New analysis - Grammar schools in England

JoJo , I'd have to go back and read Cleverlands, but I am fairly sure you are not right about selective education in all those countries and am not sure who you mean by etc!

Exactly, so grammars don't get more they get the same per kid as comps and if they're unlucky enough to be in areas which get substantially less than London the London comps you mention actually get much more. That is before you take into account the money they quite rightly don't get for PP and Sen.

On the selectivity front, countries like Japan, Korea, Estonia etc are all selective.

However, the selection happens more at about the stage of going to KS4 rather than as early as it does in the UK for grammar schools.

IntheMotherhood, yes, the communists achieved that perceived classlessness through a range of means and education was just one of them. However, communism fell some 30 years ago and the social cohesion is still there, property prices have not differentiated at all and if you ask people about social classes, they make genuinely baffled faces.

toomanytealight
Comps in London and many other areas get waaay more than our grammars even before you allow for PP and Sen.
Bollocks.
The funding formula per pupil by district is the same regardless of the type of school
and London schools get more than anywhere else in the country

Is there any evidence or data to back up your feeling, Toomanytealights?

I suspect that the top sets are skewed to more affluent kids because overall their is a poverty / achievement effect. But in my kids comps I definitely see kids be supported to do their very best, move up sets after a slow start, and that there are plenty of PP kids in the top sets.

I have swotty high achieving kids. I don’t want a Grammar system because removing my kids to another building is not necessary, and affects the rest of the system badly. I don’t want summer born boys who can’t pass the test on tne day sent to a school where they don’t do triple science or MFL just so my kids can be sepereted socially from them. Our society needs all kids to be given every chance to flourish at their best.

Comps in London and many other areas get waaay more than our grammars even before you allow for PP and Sen.

Aside from that making more school places costs wherever a kid goes to school.

There is a link on that page to a report on which says that on average, students with more motivation to learn maths score better, and there is a strong negative association between motivation, and the extent to which system sort children into different schools or programmes.

An interesting piece here from Andreas Schleicher, head honcho of PISA testing

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31087545

Ultimately, since "social cohesion" and "social mobility" are fairly vague terms I don't think you're ever going to have definitive proof onw way or the other. And education is only one part of the picture anyway.

toomany
Talkin they get less cash and every kid comes with a price tag as regards education.
NOPE
Grammar schools do not tend to get the money that comes with SEN and PP kids - as they do not let them in the door

but Grammars in London get more per pupil than Comps anywhere else in the country

Talkin they get less cash and every kid comes with a price tag as regards education.

I have never in RL met a parent who chose private school for their DCs because of its independence. Many many other reasons are cited : academic success, extra curricular, sports facilities, class size, reputation, cache : never mentioned some sort of utopian ideal. In fact (my town has a plethora of private school) they expect the teachers (my DH is one) to very much teach towards the ultimate tests of GCSE and A Level, pretty much relentlessly.

I have , however, heard teachers citing that they wish to move to the private sector to escape constant testing and data gathering.

Not only do most of the countries who perform highly in PISA not have selective education, they also don't select by ability WITHIN their schools.

Many of you would be interested in reading Cleverlands which looks at high achieving education systems, warts and all.

@IntheMotherhood I don't think being independent is a 'get out jail' card for being accountable to parents on your child's progress!!

Independent schools respond to supply and demand and there simply isn't the demand for what you're suggesting. Independent parents that I know are happy with the reporting they get and wouldn't welcome more testing. We have chosen an all through school for our DS in part because it will save him from any entrance testing or SATS. Ultimately we do want him to get the best GCSEs/A levels he capable of but we feel confident the school will deliver that without additional testing along the way.

The problem with progress testing like SATS is that it encourages teachers to spend time teaching to the test and not educating your child.

I agree farfallina I think the independent sector also needs to have clearer accountability mechanisms too.

Why? One of the reasons parents choose independent schools is because they are just that: independent.

If grammars don't make any difference leave those who want them to crack on.
because they impact clearly and negatively on the children who do not get into them.

NOT a good use of taxpayers funds

And couldn't you apply that research to any high achieving comp in expensive, high achieving, high motivated areas e.g. London.

Really don't get the point of it,its kind of obvious.

I don't think comps work that well to be honest.Bright PP kids who scored high in Sats aren't making the progress they should,the attainment generally for pp kids lags behind other children. With that in mind it's highly likely few are in top comp sets.Pretty sure the cohort in top sets in comps would get the same data results as grammars did in said report.

I don't get the hoo ha. If grammars don't make any difference leave those who want them to crack on.

PISA results do not by any means show an advantage for selective schools:

uk.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-math-science-reading-skills-2016-12

Singapore, the top performing country is selective but of the other countries in the Top 10 many of the countries are non- selective (might even be all of them as some of them I don't know - however Japan, Canada, Estonia, Finland and South Korea are all non-selective)

As to the UK we are actually slightly ahead of France (selective) when averaged out, and not hugely different to Germany and the Netherlands.

PISA may very well be imperfect, but as far as I know it's the only system which compares attainment at 15 over different countries. So I'm not sure where the claim that selective countries have higher attainment has come from.

Pisa study - tests are regularly carried out in all developed + some other countries and the UK doesn't exactly shine.
PISA needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt

as countries decide which schools go in
countries can decide not to go in
countries do not get asked the same questions

eg China submits Shanghai and Beijing, but no rural deprived areas OR the kids who are live in those cities but cannot go to school there

Grammar schools do not work
it really is that simple

In terms of attainment, have a look at the Pisa study - tests are regularly carried out in all developed + some other countries and the UK doesn't exactly shine.

IntheMotherhood, I'd say privilege in the UK is more associated with white UC and MC backgrounds. I've never heard of people viewing ethnic minorities as privileged.

I actually think that having grammars is bette than having catchements/admission areas where school selection boils down to being able to afford a house near your desired school. That system is more like what you find in the US which I'd say is a lot more divided than the UK.

For comparison, I am Eastern European and grew up in a country with a fully selective system (even in communist times it was fully selective). If you ask most people there, they would say social classes don't exist (it was a new concept to me when I moved to the UK). There are no property price differences between different parts of town (as no one has a concept of somewhere being more UMC/posher) and you apply for any school you like thereby not contributing to any areas becoming more or less desirable for families, more or less expensive and the area generally more divided.

As much as I agree that doing away with independent, grammar, religious etc schools + introducing lottery instead of catchments could increase social cohesion in the UK and be a good thing, I think the concept is a bit of an ideological pie in the sky that goes against human nature.

clavinova
Toynbee surely
Free buses would be nice though.