To wonder what chamgain shami Chakrabarti drinks

[Thefishewife]

It emerged last week that Baroness Chakrabarti’s son won a place at the £18,000-a-year Dulwich College in south London after sitting a tough entrance exam.
Critics say it shows she believed selective education is fine for those who can pay for it – but not for parents who cannot afford it.

Maybe it's Moët 🍾🍾🍾

then please explain why she feels its ok to support the choice being taken away for parents to send their children to grammar schools (should they pass an exam)

you can't have it both ways - one rule for my child and one for others

Poor woman?

In what parallel universe is a peer and shadow minister a poor woman?

Sorry HPFA you are right and I am wrong.

It wouldn't have been necessary for her to pull her child out of school to avoid being a hypocrite. She could simply have not spoken against other parents being allowed the same kind of education for their children as she has for hers.

Spot on,

Don't say it unless you believe it. Simples.

I'm sure she believes what she's saying. Only it's fur other people and their children.

OP, the only thing I can say is don't tar all lefties with the same brush.
Chakrabarti (In my head I always hear that as if pronounced by Ross Noble-makes me laugh) has plummeted in my estimation recently.

Corbyn and Milne are toff Trots, and it shows. Very much about 'do as I say, not as I do', in love with power and wielding it ruthlessly, but only to pound the moderates in their own party into the dust, not to take the fight to the Government. I don't see them as having much if any time for or affinity with ordinary people.

I despair of them all, except my MP who is wonderful and the only remaining reason to vote Labour.

Politicians whose children go to fee-paying schools just can't expect to be taken seriously if they oppose non-fee-paying selective schools (unless there's a genuine need e.g. for SEN that can't be met in a state school).

herethereandeverywhere - Therefore, a child doing an 11+ for a private school entrance is not facing the same range of outcomes, or the same 'all or nothing' perception as those taking the 11+ for a grammar school.

You are aware that a fair number of those families choosing grammar schools are also the same families choosing selective privates?

It is far from unusual for DCs to sit a number of Grammar exams and a couple of private exams as fall back. I'm not convinces that most children attending Grammars are genuinely faced with an "all or nothing" situation.

I agree, Mum. I can imagine it was more 'all or nothing' when the secondary moderns didn't claim to cater for everyone, made the students take CSE not O level, received significantly less funding per pupil than the grammars. But now the other option will be a comprehensive which offers GCSEs just like the grammar does and is likely to send some students to university even if far fewer than the grammar. And some of the 'secondary moderns' are excellent - I went to a superselective in a big town but the comprehensive in the small town where I lived had an excellent reputation, sent children to Oxbridge regularly and offered more subjects (even Latin!) than many schools in purely comprehensive areas. It's a much messier picture than you might think.

mum totally depends on location and family finances, that is true.

Countess Secondary moderns in the fully selective counties do have significant problems - they get lower results for pupils of similar abilities than genuine comprehensives and they have significant problems with recruitment. For instance the pass rate for five GCSEs in selective Bucks for Middle Achievers is 50%, in next door comprehensive Maidenhead its 62% - that is about 250 children so not insignificant. People are not wrong to have concerns about what will happen to children going to the new secondary moderns which will emerge if this proposal goes ahead.

I agree that super-selectives are different - they can and do exist alongside genuine comprehensives - however the Green Paper is not specifying that any new grammars will be super-selective - its extremely vague generally.

Hot off the press - this is Robert Courts - the Conservative candidate in the Witney bye-election:

Robert Courts on grammar schools: "This is not a return to the past. Not a return to the black and white split of grammar schools and secondary moderns."It's about trying to find an outstanding place for everyone. There are areas of the country where schools aren't very good. You could have a grammar school which takes the most academically able and takes the system up - and havethose successful schools helpthe less successful schools to bring them all up."

Now I don't understand how this makes any logical sense. I can certainly see how it might benefit the children who are actually in the grammar school - but how can a school which is successful because it has taken the easiest and most able children lecture a "less successful" school on how to educate all the children it itself has rejected? If you were a Head of a "less successful" school in these circumstances wouldn't you be incline to tell them to p**s off?

' People are not wrong to have concerns about what will happen to children going to the new secondary moderns which will emerge if this proposal goes ahead.'

• yes, true.

'how can a school which is successful because it has taken the easiest and most able children lecture a "less successful" school on how to educate all the children it itself has rejected? If you were a Head of a "less successful" school in these circumstances wouldn't you be incline to tell them to p**s off?'

Couldn't agree more. I find these patronising, ignorant proposals utterly infuriating and so unappreciative of the talent and dedication of teachers who work in difficult circumstances. Some of the most challenging schools have far better teachers than the high achieving selective ones, and in any case being good at getting keen, hardworking, academically gifted kids into Oxbridge is not the same thing at all as being good at engaging a mixed ability class many of whom are reluctant learners.

" in any case being good at getting keen, hardworking, academically gifted kids into Oxbridge is not the same thing at all as being good at engaging a mixed ability class many of whom are reluctant learners."

I totally agree with this statement. But just to extrapolate the scenario offered by TheCountess; what happens to the Oxbridge-potential pupils who are sitting in the mixed ability class many of whom are reluctant learners? Do they get the same attention as in the grammar? The same amount of teaching to the same high level? The same focus on what it takes to get into Oxbridge?

Or do those pupils just take it on the chin that their outcome will be a bit more shit because overall they're raising the game of the rest of the school and its mixed ability reluctant learners? Overall the results stats of the school will be better so sod reaching the potential of the most gifted - they're bright enough to do well enough without much teaching input. Or how about sod the fact that the brightest pupils have to teach themselves half the time because the teachers are too busy with the challenging pupils?

These are the concerns which force parents of bright kids down the selection path; private if they can afford it. I've been the bright pupil paired with the learning difficulties pupil for every single science experiment for a year. Kept my pace down with the majority of the class and provided me as the 'teaching assistant' for the pupil. It didn't teach me anything wonderful about society it just made me frustrated and resent my school and its 'teaching' methods.

Here My daughter's education has really suffered from the mixed ability teaching of our local comprehensive. It was ok for pupils who are STEM-oriented, because they do set for maths, and the weaker students did double science. But she is a humanities person, and the mixed ability teaching really let her down.

This sounds like an excellent idea which most of us could get on board with:

schoolsweek.co.uk/lets-subvert-the-centres-of-excellence-policy/?utm_content=buffer1638e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Another Guardian article:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/11/grammar-schools-parents

Preferred the other one - I don't like the way the author doesn't distinguish between parents in places like Kent who don't have the option of comprehensive schools and people like Seamas and Shami who have good comps available to them but choose not to use them.