Nikki out, Justine in

Countess, I live in London and my dc's school is MASSIVE. :-)

There are no selective state schools in the borough where my dc's school is either, so there is a critical mass of bright children at the school - enough to justify the provision of a wide range of languages.

In N Ireland we still have a full selective system.

Despite the fact that the 11+ was removed by government the grammars continue to administer their own tests.

The school I teach in is a 'secondary modern'. Over 50% of our pupils are on FSM. The grammar closest to us- 10 mins walk away- has less than 4% FSM. All grammars do is further entrench the status quo. They are no longer a leg up to bright, working class children.

I would also like to address the notion that secondary moderns have low aspirations for their pupils. We have extremely high aspirations for ours however our results are inevitably lower than the grammar because as well as having the top 30% creamed off by the grammar, we also have to deal with many social problems that the grammar has a lot less of. This impacts on our pupils hugely.

Despite this we have had many pupils from the grammars choose our 6th form and some moving to us at earlier times in their schooling. They always comment positively on the quality of teaching and pastoral support they receive in our school I comparison to their previous experience.

Secondary moderns can be good schools however there is no disputing the fact that pupils are hindered by confidence (not good enough to get into the grammar they think) social issues, and lower funding levels.

I would love the system to change here to fully comprehensive to benefit all our pupils not just those who already have many advantages. Hopefully the new Education Minister both here in NI and in England is aware of the facts.

95% of state run secondary schools in England are not grammar schools. There seems to be a warped idea on MN that whole country suffers the grammar school system.

' minifingerz Fri 15-Jul-16 06:00:09

By the way, my ds's comp offers separate sciences and for languages, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Latin and Ancient Greek. If they can do this why shouldn't others? Why do you need to separate children into separate buildings?'

Bloody hell Minifingerz, where do you live? We were looking at no languages other than Spanish at GCSE in the school in our old area. (We moved.)

The reason why most schools won't offer such an amazing range is because in a typical comprehensive the take-up won't be great enough to make it worth it.
I think only offering Spanish was appalling but I can't really blame schools for only offering the normal range of 3 or so modern languages and no ancient ones, much as I love Latin.
A grammar school can give a critical mass of enough academic kids to make it worth offering more subjects. I don't think grammars are without their problems but that is one very clear advantage and I am sad my kids won't have that option.

Strangely, our children still manage to get into elite universities and get good exam results,

Absolutely agree, but you would never know it from MN!

Locally what seems to be desired is not, 'bring back the grammars (oh and BTW risk my child going to the Sec Mod), but making sure that all the local comprehensives are good.

There are only 164 grammar schools left in the country. The majority of us manage perfectly well without them in state run comprehensive schools. No need for tutoring 10 year olds, no destroying self-esteem at the age of 11. Strangely, our children still manage to get into elite universities and get good exam results, they are not just the preserve of grammar schools and private schools.

No, the system was flawed because of the idea that you could sort children out at age 10/11. Not all grammars were good - mine was mediocre and I know many others who said theirs was the same. By the same token, there were some good Secondary Moderns.

Believe it or not Badbadbunny up and down the country there are some extremely good comprehensives. We need to be looking to them to see what they are doing, not turning the clock back 60 years to a system which didn't work. Some commentators are of the opinion that the system helped to lose the Tories the 1964 election. You also have to remember that as Sec of State for Education, Maggie Thatcher approved more Comprehensives than Labour did.There must have been a good political reason why.

BTW most of us don't live in London, so 'super-selectives' are something which don't exist for us.

I agree badbunny. Some dc had the benefit and privilege of a good grammar school education. The solution therefore was to take it away. I had Kent friends who argued against the grammar system because they went to secondary moderns and resented it. Guess where their children have been sent

Why do people keep harping on about the problems of the old sec-mods? I don't think anyone advocating more grammars is suggesting a return to the old style sec-mods as the alternative.

Also, why do people keep harping on about super-selective grammars? Yes, to get into one of those, you do need to be tutored to within an inch of your life. But it doesn't have to be like that. It's only so bad because of massive demand for places which has put up the entry criteria to marks in excess of 90/95%.

In lots of other areas of the country, it's still possible to get into a grammar without tutoring and by gaining more "normal" marks of around 70%. Increase the number of grammar places and inevitably the entry requirements will reduce - simple supply & demand - meaning tutoring won't be needed anymore.

