To wonder if there are supporters of grammar schools who didn't go to grammar schools themselves

[WildebeestH]

Just that really. The only friends I have who support grammar schools went to grammar schools themselves. I'm intrigued to know if there are many people who support them having not been to a grammar (or other selective) school and if so why?

why have you only listed three when there are loads?

Oops, missed the last one! But I stand by my point. Just because an article has the word "behaviour" in it doesn't make it about the behaviour problem. For example, a discussion of whether a teacher should tell her daughter's colleague about her daughter's poor behaviour is not an article about the behaviour problem and how to manage it.

Head yes, that head is not doing their job properly.

Kesstrel you didn't just miss that one. You know there's more than 1 page to google?

I went to an average comp. I wasn't challenged at all at school and found the move from school to uni a huge shock.
I'd like my dc to be in a more academic environment.
We live abroad now but if we move back to England my kids will either go to private school or we will move into a grammar area. I guess we could also look at moving into the catchment area of one of the top comps in the country. Whichever way we choose, I won't settle for an ordinary comp for my dc.

I went to a really crap comp, my dc went to a mix of failing/ special measures and satisfactory. One dc has a private ss education.
I support grammar schools and can't wait for good schools for children from poorer backgrounds.
Closing grammars in poorer areas was the worst thing they did.

Sometimes, the head doesn't get the balance right. It is about the atmosphere, the ethos etc. sometimes we have to be careful that attending to the needs of one group doesn't adversely affect another group. It seems too easy to slip from not thinking one group needs help, as you think they are ok - to not really bothering about them at all.

l you didn't just miss that one. You know there's more than 1 page to google?

You mean the ones containing these quotes:

I dare not tell anyone about my personality disorder ... My behaviour can be impulsive too; I spend thousands on my credit ...

Positive behaviour management works on pupils, so why don't leaders use it with staff?

Only a few weeks before, our behaviour manager had parked a “difficult” year 11 student with me.

Plus the one which is just a repeat of one on the first page?

Sorry, but finding a couple more articles over the last 5 years doesn't mean that the Guardian Secret Teacher is paying appropriate attention to behaviour issues, in my mind. But of course that's just my opinion.

There are more poor kids in top comps than there are in grammar schools. Turning top comps into grammars will mean that fewer poor kids access them.

Kesstrel you appear to be looking at a different secret teacher to me, I can see lots of articles discussing poor behaviour in schools.

But at least you admit that they exist now, instead of your previous claim that they don't!

OK, Noble fine.

The lesson I'm taking away from this exchange is not to get carried away by the strength of my feelings about people shutting their eyes to problems that are detrimental to children, because that can lead me to use hyperbolic language like 'never' when I mean 'rarely' or 'seldom'. Because someone will be bound to focus on that, rather than on the actual point being made....

I will try very hard to remember that in future.

HeadOfTheHive; I am truly sorry your Dd had such a horrible experience. She should have been looked after. There should have been follow up because a blow to the head should have been recorded.

But I agree with Bert: crap school rather than Comp.

I have seen terrible bullying go un-dealt with at a super selective, a significant drug issue ignored at a grammar, (my selective school had both, but that was decades ago), whereas my Dc's comp rang me up because Dc seemed 'uncharacteristically down' in one single lesson. I realise not all comps are good, why would they be, but problems occur across all types of education.

Kesstrel you said

Teachers are making arguments about the importance of ensuring good behaviour on blogs and social media. However, they are up against other teachers, as well as powerful 'educationalists' who disagree with them. That includes the Guardian Education section, read by many teachers, pressure groups, academics in education departments of universities, etc.

And then
The Guardian basically deals with the behaviour issue by largely ignoring it. They have Secret Teacher articles, week after week, that deal with all sorts of marginal topics, but they never address behaviour..

Which is demonstrably bollocks.
And then they have articles like this recent one: www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/24/behaviour-is-a-national-problem-in-schools-in-england-review-finds

So your comment about the Guardian Education section being influential in minimising behaviour issues in schools is a bit odd, tbh.

Kesstrel and why I am pointing this out is because your comments read a bit Govian Enemies of Promise. A plucky band of teacher-bloggers up against the Blob of the Guardian Education section. It's just not true.

noble I have a problem with your interpretation of the chart showing a problem with children with FSM and PP.

I'm a governor at a school and when we look at the data we have to be very careful how we interpret it because of the huge overlap between PP and SEN.

I suspect that if you could see that chart split into two charts, one showing only SEND and one excluding SEND then it would tell a different story. In our school we see that SEN is by far the biggest predictor of poor attainment and poor progress (despite our school having a fantastic reputation for doing their best with SN). Children who are eligible for PP without having any SN aren't doing worse than everyone else.

