"We need elitism in schools" Do you agree with Dave?

[Pantone]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8751220/David-Cameron-we-need-elitism-in-schools.html

What do you think of this?

The grammar school model worked in a way the comps don't for the bright. For those less clever I suspect comprehensives do do better than the secondary moderns did. One big issue for employers is poor English skills and basic maths.
More time on that would be better in all schools.

Alpine, what evidence do you have that ii) happens? I do not think that my very bright pupil who is working at Year 6 level just after her 8th birthday would say that she is 'held back by my misguided ideology'?

Nor do I feel that my own DCs (both very bright) are held back - comparison of what they do and their levels with peers in local private schools shows that the latter are very heavily 'coached' in NVR for the local grammar school tests but in general class work the levels achieved are very similar.

And Xenia, you cannot have (by definition) both grammars and true comprehensives. Locally, we are very luckily and have only a single super-selective grammar, which barely affects local comprehensives as it takes in only the top 0.01% of the ability range. However in 'full grammar' systems there are no comprehensives, only secondary moderns even if they are called comprehensive. Again, do we sacrifice the less clever for the very bright?

Handsoffourland, do you means overhauling the system so it's fit for purpose rather than cutting HE funding? I agree with this.

Maybe unis will look after their budgets better and cut unneccessary staffing etc but maybe they won't and it will be our children financing the wasting of this money.

teacher by your very own admissions of course! You have implied yourself that you do not wish intelligent children to succeed and that you prefer mediocrity. You only said it yesterday so you should be able to remember.

Alpine, I have said that I wish ALL children to make progress at the maximum rate they are capable of. That includes the intelligent children as well as those of middle and low ability.

Why would I not wish intelligent children to succeed? As I was a very able child, and I have 2 very able children being excellently educated in a normal state school, it would be very odd if I did not wish able children to succeed.

Or are you setting up 'false opposites' - just because I say I want all children to progress, in your mind I cannot mean that I want intelligent children to progress? Intelligent children are a subset of my 'all children' so I want them, too, to make the greatest possible progress. Your view may be that can only occur at the expense of other children - so you prefer able children to progress and not others. My view is that it is a perfectly attainable ambition for all children to make excellent progress, especially if artificial systems like critical grade boundaries are removed.

Alpine, could you quote exactly which post you are referring to? As I know I did not state nor intend to imply that I prefer mediocrity, it is hard for me to find the post from which you have inferred this.

That's the rub. We used to sacrifice the very clever for the less clever and that god some of the clever poor out of poverty into the cabinet, board room table, Parliament, the BBC and the like. When we cut that route off we did not aid the bright poor in the comps quite so much as fewer than in the 60s etc work their way through and up. So in a sense we left them all festering in mediocrity surrounded by not bright peers whch is why the private sector shot up and away almost out of reach. I f I were very right wing I would say - great, let us leave them all alone and the private sector can increase its strangehold on money and power but I am sufficiently altruistic to think it was helpful that there used to be the grammar school route as it gave some who did not have a chance a chance. It was not coached for on the whole although it was not a perfect system either.

No one is saying state schools are useless. Just that private schools seem to do it better. perhaps privatise all schools and give parents a £5k voucher to use anywhere.

Perhaps the clue is in your last sentenence Xenia - it would be interesting to see how much better a private school would be than a state school if both had the same budget per pupil, of c. £5k. The fact that private school fees are so much higher than that perhaps contributes significantly to the difference - along perhaps with the difference in the social, educational and income profile of parents in the two sectors. I am not sure that many private schools have to cater for the c. 20% rate of parental illiteracy we deal with, for example.

Aha, think I've found it (not because it says what you inferred, but because of your post after it).

I said

"To answer Alpine: 'Elitism' for me = great education for the few, bad education for the many. What I want, what I strive towards, what I know i don't quite make it to but believe me it's not for want of trying, is great education for the many in which every child makes all the progress they can."

I appreciate that by using 'many' in two contexts, I could have confused you - you may have thought that the 'many' in my last sentence are exactly the same children as the 'many' in the first, though the 'every child' should have made my meaning clear.

To be clearer:
'Elitism' for me = great education for the few, bad education for the many. What I want, what I strive towards, what I know i don't quite make it to but believe me it's not for want of trying, is great education for all in which every child makes all the progress they can.

So to reiterate - I believe wholeheartedly in education that allows EVERYONE to make the maximum progress they are capable of. I try extremely hard to deliver that in my own classroom, and the 'most progress last year' results from my class do seem to imply that it is an environment in which G&T, expected level and SEN children can all make huge progress (we are talking 2 years + in all 3 cases). I am lucky - I teach a yeargroup in which there is no external pressure to deliver x children over y grade boundary, so my effort is not 'skewed' one way or another. I have a special interest in very able children because of my personal circumstances. Anyone who knew me in RL would laugh very heartily at the claim that I prefer mediocrity and don't support stretching the very able!

Plenty of people around my way don't pay for education becuase they can get the same thing for free.

Elitism is a silly concept with education as there are so many strands to it. Celebrate what a child can do well but also look to who they are and recognise that's different for each child. The obvious thing si to reward each child for effort and results from their own starting point.

