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/

Like it or not classroom management is an integral part of what teaching is now and experienced teachers can handle a reasonable amount. It just has it's limits and we need the provision and resources in place for those extremes.

I dont understand the concept of grammar schools. I dont understand why academically bright children at a specific age point, can only be taught in a building exclusively occupied by other bright children from that point on. I dont understand why sets on a subject by subject cant achieve the same ends with more felxibility or why, in some subjects, bright children cant learn alongside or even from average or below average children.

If it particularly impacts children in the bottom sets, then the brighter kids in higher sets will mostly be OK.

I absolutely agree though that we need better investment in supporting those kids and meeting their needs properly.

All children have the right to a positive learning environment without disruption. That includes the hardworking but not-so--academic kids who might not get into grammar schools, as well as the kids with SEN who find the classroom environment difficult to be in. Why do people think it's only the clever kids who deserve to learn in a non-disruptive environment? Are we going to just leave the other kids to rot because their needs are not important?

I don't think there any wrong with grammar schools, however, I do think there should be more variety to cater to the needs of different children.

Why do people think it's only the clever kids who deserve to learn in a non-disruptive environment? Are we going to just leave the other kids to rot because their needs are not important?

It does feel like it. If people want a private school feel then they can pay for it themselves. Tax payer money needs to properly support all children's education, not just a select few.

So what if everyone decides that they would like to send their kids to grammar schools? We should build enough grammars to accommodate all of them? Surely that would just be a comprehensive by another name!

The whole attraction of grammar schools for many parents is the exclusive, competitive element. They would lose their value entirely for the sharp elbowed middle classes if everyone could go. The whole point is that people want their kids to have advantages over other people's kids.

I would also dispute that behaviour in grammar schools is always good - note the grammar school that had a spectacular fall from Outstanding to Special Measures due to safeguarding failures including not dealing with sexual harassment etc.

On a personal anecdote level, visiting a range of local schools for ds, by far the worst behaviour I saw while walking the corridors was in a grammar school.

I don't agree with grammar schools but there should be some consistency, so areas don't end up with 1 grammar school that becomes superselective just by virtue of its being the only one.

I trained as a primary teacher via school direct a couple of years ago and I thought the SEND training was pretty good. My school is very strong on SEND so perhaps that's partly why.

'The kids who don't want to learn can go to the non-grammar school'

You mean the kids from dysfunctional homes, or who have SEN, or are in care, or have just generally found education tough up until 11. Yup, let's chuck them on the scrap heap. As long as those little darlings who have parents who care don't get contaminated. Just wow.

Where there is selection, there will always be competition. And where there is competition, there will always be sharp elbowed parents willing to pay for tuition.

Why not just invest in really excellent comprehensive schools which cater to the needs of all children? You can have setting by ability in different subjects so that kids can learn alongside similar ability peers, but there will be flexibility to accommodate changes in academic performance and/or jagged profiles where kids are very able in some parts of the curriculum but not others.

I just don't see why people are so eager to segregate the academic kids by putting them into a separate building. What do you think you gain by doing that?

Yep, just as long as my child doesn't have to mix with all those less worthy kids, it doesn't really matter what happens to them. 🙄

I wasn't brought up in a grammar area and we don't live in one now, so my children didn't have that option but instinctively I like the idea of them.

What I don't like is the tuition that goes on. It is clearly the case that some children who have been intensively tutored get in at the expense of children who are naturally brighter but who haven't had the benefit of tutoring.

I don't understand why 11+ exams include verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Wouldn't it make more sense to just to assess English and maths - on the grounds that everyone would have covered the same material anyway?

I assume it used to be like that - at least in some areas. Somewhere I have a copy of the 11+ exam my mother in law took in the late 1930s. That was just English and maths.

The kids who don't want to learn can go to the non-grammar school.

Many of those kids in the non grammar school do want to learn. But the resources and support isn't there. Instead tax payer money is being siphoned off to support the children of people like you. Send your kids to private if you don't want them to mix with ordinary kids. Tax payer money needs to support education for all, not just a few.

I agree with @noblegiraffe, it is vocational education in this country that needs focus and money. Not all children, academically bright or not want to just do academic subjects. Grammar schools tend to be so limited in their provision.

