Why did the gvt get rid of grammar schools?

[jumpingcastles]

I moved to the UK 9 years ago so I don't know much about the education history.

I watched a programme on telly last night on BBC2 called Posh & Posher which left me wondering.

If the grammar schools gave poorer children a chance, why were most of them abolished?

Mrs T didn't close grammar schools and neither did Tony Crosland. Tony Crosland invited LEAs to make plans to end educational selection (and I have no doubt, offered large bribes funds to the councils that did so. Mrs T did not do anything to stop this process during her time as Education Secretary.

And the milk thing - oh dear. Mrs T stopped central government funding for milk for children over 7. Funding for milk for secondary school pupils was ended by - er - Edward Short in Harold Wilson's government. Lucky no one could think of a catchy rhyme for Short, really.

nagynolonger ....Hi, yes we do indeed still have grammers in all of Lincolnshire. The other schools are all moving towards being acadamys.

I guess that is one of the problems. When secondary moderns existed there were jobs for which their allumni were equipped. Hard to imagine what that might be now

Our Grammar is becoming an Academy too.

I live in a Grammar area, one child "failed" to get in, the other was successful & very happy there. Luckily, our Comprehensive is also Outstanding and "failure" went on to Cambridge.

I think we need more Grammars, but with great COmprehensives that cater for pushing the later developers / different learning styles too.

MP, I'm not talking about something different; I'm talking about a general principle of teaching. You only teach or tutor a child for GCSE physics if they are a competent enough learner at that point to benefit from learning GCSE physics.

I wouldn't attempt to study German at degree level because I have no knowledge of German, and so would not be a competent learner in that situation. There is only a point in you tutoring a child in GCSE physics, or an 11 plus tutor tutoring a child for the 11 plus, if a child is capable of being a competent learner in that situation.

NM, instead of bringing back secondary moderns we would educate children for a wide range of occupations and a solid academic education in some subjects, as we do in comprehensives now. We would just be teaching that to a narrower group because children with a specific set of skills/aptitudes would be elsewhere in a grammar school. Just because we remove some academic students, it doesn't mean that the rest of the students are going to require vocational training.

The same principle operates at universities. Just because a student doesn't get into Cambridge, it doesn't mean that they won't benefit from a different (not worse) style of teaching at a different (not worse) university.

Im all for grammar schools as a means of promoting meritocracy and social mobility. Obviously in an ideal world, every child would have equal educational opportunity, but the reality is that selective schools (independent or state grammar) outperform most comprehensive schools. You are never going to convince rich parents who send their children to top public schools, not to do so, so there will always be some form of division. Selectivity goes on in even truly comprehensive schools, with streaming anyway. I'm not sure if failing to get into a grammar school is any different to being stuck in 'bottom set' throughout your school life in terms of self esteem.

IMO the fact that some grammar schools still exist and offer comparable but free education to many independent schools, helps to restrain the fees that neighbouring independent schools charge.

Ah, but you need not STAY in the bottom set, you can move up it down. Changing schools is not so easy.

Comprehensives were a nice idea - some have worked out well, but in many cases it just didn't seem to have been properly thought through.

I went to my secondary in its few brief years of theoretical perfection when it was 'bilateral' - I was in the last year to do 11+ in our area. All those who passed from a large area still went to what had been the grammar - but it suddenly doubled in size to take the same number of those who hadn't from a smaller catchment. So they could still have all the GCE sets with a parallel cohort headed for CSE - but children did move (almost always up) after the first 2 years.

But - the year after mine the GCE-bound intake was of course reduced and all kids just went to catchment schools (IIRC no 'choice' back then). They could still set maths and English fairly well, but not all the other subjects (even though the school was so much bigger)so suddenly teachers were faced with mixed ability classes without any preparation. A lot of teachers who'd been excellent at teaching in a grammar school took early retirement.
And the former secondary modern wasn't geared up for its new intake of academic kids (no idea whether it got its act together, not in the tables under the name I knew). It was all a bit of a mess.

Like Grimma - I went to a comprehensive that theoretically should have worked. It had a very mixed ability intake. Although it had been a sec modern - middle class parents bought into the idea that their bright dc's would still get an excellent education along side their less able dc's.

It was a total mess - bright dc's do not teach themselves, and the mainly ex-secondary modern teachers didn't have a clue how to deal with them.

I guess it had looked so easy - when they used to watch well disciplined, smart uniformed grammar pupils trotting to the old grammar school. But the reality of a large number of bright, cheeky and easily bored pupils was too much for many (who often retired quickly).

And the setting and streaming was appallingly managed. Very little movement between sets (none between streams).

It took about 20 years to sort itself out. It's now very over-subscribed - with a mainly middle-class intake (another comp gets most of the less affluent kids).

IMO - the comprehensive system is as fault ridden as the tri-partite system and ruined at least as many children's academic potential. Not that many people like to look at it that way.

On a thread about educational standards, let's try and spell grammar correctly, shall we?

Or even, try to

Agreed.

