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.

I not talking about kicking out children based on behaviour, i'm talking about academics. Moving them into the comps rather than the grammar schools where they can be taught at a level that is more relevant to them, making way for the late bloomers who are no longer being stretched in the comp.

My comment on 'kicking out the bottom 10%' was with respect to the poster saying people could swap into grammar at age 14. I said there would be no spaces. But if you kicked out the lowest performing 10% from the grammar school to the more suitable secondary modern, that would be fine, wouldn't it?

Can you imagine the outcry from the people who had tutored for the grammar and turned down a private place, just to be forced into a secondary modern 3 years later?

Ryayadar not comps, secondary moderns. If you have grammars, then de facto what is left is a secondary modern, not a comprehensive!

Remember that the new grammar school proposals allow children to move between the schools at 11, 14, and 16

No, not at 14. I think that's been abandoned because it was a terrible idea. And the data from Kent that was linked to from another thread seemed to show that grammar school students were much more likely to transfer to non-selective at 16 than vice versa.

But we also know that poor children don't get into the best state schools which have half the national average of FSM pupils. It's also very likely that because of high housing costs they have less of the working poor who skate just above FSM too. Grammars have even less FSM children, but we can't measure the number of working poor because the data doesn't seem to be collected. I suspect that because they are not excluded by dint of geography there are more of them. FSM is a very poor measure as it only catches the very, very poorest children and ignores the fact it excludes other children who are also poor from the calculations. I don't think anybody could convincingly argue that a family earning over £17k per year living in a private let are not poor - but they would be excluded.

I don't think poor children are a homogeneous mass where one reason can be found. I do know that anecdotally a lot of the local kids are in families which do not priorities academic achievement or see it as worthwhile and this is reflected in their income. But then that gets back to what seems to be the background of a lot of anti grammar sentiment often dressed up as 'caring a belief that if you are poor you are feckless and your children are getting the education they deserve - not true.

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

That kind of implies that the school and not the child is entirely responsible for what results that child gets. Children of wealthy parents have advantages that make it more likely that they will get good GCSE results wherever they are.

Comprehensive just means a non-selective, it doesn't depend on selective schools being in the area or not. Secondary moderns relate to a specific piece of legislation, it's not an automatic name for non-selective schools in grammar areas.

They don't automatically have a second tier set of qualifications like a secondary modern either, so that is totally incorrect.

Yes, sorry, you're right TeenAndTween I typed a bit too fast!

Remember that the new grammars are only meant to cater for the top 10% so it's relatively small compared to the 25% in the past. The secondary moderns will cater for the bottom 90% of students academically speaking, which does not exactly conjure up images of students being left to rot in awful secondary moderns.

The grammars are there to skim off a small % of students and push them academically, but the majority of students will be catered for by the secondary moderns who will still need to offer a range of subjects and levels. 22% of grades at GCSE are A* or A nationally.

I've not heard about it being scrapped noble?

That kind of implies that the school and not the child is entirely responsible for what results that child gets. Children of wealthy parents have advantages that make it more likely that they will get good GCSE results wherever they are.

So you're saying the same? Wealthy parents can give their kids advantages therefore their wealth entitles them to a better education? And poorer parents inability to buy advantages means they deserve a shit education?

You're assuming that no poor parent can give their children advantages for free. Library membership costs nothing. Reading with your child costs nothing. Supervising homework costs nothing.

But we also know that poor children don't get into the best state schools which have half the national average of FSM pupils

I just looked up the best state schools by progress 8. The top two are Islamic schools, then The Harris Academy in Battersea - progress 8 of 1.14 and Pupil Premium 88.7%

Then the King Solomon Academy in London, progress 8 1.08, Pupil Premium 59.6%

Perhaps you had something else in mind when you said the best schools?

10% is still the top set in most schools though.

So in a school where maybe currently only 1 or 2 sets do triple science, or only 20 pupils do Spanish or German or Latin. You may be taking away half of them, leaving some options in too low demand to be catered for. So taking the top 10% could have a big effect.

Similarly we occasionally see a parent of a child at a grammar complaining their child can't do a particular tech subject, because again it isn't offered due to low demand.

Super selective schools that take only 1 or 2 % I have less issue with.

I'm not sure how a school that selects the top 1% of students could even work, that would become a postcode lottery for the students who got in. Realistically could you travel to any of the closest 100 schools to you? Even if they were half or a quarter of the size of the average school and therefore there were lots of little super selective schools thats still going to be a massive stretch. 10 is probably the smallest number you could have and still have the grammars available for students living in most areas.

I've not heard about it being scrapped noble?

I can't remember where I read it, tbh. Something about it being too disruptive to schools/schooling. It would only reaffirm the secondary modern's status as the crap school to have people leaving midway for the 'better' school, and god help the grammar that tried to boot a kid out aged 14 for underperformance.

