Liz Truss to lift ban on new grammar schools

[noblegiraffe]

I cannot believe that we are here AGAIN after it went so poorly for Theresa May when she wanting to do this.

Liz Truss said in her leadership campaign that she wanted to lift the ban on new grammar schools. Since becoming PM, she has stuffed DfE positions with ardent supporters of new grammar schools (including the odious Jonathan Gullis as new schools minister).

The Telegraph is now reporting a planned amendment to the Schools Bill which would allow the creation of new grammar schools. Leading this is Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee, who has been trying to bring back grammar schools for years.

Some notes on grammars: They are bad for social mobility. Despite many efforts to create a selection test that doesn't select against disadvantaged kids, this remains the case, and grammar school intakes are heavily skewed in favour of the better-off (obviously this is why some people like them).

The Tories closed more grammar schools than Labour, (Thatcher closed more than anyone else). They were not popular with parents who eventually realised that the vast majority of children don't get into them. Parents who might be in favour of grammars are not actually in favour of sending their child to secondary moderns, yet this is where most of them will go.

The German system (which is always referenced when it comes to grammar schools) was condemned by the UN for perpetuating social inequity.

Vocational education is a real issue in England and that's where any energy on schooling should be focused.

And obviously school funding and teacher recruitment and retention should be the main priorities in education for the new government.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/17/liz-truss-could-lift-ban-new-grammar-schools-months/

Agree with your points. Part of the confusion around this issue is that the non-grammar schools in grammar areas such as Kent are dubbed 'comprehensives' by those who live there, and no longer have 'secondary modern' in their names. Thus people who live in grammar areas picture all comprehensives as like their local secondary moderns - schools lacking up to 20% of the highest attainers - and this gives an absurdly warped picture.

I do think a much more interesting debate should be around the differences between comprehensives in wealthy areas and deprived areas, as these perpetuate disadvantage. There has always been a depressingly exact correlation between low %FSM / PP and high Ofsted scores, which then perpetuates a vicious circle of 'middle class flight' from schools with high %FSM. Ofsted focusing very closely on progress compared with schools serving similar demographics, rather than absolute results; mechanisms to ensure all schools take more equal percentages of SEN and PP children; and very high levels of funding for support of SEN and deprived children would all help.

Comps don't work.

Many clearly do.

The 2 comprehensives my Dc went to did a great job with a wide range of abilities.

How does that help? You are still drawing an arbitrary and unreliable line between pupils of near-identical ability, at a position in the normal distribution curve where each point in the scale means a very large number of children.

As many of us keep saying, where the need REALLY is funding and expansion of excellent specialised provision for the other end of the ability scale and for pupils of all ability who have SEN or a disability. That would give a much better outcome for the 80-90% of children who would then attend 'comprehensive' schools that catered for all other abilities.

Removing top 'top' 5% / 10% / 20% does not advantage the majority of children. Catering excellently for the lower 5/10% and those with SEND advantages everyone.

And for the kids that still don't get in? How are the schools they go going to be improved to help them meet their potential?

And if the level gets lowered surely that defeats the point if the grammar system? And creaming off the top?

If there are more grammar schools, there'll be more places available so the entrance exam level requirement will be lower.

In that case, let's make all school grammars, the level required to pass would be lowered to zero percent and every child would get a grammar school education. Hurrah!

No, that was the lie that people were told in the 60's and 70's, i.e. that when a grammar converts to a comp, "everyone" would get a grammar education. Well that went well!!

@Badbadbunny so do you want to make your suggestions on how to improve education for all? What happens to the kids who don't get in even when the bar is set lower?

That doesn’t sound right, then everyone in the 60s and 70s would have been expected to do O-levels.

Catering excellently for the lower 5/10% and those with SEND advantages everyone

How does it advantage everyone? There’s a benefit to that group of students, sure. But how does it help anyone else?

I have extensive experience of the German 3-tier system and frankly, the UN can get stuffed on that issue.

German grammars work well because they are virtually disruption-free and teachers are required to have not only their teaching degree, but a good degree in their chosen subject(s), too.

German middle tier schools work well, because students leave education at 16 and are not forced into an academic route after that.

German Hauptschulen (the bottom set tiers) work well, because rather than having to focus on academic abilities, businesses get involved and students learn actual, practical skills and gain qualifications in manual labour, still leading to a chance at high-earning jobs, such as plumbing.

The comprehensive equivalent are often shit schools, because throwing everyone together doesn't work and teachers are simply suited to work better with one set of abilities than another.

Who honestly gives a crap that "social mobility" targets still doesn't force a more equal picture; at some point we just have to accept that there is a genetic variant to being bright and having academic skills, and try as you might, some students will never achieve a grade 9 (my head should take note; they are of the opinion everyone can get 9s if only they try hard enough and if teachers were better).

The system is flexible, too, so students can swap between school types if they turn out to be in the wrong one.

