To question whether Comprehensive Schooling has achieved what was anticipated when Kidbrooke opened in 1954

[peewitsandy]

Kidbrooke School in Greenwich was the first purpose built Comprehensive school in England in 1954. The dawn of a revolution in education was anticipated a 'Grammar School' for everybody was the notion espoused by politicians. This being the mantra of especially those on the left of the political spectrum.

Fast forward some seventy seven years later , where many posters on here will inevitably choose Grammar School nine times out of ten. This being factual even if local Comprehensive is Outstanding and the Grammar School requires a sixty minute journey there and back.

This, suggests parents make the grammar school choice, over a perfectly good Comprehensive option, because the mantra of a 'Grammar School for all' has not succeeded .

This is despite seventy + years of promotion of Comprehensive Education by Governments of both colour.

The original notion of Comprehensive education, was that over time both Private and Grammar Schools would become absolute .

My son took the 11+ but he's not confident of passing at all so we've been looking at the local secondary moderns with grammar streams and parallel top sets and I honestly think this is a better option for him. Not every clever child suits a grammar school and not all secondary moderns are crap with just the leftovers who didn't make it. I'd be happy if grammar schools were abolished but not if streaming disappeared.

I know that the 'State11+' is not taken in most areas and about 80% of children come through Comprehensive schools for secondary education. Despite this I know in areas where there are no Grammar schools, but are adjacent to selective authorities, the clamour for selective education is extraordinary.

Take, Cheshire East for example where I lived for twenty years before moving to Essex, there are no Grammar Schools in Cheshire East ,yet 20% of children are educated Privately. This means in theory the majority of children who would have passed the state 11+ have passed an independent school 11+ there.

It also seems that posters who come from places that have been Grammar free areas for decades, bemoan their demise. Many of these posters still do not trust Comprehensive education and believe they have not had the opportunities, of those educated by Grammar schools. The flip side to this being many posters who are currently reside in Kent, Buckinghamshire and other fully selective areas bemoan the lack of nonselective options. In doing so they highlight how typically a 25% Grammar, 75% system is unfair. Posters residing in selective areas often relate the brutality of informing a ten year old bad luck .

Perhaps the concept of a 25% 75% system and how that works is flawed, but not Selective education as a whole. Otherwise why do posters who never had the choice, of benefiting or using selective education believe it to offer greener pastures.

Not sure I follow, OP. Where does your 20 per cent figure for East Cheshire come from?
Apart from your actual figures, the inferences you draw from them also baffle me.

I think you are projecting @peewitsandy.
I have never got the impressions that parents round here mourn the loss of grammar schools.

Until I came to mumsnet. I had no idea that the 11+ or grammar schools still existed. The only grammar schools near me are independent.

Op for years ofzted has bemoaned how many comps can't properly teach the top 10% and how to the system has failed them.

It's one reason we now have the standard 8 thing so high achievers leaving primary school can't simply be dumped in comprehensive.

Why oh why are they allowed to make these life changing descion without first putting something equally as good in place.

It's all an absolute nonsense.
Schools can't be everything to everybody. We need a broader approach, more innovation etc not less.
Some people really do think that having so called high achievers in one school with so called low achiever will have any affect at all on the low achiever.

They rarely meet, it's streamed anyway! And why not concentrate instead on why the struggling students are struggling and put money into that! The time and energy wasted on worrying about grammars.
Leave grammars be.. Let them take care of theirs job and look at the work left behind. Eg how can a student get all through secondary and still not write I in capitals? Or know their times tables? Or be diagnosed with dyslexia?

Across the country as whole 7% of children are educated Privately, however many areas have a much higher percentage than 7%. For instance in some London areas it is as high 30 % . I have seen these numbers somewhere and these numbers have been referenced previously on Mumsnet.

Belinda: The inference I draw is despite posters from Selective areas bemoaning selection, it does not stop parents in adjacent non selective areas yearning for selection.

One size fits all education is not fit for the 21st century. I'm not even sure it was fit for the 20th century tbh but there we are. It's like most other socialist ideas - nice in theory, doesn't really work very well in practice.