There is still a massive problem with why there is such an overlap but from what I've seen it isn't created or worsened by the school. They are simply managing a situation that exists in the world. The children with parents who are feckless: alcoholics, drug addicts, the selfish, have the same underlying cause of their SEN as of their poverty. Same for children of perfectly nice people with learning difficulties themselves, they are usually low earners and their children often have the same issues.

That progress chart shows inequality of outcome in schools for sure but it doesn't follow that the schooling created the inequality.

I didn't go to a grammar but am firmly in favour of them. I suffered a horrible crap comp where I started as a straight A student and left with only 1 GCSE. I just wasn't stretched at all, so I just got bored. Added to that some pretty horrendous bullying. The school was ex-grammar, we were the second comp intake, so at first, the older pupils were grammar, but as years passed, it was clear the school was going downhill fast due to behaviour, vandalism, etc. I vowed not to send any child of mine to that kind of toxic environment.

As it is, my son goes to a grammar and he absolutely loves it and is doing remarkably well (far better than we'd ever have thought), in fact he's in the top 15 of his year. He's being challenged and has risen to that challenge and more. He tells us that there's no bullying problem and he's made loads of good friends. Added to that, it's a boy's only school which he also likes as they aren't showing off to impress the girls, so can concentrate on what they're there for, i.e. education!

I'm a firm supporter of grammars. There was nothing wrong with them 50 years and nothing wrong with them today. The problem was that the old secondaries/sec mods/techs weren't adequate. But rather than improve the secs, they scrapped the whole lot. Grammars are perfectly fine, as long as the alternatives are also fit for purpose. In my opinion and experience, one size doesn't fit all!!!

"I'm a firm supporter of grammars. There was nothing wrong with them 50 years and nothing wrong with them today."

Are you up to speed with the socio economic make up of grammar schools? If so, does it trouble you?

I'd like the government to either choose to allow grammars unrestricted or choose to end them completely. Choose one and get on with it. I honestly don't think it makes a massive difference. The amount of energy expended debating it could be much better spent looking at what makes a school good or bad.

I went to grammar school, the teaching was poor and the teachers could be lazy, as we were easy to manage. It was not a great experience.

My DC went to the local comprehensive and were very happy there and did very well. I gave them the choice of trying for the 11+ but neither wanted to.

A good comp is much better for creating a balanced society. What we need are GOOD schools not selective schools. The 11+ has become unfair with wealthy parents able to "buy" their children into grammar schools as they can afford hours of private 11+ tuition.

Creating more grammar schools is a backwards step.

Children who are eligible for PP without having any SN aren't doing worse than everyone else.

There's a problem with that interpretation Runrabbit and that is that the graph is progress 8, where pupils are measured against other pupils who got the same score as them at KS2. If these PP students have SEN which causes them to make poor progress and have low attainment, then they are being measured against pupils who made similarly poor progress and had the same low attainment at primary school (so may also have SEN). The PP pupils with SEN which affect attainment are being measured against and are making less progress at secondary than those with the same, low starting point.

Are you up to speed with the socio economic make up of grammar schools? If so, does it trouble you?

I'm well aware of the make up of the two grammar schools near us. No, it doesn't trouble me. That's because there are kids of all classes, races and social standing at them both. One of my son's friends has one parent working in Tesco on the tills and the other a local council gardener! Neither me nor OH went to Uni and we're not rich - I'd say we're pretty normal. One of our neighbours is a single parent nurse who has sent her daughter to the grammar! It's a VERY mixed group with parents/backgrounds of all types. It certainly isn't only for the rich or privileged. More important, most kids weren't tutored to pass the 11+ as it's a "normal" catchment in a pretty deprived areas of the country. ("pass" mark for 11+ is in the 70's rather the the 9%+ of super selectives. I fully appreciate that some grammars are in very priviledged areas and the kids need to be tutored to within an inch of their lives to get in. Luckily, they're not all like that. I think it's too easy to look at the extreme ones and extrapolate that to them all. It's not the case.

Sorry for typos I meant to say pass mark for our grammars in the 70%'s compared with the 95%+ for super selectives.

"That's because there are kids of all classes, races and social standing at them both."

What %age of PP children compared to the % in the schools the other children go to?

Just as one system can have inbuilt bias towards one group of pupils, other systems can accumulate in built group think towards others.

Dismissing it as a crap school and so the system is really ok, is on a par with dismissing mid staffs hospital problems being more to do with a crap ward or crap staff.
I think we must be mindful of that.

I'm not "dismissing" it as a crap school I am saying that what happened to your child is a symptom of a crap school. Crap schools exist in all sectors.

Of course they do. But the comprehensive nature of that school, due to its size, demographics, and ethos led to my DD getting a worse education that she might have had. Some comprehensive schools are detrimental to children's education, just because they are comprehensive, for example the lack of pupils to adequately set.
I think in a way your views on schools are shaped by your experiences - and ours wasn't good.

I started out being very supportive over comp schools, now I'm more ambivalent as I can see that there are disadvantages too.