If you live in a non grammar school area...

I'm sure comprehensives reach a point where they are at a ceiling with results, which leads to frustration from teachers - they simply cannot teach any better, and they are getting the best they can out of the raw material they have to work with, whetehr that be 25%, 35% or 45%.

I know it seems like a cop-out, but we would first need to re-define what we mean by selection. For me it's not just dividing people into "academic" and "non-academic". the ideal system, plays to everyone's strengths, but that just isn't possible in the system we have with the limited resources there will inevitably be. I don't see the point, for example, of forcing soemone to do a GCSE in French when they are only going to get the lowest possible grade and it'll be meaningless for them, just so the school can scrape an extra meagre point on the league table. Because, let's be honest, that's why they do it - it's nothing to do with getting the best out of the kids.

All successful economies need a skills mix, and that inevitably means deciding, at some point, (I don't know when) that some people's skills lie in some areas and not in others. It means getting ourselves out of the mindset that academic=better and non-academic/vocational=sub-standard, and thinking in more pragmatic and less judgemental ways.

As I said before, if my hairdresser wanted to do A-Level French and go back to university, she has the chance in 2007 to do so, which she didn't in 1987.

15% is pretty impressive on a national level actually

ROFL at your results compared to mine GDG!

The independent looks very poor, doesn't it? I suppose that's what happens when your have good grammars creaming off the top ability levels for a free education.

Having said that 40% and 54% from the 'non-cream' students looks bloody fantastic compared to our results, doesn't it?!

Are there really no other schools?

That's a bit of a cop out, if you don't mind me saying.

If you want selection, I think you have to be pretty clear what you want to select for.

The 16+ thing is a bit of a dilemma for me. I have always taught in schools with a sixth form,but now live in an area with 11-16 schools and some excellent sixth form colleges. My children will be fine - the schools are good - but as a teacher thinking about my next job it is tricky. I like teaching across the age range, and the ability range. In a previous job I taught 50% A level, and it got a bit dull really. But no A level...

just to throw in another argument and I'm genuinely interested to know this - teachers, how do you select the school you would like to teach at? Do you avoid those schools with a poor reputation or are you champing at the bit to get in and change things?

Also, one would assume that as in all things some teachers are better at it than others, so do these teachers tend to be snapped up by the 'better' schools?

Oh I agree completely UQD. All the schools in our area are 11-16. The sixth form is very good, but for many children they have to wait until they get there to encounter very many 'academically-minded' teachers.

Whatever system of selection there is, it would be better than selection by mortgage. Which is what we have at the moment.

The OP has an interesting question, and the answer is, of course, yes, there's competition. Loads of it. And it ultimately depends how much money you have and how good an area you can afford to live in.

I also wonder what the effect is of the lack of sixth-form in secondary schools. Thanks to Blunkett and his leftie chip-on-the-shoulder cronies, all sixth forms were scrapped in Sheffield apart from those in the affluent south-west postcodes. Doesn't exactly advantage kids who are academic and want to do A-Levels but happen to live in one of the huge council estates to the north and east of the city, does it? Oh, but of course, the council would say, they have the College. How convenient - should you wish to do an NVQ in catering or bricklaying. "Know your place" is the message being sent out here...

Why do you ask GDG?

We are not in a grammar school area. Last year the GCSE results (5 A*-C) for the four schools in the town were:
A: 15%, W: 31%, P: 32%, T: 38%
I think those results speak for themselves.

In addition there is:
B: A catholic school: 51%
C: An independent school: 84%

D: And the nearby town (c.6m away): 51%

B is extremely hard to get into if you have no RC connections.

Needless to say, D, is very popular; it selects purely on the basis of distance, so houses on that side of town have an advantage.

Ah, but nobody trusts teacher's assessments these days do they? It would have to be soemthing supposedly objective. And I think there are great difficulties in finding an objective measure of academic potential which cannot be improved by practise/tutoring.

Back to the OP my London borough has decent secondary schools which are Catholic or girls (or both). Unfortunately I have two non-Catholic boys and their only options are dismal. I think it's shocking discrimination based on religion or sex.

I'm not saying I have an easy answer, but there has to be something better than what's currently in place. I didn't do an 11+ - I was selected for a grammar school at the age of 13 by continuous assessment.

What method would you like to see in place of the 11+

It just seems very odd that we accept that everyone is different and yet people want to perpetuate a school system in which everyone is given the same kind of education.

Anmd why is it that specialism for the particularly talented in sport, drama or music is seen as good, and yet as soon as anything academic comes into the equation, that's elitism?

they should all be good.
and there may have been individuals who benefitted but for the vast majority, according to all the research evidence, the tripartite system just perpetuated the existing social disadvantages. that was why it was abolished in the first place

What method?

I don't want to go back to the 11+, as I've said on these grammar school arguments before. Any selection wouod be done by a more sophisticated method now - it would have to be.

And I don't buy the "what you do at 11 determines your entire life" argument, not any more. There are choices at all ages. We live in a culture of lifelong learning. if you leave school at 15 with no qualifications and decide 4 years later that you want to get your life back on track and go to university, there is nothing to stop you. My BIL did just that, very successfully.

a 'good' comp may what about the rest?

Unquiet I htink is based on the fundamental belief that to determin a person's life at the age of a 11 is a little unfair and silly frankly.

Kids develop at different rates and a good comp would deal with that.

exactly UQD!

harpsi I would have to disagree with 'grammar schools in no way advantage clever, disadvantaged children', I could give you several stories of 'disadvantaged' kids who were at my primary school doing exceedingly well under the system, mind you my experience at school is umpty tumpty years ago!

I agree that some people move to areas for grammar schools (just how many I don't know) but they also move to areas of 'good' comps.

As I said - what's the difference?

Some parents take out expensive loans to get their kids privately educated. Some bus them out the borough (Tony!). Some go against their basic beliefs (Harriet, Dianne).