Oxfordshire votes to reject grammar schools

tiggytape
Outside London : where my sister lives, the nearest school is 6 miles

where friends in the Marches live is 5 miles to and English school of 5.5 miles to a Welsh one

in Cranborne chase, there is only one school for those who do not have cars (and a parent not at work to drive them)

ANY change in school selection that is driven from London will be shit "by design"

To have grammars taking lesser ability children, rather alters the idea of what a grammar means and we also know many of these children would do better in a comprehensive. Which explains Theresa May's and my old grammar school, both serving predominantly rural areas.

I used to look in incredulity at some of these threads with people being able to list 6 school preferences. In a rural area getting a choice of two is good going. I would hope that any new education policies took note of what is good for London does not work in rural counties.

There does need to be some caution with assuming that all of the top sets will disappear to a grammar school. It is likely in some areas, grammar schools will not be viable at all, especially in rural areas, due to the need for schools to be of a certain size in order to offer a suitable breadth of curriculum. For example, the school my DN attends has 40 high schievers out of 180 intake. Of these 10% do not get 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths. Therefore only 36 children are remotely grammar school material. However, we know that in Bucks, lots of high achievers, the old KS2 level 5s, do not get to the grammar schools - often 50%. So this school would possibly lose 18-20 children at the most. This school has fairly low results (3 As at GCSE) even for its highest achieving children so that they have few that would really be at grammar level. Realistically, 10 per year group. To have an intake into a grammar school, you would need 150 such children, so you may need 10-15 comprehensives to one grammar where there are insufficient higher achieving children. To have grammars taking lesser ability children, rather alters the idea of what a grammar means and we also know many of these children would do better in a comprehensive. This is another reason why the whole idea is flawed.

If anyone hasn't filled in their response to the consultation yet I think this is a point that should be stressed.
On the plus side there was an article somewhere that said many Tory MPs are worried about precisely this scenario - that they will then have to deal with angry constituents who find themselves powerless to protect a popular local school. So hopefully that might concentrate a few minds.
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Yes, namechanging I think that is what could happen. Or some struggling independent schools will apply to join the state system and hoover up the more academic kids.

I think I've worked out what TM isbupbto round here (rural county). We have a good very big rural comp. It covers a large area but is big. My ds is in year 8 and doing well with some friends at the top and bottom of the "abilty range".
2 years ago we moved from the old middle system and some free schools were started on the site of the former middle school site. Our local one is closer than the comp but crap. Yes, the children do have smarter uniforms but the teaching seems to be rubbish with staff and children leaving in droves. The chain that is was set up by is an offshoot of a private school. It owns several of these schools, mostly half empty, which cost ££££in this Tory vanity project. However..... If they were to become grammar schools..... I'm sure pretty sure they would become popular.. The comp will loose its top sets. The comp will change completely but,hey ho, the free school academy chain will be happy.

(I have no evidence this will happen BTW but the free schools in these parts " can't " fail and I can see this is a good way around it

Oxfordshire County Council clearly got an early read of this report
epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Grammar-schools-and-social-mobility_.pdf
which is summarised in 7 killer graphics here
schoolsweek.co.uk/epi-grammar-schools-report-the-7-key-findings/

Grammar schools are a waste of scarce resources

bojorojo Yours is a point which I will be making very strongly in my response to the consultation. I am hoping that our local MPs will think about the annoyance of having to face hundreds of p^^ssed off constituents when a popular and successful comp is threatened by a failing school desperate to boost its own numbers before they cast their votes.

I think it is expensive for parents to pay for transport in rural areas and if a local authority then says they will not pay for transport to the local grammar, only the local school, it does disadvantage the less well off, especially if they have more than one child. Lots of transport policies only work well for urban areas, but not rural ones.

By definition, the nearest all ability school, is not a grammar if the grammar children are 5 miles away in another school. Frequently subjects as Further Maths, Science A levels and a choice of Languages are missing, so these schools are not suited to higher ability children and, of course,do not get them (in Bucks) and they are not comprehensive. There is a big difference between the ability of level 5/6 children. They are not all the same which is why some do not get into the grammar schools even after coaching. The new 100 Mark may make it clearer who the top ability children are but even then, not if they have been coached for the tests. The children who are not coached fare the worst. If there are grammar schools, the poor have least access to them. Fact.

