To ask what exactly is wrong with a '1950 s ' style education .

[mountford100]

I have just come across a thread on the Secondary Education board that suggests a couple of grammar schools are like travelling back to the 1950 s !

Does that mean they expect pupils to behave (not answer back) , work to their best of the ability do their homework, wear correct uniform at all times.

A school that has little or no time for a child seeking excuses as to why they can not abide with basic rules.

Why does there has to be a mitigating reason as why a child misbehaves other than just bad behaviour.

I am extremely grateful i was educated in a grammar school operating with many 1950 s principles (this is despite being near the bottom of the year) .

I imagine that large numbers of children left school with little idea of stringing sentences together in the past. It didn't matter as much because there were plenty of decently paying manual jobs available so they were able to live satisfying adult lives. Those jobs are now gone.

Absolutely, Peregrina.

Gilead. I noticed from another posting of yours that you are involved at University study.

You will therefore be aware Universities are supposed to give a bit of leeway to those with a diagnosis of dyslexia , or at least not be punitive with marking . This being provided the student has produced clearly constructed sentences with good grammar, though not flawless due to the absence of commas , semi- colons or exclamation marks.

Yes, Mountford. However, having some experience and a dd with Irlens, her sister with dyslexia: I have a fair bit of experience.
It's often the difference between Let's eat, Grandma, or Lets eat Grandma. The latter is not a clearly constructed sentence in one context.
The other point is Mountford; I'm Aspie. I do not go onto a website, complain about other people's appalling social skills whilst clearly demonstrating that mine are somewhat lacking. You are missing the point.

Thinking back to my A levels , i don't know i managed to write legibly for for two and half hours given now my writing is now illegible to anyone but my self. My hand also suffers distress if i try to write neatly for 20 minutes or more. Computers and Word Processors are a god send to people with dyslexia and dyspraxia.

I was diagnosed with the lot .

So if i present myself with certain characteristics such as a rigidity to my thoughts or an in ability to see life though other people eyes.....

I don't think comp school these days are that good.
Some are very small and that means setting is difficult. My dDs school doesn't even set for GCSE in lots of subjects as there is just not enough pupils. It means that the teachers don't cover the content, and don't go into enough depth. I spend a lot of time trying to fill the gaps.

Well done all of you grammar school success stories. You passed the exam feel you got a good education and now want to pass that on to a select few.

Those of us who failed the 11+ (in my case because I am badly dyslexic) do not look back with such fondness. My education 70s and 80s was, more or less, appalling with a few excellent teachers as notable exceptions.

Behaviour was not the main issue, rather teaching that totally failed to address the needs of the individual.

All education needs to be constantly improving and moving forward. We learn from our mistakes and we should be 'standing on the shoulders of giants' using past experiences to improve.

Harking back to a non existent Golden Age which benefited the few not the many will only serve to damage society.

So if i present myself with certain characteristics such as a rigidity to my thoughts or an in ability to see life though other people eyes.....
Isn't that rather what you have been doing...

Education should be for everyone, however, more academic children do miss out I think in comp schools. Does it matter? Yes I think it does. They have a right to be challenged and educated too. To feel you have to pay to ensure your children are appropriately educated I think is a unjust.

It can't be said that because one person's comprehensive fails they all do. My own mediocre girls grammar school is now an extremely successful comprehensive, and no, it's not based in a well to do area. E.g. as a Comprehensive it gets students into Oxbridge, and medical schools, plus has produced an Olympian and a Para-Olympian, as well as having a strong SEN department. As a girls grammar it did none of those things during the time I was there. About three years before I went there they managed to get someone into Cambridge. A few teachers were good, some managed and others - the less said about them the better.

I think Comprehensive schools are fine, if they are of the Hertfordshire vareity.

The reason why they are successful is soley down to their selectivity.
This selectivity of course covers catchment as well limited academic and musical selection.

What year was that then 1968 !

How many normal people went to Oxbridge in those times .
Comparing the amount of people a school sends to University today to what it sent before 1974 (the year of mass conversion to comprehensive) is silly . Only 5 or so % attained University pre -1974 today it is over 35% so it is not surprising schools get the odd pupil to Cambridge.
This is one of the reasons why Shirley Williams etal lobbied for Comprehensive education all round.

