Bits of news on the grammar school issue

A bit like me with sports / fitness classes.

. Me too, I sorely wished they had set for PE. It's no fun being shown up by the sporty ones, and from their point of view, having the team let down by people like I was. I believe that some schools do set now, in terms of do you want to take the sport seriously, or is it just to get a bit of exercise?

No she not able. She liked setting actually as it put her with pupils of similar ability.
A bit like me with sports / fitness classes. Puts me off when they are full of those more able. So I don't go. Now. If they had classes for unfit unable sports wise I'd be in!

Thanks HPFA - confirms what I suspected.

Gee whizz, this government could create such a mess.

Posted this on another thread . I think you guys on this thread might take it in better spirit:

www.dur.ac.uk/research/news/thoughtleadership/?itemno=28879

To be fair , your DD didn't know any different : she blamed mixed ability but hadn't tried setting? I am inferring that she wasn't all that able? In which case she could have found setting rather distressing. I do.

Ours set for some but not all as its too small.

Where are they going to find teachers/ funding etc? It's al a mystery to me, too ...

If grammar schools can't recruit Doctor, how do the non grammars fare?

I ask because I noticed an 'upper school' (ie a secondary modern) in Bucks advertising a SLT post three times...

I love mixed ability teaching but cant find a school to work in that offers it... oh, apart from my DH's selective school!!

Most comprehensives these days set for subjects. I did know teachers who actually preferred mixed ability teaching, and probably knew how to make it work, but on the whole it's gone out of fashion. Comprehensive does not equal mixed ability.

My DD2 hated her comp. she hated being taught in mixed ability classes. It made her feel rubbish. She's now gone to college and as most of the very academic ones go to sixth forms she is finding her confidence from being with people of similar ability.

Where are they going to find teachers for these new grammar schools when my own grammar is struggling to recruit.

It is a vicious circle though , you're right. One of the reasons my DS1 doesn't much like science is because he has never considered himself much use at it and that may well be down to poor teaching by not very well qualified /passionate teachers.

DS2s school, however, has a new head of science who is very 'passionate' but her elitism does my nut in somewhat.. the not quite so capable are being left behind. Result? DS2 doesn't like science much either...

Oh well! Grammar Schools will sort all that out !

Sorry - user name fail User !

So, *Usre8, should I have been forced to do maths at school then (interestingly the subject I would have sacrificed to make room would have been biology!)

btw there is a growing national shortage of English teachers, too....

Again, I come back to children doing things because they want to and are best at it, not because they'll be
:
a) higher paid

or because :
b) the country needs them to.

although I see your point of view.

Lots of engineering companies in Germany and lots of need worldwide to at least have a smattering of Spanish.. But hey ho.

This whole STEM thing can sound a bit draconian sometimes.

But, anyway, I can't square arguments about 'do STEM' because you'll be better paid' with 'do STEM because we need (not so brilliantly paid) radiographers and teachers'...

I just cant get my knickers in a twist over STEM - I know it's my bias. But we are also not producing people who can speak world languages, for example.

The latter doesn't matter that much in practice, since the global language of commerce, technology, science etc is English.

The former matters because we can't fill vacancies for civil engineers to build bridges; biochemists to analyse blood; radiographers to analyse X ray and other scan data; materials scientists to develop new devices; programmers and data scientists etc etc. That's before we discuss the shortage of science and maths teachers at schools. Our economy suffers from the lack of shortage of STEM graduates and we will fall (further) behind other economies if we don't start remedying it from within. (Right now we are heavily reliant on trained STEM workers coming to the UK from abroad... post Brexit these workers may not want to come, even if they are still allowed to.)

PiqueABoo - this ability to throw in an arts subject is also under threat , of course. With the budget cuts, many schools are dropping the options students can take outside English and maths to three or four subjects. Triple science would take up virtually all of it...

When I was at school btw they tried to make us all do Higher Maths (this would have replaced another option I wanted). I put my foot down and said absolutely not : I need an o grade and I have it. I know full well making me do maths would have given me a lower set of grades overall. I applied to Oxford (so, without 'boasting' was highly academic), who didn't care at all that I had no maths Higher. I feel quite sure I would not have been able to apply with a shitty grade in higher maths...

That isn't what I said - I said the ones with an aptitude for science did science! Or, do you mean at uni? Computing wasn't a thing in my day... I think some went an did degrees in maths etc )I know one did something like that because he works at NASA now). It's definitely quite a traditional Scottish thing : Law or medicine, take your pick!

What I find galling is academic students being pushed towards STEM as more worthy when their true talents lie elsewhere. This happened to my DH. All As at O level. Did science A levels and did OK, but not brilliantly. The did maths at uni, hated it and got a third.

I just cant get my knickers in a twist over STEM - I know it's my bias. But we are also not producing people who can speak world languages, for example.

Any road up, a smattering of grammar schools is not going to address those issues.

Triple Science is seen as a badge of being "clever" rather than of being keen on science.

If schools restrict triple to higher-ability children then what else would you expect? Then as dog-whistles go, three GCSEs rather than two is a quite basic, effective one.

"parents of clever kids won't let them consider double science, or art or music GCSE,"

It's a bit like that amongst many of the highers at DD's school, which might be middling but has a significant contingent from the right side of the tracks.

Clever Y9 DD likes science so obviously picked triple, would have been talked into that by school-side if she hadn't, but she also picked both Music and Art options with my approval. She's good at both, and I don't want a pure 'academic' child at this still young age. Or for that matter a pure academic adult.

There's a bunch of folk somewhere credibly arguing for STEAM, which is STEM with Arts & Design thrown in.

Yes, I think we almost certainly are : the clever ones at my school almost exclusively do maths and sciences (especially physics and chemistry).

And yet we are still massively underproducing STEM graduates, particularly relative to other high performing economies. We produce about twice as many history graduates per year as we do physics graduates, for example.

Imo the pendulum has not swung far enough into sciences. I also think it is ludicrous that we don't make all those studying academically post 16 do some form of Maths and English, as most other countries do (with English obviously replaced for relevant language).

In my day, the most academic (this was Scotland so very traditional) either did the Arts to be encouraged to pursue Law or sciences to go into medicine. And it was pretty a 60:40 split.

So pretty much nobody from the most academic group did maths, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer sciences etc? Not surprising that as a country we have shortages in these areas....

I did Biology O-Level - the usual Arts student's science subject.
I did too. My girls grammar school didn't even teach Physics and Chemistry as separate subjects - there was one O level called 'Physics with Chemistry'.

I left school at a time when a lot of girls drifted into teaching, where the minimum qualification to be accepted was still 5 O levels including English. No maths, no science.... So it's not surprising that those of my generation who went into teaching were often not confident to teach maths and science.

Yes, it's now changed, it's become a graduate profession where at least two A levels are required and Maths, English and a science at GCSE are necessary, at least for primary. So that's good - except that Academies don't have to take on qualified staff, and cuts mean that classes are increasingly being covered by Cover Supervisors. So that's not good.

Sorry, PiqueaBoo- don't understand.

You never get threads about "my child is brilliant at English-they need to be at a specialist school"

People typically don't want to hear the explanations because they don't fit what they want the world to be, rather than what it is. It is classic la-la-la-can't hear-you-stuff. For instance is that the first time you've raised this and were there no answers before?