Although to be fair I could be wrong and Theresa May could keep it, she does seem to have a fondness for shit ideas. We won't know the details for sure until the White Paper comes out (next few weeks, probably the day Article 50 is triggered...)

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.

So are you saying that the school is so bad that kids who have left primary school perfectly able to read and write, forget how to do so by the time they leave secondary? Or is it that the school takes in a disproportionately large number of lower achieving pupils and relatively few high achieving ones and the results at GCSE reflect this? The fact that the school has a poor reputation, means that aspirational parents, like yourself, avoid it like the plague and sends it further into a downward spiral. Perhaps if a few more able children from supportive homes, like the ones you listed in your post of 12.09 attended this school the results would improve. If you take away the few able children that they have, their results will drop further.

We won't know the details for sure until the White Paper comes out (next few weeks, probably the day Article 50 is triggered...)

Hahahahaha, yeah we'll see I guess. I'm not sure that they would try that blatantly to cover this up. The majority of voters agree with grammar schools (38% agree to 28% disagree) and amongst tory voters (55% to 17%) it's a very large majority. No need to hide something that is popular.

I've had a mixed experience with grammar schools. I live in a deprived area but their is an anomaly in that there is an option to select preference from 6 single sex grammars and around 15 High schools (the borough has phased out the title of secondary modern but that is in effect what they are)

DD went to grammar A and went to Oxbridge
DS went to grammar B and is in year 10 likes the academic rigour but isn't over enthused with school as a whole.
DSS went to grammar C and hated it, left with a mixed bag of GCSE's and left education. He hated the pressure and openly admitted he hated academia.
DSD went to grammar D and hated it, was over tutored and she struggled from day one and this in turn demolished her confidence and she "switched off". She is now in a community college studying Art and is happy and loving it.

I was educated at a local High school and felt massively let down that I wasn't stretched or supported by my school in any way at all, however I know that I would of hated grammar school.

No need to hide something that is popular.

The best that Justine Greening could say about the responses to the Green Paper was that they "weren't overwhelmingly negative"

I wonder if we will see the Green Paper responses ever before the White Paper.

giraffe, best state schools by progress are not the best state schools. I don't believe you didn't know that, I think that you're being disingenuous and hoping I don't know the difference between 'best state schools' and 'best state schools by progress'.

Best by progress are, or have been, shitty schools by definition. You have to have been somewhere near the bottom to have enough room to progress to become a 'best progressing'. The best schools have little room to improve so never fit that category. The top 100 schools have either 99% or 100% at GCSE. They are not the best schools by any stretch of the imagination and you are being deliberately misleading.

cecily why should I chuck my children to the wolves just because they have the misfortune not to have well off parents?

Why should I send my children there? Why don't you tell wealthy parents they should be sending their kids to a shitty school? It's amazing the amount of people who are prepared to sacrifice somebody else's kid for their socialist ideals while they send their kid to a good school in a 'naice' area.

"weren't overwhelmingly negative"

Where's this from noble? Sorry I am googling but i can't find anything. Voters in general will not pay too much attention to the details in particular bills, more people want grammar schools than dont want them and amongst tory voters its much higher.

In terms of admitting it in public its a similar view to hold to supporting brexit or trump, hence the jeering on question time. Popular, but not cool.

Grammar schools in pretty much any form, wrongly or rightly, will please tory voters. No need to hide this.

Because the majority of children here in the grammar school system have have been tutored, or been to private primary school (or have SEN).

The first two don't seem fair or like giving everyone an equal chance.

Me neither Rhay. It appears Noble is being deliberately misleading.

"But then that gets back to what seems to be the background of a lot of anti grammar sentiment often dressed up as 'caring a belief that if you are poor you are feckless and your children are getting the education they deserve - not true."
Huh? If anti grammar people thought that why would they be anti
grammar people?

bertrand because a lot of them, in my experience are actually motivated by the fact that they benefit from the current system, not out of concern. But they will claim they care about poor children but actually they're perfectly happy to boot bright but poor children into the worst schools as long as they can still buy a house where they can get into a good school.

The left (which obviously is the most anti grammar) has a long history of lecturing about how all kids should go to their local comp but then refusing to do it for their own children (hello T Blair, H Harman, D Abbott et al). They care so much they sent their children to private/religious/selective schools. And my own parents were very vocal about the same while sending their own kids to private/selective schools.

It's very easy to say 'lets all send our kids to the comp' when you can buy your way into a good one and condemn someone else's kids to poor education.

www.google.co.uk/amp/schoolsweek.co.uk/ministers-consider-new-national-selection-test-to-replace-11-plus/amp/

"Greening reportedly told heads that the response to the consultation on increasing selection in England had not been “an overwhelming flood of negativity”."

Same article "The government has also recognised that entry to grammar schools at 14 is “problematic and likely to destabilise schools”, the GSHA said."

Not intending to mislead anyone.