I don't know what the Hertfordshire variety is. I can say that the Comprehensive that my school now is doesn't select at all - either academically or musically. It's based in a market town which has suffered over the last 30 years as its lost its industry, so the idea that it does well because it's stuffed full of high achieving middle class children doesn't hold. That's only one Comprehensive, but hey, if Comps are to be condemned because there are some bad ones I think I am just as entitled to praise them because there are some good ones.

VARIETY .... Sorry that post is

Yes there are many good comprehensive schools that are achieving miracles !

I think comps can be an excellent model if there is adequate setting to allow stretch /support and progress of those at each end of the academic spectrum.

If the average pupil overall is getting five c grades it does mean quite a stretch in each class.

I am sorry i did not mean to be offensive with the 1968 post, but the likelihood is any school that was a grammar after 1980 is likely to still be one today.

Comparing the amount of people a school sends to University today to what it sent before 1974 (the year of mass conversion to comprehensive) is silly . Only 5 or so % attained University pre -1974 today it is over 35% so it is not surprising schools get the odd pupil to Cambridge.

If you are addressing this to me, it's not silly at all. Since the grammar schools took the top 25% or so, they should have got significantly more into University. It's not a very good reflection on schools which had a yearly intake of 60 to only have 30 passing with 5 O levels or more, so not even qualifying to stay on for the sixth form and have a shot at University, or even sub-degree level higher education.

And if it is a matter of more university places available, why was my girls grammar unable to send anyone to Oxbridge (Cambridge specifically)for 10 years throughout the Sixties? No one ever even applied for Oxford. We were supposed to be the cream of the crop.

Incidentally i have not called for dissolving of comprehensive education. I would like just an adaption of allowing all pupils the chance to attend an academic rigorous school if appropriate for them.

How many people have gone to Oxford from Knowsley in the last five years!. The truth was your grammar school was the * cream of the crop of academic girls from your town.

The numbers of pupil attending Oxbridge Universities from certain towns is down to economic and social factors, nothing to do with the schools .

Getting to Cambridge/Oxford was so rare for ordinary people between the 1950 s- 1970 s those that did get there have attained status as celebrities. This being just for the fact of getting there !

The study says Oxford and Cambridge find it hard to attract applicants from the north as teenagers increasingly opt to study near home. Of the dozen local authorities that send more than 2% of state school A-level candidates to Oxbridge, all but one, Trafford, is in the south-east.

In Hammersmith and Fulham, 86% of state school sixth-formers go to university. In Reading, one of the most affluent parts of the country, more than half of those staying on after 16 go to highly selective universities. But not a single student in Knowsley went to Oxbridge in the three years of the study.

Deprived parts of the south also have a poor record. Portsmouth only had four Oxbridge entrants in three years. The study notes that of the city's 279 state-educated A-level candidates last year, only 14 took English literature and 11 took maths. In the same year, 25 took media studies.

Adapted :from The Guardian July 2011.

The Guardian had an article about Oxbridge entrance on Tuesday, and how students from working class backgrounds who are qualified to get in don't get offers. The suggestion was that some of the more middle class children who did were in fact over promoted and that if they were directed instead into vocational courses, these might not be seen as second best.

Once you get 'academically rigourous' schools, which quite honestly a significant number of grammar schools weren't, you then turn the Comprehensives into Secondary Moderns. Never mind the problems of selection over one or two days at age 10, which are by no means foolproof.

And yet again the education debate is about clever kids. We endlessly discuss the fairness to clever children, they need this or that.

But England and Wales educates the brightest well. Our top universities are internationally recognised. UK degrees are well regarded.

The reasons we come 15th (ish) in international rankings is because we fail, working class children. White, working class boys specifically. We are moving away, slightly, from the massive failure of the 1950s in addressing this issue.

However, the whole education debate is constantly hijacked by a wish to go back to a system that failed the vast majority of students.

Totally and utterly failed the majority of students. It failed them.

But oh no! My little precious needs to be in a streamed set of 2 with rose petals scattered!

The Canadian system based on equity and fairness is massively successful. Not going back to outdated, failed systems but a genuine commitment to helping all students.

"And yet again the education debate is about clever kids"
Yep. So depressing.