The answer to our private/grammar/state school angst

[Shagmundfreud]

Remove the charitable status of private schools, as this only benefits those children who would be educationally successful where ever they were schooled.

Abolish grammar schools.

Abolish external selection.

All schools to be truly comprehensive. Places allocated by lottery to get rid of post-code selection. School buses to get round transport problems. Highly structured streaming so that the brightest children could work at a fast pace, unhindered by thick or badly behaved pupils holding them back.

But all children to mingle outside class time.

And lots of one to one support for students who are working hard to move up through the streams, to support educational and social mobility.

Maximum of 20 in each class.

Teachers allocated to teach the bottom sets would receive extra money, training and support, and more non-contact time for lesson preparation.

You likey?

Likey. Apart from the post-code selection abolition.

I think everyone should have to attend their nearest school.

Just close all schools. Send children down mines and up chimneys.

Problem solved.

I would go for sets rather than streaming, and i dont see why bottom set teachers need more time for planning. Enlighten me!

BTW I think you should change your name to something more socialist

I suspect that proposal would fail just as many children as the current system.

I don't think teachers teaching the bottom sets should get preferential treatment, I think there should be consideration as to whether those children in the bottom sets would benefit from a different kind of education all together - vocational rather than academic. Teach them plumbing rather than geography.

I do not believe that education is a one-size-fits-all thing.

And how much will all that cost?

BTW: you can't just 'remove charitable status'. Schools that are charities would have to close down, and assets be disposed of in accordance with the law on charities. So factor in the cost of increasing the size of the state sector to accommodate the 7% of pupils it currently does not have to make provision for.

And given that there are tens of thousands of children without a school place at all (and preside on numbers expected to rise) on classes of 30ish, how many more classrooms will be needed to take this down to 20?

Presumably you'd be banning HE too?

No I don't like.

Yes to abolishing charitable status because in our area the independent schools make no contribution to the rest of the community.

Yes to abolishing grammar schools. They are full of over tutored middle class kids and I don't believe in writing kids off at 11.

No to getting rid of private schools, people can spend their money how they wish.

No to postcode selection. I want my children to go their local school, I don't want them bussed outside because of some social engineering experiment. We moved into this area when our local school was in special measures. We supported the school then and are now pleased it is improving. Why should our children go to a school that they have no connection with?

"Yes to abolishing charitable status because in our area the independent schools make no contribution to the rest of the community"

Yes, but that is your area and is not necessarily representative of all independent schools.

Ok, well insist that they do provide a genuine benefit to the local community.

Sounds like the Scottish education system outside the big cities. Apart from the charitable status which I also agree with.

The only thing I will warn you about is apparently it makes no difference to social mobility, which is broadly the same ( as it is in most western European countries at the moment). There is no room left at the top, all our efforts are needed just to stop our children sliding down. The real reason there was so much more social mobility , in the second half of the 20 th century was the reduction of agricultural jobs and the increase in job opportunities in manufacturing and management . Yes my Dad improved his social position by dint of a good education but my in-laws improved theirs despite a lower standard of education due to the economic opportunities of the sixties to eighties.

If you can't get a job or a promotion you will not move up the ladder no matter how well you Are educated.

Agree abolish grammar schools. Make the comprehensive system work better.

What about home education?
Still allowed?

"I don't think teachers teaching the bottom sets should get preferential treatment"

When I was teaching Shakespeare to bottom set year nine on a Friday afternoon, I needed at least with one hour of recovery time spa treatment and psychotherapy for each minute I had to spend in the classroom with the vile buggers children.

"I think there should be consideration as to whether those children in the bottom sets would benefit from a different kind of education all together - vocational rather than academic. Teach them plumbing rather than geography."

I'm with you on this one. Really good quality vocational education - we so need this. (see above comments!)

"What about home education?
Still allowed?"

Yes......

"I think everyone should have to attend their nearest school."

You might not say that if your nearest school was my nearest school! (And no it would not be transformed by the attendance of my wonderful children or my star presence on the PTA.)

The busing kids around a city to ensure 'true' comprehensives was a fad in Hull for a few years. (There have been no grammar schools for years.) Take a look at that city's educational performance and think again.

I don 't agree about vocational for the bottom set, there are children whom it would suit but, for example, my older DS's have dyslexia type issues which mean they need support with literacy but they would not make good plumbers either, DS 2 wants to be an archaeologist and is very interested in learning just really struggles with spelling and writing. It would be very unfair if the bottom set became a vocational ghetto.

Vocational qualifications are being brought in in Scotland , schools are being encouraged to form relationships with local FE colleges to facilitate this. ( remember no sixth form colleges up here either).

*"I don't think teachers teaching the bottom sets should get preferential treatment"

When I was teaching Shakespeare to bottom set year nine on a Friday afternoon, I needed at least with one hour of recovery time spa treatment and psychotherapy for each minute I had to spend in the classroom with the vile buggers children. grin*

Yet when I taught top set English-the extra marking I had to do was vast as they got through so much more work...!

I blame shite tabloid culture, junk food and mass entertainment for the buggering up of the working classes in the UK.

My dad was born on a council estate in Dagenham to unmarried parents in the 1930's and left school at 14. His mum used to unscrew the light bulbs to stop him and his brothers reading at night. He signed up for night school to attend political lectures, ended up as a Fleet Street journalist and then became a diplomat. Can you imagine that level of social mobility these days? Can you imagine a 14 year old from a council estate going to the library after school and reading Dickens without being told to?

People don't read any more. Not poor people. They're too busy texting and sniggering over X factor, while stuffing their faces with KFC and pop-tarts.

This country's going down the toilet I tell you!

"Yet when I taught top set English-the extra marking I had to do was vast as they got through so much more work...!"

Very true!

In terms of actual written output, my bottom set year 9 would produce over the course of a whole term what a bright year 7 could manage in one afternoon.

No I don't want my child to be schooled a long way from where we live-,environmental costs too high. I also want them to live nearer to class mates to make socialising out of school easier.

"It would be very unfair if the bottom set became a vocational ghetto"

Yes - I agree. Though there is also no harm in exceptionally bright children doing vocational education, if it is high quality (which admittedly at the moment it often isn't).

"No I don't want my child to be schooled a long way from where we live-,environmental costs too high."

Heavily subsidised social housing in affluent areas then, to reduce 'ghettoisation' of the poor and social equality in education?

Crickey! So you dislike the working classes about as much as you dislike the parents of privately educated children???

And as has been said, there is no mechanism by which you can remove the status of a charity, you have to shut it down and move all the children into the state sector. Can you imagine the fun that would cause when all the privately educated children arrive and then monopolise the top sets, as at 11 they are already about a year ahead in terms of what they are being taught.

Or would you insist they twiddle their thumbs for a year just to be fair?

Agree wholeheartedly about the x factor comments shagmund, get rid of that (and the Simon Cowell empire) and education standards will improve dramatically!