May has got her Grammars.

JESUS ! I stand corrected the girls school 'Boston High' is even worse 65% at level 5 GCSE !

That is below those 'coveted' Modern schools quoted up thread , they also beat considerably beat both Boston grammars at A level.

in grammar schools, we get a very small portion of shit results.

Well, I certainly know of children not allowed to take exams / excluded / entered for GCSEs as external candidates elsewhere to enable the grammar school they attended from Y7 to mid Y11 to preserve their good GCSE grades.... though that of course is not solely the preserve of grammar schools, as private schools managing out pupils and other state schools encouraging the 'home education' of children with SEN are elements of the same story.

letstalk2000 well I assume it's not a comp. so what is it?

73% at Level 5 Maths/English must be the lowest of any grammar school in England and probably N.I as well , though they don't use numbers . However, they have a C* grade which must be a grade 5 !

Boston Grammar is not really a grammar in the truest sense of the world , hence why it has the lowest attainment of any grammar school in England !

Five grade 4 GCSEs gets admittance to its Sixth Form ! to take BTECs . That just about sums up the town...

Maybe your nephew wouldn't have done very well at the grammar either portico.
A grammar should get good results with the able children they cream off.

No point quoting statistics. Each side can manipulate them in any which way they want to. As parents we use our gut instinct and done informed judgement to choose schools for our darling children.
I would never choose a comp for my kids, I have a nephew in a top 5% state comp in a leafy and affluent area. He came out with crap gcse results last year. All I know is that in grammar schools, we get a very small portion of shit results. There is a huge pent up demand for them. Who on earth would turn down the chance for their kids to have the privilege of attending. Not me!

letstalk2000

That Grammar school has pretty much the same number of high ability DCs as this school, which is located fairly close to that Grammar School:

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/138754/haven-high-academy

The Grammar School had 56 high ability DCs in the GCSE co-hort, the comp. had 53

The Grammar School has 7 disadvantaged DCs the comp. has 48.

The Grammar School has 14.4% EAL and the comp. has 38.8%

The Grammar School has 11% FSM the comp. has 31.2%

These two schools demonstrate the point that a Grammar school will not raise the attainment level of all the bright DCs in the area. It will only raise the attainment of those who get into the Grammar School. The education of the 53 high attainers at the comp. is not being improved by the nearby Grammar, quite the opposite.

proved that...

I noticed the pun modern school children. I mean children of today or of the last 15 years evidenced from the Channel 4 experiment.

Interestingly the series also had one season where they operated as a 'Secondary Modern ' school albeit perhaps an unrealistically funded one.
The results from that experiment proofed that if the system had developed in to a tripartite. This with proper funding, a vocational approach could have benefitted many non academic children giving them in demand skills of trades !

There are some very poor schools in Lincolnshire . However, the poorness of the schools has very little to do with grammar schools existing in the county !

Thank goodness at least 25% or so of kids can get a chance of a decent education in Lincs.

I imagine a lot of posters like the top 25% or so in comprehensive schools . This being so the general standard of education can be masked . Therefore if a school attains a 60-65% GCSE pass rate it masks the overall performance or standard of education given.

Peregrina. The argument about whether modern school children could pass an O Level from 1968 or so was examined by Channel Four and its 'That'll Teach Them' series that ran from 2003-2006!

The series took the brightest 16 year olds from private, grammar and comprehensive schools and placed them in to a controlled environment.

The results were very telling over the three 'grammar school' series of 'That'll Teach' Em experiments . 90% of these bright A*A GCSE students failed to achieve above grade '3' in Maths/English.

The usual excuses were trotted out by the PC brigade These consisting of different exam content old styles of learning. writing etc.

The truth being I would bet a significant proportion of the pupils gaining 2Bs or grade 6 and 5 or 6 C or Grade 5 GCSEs would not attain at CSE grade 1 standard from a1968 exam !

Why is this misleading? These were supposedly the cleverest children around - the 25% who passed for the grammar school. What happened for the majority who weren't even offered the chance of taking the exams doesn't affect that particular argument. Now pass rates are significantly higher yet the majority of children are educated in Comprehensives. To my mind this shows that Comprehensives are doing something right!