Whereas in England, we have

-top set kids whose learning is highly affected by behavioural issues, often by kids who are lower ability, but are stuck into these sets to spread behaviour issues out a bit, but cannot for the life of them access the speed and quality of learning

-bottom set kids who are set up for failure because we have to force them through academic qualifications they neither want nor need and who just cannot access the work, even with less content, because there is not enough time per subject to make a dent

-middle set kids who are pressured to destruction because they have to get those fives for the school to look better in league tables and who often vote with their feet as a result

And lastly

-schools who are grammar schools in all but name because forcing them to become comps just meant parents were moving areas to schools with a better reputation, leading to two schools literally across the street from each other becoming a grammar equivalent and a sink school, or some areas not having any decent schools at all

So I'm all for bringing grammars back. I'm also for completely ditching what we do in the bottom tier. We should, instead, work with businesses to encourage those students into apprenticeships - by all means carry on with English and Maths, but ditch what they don't need and focus on functional English and Maths skills. BTECs have become far too academic to be of any use and I can't see any school age actual technical qualifications which help those kids.

And teachers should be able to choose. I'm great with both top and bottom set kids, but I'm fairly crap with middle sets, because they often contain the worst of both end of the spectrum and my ND brain can't cope with that.

There is of course the 13 plus for those wishing to enter 'grammar' schools later.
Love them or loathe them 'grammar' school tests are an IQ test, this really streams the pupils nicely into different groupings. Removing selection will not suddenly improve the average student's IQ.
More 'grammars' may take away the competitive nature of selection. Despite everyone in the family attending Grammar schools, my daughters will attend the local outstanding comp. I will be taking a keen interest in the school materials and the depth of study. I'm not big on pushing STEM either, I think they're very niche areas and leave out the pupils who enjoy the more qualitative study.

The predominant reasons that people quote for needing to remove selected high ability students (including their own children) into separate buildings called grammar schools are:

• Disruption from students with significant behavioural needs.
• Teacher time being taken up disproportionately with children with SEN or of very low ability
• School resource having to be devoted to dealing with a very large number of what might be deemed ‘social services’ issues - food, clothing, abuse, poor housing, homelessness, addiction within the family etc

All of those seem to be much more appropriately tackled by funding SEND and social services, including expanding special school provision, tather than parachuting away a small ‘top’ group and leaving the vast majority, a very significant proportion of whom still need a good quality academically-based education leading to GCSEs, in institutions that are considered ‘second class’ and in which the issues identified above are hugely magnified.

(Sorry, failed to quote Berries there on why catering very well for SEND etc, including in special schools, would benefit so many more than the small proportion of already advantaged children who would be siphoned off into grammar schools)

The reason love grammar schools because they assume the behavioural issues all come from a certain group of pupils.

But really academic intelligent pupils can just be as disruptive as those from poor socioeconomic backgrounds or those with send.

Plus not all students who can achieve 8/9's in some subjects will pass the 11+. It's a specific test.

My ds got a range of 4's to 9's. More 9's than 4's.

He does not have behavioural problems but is autistic. Does have traits of very severe dyslexia but due to his physical and communication diagnosis's.

There's never going to be a perfect solution but I think it worked best when comps offered vocational as well as gcse subjects - the poster above makes a very good argument for the 3 tier system. I just think it can be done differently than different schools.

Should say as in those wanting vocational should have access - and sometimes those are kids who could pass 11+.

So their the choices but by pupils needs - not academic ability.

thrasswife - your tier system might work if teachers knew which set the kids should be in. However, in my experience they tend to base this on the last set of exam results rather than how competent a child is. One of mine got moved to the highest science set purely to separate him and another kid as they were discruptive. He performed perfectly well and has gone on to get a first and disctintion in his science based masters and degree. Similar bad experience with english.

All ‘neat’ tiered systems - whether the German system or the old grammar school system - sound fine when we use stereotypical extreme examples.

The children we should always think about are the ‘border’ children, the ones who on a different day would be in an entirely different institution with a different educational approach. Until the education offered to the ‘top’ child in the lower tier is of the same quality, prestige and fit for the child and their potential as it is for the ‘bottom’ child in the grammar - who is of essentially identical ability, and on a different day their positions might well have been reversed - then the system doesn’t work.

i agree cantkeeway and that is my main concern with the grammar system. (and i say this as someone who went through it myself and has had 3 kids who were bordeline getting in/not). All of which have gone to uni with 2 excelling - the one who did best just missed out on grammar, did mediocrely at local comp but managed to get into excellent comp sixth form - only because I'm a pushy parent who is super interested in their education.

Oh ffs 😡

Consistency of performance day in and day out is what separates students not performance on one day or a particular week. The system cannot cater to anomalies.
There has to be a cut off point.

It's worth looking at the schools in grammar areas rather than deciding that grammars make other schools worse. Take Graham Brady's seat - all of the secondaries are ofsted rated good or excellent. I'm not sure it's true that grammar schools make surrounding secondary moderns worse.

My DD goes to a grammar school despite me not being 100% in favour of them. We used to live in an area with excellent comp provision where DS did really well, but we were priced out of the area. House prices are another way that makes a good education out of reach for many. Our rent was going up and up and we were forced to move to ever shittier houses whilst paying more each time.

In our new area there is an outstanding comp, but it is part of an extremely strict, almost military academy chain. We hated it when we looked round and felt the focus on results and complete submission to rules and regulations would be a terrible fit for DD.

Despite being heathens we really liked the faith school but they wouldn't have touched us with a barge pole, so we put her in for the 11+ and she was offered a place.

I guess after writing all that out the answer isn't more grammar schools but t9 sort our comos

aghhhh didn't mean to post.
I guess after writing all that out I think the answer is to invest more in comps, stop the take over of academies with OTT rules, so that everyone does live in an area where the comps are decent, like when I lived somewhere affluent.