May has got her Grammars.

I will believe that this is wonderful when I hear people come on and tell me how they moved to Kent or Bucks because of the wonderful Sec Mods there, and how there is £50 million for them.

This doesn't mean that there aren't good ones - indeed in some areas with more children of grammar ability than there are places it's going to follow that there will be sufficient children to make up top sets which can match those in the grammar school.

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 (when no, by no means all Grammars were good, some were pretty poor.)

Loads of my top set Y9 are at a new grade 7 or 8 for maths at the end of Y9 . In a comp.

Stillwishihadabs
That’s a lovely story. Why I love grammar schools!

I have posted this before but ds was old level 6 at the start of year 6. He spent a lot of that year really bored going over stuff he had already covered and then nothing at all happened after SATs. We asked how the local ( now in special measures) school which he was allocated would challenge him. They told us they would "consolidate the basics".I could totally see that another year (never mind 2) effectively repeating the year 6/7 ciriculum might just turn him off school forever.
Luckily he is at a superselective in a neighbouring county and is at a new level 7 or 8 for maths at the end of year 9.

Sorry, I realise I have been ambiguous. I should clarify that I meant that very few of the schools with the lowest %PP nationally are NOT Outstanding.

So Outstanding is not exclusively limited to the low PP% schools. Though I'm sure the general tendency is true.

Absolutely. There ARE Outstanding schools with high %PP (one or two in London; a few Catholic schools, from when I last looked at the data - but very few amongst the 150 or so schools with the highest %PP - and very few not amongst the 150 schools with lowest %PP). But if Ofsted really measured education quality provided by the school, in a way that truly corrected for intake differences, you would expect that roughly the same proportion of schools would be Outstanding at all levels of %PP. And that simply isn't true.

Parents have to work with the system as it is, not as they would like it to be.

And on banding - yes that is interesting I didn't know that either, scrub. I had been wondering how some "non-selective" schools manage to end up with an intake heavily weighted in favour of the most able at KS2 (going from at stats on the government comparison site). While others have a clear majority (as you would expect) of middle achievers. It couldn't just be down to the aptitude places.
But anecdotally - around here there are several schools with challenging intake (ie Not skewed in this way, plus v high PP%) - judged Ofsted Outstanding. So Outstanding is not exclusively limited to the low PP% schools. Though I'm sure the general tendency is true.

Please tell me if I am being completely daft, or naive, but isn't the function of the much-hated SATS test to pre-filter the streaming for secondary schools?

No clavinova DS would have been fine at local schools - but he can only take up one place. With fairly minimal extra input we ended up with a choice and so exercised it; not the only ones in his class to do so by any means . . . And I do not consider our chosen school "selective"! If anything, we chose it for its diversity and demonstrable commitment to All; despite having able child, I liked that about it. But hey - why make this about me? How does this disqualify me from having an opinion on grammar schools?

However, if I was a school Inspector and I saw a group of school children politely engaging with a teacher, wearing neatly coordinated uniform it would send out positive vibes !

Conversely, if I went to a school where children were shouting over the teacher using 'four letter' words my opinion of the school would no doubt be tainted.

People are human and not drones who can completely separate their own experiences when trying evaluate a school fairly.

If schools were socially selective BUT had an equal chance of getting an Outstanding Ofsted grade regardless, because Ofsted properly took intake into account, then I would have less of an issue.

It is the tight linkage between social selectivity (as evidenced by low %PP) and high Ofsted grade that is so glaringly iniquitous, especially as a school with a high proportion of deprived children actually has to work SO much harder (as social workers as well as educators) to achieve anything like the same progress.

High ofsted grade SHOULD equal 'school doing brilliantly with its intake'. it doesn't. It indicates 'usually, school with easy intake doing well; on much rarer occasions, school with harder intake succeeding amazingly against the odds'

Probably ...

So you agree that Ofsted are rating the pupils and not the school.

Why is it a bad thing to be socially selective !

This being to select people most alike with each other.

At a risk of being sent to trial at the Star Chamber of Mumsnet. !

The successful schools manage to keep the 'crap' out and hence achieve the highest Ofsted ratings.

Aalya, What you really need to compare are the Ofsted gradings of selective and non-selective schools WITH THE SAME %PP (ie the same proportion of children from disadvantaged families - and probably the same % of SEN children as well...). As academically schools are socially selective, comparisons are meaningless UNLESS the socioeconomic differences between the schools are adequately controlled for in any study / comparison.

MumTryingHerBest - data from 2016 - 99% of selective schools are good or outstanding, compared 76% of non-selective secondaries. Im not claiming that ofsted is definitive, but it's clearly what the government are using as their definition.

fullfact.org/education/how-do-selective-school-ratings-compare/

they are focused on increasing the number of children who attend selective schools - which they automatically assume are good.

Selective schools are much more likely to get Good of Outstanding gradings from Ofsted because they are socially selective. Schools with low %PP are much more likely to have high Ofsted gradings. So if you have a way of keeping children from deprived families out - which academic selection does - then you are much more likely to be graded 'Good'.

So 'selective' schools being 'good' schools is a statistical statement (Ofsted gradings and selecting against children from deprived families are not independent variables), not one about quality of education.

Comps haven’t been given £50 million to do so.

God knows what the DfE plans are for the increase in school places, they can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. They were desperately trying to get grammars and private schools to sponsor new Free Schools along with the Catholic Church, but there haven’t been any new Free Schools agreed in ages, except a few special schools.

and are instead focused on increasing the number of children who attend 'good schools'

No they are focused on increasing the number of children who attend selective schools - which they automatically assume are good.

There are vast swathes of the country with no grammar schools who won’t see a penny of this extra money

Don't they get the same funding as non grammar schools? Aren't comps increasing their places to cope with increasing school age population too?

There are vast swathes of the country with no grammar schools who won’t see a penny of this extra money. I understand that grammar areas are mostly Tory.

I have a foot in both camps. This regarding where priority of education policy should go.

I have two high achieving DDs in year 12/10 respectively and an out of year 17 year old DS with 'SEN' (that the state system failed completely !