Justine Greening grubs around for grammar school support after disastrous consultation

Polling evidence varies greatly depending on the question asked. On the straightforward question of whether people want new grammars to be built only 34% said "Yes". yougov.co.uk/news/2016/09/15/grammar-school-fans-know-theyre-worse-for-less-abl/

The very high figures sometimes quoted in favour of grammars are typically in response to questions like " Would you send your child to a grammar?" . Imagine a poll that asked "Would you pay for a GP appointment if charges were introduced?" was then used in a government tweet as "95% of people agree with GP charges"

I don't think 80% of voters would support them, actually. And the result of a referendum depends entirely on how you frame the question. The majority of people are not spending their time desperately hoping for a grammar school to appear in their town, they have other things to think about.

80% of voters would support them
and then find their kids excluded

"Grammar in every town" will involve a doubling of the education budget
which aint ever gonna happen

I wonder if there was to be a referendum on the return of grammar schools , what the breakdown of voters preference would be.

I would not be a bit surprised if most of the leave voters from Brexit would vote 'pro' to a return to a grammar school in every town.

It is clear that all of the educational establishment and those whose voice can be heard is anti selection. However, those whose voices are never heard are more than likely to be pro. This would especially be true if grammar schools were sold as being accessible to their children.

Whether this would be actually true who knows,

Its Friday night
Its December
Its Mumsnet
its ill informed posts on a Grammar School thread

Groundhog day

Another spiky profile DS here with top 1% verbal IQ, below average maths and bottom 7% spelling. Neither a grammar school or a secondary modern would be good for him.

Are those in favour of grammar schools really fine with their kids going to a secondary modern? If they are in favour of grammars then it follows that they must also be fine with secondary moderns. Strange as the evidence is that secondary moderns are not as good as comprehensives. I don't get the logic unless it's a case of sec mods being OK for you but not for me.

roundabout Its terrible that our elected officials are able to get away with being so vague with these plans. I'm a firm believer that he money and talented teaching needs to be directed towards to poor and less able when it comes to education.

it's fuckwittery like breezily saying that you just leave Latin and further maths off the curriculum and shove in a few "vocational qualifications" that shows the general level of thought and intelligence applied to thinking about the education of 75% of the population when people advocate grammar schools.

I cannot express how much I agree with this.

My dd got 90% in her level 6 maths test. A high 5 in the others. Failed 11+. Messed up the answer sheet by putting 2 lines in one row early on, desperately tried to go back and sort it but ran out of time.

But luckily we dont live in a grammar area and have great comprehensives. She's doing brilliantly. Ds1 has spiky profile. Ds2 too early to tell.

Sorting at 10/11 is insane. Was a bit scarred by dd's upset and plummeting confidence post-11+ and didn't sit ds1 for it. Looking back, it was ME that was the sheep - I just assumed grammar = best and that sucking up the journey would be worth it.

Incidentally, my stepmother failed the 11+. Ended up at Oxbridge. But her parents were able to pay for private - she wasn't consigned to a secondary modern. That was 50 years ago and she's still scarred.

i appreciate that I may sound like I've got sour grapes because dd failed. But truly - it was a horrible experience for her and we are fortunate to have comprehensive options nearby that mean that it hasn't had a life-altering impact in terms of her educational prospects.

So December, where would you put my dc? He's strong at maths and music (effortless level 6 in SATS with no tutoring or maths practice at all at home) but weak in literacy?

Or my dd - very bright and able but mentally ill and underachieving academically?

Or my ds2 whose autism has impacted on his ability to achieve academically, but a great reader and strong mathematician?

I wouldn't have passed the 11+ because as a child I wasn't interested in school. However I went on eventually to do a masters as an adult. My DH failed the 11+ but went on to get a PhD in chemistry.

The idea that you can sort children into 'sheep' and 'goats' at 11 is just wrong. Some children have very spiky profiles. Some are late developers. It's not the case that children are 'bright and academic' or 'not bright and not academic'. A child can be quite unimaginative and a bit of a plodder but if they are very hard working and have good study skills they can achieve very highly at 11. Another child could be vastly more imaginative and highly analytical, but a disastrously slow writer or a bit of a dreamer who gets poor marks because they set about things in a disorganised way.

Children are complex beings and potential isn't fixed.

Also the 75% confined to "vocational courses" and no further maths-how do you know that they didnt fail the 11+ on English and are "academic" in Maths? Or vice versa. This dividing of 75/25% of sheep and goats at 11 (with very few opportunities to swap) is very divisive, regardless of whether you agree with grammar school (fwiw I believe in regional super selectives for a small percentage based on the same principle we have specialist music and dance schools)

december10th - it's fuckwittery like breezily saying that you just leave Latin and further maths off the curriculum and shove in a few "vocational qualifications" that shows the general level of thought and intelligence applied to thinking about the education of 75% of the population when people advocate grammar schools.

she has described how 'popular' they are with parents, who perhaps aren't as well informed on education issues as the organisations and professionals who publicly responded to the consultation.

But the parents (or more precisely their DC) are the service users! They are the ones paying for it, they are the one's electing government.It is their opinions that count, not the 'professionals' .Do you think a restaurant puts on it's menu what it knows will sell, or does it ring up Gillian Mckeith?

There's no question that if children from DS1's school went to DS2's school instead, they'd do better.

I doubt it. Whether a school is good or bad is determined by its intake.Postcode lotteries just dilute the 'good' students' and drag every school down to the lowest common denominator.

Grammar schools focus on educating one section of children.
Yes and the corresponding secondary modern focus on educating their cohort of medium and lowewr ability children..
A grammar school can offer GCSEs and A levels in a good range of solid academic subjects, whilst a secondary modern can leave out the Latin and further maths , bit instead offer a range of vocational subjects.Horses for courses.A comp trying to be all things to all people spreads itself too thin.

The trick is to keep changing things and never keeping still long enough for them to see the whites of your eyes.

Still, they've had a jolly fun time being disruptive and then coming up with a new bit of madness.

But this government does not like to give away its plans, Want2bSupermum. If it were to give its plans away, it would be to admit that the plan is that there is no plan. The majority don't matter enough, you see.

Reading through here I think the thought process on education is wrong. Grammar schools focus on educating one section of children. What is the plan for educating all children? Our school district in the US spends as much as the private sector on a per pupil basis. Everyone complains that results should be better given the spend. When you point out that the publicly funded school covers the cost of SEN, with some children going to specialist schools that cost as much as $180k per year, they go very quiet. Our public schools also have less children per class than the private schools.

So offering grammar school places is one piece of the puzzle. I want to hear what the plan is for all students.

mini

RC schools used to have very few ESL students, but when Polish / eastern European children started to arrive in numbers suddenly their 'baptised child' became 'baptised before 6 months', in Eastern Europe it is traditional to baptise at 1 year.

Even if you do want to baptise early if you are taking a baby to Poland you need time to get a passport.

mini

Totally agree, and their practices too.

It's amalgamated with the boys' school now but in my day you had to wear a knee length skirt, at school and travelling to and from.

It rather effectively stopped anyone from the local Muslim community applying.

If you read the mission statement then often education comes second after promoting the faith.

I'd like to see them banned.

Sashh - some faith schools selection procedures are disgraceful.

Clavinova how does that work if comprehensives aren't usually able to select from outside their catchment?

The faith school I attended had 'feeder' primaries, if your child attends the right primary then they can go up the criteria.

A few years ago a child who lived opposite the school could not get in. One of the feeder primaries is in another town.