At the end of the day, the old system was flawed because of the poor sec-mods, not because of the grammar schools. The politicians could have chosen to improve the sec-mods to resolve their inadequacies, but instead, chose to scrap the whole system, including the good bits, i.e. the grammars. Part of the problem of the old system was that the teachers in the sec-mod were the ones who had very low expectations of their pupils!

Perfectly happy to pay more tax if it is spent well to improve public services although I feel we pay rather a lot already

However, that extra money should be channelled into term time activities. Local authorities and parents should be and remain responsible for happens in the holidays.

"EVERY child should have the opportunity to achieve high grades before university and the education system should be working on raising standards for bright children"

So how about we spend similar amounts per head on ALL children as are currently spent on educating children in the private sector presently?

Average spend per head private sector: 13k per annum
Average spend state sector: 6.5k rising to 8.3K in some parts of inner London?

I take it you will be at the head of the line ready to pay more tax to facilitate this?

And what about distributing disruptive children more fairly right across the system? So they aren't disproportionate affecting the learning environment in non-selective state schools?

And paying for lots of holiday and intensive one to one tuition for A-level students in non-selective state schools? After all, kids in private schools make heavy use of these services.

As for "lowering the bar" - well they're not in relation to ability, as students who join this course do just as well in the long run as students coming from selective schools. They're not choosing less able students, they're choosing students who've had less invested in their secondary education.

But yes - I'm all for spending more on children from state schools.

The fact that Kings offers a medical degree for those from nonselective schools with lower grades says it all.

EVERY child should have the opportunity to achieve high grades before university and the education system should be working on raising standards for bright children rather than lowering the bar for the next level and putting right what hasn't but should have been taught.

Where I was educated in Kent there were grammar schools (and they had their own hierarchy), technical schools, as previously mentioned (excellent and woukd be perfect for your son mini), then the really good secondary modern, the average ones and admittedly then the awful one. There were also special schools. The son of my parents' neighbours went to the special school and got the help he needed. He's 40 now, married, successful building company.

It was a much better system than the Putney/Wandsworth comps available in Justine's constituency. That would be a very good starting place for careful thought.

Minifingerz Yes, I see. I asked because Kent parents tend to talk about Comprehensives which are actually Secondary Moderns.

My own children had to go to similar Comps where 15% were creamed off to Independent schools. It wasn't quite like a Grammar area though, because not all parents with academically able children could afford Independent education, so they stayed in the Comprehensives. The Independents also siphoned off some of the 'nice but dim' types. We had more girls than boys independents, so the end result for the Comprehensives tended to be boy heavy with more behavioural problems.

The solution to getting a good comprehensive probably depends on getting a balanced intake. My own mediocre girls GS has now become a very successful and well regarded comprehensive. Factors in its favour are it serves an area with a mixed population - no real sink estates and no ultra wealthy areas, and there are no private or Church schools within easy travelling distance, so it achieves the balance.

I'm saying the comp was 'terrible' - bit unfair. He enjoyed it, but it suffered from a lack of bright children in the top sets, and this encouraged a poverty of ambition in both teachers and children.

I believe that separating children by attainment and perceived (rather than actual) ability generally results in separation by income and social class, with only a few exceptions which are constantly held up as though to prove the point that children from poor, working class households can attend selective schools and that these schools are therefore not socially exclusive. Actually these children are the exception which proves the rule that social apartheid is alive and thriving within selective systems of education.

I'm in an area with grammar schools, the stress the year 5's put themselves under to get in. Even with chilled out parents the kids are doing it.
My eldest has the attitude and interests (it's also likely her friends will go to grammar) that would suit a grammar better, but up against tutored kids I'm not sure she will get in. It really worries me that she'll split from her friends and she's 7!!!!!
I don't believe more selective schools are the way forward, academia is not the be all and end all, we do need more practical lessons and more of a rounded education.

Peregrina, it was theoretically a comp, but in an area where 15% of children attend private schools, and where possibly another 5% attended nearby grammars. There are also some Catholic and Cof E schools in the borough which magically seem to be able to fill their places with disproportionately large numbers of high achieving children. Yes, these factors seriously distort the make up of the so called 'comprehensives'.

My DH failed the 11+, went to a terrible comp
Was it a Comprehensive or a Secondary Modern?

"If he doesn't like formal academic study and struggles with literacy, obviously not a deeply academic school."

What is a 'deeply academic' school?

They send children off to do law and medicine every year, have a good number passing their grade 8 music, and also getting 10A*'s. In terms of league tables for GCSE its in the top 10% in the UK.