I absolutely agree with you. But the reality is that the taxpayer isn’t too keen to pay £80k+ a year for my blind DD to attend one of only two national specialist schools/colleges for severely sight impaired children and young people. There is NO provision for sight impaired children in my LA or in my region. In our case, the grammar school locally is the least worst option, because:

• behaviour is poor at the catchment comprehensive (identified as so by Ofsted) and my DD, who uses a long white cane does not need the extra stress of being buffeted in rowdy corridors.
• the comprehensive is one of the first built in the country and is a hodgepodge of extra extensions with stairs up and down in the middle of classrooms and extremely narrow corridors. DD would not be able to access a large part of the campus safely.
• the comprehensive has never in its history had a severely sight impaired student and I wasn’t keen on my DD being the guinea pig.
• there is no dedicated transport to the comprehensive, which is too far to walk to from our home, so pupils rely on busy public buses. I have seen the bun fights in the morning as kids scramble to get on. It would be like throwing my child, who uses a white cane, into a lion’s den every day. She also has autism and cannot manage crowds or stress. Her grammar school has a chartered private bus service and DD has her own dedicated disabled seat.

That's different Emma. There does need to be specialist schools for that. And tax payer money should fund specialist schools for children with VI. Although if you want your child to go to mainstream school, then I doubt the grammar has any more experience of VI than the local state school. But as you cite behaviour being a problem which is why your child can't attend a comp school, well if more money was directed into supporting those children with SEN / behaviours that challenge/ additional support for those who were struggling, then we wouldn't have a problem would we. Your child would manage better in a comp school, as would all other children.

I live in a fully comprehensive area and two of the best comprehensive schools in the area have a VI unit attached. They are ranked 11 and 14 out of 57 state school in the LA area. Children are taken by taxi to them. Its so expertise in braille, cane walking skills and so on can be centralised. My nephew goes to one.

@Freedomfighters

Exactly and having accademic DC sat next to those with undiagnosed/ unsupported needs isn't going to sort their needs or issue's out.

It's a ridiculous concept.

• although I don't agree with your last post.

Children have different needs and interests and whilst there is a school environment that suits my eldest, I don't know what on earth I am going to do with my second because she's bright but not really accademic in the same way.

Even if I could get her into the Gramma I don't think she would suit it.
She definitely won't suit the school I had to remove older one from and she definitely won't suit the other comps.

@Freedomfighters , honestly, no, I don’t particularly want my child to go to mainstream school. Things have moved on massively from ‘our’ day (I’m making assumptions about your age here). There is no ‘want’ about it at all. The MO of local authorities currently is to send as many disabled and SEN children to mainstreams as possible, because it is massively cheaper than maintaining specialist provision. This is all in the name of ‘equality’.

My preference would be for my child to attend one of the only two national residential schools for blind/severely sight impaired children, because the curriculum is specially tailored and the outcomes are so much better. My daughter has NO friends at school and this is a not uncommon theme among VI young people who are ostracised for their disability by their sighted peers.

My DD’s grammar has had prior experience of students who are blind and sight impaired - this was a major factor in my selection process.

Of course, nowhere is perfect, and I have gripes about DD’s grammar school (she isn’t able to access Art GCSE, for example, despite being a talented artist because there is not enough support for the rigid curriculum to be differentiated for her. She can’t do shading because she lacks any depth perception in her severely restricted functional sight).

Yes.

It's amazing how when you have 5 schools in a 6 mile radius feeding into one grammar and the 2 in the leafy middle class areas can only offer 20% of the students a place and the other 80% have to go to the school those parents think is not good enough so spend £1000's on tutoring - how much people will suddenly start listening to teachers about funding requirements.

Money would be better off invested in our current system and on levelling up (that seems to have been pushed aside).

Academic kids will always do alright because they can. It's those from poorer backgrounds who attend school hungry, or sleep deprived - who walk 3 miles in the rain as buses are expensive rather than 3m from parents SUV. Those with send can be given the right education and a chance in life.

Grammar schools don't make doctors and vets.

Failing to fund education properly means potential doctors and vets are not discovered.

There should be as many grammars as children who want them so there would be no need for tutoring.

And if all children want grammars we end up with all children attending grammars and they are what we now call comps!

And if we don't create spaces for everyone who wants one we are back to the system that takes people based on an exam done at 10/11yo.

Then you live in a Willy Wonka LA; my DD doesn’t have a golden ticket, because she doesn’t live there. Probably because we are poor and live on Universal Credit. Which, in this circular discussion, just highlights how much of a postcode lottery access to a decent education is.