I went to a comprehensive in the 1980s. There were some wonderful, dedicated teachers, but an awful lot of time was wasted by pupils who weren't interested messing about. It was OK in the lessons that were streamed as long as you were in one of the top two - there were six streams for languages and maths, but no other lessons were streamed and that's where learning was constantly disrupted.

We also had all the 80s comprehensive cliches - smoking behind the bike sheds, leaking roofs, the obligatory pregnant third year.

I'd have loved to go to grammar school. Fortunately I was very motivated and did a lot of work outside school on my own initiative - also I am a compulsive reader and I lived in a house full of books. Both my parents were university educated (and had been to grammar schools themselves) so could offer sensible advice although they very much left me to my own devices - I could be trusted to do my homework etc. I got As in my GCSEs and A Levels and went on to a good university.

My sister was failed by the system - she wasn't academic and languished, doing hardly any work, skiving, going out for cigarette breaks halfway through maths. She got Es in her GCSEs. Eventually she successfully retook her core GCSEs and an A-Level at evening class when she was in her 30s.

The moral (as far as I can see) is that to get through a comprehensive in the 80s you had to be reasonably intelligent and self-motivated.

@peewitsandy

Across the country as whole 7% of children are educated Privately, however many areas have a much higher percentage than 7%. For instance in some London areas it is as high 30 % . I have seen these numbers somewhere and these numbers have been referenced previously on Mumsnet.

Belinda: The inference I draw is despite posters from Selective areas bemoaning selection, it does not stop parents in adjacent non selective areas yearning for selection.

"it does not stop parents in adjacent non selective areas yearning for selection"

It certainly doesn't. We are adjacent to a selective area and honestly the parents are "handbags-fisticuffs" about the competition. Parents in the selective area demanding things like entry only be open to council tax payers in their area.

It really gets quite ferocious.

They are even worse now that the grammar schools are giving some preference to poorer children who perform semi-well and so are given entry. Legal challenges and all sorts. It is quite unseemly tbh.

KidBrooke is not a great example op. It's a shite school and has been for years. Even worse than the one I went to and that was pretty awful.

I don't think the grammars should have been removed. Academic children should have the opportunities they offer - why is selection by wealth seen as so much better /preferable than ability or faith?

I totally agree Autumn with your sentiments this is why I support Grammar Schools, but not necessarily a 25% model. Perhaps 40% should go to an academic school , AKA Grammar Schools with other ways to support the 11+. Then maybe we split the other 60% at 14 with 3 option's available Grammar, Technical or Vocational (The vocational schools aim should be to get children into employment opportunities at 16 ! We can all see the stupidity of having pupils who hate school or education at 17 just wasting time.

Before anyone calls me and says my child is 19 and needs to be in education because of disabilities. I know that education children with SEN needs is a different matter I know people that have Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and where placed in education settings totally inappropriate , to them . Two of them should have been at Grammar School not in the 'remedial' section . That is why other selection tests should go along with the traditional 11+.

As for Dyslexia well my Grammar School would not acknowledge any girls there could have it, despite my mother continued assertions to the school .Thus, any girl with poor writing or spelling was lazy. I was that girl and it was not until University where I got a helping hand.

( For those who read my first post and queried my 'undying love' for my old school the one about 'Tennis' was largely done to create a bit of a controversy).

I went to a grammar school and my children are at a comprehensive. There's no comparison - I would send them to the comprehensive every time. They have excellent teaching, with high standards and aspirations, but they also get to see that academic success isn't the be all and end all of education. DD is bright enough to get into most grammar schools, but although she can do academic learning, she's basically a creative and practical person at heart. The pupils in my grammar school with a similar profile were pushed into academic courses that didn't suit them, whereas she is able to keep her options more open.

I have a very bright DS1 - CAT scores regularly put him in top 1% nationally. He went to an academically selective independent primary where he coasted most of the time despite being in the top sets. He now attends a super selective grammar. I have never seen him so engaged. He’s finally getting an education pitched at his level. All children deserve that.

Bullshit was the post about tennis at your alma mater done to create controversy.

