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?

"The bottom set typically have all their kids either on a IEP or are statemented or there are social/ child protection issues. "

Really?!

The lottery thing wouldn't work - it already costs a huge % of a local authority's education budget to ferry children to school (and incidentally will probably be a real issue for academies when they realise).

Personally, I think there should be selection into academic/ academic-ish and vocational but at 14 rather than 11 and with choice of the child being taken into account so if you had a very academic child who wanted to be an engineer this could be treated as a vocational course where both the complicated maths and hand on fixing stuff was covered. I think this is much closer to the German system.

Actually, making every local school good enough - the Govt could stop rigging exam results and doing different boards etc to try and fudge the results and cover classes either individually or between a few schools which people want to do e.g. our local state secondary does joint science and 'humanities'. They are obnly treated as seperate subjects after GCSE. This is going to mean that a child doing history A-level has far more catching up to do from that school than if they had actually been taught history to GCSE. Same with Physics etc.

"But all children to mingle outside class time"

Yeah, right. My ds goes to a comprehensive school. They may have mixed classes for certain subjects, but the kids are tribal. They certainly do not mingle. Do you mingle with people who are not your type? You may be aware of them and their ways in a comprehensive school more than if you were at St Ponce's, but as for mixing - it just doesn't happen.

crazygracieuk,
A child in the bottom set is in the bottom typically because they have mild to moderate learning difficulties. More than a fifth of children in England have special educational needs.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11296012

Surely it isn't rocket to science to guess that the bottom set has a higher proportion of special needs than a middle set. A large secondary school might have eight or nine sets in a year. The bottom 1/8 achievers in a year might have dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD or global learning difficulties or if they are bright then something at home may have gone very wrong. No child is born being bad and a tiny minority children are on the recieving end of dire parenting.

A fifth seems an awful lot to be on special educational needs.

Any idea why this has gone up so much in recent years?

Really tired- I had no idea it was as high as 20%. I am not a teacher and o ly speak from the bubble that is my life and it is different to my experience.(my sons have been in bottom sets at primary and no special needs/Iep or social needs. )

I knOw a couple of boys who are academically top set but with behavioural problems- one often runs out of the classroom and runs home while the other has sudden temper tantrums and has been known to assault any adults or children who happen to be in the way.

I like azazello's idea. There would need to be setting or streaming before 14 though. Maybe a primary/comprehensive middle school/differentiated senior school? Get rid of all the spurious choices 'language college' 'sports college' and faith schools - any selection should be only on the childs potential and preference.

As to private schools - I'd get rid of charitable status for any activity by any institution which isn't truly charitable. So if a school was doing something truly of benefit to others it would get relief on that, but not everything the school did. Same thing for churches etc etc.

Yes- if you also scrap the current curriculum and build it up from scratch, integrating different subjects, and also separate children by ability, not age.

somebloke123

A fifth seems an awful lot to be on special educational needs.

Any idea why this has gone up so much in recent years?

Every child on SEN means more money for the school. They're gaming the system.

Bring back grammar schools for all areas. Make non academic schools as prestigious as academic ones-give them top of the range equipment and small classes with an aptitude test for entry. Make SEN a priority in all schools so that those DC with Sen who are also academic get help to achieve in grammars. Acknowledge that equality of opportunity does not mean the same it means with equal care for the individual. Show that we value the plumber and the driver as much as the brain surgeon and the lawyer.

Principality, why is the state system that wasnt good enough for your children at primary level suddenly good enough at secondary?

Grammar schools were designed to give those who cant afford private education the same chances as those that can. Not for those who can afford it to hot house their kids into a freebie!

I think that private school kids should have their own seperate competition for grammar school places. (ie. reserve 90% of grammar school places for children who have NEVER attended a private school after year 1. Prehaps it would be interesting to have a seperate competition for children whose families claim benefits, working family tax credit etc. It would help families who are too poor to pay for tutoring(5% of places) and the remaining 5% of places could be for private school children)

Parents of privately educated children have as much right to choose state education as anyone else. but it can cause problems. In harpenden one year 65 children that the county hadnt planned for applied for a secondary place. Most had come from private preps. Unfortuntely this meant some poorer children from the villages lost out on their places at very good schools and one school had to build a new classroom over the summer.

thegreylady, how are you going to determine at age 11 whether a child has an aptitude for plumbing? And what if the child isn't ready, age 11, to be told that it's going to be a plumber?

