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?

you appear to have the dep head on hotdial and explains a lot

Anyone can tweet them and will receive a prompt response, if they are on twitter. They make a point of that. You could have done so before making unwarranted claims.

But teachers all teaching the same lessons in the same style from the same resources using the same methods is teaching from a script.

You are changing your definition of 'script' here - it's called 'shifting the goalposts'.

Clearly you disapprove of their teaching methods, and wouldn't want to use them. Fine. But they are entitled to argue their ground, just as you are. If their methods aren't effective, they won't spread. (And even if they are effective, they won't spread very far, I suspect.)

I think it started like that, noblegiraffe, but even when Ofsted stop demanding a particular thing, schools don't necessarily stop making their staff do it. Innovation for innovation's sake has become habit. It's just what schools do - either to impress Ofsted, or to impress potential parents, or just because senior leaders go "Ooh that speaker/idea/method is very 'now' - we should be seen to be doing it". Never mind that practically every new thing is the straw that repeatedly breaks the camel's back.

If there were ever a job that needed to apply the 'less is more' mantra, teaching (in the UK at least) is it. Love and knowledge of your subject, some training in working with children, plus the necessary support to be able to deliver your lessons with minimal hindrance is all that is needed. It really shouldn't be this complicated.

You are changing your definition of 'script' here

Not really. Teaching from a script is a highly prescribed lesson structure even if the individual words vary. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripted_teaching

even when Ofsted stop demanding a particular thing, schools don't necessarily stop making their staff do it.

I know. Sean Harford from Ofsted has been trying his best to get the message out that Ofsted don't actually want to see various things with his Ofsted Myths document. But what bugs me is when they say they don't want to see triple marking, what they want to see is marking in line with the school marking policy. What they should say is that if they do see extensive marking, then concerns will be raised about the impact on teachers versus the impact on students rather than just merely checking it's what the school has asked for. That might actually have an effect.

BadBadBunny I have shorthand (T-Line) as a qualification. I cannot get work after having time out to raise my family. Shorthand has not made a jot of difference to me in being able to either get a job or command a higher salary. I even had an interview recently where the 12 year old young lady interviewing me asked me to 'draw some shorthand' because she hadn't seen it before. She was advertising for a PA.

In answer to the OP, I didn't go to a Grammar school and I very much support them. I went to a shit comprehensive school where only 17% actually managed to pass any CSE's/O Levels and my local catchment high school is still in the mid 20% pass rate for 5 GCSE's including English and Maths.

This area needs a Grammar school. Only 3 students from our catchment comp went to University last year out of a year group of 200......JUST 3!

I'm really happy that swathes of the country have brilliant comprehensive schools doing exceedingly well offering
mindblowing bloody opportunities to your children but you are all completely blinded to those in awfully deprived areas with really shit opportunities in life where actually a Grammar school would make a massive difference to their lives.

Making a difference to 10% of this areas population will then trickle down to their children and they will be better educated and demand better standards which in turn will make the area get a grip with their 'woe is me' attitudes after the pits closed bloody decades ago . Education meant nothing if you were going down the pits. It isn't valued enough here so lethargy is passed on to each generation and education isn't respected.

Of course EVERY child deserves a bloody good education but they don't get that so ANY opportunity at all, no matter how small, should be taken and it will grow from there. What's the point in saying 'everyone should have a brilliant education but giving 10% an opportunity isn't fair on the rest so no one should have that opportunity'

What they should say is that if they do see extensive marking, then concerns will be raised about the impact on teachers versus the impact on students rather than just merely checking it's what the school has asked for. That might actually have an effect.

I totally agree and at the moment when so many subjects are having to plan and deliver new specifications I would have real reservations about making best use of time if there is lots of extensive marking.

My department's marking policy makes this point repeatedly!

My issue is that the evidence does not support grammar schools and I want a government that makes policy decisions based on evidence rather than pandering to the gut feelings of Daily Mail readers. As previous posters have said huge damage has been done to education and so much time and work has been wasted because the government is ignoring research.

I very much sympathise, but the response to 'my local school is shit' shouldn't be 'well let's open a grammar school to remove some bright kids and let all the others remain in the shit school because the brightest kids are the only ones who deserve a decent education'.

"mindblowing bloody opportunities to your children but you are all completely blinded to those in awfully deprived areas with really shit opportunities in life where actually a Grammar school would make a massive difference to their lives."

And the other 75/80/90%?

Anyway, I don't think anyone's talking about mindblowing experiences. Schools don't have the funds to offer such experiences. And neither would your grammar school if one opened. All it does is remove the brighter kids to another building. It doesn't guarantee better teaching, facilities or even behaviour.

I've not RTFT but I both DH and I went to comps but both support grammar schools.

And I don't read the Daily Mail or vote Tory

"Mind blowing bloody opportunities"

Hyperbole is such a tedious waste of everyone's time.

BertrandRussell And the other 75/80/90%

Please read my entire post not just the little bits you feel prove your point.

