Justine Greening grubs around for grammar school support after disastrous consultation

Well, of course it makes people unhappy - it's bad for those who just want to go to the school in their local community, bad for congestion as children move around the City trying to get to random schools miles from their friends, homes and families, and bad for people who like to think they have a choice. I believe Brighton only operates it for those who did not get into their catchment schools/those who did not want to go to their catchment school, so I doubt it makes much difference to social equality, anyway, as the wealthiest will be most able to place themselves in the right catchment and even move around if catchments change. It probably just adds to the stress of there not being enough school places to go round.

This is an interesting thread. Someone upthread referred to making schools fairer by introducing a lottery system. Brighton and Hove (where I grew up) have done this, making lots of people very unhappy.

Moving house costs more than the median UK salary - in stamp duty, rent depisits, legal fees
Even before trying to finance the house.

Moving for other than work is just not an option for the vast bulk of the UK.

Better to make the schools improve everywhere than put more hurdles in peoples' way

talkin I'm confused! Are you reading what I'm posting because I actually agree with you that you can't take Trafford and expand it across the U.K. It's impossible to do because the general population of school age children in England and Wales have parents where the rate of unemployment is higher and A much higher proportion with SENs.

You have a much lower proportion of kids with SENs in Trafford because they are drowned out by the children of parents who move there because of the schools. I'm just saying the barriers to moving to Trafford aren't that great. Nothing to do with being arrogant or rich. Not everyone lives in London. Plenty of people are in greater Manchester area through lancs and Cheshire who can move to Trafford to take advantage of the schools if they want to.

TRAFFORD IS NOT NORMAL

Would you put your kids out on the street just to get a poxy homeless grant ?

Do you have the FAINTEST idea what the housing waiting lists are in London and the South East (start with 3-5 years)?

Moving house for schools ONLY applies to the arrogant rich
so lets just drop that one shall we ?

This gives a good overview of help available with moving costs.

www.housingcare.org/downloads/kbase/3100.pdf

There are housing trust homes available in Trafford and they include cost of removal (as in moving).

So you have help with a deposit if necessary, you have help with moving to a housing association home and you have housing association homes available. If you are low income and are motivated to move it can be done.

If you are considered homeless you can get help with the deposit and moving costs.
Well, no shit sherlock, homeless people get help
that is a weeny teeny bit different from There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving
which is what you said
and its bollocks

Trafford is no more representative than Kingston
so lets all put it back in its little corner and
LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE

Here is the link for deposit assistance.

www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/housing/housing-advice/housing-options-service-trafford/trafford-bond-scheme.aspx

Also smaller class sizes isn't for the benefit of the students but for the teacher. DD has 15 in her class. The teacher has 40% less homework to mark compared to a teacher with 25 in their class. I hear on MN all the time how long Hw takes to mark and I believe teachers when they talk about their long hours.

www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/housing/housing-advice/housing-options-service-trafford/homelessness.aspx

If you are considered homeless you can get help with the deposit and moving costs. It's not in detail on that page but if you are low income you don't pay. Greater Manchester has a housing shortage and there has been a push to encourage people to move out of the center. There is also a lot more proper housing association properties available which is excellent for those who are low income.

want2be
Even poor people can move. There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving and rents are not high.
Link please ......
I've dealt with UK planning and housing policy for 20 years
I've clearly missed a trick ....

Trafford's schools do well - because they suck in kids from the surrounding are
the kids of Trafford are the same as everywhere else.
Kingston is not magically brighter just because Tiffin is there.

Class size - not supported by evidence
Selection / segregation - not supported by evidence

but hey, its a Bank Holiday this side of the pond

round It's not that at all! It's a weird dynamic. My friend taught in a school elsewhere in Manchester and she told me half of her class were lower ability. When she started at her new job in Trafford, in an area that isn't so well off, she has never had more than 5 lower ability children in classes of 25. She puts this down to the fact that when you have so many families coming into the area for the schools you end up with less lower ability children per class. The children are being pushed by their parents academically because that is their value system. There is also the effect of wealth in the area. I have friends who have their children in primary schools. Often mothers are SAHPs who volunteer at school and fundraise. They all had their DC start school almost reading and they were doing simple arithmetics.

talk Even poor people can move. There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving and rents are not high. Trafford has lots of cheaper parts. It's not all footballers and business owners. You can easily move into Trafford for less than £200k. Take a look on righmove. Also, Trafford itself has a low unemployment rate. People might not earn much but they value working.