In poole in Dorset they have made all the state primaries allocated feeder schools for the grammars. Prep school children go to the bottom of the list behind them regardless of their marks

Streaming or academic selection too early is not a good thing. My dad was sent to be an apprentice at 14. When he retired he was a university lecturer.

My DB who was sent to tech collage, also now has an engineering degree. Both are dyslexic, both were written off by state education at an early age.

"thegreylady, how are you going to determine at age 11 whether a child has an aptitude for plumbing? And what if the child isn't ready, age 11, to be told that it's going to be a plumber?"

Eleven years old is a stupid age to make such a major life changing decision. Its less stupid to make that kind of decision at the end of year 9.

I imagine that you would test a teen's spatial awareness, manual dexerity, ablity to follow diagramatic instructions. Ie. can you work out which screw to turn the stockcock off. Prehaps potential plumbers could have a go at welding. I have to admit that I don't know what it takes to be a talented plumber, but its certainly isn't a job for the stupid.

'it certainly isn't a job for the stupid' -- well, sadly, that doesn't seem to stop 'em having a go. Take the one who tried to siphon oil uphill from our old oil tank, for instance...

Eleven years old is a stupid age to make such a major life changing decision. Its less stupid to make that kind of decision at the end of year 9

Quite a few countries solve this by allowing kids into the Academies/Gymnasia/etc (Grammar equivalents) from 11 on, as some kids - especially boys - come into their own later. It wouldn't be hard to do that here, especially if we expanded teh no. of Grammar schools so the competition wasn't so crazy..

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

No, because:
a) Non academic children, imho, are the ones who benefit the most from private education. As you say, a bright child will do well anywhere
b) Remove the charitable status and you give private schools permission not to help out the community. I'd like to think that the one where I work would still let the village school use the pool/playing fields and still host the church fete/run charity events but I can't say for sure.
c) From what others have said it sounds like the private schools would have to close, creating more pressure on the state system.

Abolish grammar schools.

Not sure. I don't have a problem with grammar schools themselves as such but I do have a problem with the 11+ as a selection tool and with the detrimental effect they can have on other schools in the area.

Abolish external selection.

Not sure what you mean by this. The 11+?

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.

No way! Children could have to travel miles to get to school and would not live near their friends. I agree with setting but not streaming - it is entirely possible to be gifted in maths but hopeless at English and vice versa.

But all children to mingle outside class time.

As if! Children mix with who they want to mix with

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.

Yes. But the support should be for all children who are struggling and I'm not sure how more could be funded.

Maximum of 20 in each class.

Lovely idea but, again, how would you fund this?

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

No. All teachers should be allocated a balance of sets. I teach top, middle and bottom sets in different year groups and so do all my colleagues.

I went to a school similar to that described by OP but all the mc parents with dc in the middle and bottom sets didn't like their darlings not being in top sets so they lobbied for the government to bring in parental choice and hey presto we have the totally polarised education system we see today. It's a nice idea but most parents just want what's best for their own dc and not that concerned about the common good.

"As you say, a bright child will do well anywhere"

No they won't necessarily. This is a sweeping generalisation when in reality it all depends on the child.

"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."

That's not quite the scenario I meant (i.e. shove all the bottom set into plumbing school) but there are children for whom an academic eduction will be worthless. Those like your DSs who can perform academically with support and who will gain from it are a different case altogether.

A child who will end up as, say, a dustman (perfectly worthwhile job and I'm certainly pleased someone does it!) will gain more from learning practical skills and maths/English which can be applied to Real Life rather than learning the geological make up of SE England for example.

Can anyone give an actual, real life example of a private school deserving its charitable status?

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar
Can anyone give an actual, real life example of a private school deserving its charitable status?

Does anyone need to? Private schools educate superbly. They don't need to justify their existence. Chippy socialists need to justify the reason for smashing up a perfectly functional education system.