Only 3 students from our catchment comp went to University last year out of a year group of 200......JUST 3

Yes what about the other 97% currently being failed? How about we get that number up to at least 10 - 25% being helped and then -
Making a difference to 10% of this areas population will then trickle down to their children and they will be better educated and demand better standards

BertrandRussell

Yes mindblowing opportunities like going to a careers fair to access genuine career advice instead of having a 60+ year old man who is offering career advice. How about attending things like The Big Bang Fair? Our students just don't go. What about taking part in one of the many STEM events across the UK ? Is that not mindblowing if you have NEVER taken part in these sorts of things.

"Yes what about the other 97% currently being failed? How about we get that number up to at least 10 - 25% being helped and then -
Making a difference to 10% of this areas population will then trickle down to their children and they will be better educated and demand better standards"

1. Do you think that not going to university means "being failed"?
2. Do you really think that airlifting a couple of kids out and waiting for trickle down is a sensible approach to education policy?

"Yes mindblowing opportunities like going to a careers fair to access genuine career advice instead of having a 60+ year old man who is offering career advice. How about attending things like The Big Bang Fair? Our students just don't go. What about taking part in one of the many STEM events across the UK ? Is that not mindblowing if you have NEVER taken part in these sorts of things. hmm"

Why should these things only be available to kids at grammar school?

BertrandRussell
Why should these things only be available to kids at grammar school

I didn't say they should only be available at Grammar I said it was easy for those parents whose children have opportunities like this at a standard comp school elsewhere in the UK to say that we don't need Grammars. The reality is deprived areas often do not provide this sort of enrichment. A Grammar school would because its part and parcel of whats expected from them.

Your bog standard comprehensive schools across the UK offering the same or similar opportunities as Grammar schools are clearly working well. That's brilliant, but those who don't think Grammars are a good idea don't seem to care that a small improvement in a drastically underachieving area will help many hundreds/thousands of children in the long run. They just see it that all schools should be great and support 100% of students so therefore that tiny improvement, which in reality for those families concerned would be a massive improvement, isn't worth doing or supporting.

Its no good saying well lets look at improving every school because it takes too long to get things into place and would be generations down the line before anyone would genuinely benefit. However build a Grammar and within 5 years you will have helped people who had little chance before. Yes its a small number but its more than whats available now. Imagine if everyone said it wasn't worth investing in SEN because its too small a number that would benefit (My DS has SEN). Sometimes its the small numbers that add up.

With regards to University, I would like to think that at least 10% of a school would be able achieve University. 1.5% managing to gain a place at University is dire. Theres something drastically wrong if that's the best they can do. Some years no students at all go. At the Open evening last year the deputy head said their target figure was 20% to get good enough grades to go to university and around 50% of students had expressed an interest in going. Something has gone wrong somewhere, there clearly isn't enough support or good enough teaching to get those grades high enough to go to University. Most students end up working in retail or factory work at the local industrial estates. That's fine if that's what they want to do but its not fine if they just don't get the opportunities or inspiration to look at other options including professional careers.

"However build a Grammar and within 5 years you will have helped people who had little chance before"

No you won't. Because children from disadvantaged backgrounds don't get into grammar schools.

I do love you BertrandRussell You always look on the Brightside of things

I can't help it if you don't want to face the truth. Grammar schools do absolutely nothing for social mobility and damage the opportunities of the "left behinds". For better to put energy and money into improving outcomes where necessary for all children, not just the children of the middle classes.

My parents are interesting. DF comes from a 'better' home than DM. He didn't get into grammar, she did. He's very able, just wasn't into school. He had his own business and has had a full and busy life despite a secondary modern education. DM went to grammar but couldn't stay on past 16 as family couldn't afford it. She worked and trained as NNEB.

They both support grammars and selective schools.

My DS would have done far better in a selective school. He was constantly frustrated by his less motivated and academic peers. You get a better education and better differentiation with grammar schools and secondary moderns. The key is, to make sure the secondary modern is as well if not better funded than the grammar. The creativity and development should go into secondary moderns, and leave grammars to carry on flogging the academic horse, which lets down all but a certain proportion of ou young people.

The reality is deprived areas often do not provide this sort of enrichment.

Sadly, I think you will find that the grammar soon becomes full of middle class children being bussed in. Although there is a problem in some areas with children and parents having a complete lack of ambition. I don't think that grammars will solve it. I think we are tackling it at the wrong age - much more emphasis needs to be placed on early years for such children and parents, and guess what? The current government has been busily closing down children's centres which catered for these groups.

Does comprehensive education damage the achievement of the top cohort?

That's an interesting point [about SPAG], but I would argue that the reason for this is that some 'experts' in the 1970s and 80s decided (without any supporting evidence) that children didn't need any grammar instruction, because we learn to speak 'naturally'.

It certainly was the case back then, and the same went for MFL too. However, we have had the 1990s, 2000s, and half of the 2010s, so it's hard to argue that the people indoctrinated in those methods back then are even going to be teaching still. Friends doing MFL PGCEs back in the early 90s were told that yes, we went from one extreme to the other, of all grammar and no speaking to no grammar and that the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and that some grammar was necessary.

To me it sounds as though the blame should attach to politicians meddling again, and appointing people who weren't up to the task.