Why do people get so worked up about selection in schools?

[Itisnoteasybeingdifferent]

Genuine question.
We all know selection is part of life. Last week there was a conversation about Emma Watson for getting her breasts out. But she is only famous because she was selected to play Hermonie. No one knows all the other hopefuls who were rejected. Likewise, if you apply for a job and get nowhere, it is because the employer selected someone else to do the job. Selection is a real part of life.

Yet when it comes to school we seem to think the opposite should apply.

There's a difference between an individual comp being bad (many of them are indeed appalling - they need better leadership, more funding, better external help with poor social conditions in the surrounding area) and a system which deliberately throws 70% of children into schools designed to be terrible.

When they are properly funded and have good teaching staff, comprehensives are great - I went to one like that. High rates of pupils going to university (including Oxbridge), high rates of getting children into good employment for those who were less able, an ethos of everyone feeling valued and encouraging everyone to see people's strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses. Comprehensives are not in and of themselves bad schools. It is not intrinsic to the concept that they are bad schools, although some end up that way. Secondary moderns in contrast were bad pretty much of design. Because they were designed as dumping grounds for the pupils the system had decided were not worthy of effort. And that's the thing - if you say you're in favour of grammar schools, you are also saying you're in favour of secondary moderns (even if they are now "rebranded" as the rump of the comprehensive system).

I live in an area where the local grammar (incredibly highly selective - less than top 10% of pupils) creams off the brightest, and all the local comprehensives (half a dozen to serve the rest of the population) under perform compared to national league tables - not by a small amount explicable by sampling error and a couple of kids turning in duff performances on the day, but by a large enough margin to suggest that they are systematically bad schools.

Cody,

I got sent to a selective school notd for their good academic results... I was not a stqr suptudent and scraped my "o" levels. I failed an OND then went out to work. After three uears I went back to college and did two "A" levels on one year than managed to get to Polytechnic. A decade later I returned to study, got a masters and won a prize for best Thesis.

So I am a product of selective education. But not a successful one. OTOH, my rather posh school did give me a huge amount of self confidence. And oddly enough that has not always been helpful as many people find it very difficult to relate to someone who has too much self confidence.

We did not send our children to a selective school.

So I am a product of selective education. But not a successful one.

Yup, me too. Passed 11+ in London, post war so plenty of places. Had to stay on a year to get four O levels, did various jobs including factory work. Twelve years later, did Teacher Training, and eventually got degrees via OU, Masters through Uni where I taught.

Successful finish. In my view, school failures are made, not born.

One of the reasons I'm in favour of selection is because of the kids who are in my kid's class. They go to a Catholic school which means they are nailed on to go to one of the best schools in the city. Around 30% of them are refugees fleeing persecution in the Middle East, all Catholic. A lot of their parents are highly qualified and intelligent, but they've had to start from scratch because their qualifications don't translate over here and they're not used to using up to date machinery and they don't have the time, money and other resources to requalify over here or their language skills (especially specialist language) are not up to scratch for professional situations. They also have to live in some form of social housing, normally in crappy areas, and they can't choose where it is.

These parents are all really committed and supportive of their children's learning and the children are very bright. But they can't move to areas with good schools. There are other kids who have very intelligent parents who have health problems meaning they've struggled to work so are stuck in shitty areas because it's what they can afford. Or parents where there has been a family break up and a not so good area is all they can afford.

These kids will still go to a good school. But what if they have the same problems and aren't Catholic? They would have to go to our shitty local comp which would mean at the age of 11 they would basically be written off. Kids going there rarely go to Uni and if they do it's invariably a shite former poly. All that potential lost, not just for them but for the people who would have benefits from the engineers or lecturers or doctors or scientists they might have become.

I don't believe tutored kids could push out the naturally bright kids. And at least with grammars they'd have a chance. The argument that the grammar system writes children off at 11 doesn't really hold water when you consider lots of poor, bright kids are written off at 11 now anyway. Neither does the assumption that all bright children have high earning parents so wealth and intelligence selection are the same thing hold water either.

Why should only bright refugees go to a good school and the rest to a shitty comp? Incidentally the odds of a bright refugee recently arrived in the U.K. Passing the 11+ aren't great.

Why isn't the ideal solution to improve the shitty comp so that no one has to go to one?

They would have to go to our shitty local comp which would mean at the age of 11 they would basically be written off. Kids going there rarely go to Uni and if they do it's invariably a shite former poly.

Oh fgs. Lots of former polytechnics are now very good universities. There's so much unbelievable snobbery on mumsnet about this.

I think it's madness not to spend this money improving the "shitty comps". Nice phrase as

"Why isn't the ideal solution to improve the shitty comp so that no one has to go to one?"

Exactly this ^^

All schools need more funding, and those who perform badly need more than most. Pouring money into a flawed selective system won't improve the lot of those kids who can only go to the local "shitty" comprehensive school.

