only 1% of oxbridge students got free school meals

[itsawonderfuldarleneconnorlife]

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Is there any solution to this other than bringing back grammars for every county?

Mrz, you seem determined to misunderstand everything.

You suggested that teaching boys and girls separately would be teaching to their strengths, and avoiding their weaknesses. I pointed out that 'avoiding weaknesses' would be not teaching them at all, not teaching them separately.

The study I posted about English being taught separately leading to better results for boys AND girls was NOT sponsored by a single sex school.

No LilyBolero I posted a quote which is why it was in inverted commas

I didn't say non-existent. What I said is that dyslexia is more common in England because of the complexities of the language. Which is also why formal education for young children is particularly hard in this country and may exacerbate problems for disadvantaged children rather than helping them.

Dyslexia is half as common in Italy apparently.

www.englishspellingsociety.org/news/media/dyslexia/reports.php

I've found your post linking gender and the arts in the US perhaps I haven't gone back far enough to find your literacy study?

whether it was a quote or not is irrelevant - the implication was that you should not teach to strengths and avoid weaknesses. I pointed out that teaching something in a different way was NOT avoiding weaknesses.

The gender thing is a digression. There's no conclusive evidence that single sex helps or hinders. It's pretty much a waste of time and money going down that path then. Either way it's not going to significantly alter the outcomes for kids from poor backgrounds.

BBC report here

yy, agree with 5candles, am just responding to mrz

Basically says that the most beneficial grouping is single sex for English, mixed for maths/science.

fivecandles for more common you could read more diagnosed (but it is open to dispute whether every privately diagnosed case is genuine) and many many people claim to be dyslexic without any formal diagnosis.

(meant I agree that the gender thing is a digression - although in some ways I do wonder if in some deprived schools, the boys in particular might thrive on having some lessons split into boys and girls - especially if they've got into this mind-set of english being 'for girls' which many boys do seem to have).

This nit picking at irrelevant details is driving me mad. The point is that English is harder than most other languages to learn for all sorts of reasons therefore young children in this country particularly struggle and yet we start formal education here younger than most other countries. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that this is counterproductive and widens rather than narrowing the gap between, say, a summer born, white working class boy and a middle class, autumn born girl.

I do think summer-born boys struggle - I see it in my children's school - they just weren't ready to start literacy, found it really hard, and now are playing catch-up.

Sorry that was directed at mrz. The logistics of separating boys and girls for English (where there may be a benefit for boys) but not other subjects (where the more girls there are the greater the benefit for boys and girls) though..... Especially when there's no real evidence that this would make any difference.

Yes, lily, but more importantly they're discouraged. They can be labelled 'non academic' at aged 4 or earlier because of the way we start formal learnign so early in this country.

Summer born children are less likely to go to university at all 14 years later.

Actually if you read Steven Proud's report (incidentally he is an economist not an educationalist) he is saying that the make up of the class plays a part in achievement but he did not examine single sex education.

"Whilst I don?t examine directly single sex schools my results do seem to be linear, that is the effects seem to be the same at the lowest quartile of the proportion of girls in the classroom and the highest quartiles proportion of girls. So if we were to extend it to the limit it would tend to imply that boys would perform better if they were taught without any girls at all in English, but it tends to imply that boys would do better in maths and science in mixed sex environments but girls may do better themselves in single sex environments."

He is making assumptions that he can not back up with research.

I am not talking about single sex education. I am talking about groupings within mixed schools. And I have read the report.

But as fivecandles says, it's not specific to the thread anyway, it's a side issue.

^The researchers were somewhat cautious about the use of single sex lessons suggesting that for every school where this had been a success,
there is another where it made no difference or made matters worse.^

It is important to remember that gender is only the fifth most important determinant of a pupil?s academic performance, coming way below prior attainment and social background.

LilyBolero teaching a child in a lesson where there is no member of the opposite sex is single sex education as opposed to single sex schools

nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/genderandachievement/understanding/singlesex/

mrz, you're nit-picking. Fwiw I think single sex schools are vastly different to taking single sex groups out of a mixed sex class. Education is more than just english lessons, it is social education etc.

The link you posted quotes studies referred to in the study I posted, with thoughts on them.

Look, I really don't want to argue this on this thread, it's a total side-street, I don't quite know why you are SO opposed to the idea of separating them off for some subjects, seems like it's an idea worth exploring if it may help. Just saying 'boys in my school are good at writing' doesn't help the national problem.

Why is it so important to go to Oxbridge anyway. The people I know who went to Oxbridge all from comprehensives all struggled at Oxbridge universities and one now works in PC World as an assistant at the age of 40. It really has not benefitted him. Another person I work with has been discriminated against because he went to Oxford by the rest of the workforce. My DS (10) has already told me he want to go to Oxford. We have no hope of private school and in Birmingham grammer schools are dominated by those who went to private prep or tutoring from Year 3. At that age my DS showed no signs of being grammer school level but is now progressing really well and I think would have coped but we have left it too late now. He will go to a very good comp and children from that school have got into Oxbridge but he will do it on his own merits if he does. Although for me I will be happy as long as he does his best.

By the way my DS was a summer-born baby hence he was behind the class until Juniors but is now near the top.

Good for you and your Mum !

I hope you both had a great time at Cambridge !

I think it's such a beautiful city !

I went to Bristol, and had a good time there too !

Hope my children will be able to go to Uni one day, or possibly art college in my daughter's case ( because that's what she especially loves )

By the way I went to a grammar school in Kent and had no preparation for the test, hadn't seen anything like it before. But this was in the 70's, and I think that's how things were then !

Daughter has just started at our city's Cathedral School, and very happy there