dave and bonking Boris historic, not current.

Thanks Talkin - I shall be bold as well as bloody and resolute (and parenthetical)

talkin that method of selection has been discussed, yes.

And it is quite seductive, especially when some schools send so many.

But the arguments against it include the fact that school A may have no suitable candidates and school B might have 50.

Also, how do you measure the top students? Highest GCSE results? Highest A levels? What about where students had exactly the same results?

And if you ignored the first point, and devised some algorithm for the second, you'd get some very disgrunted department heads who felt that they were losing out on applicants from school B and being forced to offer places from school A.

.. teaching needs to be different too. That's far more easily done in a selective school than in an all ability school.

A sweeping statement, which I am not at all sure is correct. Staff do specialise within schools i.e. at my daughter's school a HOD of French was notorious for allocating herself the top sets only. Other members of staff and IMO better teachers felt that being able to adapt their teaching to draw out the best from all pupils made them better teachers.

Or were you just talking of the 'open your books at page xx, exercise yy', style of teaching?

All students in all schools should have the maximum possible help to find an appropriate path on leaving school. That's a very odd notion from someone so set on all ability schools........ Also, very obviously, the top ten pupils at one school won't possess the same level of academic potential as the top ten at another. So that approach wouldn't work.

Amber teaching needs to be different too. That's far more easily done in a selective school than in an all ability school. Of course there are exceptionally good teachers teaching in all ability schools, well able to challenge their most able students. But it's certainly not the case that all teachers are capable of this.

TheWordfactory
Thank you.

I suspect somebody at the DFE lurking on this thread will now get a PhD out of researching the topic .
While they are at it an A level results map by where pupils live rather than where they went to school could be revealing - especially around Merseyside

Have your group and your cohort at other Top200 unis considered the top 10 in the school model that I believe Harvard have explored?

Harvard used it to limit the numbers from Andover and Exeter
but Oxbridge could use it to highlight to schools that their top 10 pupils, no matter what the school, might be worth that bit of extra effort in careers advice.

TOSN bold fail - you need a space after the asterisk and before the brackets

Molio In what way do children of lower ability lose out? Sorry, I thought I had made it clear by:

I believe the argument for selective schools is stronger where there is a surplus of schools places. However, in areas where there is a shortage of places, I really do have to question how this can ever really be justified. without a doubt, in this situation, children with lower academic abilities are loosing out.

I will clarify why I think this: I live in an area where the brightest get to choose from 7 schools. Those children with a lower academic ability have no choice, there is one school or wait and see where you end up.

I've been mulling over this thread (which is a great example of a thread with a decidedly unpromising starting point turning into an interesting discussion!). Here are my musings, for what they're worth:

• Most people who are in favour of selection by ability seem to feel that way mainly because they think that high attaining kids don't reach their full potential in comprehensive schools (or at least that there's a danger of that happening).

• Word's view, as someone deeply involved in trying to encourage high attaining kids from all backgrounds to aim for prestigious universities, is that some comprehensives let bright kids down not in the quality of their teaching, or in the peer group they provide, but in the advice and guidance they provide around GCSE and A level choices. (Is that a fair interpretation of 'The deficiency as I see it, is wholly in the poor advice given by the schools', Word?)

• If that is the case, what we should be concentrating on is improving the advice all schools give. And that, to me, sounds like something that's much easier to tackle than knotty issues like school structures or teacher quality. I'm not saying it's easy, and I know it's been a problem for many years, but if it was made a big enough priority it can't be insurmountable, surely?

Well it's a curious way of putting it Mum - that 'some children should have exclusive rights to state school places simply because they are above average in their academic ability'. A child of lower academic ability would derive nothing from a place at these super selective schools except a likely loss of self esteem, due to their inability to keep up with fast paced teaching. In what way do children of lower ability lose out? Teaching should be appropriate to the ability of the child, nothing else makes sense.

Molio all that tends to happen is repetition about how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out. Fair enough if you think it is right that some children should have exclusive rights to state school places simply because they are above average in their academic ability.

I believe the argument for selective schools is stronger where there is a surplus of schools places. However, in areas where there is a shortage of places, I really do have to question how this can ever really be justified. without a doubt, in this situation, children with lower academic abilities are loosing out.

One of the arguments which gets put forward for grammar schools, is that they can have a large enough cohort to offer extra subjects e.g. Further Maths.

The schools my children went to operated as a consortium in the Sixth form to get round this problem. Two of the schools were within walking distance, for the third it did involve a cycle ride, so this solution wasn't entirely without problems.

and some people think it's standing near thick people in the lunch queue.

I have to agree with you there TOSN - no matter how many times some of us say that children in Comprehensives can do just as well, a certain number of people will never believe it. Not all comprehensives, I grant: some schools have the name 'comprehensive' and aren't.

Bold fail again!!

Hmm, but I don't think that's quite the argument though (I mean - how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out).

First off, I'd say the opposite doesn't make sense either - that the upper end should be privileged at the expense of the rest (although can see that super-selectives, assuming that enough people were happy to send DC quite long distances to access them, affect the rest less than a kent-type situation). But also, nobody would say the upper end 'should lose out' - it's just that where the debate gets heated is when we disagree on what 'losing out' constitutes. Some people think losing out is not doing GCSEs early, or taking your maths with older pupils, and some people think it's standing near thick people in the lunch queue.

Dad you really are a bit of an old mansplainer I'm afraid.

I happen to be extremely open to any decent quality information whichever side of a particular argument it falls: my background is law. I'm wary of generalisations drawn from particular experience and it's true that I do support super selective education for the highest ability kids. And the widening of access to those schools and thus the widening of access to the best universities. I have a professional interest in it in the same way that Word does. But what I'm not interested in is 'winning' any argument on MN per se. Nor in imperious demands to 'link' to research, if only because there's reams of the stuff. However I am slightly interested in attempting to correct misinformation which appears on these threads with regular monotony though it barely makes a ripple, since ideas about grammars are so entrenched that all that tends to happen is repetition about how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out. It's a very dull argument I think.

TheWordFactory

How would you want to see the selection of undergraduates by universities improve from here?

Presumably, there needs to be more paths for potentially great graduates from under represented schools. How could that be improved?

Also, if more students were recognised for their potential at university does that imply we need more capacity at universities or would others lose out?

Perhaps you can womansplain it to me.