IT is not parents, primary schools or the local authority or elected members who choose though, is it? The law, if changed, will permit academies to choose. Totally different. Nearly every secondary school is an academy these days. If a school believes they can succeed as a grammar, they will opt for selection. Since when did an individual school care about children who do not go to it? It is a recipe for disaster - TM is very wrong about this.

The position here is clear. Oxfordshire's councillors elected by Oxon citizens have expressed a wish for us to remain comprehensive. National opinion polls have shown that only around 25% of parents want new grammars and there's no reason to believe Oxfordshire parents are any different. If anyone wants more evidence why not have Oxfordshire primary schools organise a ballot in each school? Simple enough

If you want a return to secondary moderns in Oxfordshire then maybe you should just accept you're in the minority and that's democracy?

[[Nothing comes for free and if some parents give up a selective education because of 'bus' fare that is unfortunate for the child.
However, if that is the case the child would not be happy at the grammar anyhow knowing they are unable to access the extra curricular activities]]

There will be plenty of families on average incomes that will struggle with £30 per week, extra curricular, not to mention foreign exchange and ski trips.

grammar schools, or increased selection, is permitted, I would hope it would be weighted very heavily in favour of children from families on the very lowest incomes in order to address the huge disadvantage that bright but poor children already suffer.

No matter the rights and wrongs of this, it's going to be very unpopular with those whose children don't get in despite having higher marks than those that do. These may also be from relatively not well off families. You also have well educated m/c families on fsm and low incomes whose children will be advantaged.

The cost of bus fare is a small price to pay for accessing a grammar school!

I take it you don't live in a rural county. Bus services often don't exist or run very infrequently. So if the county wasn't prepared to pay for transport it could well mean parents having to get together to organise their own services. This won't favour the less well off.

They get round this by cunningly calling them "all ability schools".

They are all ability schools and are able to offer a 'decent' education for every ability level.

The local authority offer 'transport' to the nearest suitable school , whats the problem!
The cost of bus fare is a small price to pay for accessing a grammar school!

Nothing comes for free and if some parents give up a selective education because of 'bus' fare that is unfortunate for the child.

However, if that is the case the child would not be happy at the grammar anyhow knowing they are unable to access the extra curricular activities .

It is very expensive to run lots of small schools.
The county went comprehensive before I moved here, but I think that in part is why - so that it could have one school in town instead of two. Even now, significant numbers of children are being bussed to the nearest comprehensive.

Jewish schools feel the same. The money is needed but successive governments trumpet faith schools, dressed up as choice. Cameron asked for the 50% rule to aid real choice, but the faiths picked up the ball and refused to play, in their loving and inclusive way!!!

Wheatley is close to Thame though, and Lord Williams is now over 2000 children. It is very expensive to run lots of small schools. The breadth of curriculum suffers greatly too. The Bucks transport model could be adopted by Oxfordshire. However, if the law changes to allow grammars, it will be for the comprehensive academies to decide, not the LA. In Bucks, all grammars and secondary moderns are academies. This is not an uncommon scenario.

In Bucks, children only get transport to the nearest school. If you are selected to go to a grammar, but a secondary modern is nearer, they only give transport to the nearest school, even if it is the sec mod! They get round this by cunningly calling them "all ability schools". Another form of selecting out less well off families, although most dig deep to access the grammar schools.

Glad you said that Talking - I was going to come on to make the same point. Outside Oxford City, Abingdon and Banbury, most of the towns have one school. The towns are mostly about 10 miles apart. So say you designate Wallingford as the Grammar for the south of the County. Do you then start bussing in those who pass from Didcot, Faringdon, Wantage, Thame? And then start bussing those who don't pass out from Wallingford? It would be a nightmare logistically.

As it stands there are constant protests in the press from parents whose free transport is threatened.

Please don't say that it used to work - in most cases the towns mentioned had a small grammar and a small secondary mod (as did Wheatley, Mrs May's alma mater). What has happened over the years is that they have mostly consolidated onto one site, with either the land being sold off and built on, or as in Wheatley, the old Sec Mod being put to other use.

in Oxfordshire there is a huge elephant in the room where secondary schools are concerned

BUSES

shire counties currently provide free bus transport in big catchments
Oxfordshire has been struggling and has amended its rules to work on distance rather than pure catchment

the introduction of Grammars would thoroughly mess with the system
without any funding from the muppets in Whitehall