To think funding new grammar and faith schools is a bad idea.

[ConstantlyCold]

Just that really. This will benefit pushy middle classes (like me) but not the kids that really need investing in.

Stupid idea.

The news I listened to this morning said funding for grammars to expand if they could demonstrate they were taking more disadvantaged pupils, and that the 50% cap on entrance to new faith Free Schools would be retained (pissing off the Catholic Education Service).

What are people talking about with money for new grammars and faith schools?

I may do separated thread about my dilemma.. I'm stuck between two schools for dd.
Both are excellent, one is outstanding grammar and the other is good.. But the grades are good too especially as it non selective.

I feel dd would get nest from the grammar, the departments were brilliant. Like private school.. Teachers, pupils all seemed amazing and parents rave about it.
The other school is well liked...

Where would dd get maximum enjoyment of her young school years.. From walking to Nice pleasant school with friends.. Or from amazing school, journey away but one that will give her best education... Even though both will give good education... Arghhhhhhh

The two nearest special schools to me are at double the capacity they were built for. There are another group of children in very expensive out of county ( private) special schools because the local authority schools can't cater for their needs in their own schools. There are another group who are not in school at all because there is no school that can meet their needs. There are all the children with sen in mainstream who are not getting the support they need because of funding cuts.

Rose

Are your diamond shoes also too tight?

Patriarchy after a post like that I don't see why your an advocate of streaming at all. Surely lump them all in together how can one pass 11+ but be so narrow minded to think you have any idea of what any grammar supporters will think! Just shows how silly the test is.

I'm not a pushy parent. Just want the best for my child. And if the choice is a shockingly bad school with bad teaching/badly behaved pupils vs a lovely school with good teachers and mostly good pupils, I'll opt for that one thanks

What if your child didn’t pass the 11+? You wold be stuck with the “shit” school, you might not get to choose.
Wouldn’t money be better spent on improving schools so there’s less and less of the bad ones.

I know we are very very lucky and nothing set in the stone. If she wanted to leave one or the other no issues.

“There is a big difference in the debate between faith schools and grammar schools. The former invokes problems with culture and ideology, whereas the latter is about —merit— class based education”

Fixed that for you. As they say.

Op the school on the list has had money thrown at it. I suspect the skills needed to teach the cohort are not there...

Or not. Consider “merit” to be crossed out and replaced with “class”

They are completely different things with different objectives (faith and grammar schools).

Faith schools should go the way of the dodo. I am meh about grammar schools. I know that I would push for my child to get in, but realize they drain the local schools of good students.

Rosa

Firstly thanks for implying I'm thick because I don't agree with you.

Secondly of course streaming is the best solution. Just conducting an arbitrary test at age 11, then completely separating an entire cohort of children into two distinct groups, then concentrating the most resources and the best teachers on the 'more intelligent' group, is madness.

I'm looking at grammar and it nothing to do with class.

It's do with the school that will suit my dd best for her peers and personality.
There are many different few amazing grammars around us but over border. We are not officially grammar area.

Two grammars are top five in UK.
I'm sure in terms of class I would expect them to have the so called best. It's super selective too. Amazing reputation. But too academically dry for dd, too focused on a few things subjects rather than rounded education and I don't want that for my dd. But for those with dc who excel in that schools subjects I can certainly see why they would try and get dc in there.

But it is not the right school for my dd, just as the school in that list is.

Nothing to do with class. Everything to do with dd needs and personality being met.

Grammar schools seem to be none existent in the North! Crazy idea!

Sorry, Rosa, grammar schools are all about class.

Wouldn’t money be better spent on improving schools so there’s less and less of the bad ones.

That's an argument for increasing the per pupil funding of secondary education. However, the money announced today is to increase the number of places available (as there is has been an increase in the number of school-aged children), not to increase the per pupil funding.

Mightmucks
Awful lot of your list are in rural/coastal communities like ours, which returns "a pig in a blue rosette" to borrow your lovely turn of phrase, for ever, even when he fail to turn up to parliament for 4 years.
Our MP was head of education committee, private educated idiot, both girls privately educated too, though in catchment of all girls school with some of best results in county.
Our comprehensive was rated 4 by Ofsted, never been above 3, local Tory council useless, MP gives so much care, he has never bothered to comment, he doesn't care. Local Lib Dem and labour candidate's, have been really helpful.
I think the main problem is too many MP's are from privately educated backgrounds and don't actually give a dam about state education. Because unless the whole of our kids are educated properly, we can forget the future, as we are stuffed.
At least under Blair/Brown's government's we got new extra money and more teachers. The last 8 years, especially since 2015, we have seen teachers made redundant and the school go in to the red.
Bollocks to the Tories caring, I left school in 1985, same then too, guess what Tories in power then. Funny that.

Your comment about it being expressed as pearls before swine from so called grammar fans is aggressive and rude. And yes. Stupid.

Who knows what each of ones dc is good at be fire they reach certain age. I like grammars but I would like all kinds of schools not just one size fits all.

Your perception is skewed because you got in.

I wouldn't have passed 11+.

Grammar schools are no more about class than many comps are. Some grammars have more pp kids in than comps. Some comps are in areas the vast maj could never afford to buy or rent a house in.

I really really don't like the level of involvement faith has in schools in this country - any faith. To set the record straight, it was in Blair's years that it began to increase again. I don't like the increasing exposure religion has in general at all. If you want to believe in any non-proven, unprovable sky fairies that's up to you, but it's supposed to be kept private. Involving religion in education to me smacks of a return to the old marriage of powers that dominated the middle ages and a renewed interest in social control. Anyone else read Durkheim?

As far as I am aware the weight of evidence is against grammar schools.

In both cases I think the constant emphasis on education and the educational arms race is a distraction from the real problem of a collapsing economy in the wake of globalism and technology, and the lack of any solutions for that. Never mind continuing to push kids through more and more hoops and higher jumps, where are the actual rewards? Education itself does not have a smooth relationship with social mobility any more, nor with any actual and real standards of living.

I can't really say it's a bad idea with all honesty, as one daughter goes to an excellent grammar school, and the other may have more chance of getting in when the time comes if the school can offer more places.

I don't think grammar schools (or the ones I have experience of) currently help with social mobility with those who are badly off. It does, however, help a lot of academically able children whose parents have a good income but could not afford private school, which is a very wide band of people in grammar school areas, have the same education as those who could afford private school.

Ideally I'd like everyone to go to a state comp and for all schools to provide an excellent level of education- no faith schools, no fee-paying schools, no selective schools (though certainly you'd need streaming within the schools) and a lottery system for places to avoid selection by house price.

But one thing the top grammar schools are doing now is countering the effect that nearly everyone influential in society: in acting, music, television, politics, literature comes from a well-off, privately educated background. It's a massive leg-up for those on middle incomes and that's why parents like them.

If you get rid of grammar schools and not private and faith schools at the same time you would be just perpetuating a system where the elite always come from the same people and the rest of us, well, you might get to a middle management drone job if you are lucky. Don't try and have any creative or really influential career aspirations.

This move is a sticking plaster and a sop to voters in certain areas who might vote conservative, and probably a policy tester for the creation of further grammar schools. But at the same time I can't be totally against it as it directly benefits my children.

Sorry Bertrand I disagree.

I guess if one views life through class spectacles then one would see it like that.

Yanbu

Betty I certainly agree they could never be abolished whilst private schools exist.

Children from background where for whatever reasons although bright couldn't access grammar areas not being helped by their own school, unless that changes fsm etc will never access grammar in same numbers.

Too many yes agree, re comps in so called leafy areas.