For all these reasons I don't think you can take Trafford as an example of why grammar schools work. I don't think it's the best approach for the UK. I'd like to see schools set up so they enable students to explore the arts, science, literature, sports and music. Every child needs to be much more exposed to these areas. I find it shocking that so few comprehensive schools offer single science GCSEs.

To do this they need to change their method of inclusion for special needs. It horrifies me that DS who is diagnosed as ASD would have to fail in a classroom before getting into a specialist class. Absolutely terrible for him and the other kids in his class.

They then need to look at class sizes and respect teachers a whole lot more. 25 kids in a class is a lot when it comes to homework and differentiation in the primary years. They also need to consider summer school for some kids. We have this in our district and it works very well to limit the summer slide. I would also like to see proper plans for after school care where kids do enrichment activities and have homework/ reading help.

This grammar school talk enables this government to divert the conversation away from the one we as a society should be having.

I love the idea of "moving for school"
something that more than half of the population cannot even consider

I certainly could not have afforded to move into the catchment for my kids school
as I do not have a spare £200 k
( price difference, stamp duty, legal fees etc)

I think what Want2beSupermum saying, BertrandRussell, is that grammar schools make low ability children more difficult to manage, because they end up in difficult to manage numbers in schools elsewhere.

"The lower ability children are outnumbered so are easier to manage"

Sorry? Could you say more?

The lower ability children are outnumbered so are easier to manage. You don't have half or more of a class of kids in the primary school who are low achieving like you do in other areas in Manchester. Again this is because you have people who move to the area for the schools.

The best way to prove you're not obsessed is to spend time grubbing around D of E statistics right?

So - in Trafford in 2015 2854 children reached the end of KS4. Of those for whom we know the KS2 results (you can really see the private prep influence here) over half (1388) were high achievers. Of the rest 987 were Middle Achievers, 278 low. So we can see that Trafford has a very high percentage of High Achievers which unsurprisingly is reflected in their results. In contrast in Oxfordshire which is hardly anyone's idea of a deprived area 35% of KS4 finishers were High Achievers.

Amongst other statistics: Of Middle Achievers nationally 69.8% made expected progress in English and 67.4% in Maths. In Trafford the respective figures were 68.6 and 61.3. Not huge differences but surely if secondary moderns in Trafford are so good they should be doing better than the average? Or could it be that no matter how hard secondary moderns work they can't overcome entirely the disadvantages inherent in selection? Which is exactly what the Kent secondary modern Heads are saying.

That made me smile Bertrand. No. No buses across the Trafford border. The lower ability DC in my DC's primary, and the other local ones mainly went to Wellington or Altrincham College of Arts. One girl ended up at Manor High after a couple of switches. All still in Trafford. Two did go to Knutsford High. They're not exactly lower ability though, just very into drama.

I always ask where Trafford's lower ability children go and nobody ever tells me. I think there is a school just over the county border and they are all bussed there.

This is all very tiresome. If 40% of the schools in Trafford are grammar schools, then "grammar" is just a name for a school which teaches a wide range of abilities... Or is the claim that only clever people live in Trafford? Or that you don't have to be clever to go to a grammar school, you just need parents who do extra tuition with you at home?! (And if the latter, then there is bugger all need for actual grammar schools, you could just randomly add the word "grammar" to any old school where you want to attract more pushy parents who don't trust the school to do all the work of educating their children).

This country's problem is not the under-education of the minority, it's the complete lack of understanding by our political elite of what makes a good universal education system that works for everyone. It's not as if David Cameron's education made him a good leader, or Theresa May's education made her a good Home Secretary or Brexit negotiator... They are where they are because of a hugely unequal, divided society whose unhealthy, divisive attitudes are positively encouraged by the existence of grammar schools.

I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me which of the Winchester Comps should get the entrance exam and the others get the dregs

*"But 2 of the 3 comprehensives in your town ......."

Blimey, I thought I was obsessed!*

Me too!!

december10th
I know Trafford work miracles in your opinion (and through many name changes on your part)
BUT
the evidence nationally does not support your viewpoint

I haven't mentioned Trafford whatsit? The school I linked to was outwood academy Ripon which had 80% a*-C incl Eng & maths which is well above the national average.

And I bet the letter from the Kent heads will be ignored.When nobody knows more than them about the negative impact of selection.