Allison Pearson in Telegraph about why grammar schools best

[PollyParanoia]

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I have to say I think this is poorly written, even without me going into my (somewhat confused) thoughts about grammar schools. Do agree with her about the hypocrisy of so many of our elite sending kids to faith schools.
And, ooo, the readers' comments are a bit scary, but then what was I expecting?

Riven - I am sad enough to have spent a bit of time researching the Finnish Education system (mainly on the net - so I'm not 100%).

Their system evolved in a very different way from ours.

They have a relatively sparse population - so built one local community school (for 7-16 years olds) in each town.

Schools typically have 400- 600 pupils and everyone knows everyone else.

Teaching is a very high status job (top graduates only) and most people have a high regard for education generally (it's like they all have 'middle class' values towards education).

Pre-schools are very good and virtually all children arrive at school aged 7 and ready to learn.

The schools are very inclusive and there is no 'setting' or streaming (pretty much up to 14 - I think).

Pupils take one set of national exams at 15 years old - which helps to decide (together with teacher and parents input) on vocational or academic further
education (16-18).

As I say - I'm not really an expert - happy to be corrected by any Finns on here.

Coming back to the grammar school issue, I was thinking if I was queen of the world I would start off by getting tough on the grammar schools' selection procedures and putting pressure on them to become more diverse. I would make it clear their continued existence depended on it so they had to go all out to recruit from a wider range of state schools, more children with parents with less education, etc.
If they failed I would turn them comprehensive and if they succeeded I would open more. Good plan, or rubbish?

2For dh's tough school to be excellent, there would have to be a sea-change in education, with far more vocational courses and apprenticeships properly funded and skilled from 14 - "

Isn't that starting to happen. At DCs school and I have heard similar down in Dorset they are starting to do more vocational studies from 14 which include doing part of the course at local colleges.

Those amazing rises in pass rates are nothing to do with improved teaching at all. The Head will have fiddled the results by putting kids in for BTECs and similar qualifications which are GCSE-equivalent and so count for up to 5 GCSEs. They're almost impossible to fail and so by entering every student in the year for a BTEC you automatically get a meteoric rise in pass rates without any actual improvement taking place.

Not to say that BTECs are worthless - indeed in some cases they are far and away the better qualification, i.e in vocational subjects - but a school can go from 40% of their students passing Science GCSE to near enough 100% passing BTEC simply by switching to the easier course. The teaching isn't better. If anything, it's worse because the BTEC is so dumbed-down no real science is being taught at all (not necessarily the case for all science BTECs but probably what is happening at schools that do it only for the results). I'm a teacher and I have seen this happen in more than one school. In fact the school I teach in is soon going to go from being top of the league table in the county to near the bottom because we're not going down the quick-and-easy route but are instead sticking to teaching the qualifications we think are the most appropriate and robust for our cohort. But it will look like we're failing when every other school is improving rapidly

Ha ha ha

I live in a half a million pound house - my daughters are both at good universities training to be teachers. My standards are so high the London oratory is 2nd choice for our son. I am a shocking snob - despite my lack of education = -> appalling spelling/grammar.

Seth - i'd think you'd achieve more by targeting the socially exclusive comprehensive schools.

How about encouraging them to take more socially disadvantaged children by allowing them to academically select them?

This could be done by primary school teacher recommendation (to avoid tests and application forms).

Good plan?

True, another London school I know went from 40% to near enough 100% because pupils were entered for art, ICT and science that awarded 4 GCSEs per subject. Their results dip when you look at 5* A-C including maths and English, but now they target their best teachers and smaller class sizes to the E/D/C groups to get the pass-rate % up.

YOu also have to look at the rest of the school Badgermonkey. DCs school do offer btecs for ICT and a few other subjects but they now get 80% A-C passes in english (my dyslexic DS has gone from a narrow scrape by one point of a 4 at KS2 to a level 7 at KS3 and now forcast an A for english GCSE.
They have excellent pastural care and a bullying is trodden on from a very great height!

Seth, re your plan to make grammar schools more inclusive, the schools themselves don't recruit or administer the 11+, the LEA do. They have nothing to do with it - the pupils just turn up in yr 7. It's up to parents to rock up with their child one Saturday morning to sit the test, afaik.

I looked at the Brighton lottery system but parents seem dissatisfied with that too.

You're right, Bruffin, that the other subjects do offer an important guide to the quality of the school. Their offering BTECs is not necessarily a bad thing if it has been a carefully considered choice based on the needs of the students. Too often though it is just a knee-jerk "must raise pass rates!" decision. 80% pass rate in English is excellent (similar results to the English dept I teach in!) and shows a dedicated staff IMO, especially in a comprehensive.

i went to a kent grammar in the 1990s
even that long ago, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the intake came from the independent crammer primary.

i came from a council estate school with no preparation, and i am quite sure that nowadays, in the absence of any tutoring or practice papers, i would not make the grade.