What is absolutely astounding is that some posters have said "my dc goes to a grammer"

I might be forgiven for not knowing how to spell grammar, because ds does not attend one, he goes to a conpreensiv.

I also went to one of the first comprehensive which was a former grammar. We didn't sit the 11+ at primary but were tested in our first week at secondary.......it was an 11+ in all but name!

We were then divided into forms according to ability. Forms A, B, & C were the grammar forms (some teachers called us that). D, E F, G, H, were the mondern forms. There was also an 'R' form which I think stood for remedial.

In the grammar form we did all subjects including french, latin, 3 x sciences and divinity. Form D studied latin for 1 year only to allow for anyone moving up in the second year. D, E & F did french all the way through and for some reason they had RE not divinity.

I can't really understand what was wrong with this system......But then I was in the A form. I might have felt differently if I had been in a lower form.

By the 3rd year (year9). A B & C were definately on the academic route. The lower forms did more cookery/needlework or tech drawing/metal&woodwork. But everyone was able to take O levels or CSEs. A grade 1 CSE was equal to an O level.

Just because I was in the A form did nothing to improve my spelling.........but I can spell grammar!

Nagy - I would suggest that your school worked (at least for the brighter pupils) because you had teachers who were good with academic children, because it was an ex-grammar school!

I suspect that a significant problem with state education is the scarcity in some schools of teachers able to stretch to brightest pupils.

Interesting that your school effectively 'hard selected' from year 9. Could that be a better age?

I'm just remarkably glad we're not waiting now to see if my quirky and uncompetitive 10yo is deemed a success or failure. She's just the sort who would probably flounder in a grammar or be out of place in a secondary modern - too academic for the latter, not academic enough for the former.

And I'm especially glad cos my 9yo would certainly pass an 11+ so then we'd have the success and failure clearly flagged up for them to see.

I was alreadys a fan of the comp system, having been through it myself quite successfully (as a very academic child), but with my children now I've switched from an ideological preference for them to a total personal relief.

;) Grimma.

Maybe you're right jackstarb. But it was a school for every ability. We all wore the same uniform, ate lunch together etc.

My sibs went to the same school and at least 2 were in the secondary mod forms and they all turned out well educated......although none of us went to university. In my case it was because mother thought O levels would get me a 'good enough' job.

I think that one of the problems when assessing comprehensives is that there are actually precious few areas where they can be truly comprehensives. By the very existence of grammars, no other school in the vicinity can be a true comprehensive if a large number of the brighter children are being creamed off - clearly leaving an imbalance of intake in the other schools.
Where I live there is the insidious problem of the effect of faith schools; the aspirational families do the church thing to get their kids in - it is so blatant. The effect is almost the same as if there were a grammar.
It was with much soul searching that we have not chosen to send our daughter to a school 6 miles away rather than our local school. The latter suffers from a lack of 6th form and an exodus of local families to the two faith schools in the area. In my dds class at school of the 6 children in the class who are the high achievers, only 1 of them will be going to the local school. We couldnt take the risk of this pattern being repeated for all the other primaries as the result would be that even with setting dd would still be in a mixed ability class as all classes have to be a certain size.
This is the problem facing comprehensives who do not get a balanced intake - they simply cannot set or stream effectively.

Sorry that should say we <strong>have</strong> chosen to send our dd to a school 6 miles away

Interestingly enough although they did away with grammar schools in most parts of UK by mid 70's they didn't abolish 2 very different exams, namely Olevels and CSEs until 1985. Olevels unlike CSEs allowed you to study for Alevels and go onto university, so most comprehensive schools between the mid 70s and 80's still had to stream children at the age of 11 and usually only those in the top stream were entered for Olevels. As a result the top stream were taught at a higher academic level to cope with the Olevel exams and as such these children probably had a very similar education to that provided by the old grammar schools. It was only after 1985 with the introduction of GCSEs that schools could become truly comprehensive as all children were taught to pass the same exam and why multi ability classes came into being.

'Truly comprehensive' isn't synonymous with mixed ability classes ( which were around long before the mid 80s). There was some fluffy idea that all children would perform to their full potential - which is impossible to measure -if they all received similar teaching but were sub-divided in the classroom into little groups..

That, of course, was about seventeen ' new initiatives' ago and we know better now. Any experienced teacher knows that there is a wide range of abilities and quite different approaches to teaching go with that. Apparently, politicians know even better so we now have an unholy mess which won't improve any time soon.

My own home city lost its many grammar schools ( and many respected sec mods, funnily enough) at the stroke of a pen in pursuit of the comprehensive ideal. Within the city boundary ( rather than upmarket commuter belt) it has never done better than 45% A*-C in any school and has some of the worst performing schools in the country.

I can't help thinking that progress wasn't achieved.

Interesting point, Mumzy.

Conservatives? Labourite Shirley Williams was at the forefront of pushing this forward and it happened under Labour. Her own daughter was at grammar school at the time, Godolphin in Hammersmith, typical politician.

The big, big mistake was allowing schools like Godolphin to become private instead of forcing them to remain state. It was the beginning of a massive expansion of private education in the UK and left children in many areas with far far less choice.