Done well, with ability sets for each subject there is no need for a comprehensive school not to be successful and support those children that need it most.

"They would have to go to our shitty local comp which would mean at the age of 11 they would basically be written off"
What do you mean by this?

So when exactly are we going to get all these amazing comps? Labour were in for 13 years and they made the situation worse for poor children, I schools tumbled in the international rankings during that time and poor kids suffered most from declining education. So nobody has any idea how to get this wonderful education across the board but in the mean time they're going to stick with the unfairest system of all which is selection by parental wealth for the vast majority of pupils.

And refugees don't necessarily arrive the week before their 11 plus. Many of them will have been here from birth.

And yes, I would prefer to see some of them have a chance of a good education than none. At the moment, at least where I live, that's only available for those who are the right religion.

Why isn't the ideal solution to improve the shitty comp so that no one has to go to one?

I agree this is the ideal, but I am beginning to despair of it happening in reality. The problem is, no one can agree on what actually needs to be done: more strict discipline or not? more traditional teaching styles, or more creativity? More vocational options earlier on, or getting as many pupils to do the EBACC as possible?

Would simply giving all schools the levels of funding we've seen in London work? Maybe, but I don't think it could be guaranteed - plenty of people argue that the high percentage of aspirational immigrant pupils in London has been the primary factor in London's success.

Bertrand our local comp is a failing school with appalling results even the brightest kids don't do well. They have about 10% GCSEs at A or above. Locally it's said that kids who go there are more likely to go to jail than university. I don't know how true that is, but basically they feed in primary kids with loads of potential then waste that potential and spit out kids who will be lucky if they can read and write.

If there was a grammar school in my area, chances are I would have gone to it, and I would choose for my DC to take the 11+ if they want to. As it stands there is not a grammar school in our area, but there is a religious school that our DC both qualify for and it is head and shoulders better than the state comp which is our only other option.

With high taxes and a high cost of wrap around and holiday childcare, I would genuinely rather homeschool my children than send them to the comp, it is just that bad, we could not afford private school. The religious school now starts very early in the morning and finishes much earlier than the comp, primarily because students from the comp were beating up the religious school kids on their way home.

Having grammar schools (which btw don't cost more than state schools) would give smart non-religious kids a chance to get away from disruptive classrooms. Freeing up the "secondary moderns" to invest more time in students who are struggling with behaviour and motivation and to invest in tools and teachers that can teach skills that will help the less academic students to live successful and productive lives.

The problem we have is that we are measuring schools by the number of A-C GCSEs they produce, which is obviously going to show that grammar schools are better. I went to a comp, and there were a large number of students who from year 9, did not attend school on Wednesdays but instead spent the day offsite learning trades. I don't think any of these students received 5 A-Cs in their GCSEs (and they probably wouldn't of if they had attended school on Wednesday) but many of them not have jobs as dry stone wallers, plumbers, electricians etc. All of this good work on the part of my school is ignored in the statistics which instead label these children as failures.

Remember that the new grammar school proposals allow children to move between the schools at 11, 14, and 16. It's not set in stone from tests at 11.

Freeing up the "secondary moderns" to invest more time in students who are struggling with behaviour and motivation

Why should hard working non academic kids be lumbered with being in a school with a disproportion of kids with poor behaviour & motivation?

How do you know at 10 who is really academic and who isn't? noblegiraffe quotes a statistic that 1 in 5 end up at the 'wrong' school. Saying you can move school is all very well, but if there aren't any spaces... (unless you are going to kick out the bottom 10% at 14?)

Comps can produce children with strings of A grades as well as supporting less able to e.g. do construction. (My DDs school does this).

Taking away the top set reduces opportunity for those left, as there may no longer be sufficient demand to run a triple science or german course for example, thus disadvantaging late developers, those with spiky profiles, or those whose parents couldn't afford a tutor or who weren't organised enough to arrange to do the 11+.

"They have about 10% GCSEs at A or above"

Sorry. "They have about 10% GCSEs at A or above."

What %As and As would you find acceptable? What is the A-C %age? And what is the ability profile?

Why should hard working non academic kids be lumbered with being in a school with a disproportion of kids with poor behaviour & motivation?

They already are, in many, many schools, like the one Bill Sykes described above. In addition, in many 'good' schools, they are lumbered with being in sets with those kids. Do you think there is any way to improve such comps, and if so what is it?

What would be your strategy for dealing with children with behavioural problems?

Of course you would kick out of the bottom 10%... Just as damaging as a student who missed out on grammar school and is not being pushed in the school they are in, is one who is currently in the grammar school but struggling to keep up. There wont be an option for them to take a intermediate tier maths paper for example and and they could end up failing the higher tier paper.