My friend's son has just left Cambridge with a 1st after having attended a comp just down the road from my son's school. This comp has similar GCSE results to my dc's school. My nephew is applying to Imperial from the same comp and stands a good chance of getting in on the basis of his current form. My DH failed the 11+, went to a terrible comp but eventually went on to do a doctorate in chemistry.

Kings offers a 6 year medical degree only open to children from non-selective state schools, who have lower than average (for a medical degree) grades. These students go on to do extremely well in medicine. Yes they need an extra year to catch up with some aspects of their learning having had less teaching time and intensive small group tuition than medical students coming from private and schools, but they thrive once they get to university.

Point being: there are not 'different types of children'. Bright children can do well in all well resourced, and well run educational environments.

Justine Greening's old school was, I believe, a technical school, before becoming a Comprehensive, i.e. the third option in a supposedly tripartite system. I don't remember how old she is, or when her LEA's system changed, but I imagine that it would have had much of the same ethos still when she was there.

My SIL failed the 11+ and went to a technical school and got a good education from it. They were less 'bookish' than the Grammar schools, but still taught a foreign language or two and sciences, as well as more practical subjects. I suspect if this system had been implemented across the country there would have been much less dissatisfaction with the education system as it was. People now forget how deeply unpopular the Secondary Modern System was, even though there were some good ones out there.

All those who have worked with TM say she's very good at looking at the evidence before making decisions.

She looks at the evidence, yes. In some of her decisions at the Home Office, she did not take into account the evidence. Not only did she make decisions which were later successfully challenged by law, she also made decisions such as including international students in immigration figures which made no sense. Her decisions lost the UK a large number of international students, resulting in an income loss estimated at 1 billion or so per year.

Nonetheless I agree that grammar schools are unlikely to be introduced.

Needmoresleep agree with everything I your post.

The obsession with GCSEs and a university degree has become ridiculous.

Years ago my mother taught in a Secondary Modern, albeit in a naice Surrey town. The 11+ did cream off a good proportion of the brighter students (and in those days before tutoring, and when Grammars took far more than Tiffin's top 2%) they would always miss some and her school were able to run an academic top stream who aspired to good Universities. She always felt that those kids did better than if they had gone to Grammar. Teachers would vie for the chance to teach them, and it was probably better to be one of the clever one at the top at that school, than be bottom at the Grammar. The school could also apply more focus on technical subjects for the less academic. I know my mother, who taught maths, enjoyed bending the CSE syllabus for the bottom set to allow a project on household budgeting. And indeed, in her options role, would try to get some of the boys to take typing as well as car mechanics as complementary skills, for what was often the dream job in a garage.

Children are different. Whether more Grammars are the solution, I think it is important that thought is given to how each child, whether academic or not, reaches their potential and leaves school equipped to play a part in society. One size does not fit all.

It is a worry but I'm hoping not for the following reasons:

1. Andrea Leadsom said in her infamous Times interview that it would not be possible to bring back grammar schools. Since a commitment to bring back secondary moderns would have been hugely popular with the people she was appealing to, it seems that everyone actually in government realises that it would be very difficult.
2. The push for a new grammar school seems to have come from the local Conservative council, Therea May said she supported it but then she would have to, wouldn't she? There is no indication of strong support in Maidenhead itself, in a survey about educational provision only 106 people expressed an interest in the proposal (out of thousands surveyed), there is a campaign group against the proposal but no-one's bothered to set one up in support, it may (hopefully) never happen.
3. All those who have worked with TM say she's very good at looking at the evidence before making decisions. Since all the evidence shows that a return to secondary moderns would not raise standards and would reduce social mobility hope this is true.
4. It is time for those of us who do not want a return to secondary moderns to raise our voices though.especially support the group in Maidenhead www.excellenteducationforeveryone.org.uk/.

Oh - You know you don't need streaming don't you?

Nothing wrong with being top set for maths, but bottom for English.

And what about all the bright children who fail to get to grammar due to less bright but tutored children passing ahead of them?

Surely the answer is to do the range of offering within a comprehensive system, such as my DD's school has managed to do.

Why do we never hear 'bring back secondary moderns'? Why is it OK for MC/Wealthier families to ask for grammars, but then go private if their child doesn't get in? Or go private for prep to increase the chances of getting in.

The old grammar system of giving a leg up to the bright working class is long gone and buried under the private tutoring system.