Tories shit all over the comprehensive system with a return to the 1950s and a nationwide 11+

The ridiculous thing is that one Tory MP has already tweeted that grammars are fine but of course not needed in her constituency, in true Nimby fashion.

I imagine at the moment Theresa's minions are already assuring MPs in well-off constituencies that there will be protections in place to stop naice comprehensives turning into secondary moderns. So we have the utterly absurd situation that we are told we have to have grammars because they are so popular but to get the legislation through MPs will be assured that they don't have to have one of these amazingly popular things in their constituencies. It's a piece of Trumpism that might even explode the orange one's head.

Of course it's standard Tory policy that well-off areas will be protected from a dire policy that less well-off areas will be forced to put up with.

Theresa May was laying into Jeremy Corbyn for using grammar schools and then pulling up the ladder - ironic when she wants to keep at least 75% off the bottom rung of the ladder she wants to provide!

People who make policies are only too happy to have a system for 'other people's children' that is not good enough for their own!
If a school is not good enough for your own child it certainly isn't good enough for anyone else's child!

An excellent programme on the system here and very true- I am old enough to have gone through it. The irritating part of the programme is the man telling an 11yr old that she didn't fail because the system provided her with the right school for her!!

If it does go ahead there will be a huge backlash when middle class parents find that their very bright child gets a secondary modern! That is why we went over to comprehensives- the 11+ was so unpopular. In 50s and 60s a lot of middle class parents sent their 'failures' to a private school but this has become less affordable.
My town has one very good comprehensive - I can't see why 75% would want it to change to a sec mod!
Maybe parents don't realise how many siblings were split, either side of the 11+ divide. Being of an age where we all took the 11+ I know more families that had siblings in either side than all at one type of school.

Strumpet Lovely to see a school getting the credit it deserves. It can be hard in such a passionate debate to emphasise that those of us against selection are against the SYSTEM - we don't hate individual secondary moderns or indeed individual grammars.

One governor of a Trafford secondary modern says "500+ secondary moderns are doing a great job despite 11+ selection" That's a nice way of putting it.

No it's not Wellington, lovely school though that is (many friends have kids there) and although the GCSE results for DDs school are impressive given the "top" (i.e. Tutored) students have been creamed off, Progress 8 isn't about GCSE grades it's progress from the end of KS 2 to K S 4. Not perfect but a much fairer way of measuring the school's performance especially in an area such as ours.

I'm actually struggling to think of a local Secondary modern that I would not want to send my kids to. Don't believe the hype, some of the grammars round here are a bit "fur coat and no knickers" and rely on parents wanting the kudos of sending their kids to a grammar.

I work in a local secondary school too so have a bit of "inside knowledge" in addition to being a parent.

There were always 'good' Secondary Moderns in the old days i.e. the 1960s, so it's not surprising now that there can be pockets of excellence among Sec Mods.

Similarly, there were many mediocre grammar schools at the time, (like mine and there were no campaigns to save it - no one much lamented its passing.)

No it's not Wellington - congratulations to that school. I was struck by this when looking at the D of E tables for Trafford.

Trafford does seem to make more effort than Bucks when it comes to its secondary moderns - Bucks complacency about them is pretty awful.

What happens in rural areas where there is only one school?

Strumpet is not posting about Wellington school either.

'Strumpet. You will be aware that if Trafford gave up the 11+ the 'Secondary Modern' you talk about would produce worse GCSE results than it currently does !'

Strumpets post is about progress, not GCSE results.

Strumpet. You will be aware that if Trafford gave up the 11+ the 'Secondary Modern' you talk about would produce worse GCSE results than it currently does !

The 11+ system has allowed Wellington to develop (Bertrand that name keeps on getting stuck in your throat) and become the great school it has...

Strumpet. Its the school that Bertrand will not usher its name ! I think Bertrand should write its name 100 times !

I'm in Trafford which has 7 grammar schools. The top performing school in 2016 under the new progress 8 measure was... the fantastic secondary modern that DD goes to 😀. It's not even an academy. T M must be spitting with rage. DS is at a grammar school, but in all honesty if I could turn back time, he'd be at the secondary modern too.

Well, noble - so much education policy is London centric that they never think of the practicalities of people in rural or even semi-rural areas. All this stuff about 6 choices on the Secondary transfer form - in a lot of places there are one or maybe two schools which are within reasonable travelling distance, so parents want them to give good opportunities to learn and decent pastoral care.

While the Tories want to make money available for children to travel to grammar schools, if other children are not able to go to the local school because it turned into a grammar, they will have to fork out to pay for them to attend the Sec Mod if it's more than three miles away.
I get the impression that TM and chums just haven't thought things through.

As one who lives in Oxfordshire - Nicola Blackwood will do whatever she thinks will support her parliamentary career - she gave up caring about her constituents' opinions long ago.

When the 1944 Education Act brought in Secondary education for all, there were supposed to be technical schools - which would probably have taken the bulk of children, but in most authorities they never got off the ground. Secondary Modern schools were something new, (although I suspect based on Secondary schools which the then progressive authorities like Sheffield had introduced in the 1930s) and supposed to be different but have parity of esteem. However, it was a new system in the main. By the 1960s that had clearly failed, and middle class parents did not like their children failing. Whisper it quietly, but not all grammars were good - some were pretty mediocre.

Undoubtedly some Comprehensives work better than others, but why on earth bring back a system which was worth trying 70 years ago, but was seen to have failed after 20 or so years? Why on earth not look to see what good comprehensives do to get results, especially those not in especially 'leafy' areas? Theresa May being a grammar product is not IMO a good advert for the system.

Claireblunderwood - I also live in Islington and I know exactly which academy you are referring to and I know for a fact that the "language aptitude" test is just a way to get more of the middle class kids that they are after, but who would otherwise be outside the distance catchment area...

In fact, Islington is a good example of why grammars are a really bad idea, as it will make the worse performing schools even worse and so kids who want to do well but who don't make the cut will be completely stuffed.

"I suggest the Comprehensive that achieves 75-80% GCSE that 'lives' in a area with 3% FSM will be the last to shake up their 'happy home'."

That sounds similar to DD's school, except that they are the fourth worst funded school in the country. It just happens to be in an area where all the primary schools are outstanding and most of the children have stable backgrounds with parents who care about their children's education. So they are one of the schools that will "gain" in terms of funding, but will lose out in real terms, just as all other schools are.

Well ds2's grammar school does football tours to France and teaches French via worksheets. While ds3's mixed ability school gets all year 7's over to France where they are given money and told to order particular items from the local market - later years build up the trips. He has already exchanged letters with a French boy and is now involved in making a video in French about his school. They also are encouraged to use French in cookery (as that's what posh kitchens do).

So poor language teaching may be more about the particular individual school rather than the type of school.....