I do not think the answer is more grammar schools, we need to improve the comps so they offer a grammar within a comp if that makes sense. I have taught in grammars and live in grammar areas and would far rather my child went to a great comp that a grammar. The only reason we may choose a grammar for dd is because she is currently in catchment for a crap comp and tbh she has been in a crap primary for years and I think she has paid enough of a price for our values. I am considering moving so we do not have to put our dd though the grammar

OK Dinah so either the school would need more control of their entrance exams OR it would need to be sorted out at LEA level. But there is still stuff the schools can do: in the same way as Oxbridge sends current students into state schools without a history of Oxbridge entrance to try and get the kids to apply, grammar schools could advertise and run information events to encourage parents from the state primaries which don't usually send many children, to apply. Or do they already do that kind of thing?

Jack - that sounds sensible.

my problem with the grammar-within-a-comp idea, is, aren't the numbers inevitably going to limit what the school can offer to the 'grammar' children? So if each of several comps in a town has, say, 5 children who would benefit from taking 3 foreign languages, it's not cost-effective to run those classes for such small numbers of children. Put the children together in the same school and it does make sense. 'Grammars-within-comps' probably exist in the 'top' comps but not in all of them.

Seth / Dinah - if the objective is to make grammar schools less socially exclusive - then I think primary school support is needed.

But, unfortunately primary school teachers often aren't in favour of academic selection.

I think the Sutton Trust does some work in this area. Much of it appears to be building awareness and aspiration.

Often the biggest barrier to getting a disadvantaged child into a good school (comp or grammar) is parental ignorance and lack of interest.

On the grammar within a comp idea - there's lots of research on the harmful effects of (badly implemented) streaming.

I can see the advantages to a child (of liberal minded parents). A good academic education with some interaction with a wider social and ability group. I'm not sure about the benefits for the rest of the kids.

But why can't more comps be "top comps"? What about those students who are gifted at maths but have poor literacy - they will not make it into the grammar. What about those students who peak early but fail to sustain or those who blossom a year after selection for the grammar.

I teach in a comp that offers third languages, we select staff who can do it and we find a way to work around the timetable to make it happen.

I will admit to having taught in grammars that were awful and living in an area where the grammars are dull, stifling and leave no room for students to flourish beyond getting an A*. The very students who should be given the greatest independence are spoon fed and therir choices shut down. I know a number of parents who have chosen the grammar route and now regret it when they find out what the comps could have offered.

Schools that go from 35%-85% A-C are almost always "fiddling" their results through course selection.

I don't agree with streaming but I do agree with setting. I teach children who are in top set for my lesson but further down the school for maths or science say. I don't want to create a school within a school - so perhaps my use of language was wrong.

But in my top sets within lessons there is as much of an academic rigour ( infact more because I know what is being taught in my subject in the grammar) as there would be in a grammar. We offer similar subjects as the grammar but also allow for more creative expression. Our faciliies are better, many of our teachers are better and we offer the social mix.

I am confident that a child in my top set will do as well if not better with me than they would at the grammar.

I remain to be convinced that my dd- in an area which is non-grammar, in a part of town which is not thought of as "desirable" - is not getting an education that will stand her in good stead. Yes, on average fewer children from this school will get a good number of A*'s. This is because the school is inclusive and takes on children who were simply never going to do that. But what the GCSE tables show year after year is that it is perfectly possible for any individual child with the ability and willingness to put in the work to achieve results that are as good as those achieved by children in the selective system. So that's good enough for me then. If dd can't see for herself that she needs to push herself harder than some of her mates if she wants to achieve different results, then I wouldn't want her on my university course anyway.

While I wish otherwise that is not always the case. My dd is a motivated, mostly well behaved , bright girl who loves learning. She is in a primary that is chaos and is learning nothing. It is so bad that my husband took a drop in working hours and salary so he could spend time teaching her and I do the same during the evenings and school holidays.

I am hoping it may be better at secondary because even if she ends up at the crap secondary there may the odd teacher who comes ito work regularly, marks books, sets appropriate lessons and can control the class.

'It went from 35% GCSE pass rate to 85% in one year '

Perhaps they pushed the kids to take easier exams. this is what happened in our town. Great big poster about the 'best' results in the area. But many kids weren't taking English or Maths.

Cory - I agree. We also want parents to realize that schools like our nearest high school (not a comprehensive - it can't be because the "top" 23% are at the grammars) is an excellent school, even though its exam results don;t look good. A school which takes everyone who applies int eh catchment is necessarily not going to look =as good on paper when the measure of success is A-c GCSEs and A levels. But if you look at the Valu added it's stupendous. People seem to find this very difficult to understand.

value added, obviously.