My experience at school is that everything that "really mattered" was set: Maths, english, science. But for other subjects, languages, humanities etc there were not enough students to set the classes and still make the timetable work. So these teachers ended up with classes of the full spectrum of abilities. This was extremely difficult for them to teach - think, two sides of the whiteboard with different questions on, for the students taking different tier papers.

You are talking about a great comp, and the school I went to was pretty good, but the reality for lots of areas in the country is that these great comps who are able to push the full spectrum of abilities to their full potential do not exist.

The main reason IMHO that the school that I went to was a good one is that its in a very affluent area with very few local employers who hire most of the parents of the students. Almost everyone at that school has a parent who is an engineer (70+%) and funnily enough their children do very well, particularly at maths & sciences.

kestrel The quote was from someone saying grammar schools were good as those with poor motivation & behaviour wouldn't be there.

At least with comps these kids are spread out more evenly, especially in the first 2-3 years when many subjects aren't set.

How to improve poor comps? No idea really, I'm not an educator. But I guess strong flexible leadership and good funding would go a long way. Plus be able to get rid of poorly performing teachers a bit more easily whilst giving good support to all teachers. Better funding for social support too to give background support to those from less supportive homes.

But the way to improve education for all is not to slice off the top 20% of brightish children with well motivated / well off parents or whatever to separate schools.

Well now you just have to be lumbered if you're poor.

To put it into perspective, 39% of the children at my local comp get 5 GCSEs grades A-C. If you go to the wealthier side of the city that goes up to 80%. More than double. So parents who can pay to move in my city can more than double their child's chances of receiving adequate GCSEs.

especially in the first 2-3 years when many subjects aren't set

Maths English and Science were set at my school from year 7 based on SATs.

To put it into perspective, 39% of the children at my local comp get 5 GCSEs grades A-C. If you go to the wealthier side of the city that goes up to 80%. More than double. So parents who can pay to move in my city can more than double their child's chances of receiving adequate GCSEs

We have a similar situation here, the Ebacc score for out local comp is 30% A-C, for the religious school that is a 3-5 minute walk away it is 90% A-C. It is just that polarising around here. It's often people who have a good local comp who are anti-grammar schools.

In my view the main problem with the current system is that achievement is measured purely in GCSE grades (or whatever equivalent qualification)

Personally, in spite of going to a mediocre comp, I got very high grades (parental support and naturally good at exams). But now I mix with people who went to grammar schools and had private educations and who are so much better educated in all kinds of ways, and have more confidence and know how to perform well in interviews. I feel I could have got far more out of my school years in a different type of school. An A star at GCSE is relatively easy for a bright child to get and doesn't indicate any outstanding talent or effort.

Conversely, the more people I get to know, the more I realise that many of those who are academically poor/uninterested, have an awful lot of other talents that are never going to be picked up in the current school system, wasting their abilities for themselves and for the country. This is probably why the UK performs so much worse than other european countries in terms of productivity.

Do you think there is any way to improve such comps, and if so what is it?

Smaller class sizes, more effort to teach vocational subjects in a meaningful way, an avoidance of bringing writing into subjects where it isn't relevant, bringing back schools with farms and gardens attached, with workshops where genuinely useful practical skills can be learned.

I'd love to open a school which selected on technical ability. Each child would be interviewed and asked to eg. take something apart and explain how it worked. There'd be no written element at all as part of selection. I think you'd end up with a cross section of academically bright to rubbish, but with students who'd be keen and motivated to learn practical subjects and would go on to achieve great things.

Rhayader that still leaves History, Geography, RE, French, Art, Drama, Music, PE, Tech.

Bill There is an interesting thread in Secondary Education about what makes the biggest difference to a child's results you may like to join. poor children are massively less likely to get into grammar school too at the moment (look at PP figures). So is the difference in results due to quality of teaching, or home support, or natural ability, or what do you think?

It's unfair to select children at 11, much better to have good comprehensives and set on ability for separate subjects.

I know a few families where one child is much more academic than the other - very unfair to send one to the grammar and another to a secondary modern where they are being told at that young age that they aren't academic.

I watched a program a couple of years back - on baking as it happens. A group of women were learning bread making and at the end of the course had to sit a test. One woman was extremely nervous and wept with joy when she passed. She said she was one of 4 sisters and the only one not to pass the 11+; her father had been bitterly disappointed and she had learned a lifelong fear of academia and exams at that age.

Of course you would kick out of the bottom 10%.

I don't believe that you would need to 'kick out' (or put in PRUs) anything like that number of children. In many schools, misbehavior is rife because senior management refuse to take on the responsibility for centralised and firmly enforced detentions; or because if they do, the Daily Mail publicises it with sob stories about draconian measures. Plenty of badly behaved children are just following the ringleader, or showing off, and would stop if they received consistent negative consequences. Others belong in PRUs, where they can receive support, which should be funded more.

But how do we persuade schools to do this, when so many people disagree with it?