I await your comments as to the sterling success of Lincs Sec Mods

Better still, perhaps you can explain why OFSTED rated this Lincs Grammar as RI:

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/139180?tab=secondary

Regarding you % figures for passing 5 O Levels in the 1960s , a 50% pass rate was outstanding for the time !

Only about 15-20% of all pupils stayed on past the fifth form , indeed it wasn't until 1972 that the school leaving age was 16 !

Therefore to state that 50% of girls at your grammar did not achieve results that in a 'real' comparison with today, would equal 5 A* at GCSE is misleading !

This being the case because a Mothers/Fathers wish for their child to attend a grammar school is far greater than in 1983 !
Not mine, letstalk. I just want a really good school. Guess I must be a total wierdo!

So because a handful of grammars in Lincs are in demand, this is enough to condemn all Comprehensives, which presumably you know little of, as failures?

I await your comments as to the sterling success of Lincs Sec Mods, although I don't doubt that there will be some good ones.

Back in the late 60s my girls grammar out of an intake of 60 each year regularly had 30 or so failing to get 5 O levels. Assuming 25% went to the Grammar, 12.5% of the 16 year old population is not exactly a sterling result, for supposedly clever children. One of the local comps, not at all selective, and losing some children to independent schools, got 60% 5 A* to C GCSEs last year.

The establishment on both the left and right of the political spectrum (with a few exceptions) have promoted comprehensive schooling for 50 years !

When I went to my grammar school in 1983, people were convinced , even conservative county councillors that my cohort would probably be among the last in the county to take the 11+ (Lincs) !

35 years later and grammar schools are probably in their strongest position since about 1970 (even before then many authorities had started the process of going comprehensive)

Therefore despite having the backing of the mainstream political establishment , comprehensive schooling has been a failure !
This After a political battle going back even before Antony Crosland 1960s assertion to close every grammar school in the country.

This being the case because a Mothers/Fathers wish for their child to attend a grammar school is far greater than in 1983 ! Grammar schools have become the gold standard of state education, not the pariahs intended by Crosland.

Much of what we have today is working, badbunny, despite the many challenges which remain. State schools generally are now 100x better than they were when I was at one, or even a decade or two later (late 1980/90s). There are brilliant comps up and down the country; not enough, but enough to show how well they can work. . . And proper funding everywhere would help.

So does anyone actually have a better system

Even if they did, they would need to have the power and authority to make the necessary changes.

Unfortunately those who have the power and authority to make changes have decided to expand the existing two tier selective system in the areas where it currently exists and thow money at those schools.

The Grammar System often reminisced about today, was designed to be a Tripartite System not a two-tier system like the current one, and that never really worked as it should have either

So does anyone actually have a better system, other that the usual soundbites of basically just throwing money at it, but just carrying on doing the same? Anyone got any plans for proper reform or does the educational establishment just want more money to carry on doing what they've been doing the last 50 years?

Badbadbunny - If the modern/liberal thinking of the last 50 years had actually worked...

The Grammar System often reminisced about today, was designed to be a Tripartite System not a two-tier system like the current one, and that never really worked as it should have either:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_school

I have seen comps support success and social mobility where the child would not have had a chance to get into Grammar.

We hear precious little about the many good and great comps just getting in with it.

I agree with both of these, but we don't hear it. Nor have I heard of people in Comprehensive areas pressing for the return of Grammars - too many will have memories of the Sec Mods which came with them.

Today 07:56 noblegiraffe
Loads of my top set Y9 are at a new grade 7 or 8 for maths at the end of Y9 confused. In a comp.

That’s great. In Y9 we gave 5 maths sets. Set 5 are mostly 7s, with odd errant ones at 6/5

It's time for some fresh thinking as to what will benefit all children in the 21st Century, not resurrect policies which started to fail in the 1950s and 60s

What about the intervening 50 years? Wasn't the demise of the grammars in the 70's supposed to "benefit all children"? If the modern/liberal thinking of the last 50 years had actually worked, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So, what's new for the future that we've not already tried in the last 50 years?