Peachy, I agree with you - I think the idea of a wholesale move to private is quite 'area specific', and may be particularly evident in e.g. parts of London. Round here, the vast majority of (loosely) 'middle class / professional' people send their children to state schools, because they are excellent.

Yet however excelent they supposedly are they only get 50% of the good university places so they can 't be that excellent can they with 7% of children (the private school ones) getting the other 50% and all those statistics of huge % in certain careers from the private sector.

(Let us never say "for free" - I hope private schools teach that that be so; superfluous preposition - should just be free)

But Xenia - that is an average figure.

It does not stop there being excellent schools locally that buck these trends (the highest performing schools round here are ALL state schools, both in terms of raw results and university places) which is why the position is area specific.

Sorry, to be precisely precise, 3 of the top 10 schools locally are in the top 10 in the county for A level or GCSE results. They are 4th, 9th and 10th, despite one of them being internationally known, supposedly for its 'academic excellence'.

That was gobbledegook, apologies. 3 of the top 10 schools in my county are private, but are 4th, 9th and 10th in the top 10. All the other top schools are state.

50% of the people who would have got into top universities anyway get sent to private school. Simple.

I've got one DC is the counties top performing comp and what would be considered by D.C. and MM as an Elite school and by this I mean elite not just in school in general but in the independent sector sector as well; one that is generally accepted as the most academic Independent boys school in the UK. Don't get me wrong the comp is a really good school and we are very happy and I know from personal experience and results that it is comparable with many private schools especially the smaller ones but it will never compare with the Inde. in a million years. Obviously results are better and so they should be; 2/3 of the boys are in the top 3% academically, its so selective most children go in at 13 already able to get top grades at GCSE. Behaviour is probably better although we don't have many problems at the comp and there are always going to be children who misbehave at any school. The facilities are fab but I don't believe that that alone necessarily makes a good school. Its the other things that the school offers extra curricular activities, variety of sports, clubs and most significantly something undefinable . Roll it all up and you have an elite school. I looked up the definition of elite and one definition is the best of a group and that is what it is. If we take this to be meaning of elite then ultimately it is not possible for all schools to be elite and for all children to attend an elite school.
As a little bit of a leftie this does present for me a moral and ethical dilemma one DS does not get what the other one gets and also one DS gets so much more than every other child in the UK there are only 700 boys at the school. But before I receive hundreds of critical postings I make no attempt to justify my actions but I know I would not move my DS for all the money in the world.

kritur, I found what you said really interesting. I find at my dds independent school they do exactly that - lots of academic work, but also lots of practical subjects like outdoor pursuits, home economics, and other things that aren't measured but add a huge amount to their personal development.

Guess what, snaz, it happens at my dds' state school too.

I can't believe you think that is so wonderfully unusual.

I did wonder where kritur taught because nearly all the things she would like to see, I see already.

Yep our schools too. Even ds's SN Bases work that way, as far as a child is able. The chances are there.

On of my DC is at an excellent and highly rated comp and he has many of the opportunities mentioned. But if you've never had anything to do with a top independent school then you would not have any idea what sort of things go on; the sheer range and level of activities for example there is an observatory for those in the astronomy soc. carefully maintained river for fly fishing, squash courts, fives courts, rackets courts, an art department open when there are no lessons staffed by art teachers, Dt dept ditto, I could go on and on and this all costs money current fees are £31000 per ennum. Buts its more than that as I've already said something undefinable an ethos/philosophy that permeates the every inch of the school. I suspect that this could never be replicated in D.C. elite free schools.

'something indefinable and ethos/philosophy that permeates the every inch of the school'.

That'll be the money, love. Of course people are going to feel like an elite if you bunch them together according to wealth, and they have better stuff than anyone else.

You are probably right what i'm trying to say and probably not very well is that it is not possible for all children to attend an elite school by the definition of the word elite; the best of a group, and that D.C is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks its even remotely possible to mimic in the state sector what you can find at the top private schools and in fact as an old Etonian he knows that its not possible to do this as much as I do. D.C is full of bullshit and rhetoric; coming out with soundbites that he thinks will appeal to the masses. The point is that unless you are in the system and actually at one of these schools most people have no idea how privileged and elite this education is. You might think you know but as someone whose spent over 8 years educating my DC privately even I'm taken aback at how elite the education provided by my DS's new school is. I'm not trying to point score or enter into a debate about state ed. versus private or am I saying that its right that a small handful of children receive so much more due to their parents wealth (although more of these schools are offering considerable financial help) but I'm trying to highlight the difference between the two and the impossibility of government or any other organisation for that matter closing the gap.
For what its worth I also believe that this education type is not necessarily right for every child and that rather than trying to create elite state schools that again are going to educated a small % of children the government should be concentrating on improving all schools so that all children receive a good all round education.

I hear what you're saying, happy.

Also think malcontent has used v interesting phrase 'they feel elite'.

Happily, the kids at dd's local state primary feel elite too, or seem to - 98% of them clearly believe they are hugely lucky to be at their school. I have no idea whether DC would agree with their definition or not.