1. It wasn’t a controversial thing to say, it was just stupid
2. It simply would be a pointless thing to try create controversy around anyway
3. You would have owned to that on the thread
4. Why would you have taken the piss out of people by wasting their time

FWIW, I’m in a non selective area but close enough to a border (though it’d be a long commute) to have opted for grammar system. I’m perfectly happy with Comprehensive. Given you’ve lived among high % private in Cheshire and now have your children at grammars in a grammar county, where are you meeting all these people who supposedly don’t like the lack of non selectives? 🤔

Why are you so seemingly obsessed with starting threads about how wonderful grammars / selective are? The discussions are all valid and interesting, but you do seem very hung up on it. Are you trying to persuade yourself because you could have sent your children private and didn’t? Are you still rather in thrall to your mother’s illustrious education career? It’s a bit weird that you keep starting threads about how wonderful grammars / single sex selectives are!

Would you prefer I started a thread about Soul Music !

I live in a comprehensive area with no grammar schools for miles and very few people can afford private. I was a very average achiever at primary school, and most likely would not have passed the 11+
At my comprehensive school I blossomed academically in years 8-9 and was able to move up into the top sets and finished year 11 having passed all 10 of my GCSE’s, 6 of these at A* and A grade. I then went onto 6th form and then university.
Had I lived in a selective area and ended up at a secondary modern I’m not sure if I would have had the same opportunity. So for me, I think the comprehensive system has benefited me.
My DD is in year 5 now and we are starting the process of looking at local secondary school options. When I read some of the threads on here with people stressing out over putting their DC through the 11+ and what to do if they don’t pass, it makes me feel so glad that this is one less stress we have to face.

@peewitsandy

Would you prefer I started a thread about Soul Music !

It’s not that I would prefer Soul Music threads, it’s just that they wouldn’t make me 🤨 and wonder, “why is this woman so hung up on selectives / grammars?” I certainly would prefer that you posted about Soul Music than posted some nonsense about how you were setting out to create a controversial thread 🤣

It's very telling that all the grammar school supporters hate the idea of comprehensive schools because I presume all the comprehensive schools local to them don't perform as well, as all the more acdemically able children go to grammar schools. Whereas in areas like my county where there is no grammar school provision the comprehensive schools perform a lot better because they have a true mix of academically able and less able children.

DD's old comprehensive school is in the top 10% for A level results and top 20% for GCSE resuts, with a well above average progress score, according to latest governement data (up to and including 2019 when the last public exams were sat), and has been for a number of years.

The only children in our LA who go to grammar school go to private schools, so most children just go to the local comprehensive.

@RampantIvy but how do they perform for the bottom 10% ? The problem with the comprehensive education system , as implemented in most of England, is that it rarely serves all sections of ability well. We live near of these so called high achieving schools , leaving aside the fact that there is a thriving tutor economy including bizarrely their own teachers and the teachers at the local independent , the bottom 20% is pretty much written off and god help you off you don’t come with funding.

I'm not too sure @Peaseblossum22, but when DD was there they had five sets for maths and English from year 7, so I'd like to think that pupils were catered for appropriately.

I'm pretty sure the stats show that the grammar school system does not improve results overall. In other words the improvement in grades for some of the brighter kids who get into grammar schools is balanced or outweighed by a detrimental effect on the grades of students who fail the 11+.

I am all in favour of a broader curriculum, more vocational qualifications, and setting (but not streaming) by ability in some subjects. All of those things bring the advantages of recognising students' varying abilities and talents, but without irrevocably segregating them based on a snapshot of how they do in a certain type of test when they are a mere 11 years old.

I say that as a product of a girls' grammar school myself and a teacher of 25 years' standing, in a variety of types of school.

We should have Schools that offer the non academic pupils routes in to trades

The problem here is that 10 is way, way too young to make a decision about a child's future academic path, especially when it is based on a single test take on a single day (and a test which isn't even curriculum-based, to boot).

Educational achievement is not linear – we all know people who were very bright as younger children but peaked then, just as well know children who struggled in the early years but came into their own once they could study purely the subjects which interested them.

Excellent posts @lazylinguist and @thing47. I agree with both of you.

The problem here is that 10 is way, way too young to make a decision about a child's future academic path

Yes. Ofsted have recently decided they disapprove of schools starting the GCSE course a year early in year 9 because it closes off paths of study too young and often means the creative subjects suffer. And that's after 2 years of secondary school. I can't see any defense whatsoever for writing off kids' academic potential at 11. I've seen plenty of late bloomers (and early peakers)!