The other thread will no longer accept messages but I wanted to make some more points

[fivecandles]

Lequeen, I do find it utterly bizarre that, as a parent, you or anybody else, would accept that if your child missed getting into a grammar school by a couple of marks you would be perfectly happy to accept that meant your child was not academic and therefore should pursue a more vocational route whatever that means.

One of my dc would almost certainly fail to get into a GS. This does not mean I think she should take up a hairdressing course and stop learning GCSEs. I see no good reason why she shouldn't get a good academic education with as much support as possible and go on to university. She has suggested she might enjoy primary teaching and I think she'd make an excellent teacher. The idea that she shouldn't be able to go to university or learn languages and should settle with her lot just because she's not ever going to be a nuclear physicist is absolutely staggering.

I also find your idea that it would be better to segregate underperforming students into an entirely different school for their self-esteem staggering.

Why can't you just be honest about it lequeen. There are no advantages whatsoever for the majority of pupils who do not get into the GS. All the advantages go to the kids who DO get in and these are the pupils who are already doing well (and the research indicates most likely to be well off).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that privileged and clever kids don't deserve the very best education and I absolutely agree that they should be challenged and supported but this can and should and is being done in the same school as students who are struggling academically and are likely to be from very different social backgrounds are also supported to achieve.

Research following the abolition of most grammars in the 1960s demostrated that the educational attainment of the lower and middle ability children increased in genuinely comprehensive schools. Still looking for information about how much by.

But leQ, you have just said that the disruption does not occur in the classroom ... so how is it to the detriment of the children NOT sitting in the same classroom??

Do, by all means say that you want your child in a bubble, away from anybody in any way different from herself. But don't pretend that you are doing this in the name of a 'better educational system for all'.

I teach in a comp in a grammar school area, we loose a handful of students to the grammar. Not necessarily the brightest. We consider ourselves to be a comp, we have top sets full of A students, we have students getting A at A Level and then going on to Oxbridge. In my A2 class almost half are applying to Oxbridge. We are judged against other comprehensives and compare our results etc with other outstanding comps.

We certainly do have very visible academic role models to extend and inspire and they are not to my knowledge bullied for being clever or hard working.

In some ways having a grammar locally makes us better, because we have to challenge our students in order to keep them. As a school we have a staff who support the comprehensive system and therefore we want to make it work, so we aim to ensure that our brightest are stretched as they would be in a grammar but with the ethos of a comp. Some of us are better at it than others.

One of the ways in which they're helped and supported is by allowing them to mix with other children with higher aspirations and good behaviour and not by writing them off and putting them with each other where they have no role models or evidence of other ways of doing things. I agree that pupils should not be allowed to disrupt others' learning, I just think segregated education exacerbates the problem for all but the top performers (who are clearly doing fine in spite of any disruption or lack of it).

I think that if there is not disruption in the classroom then the impact of disruptive children outside the classroom would/should be fairly minimal in a school with good discipline policies and decent SMT.

One problem teacher is that comps have a wide variety of policies and procedures re setting and streaming. You can't just assume that if your DC is highly able they'll be always in classes with others of similar ability.

Another is that yes, often able children ARE negatively affected by the prevailing ethos of the school as a whole, and are not protected from that just by being in a particular class. There is plenty of opportunity for bullying, belittlement and negative peer pressure at games, lunchtimes etc.

And possibly the worst problem of all is that the downward pressure on able childrens' education doesn't only come from other children. Often it comes from the school itself.

In a struggling school with poor results and many problems of disruptiveness, the focus will usually be on getting the maximum number of GCSE students getting at least a C, because that's the cutoff for the government's main target, reflected in league tables etc. This means that such schools have little incentive to care about the brightest students. They know they're going to get As or at least Bs anyway, and it's not in their interest to put the resources and effort into the difference when they are so overstretched just trying to stop the lower middle from collapsing. Grammars OTOH are not judged on how many Cs they get, they are judged on the difference between As and A*s. (Actually, I'm not as grade-obsessed as this sounds - I'm more interested in the whole quality of the educational experience. But the same principle applies, regarding stretching the brightest students).

I'm not making this up. It was exactly and explicitly how my DS's primary school worked. Parent-teacher evenings, we would basically say (in a perfectly friendly and non-confrontational manner) - so what about handwriting / maths / whatever - how's he going with X? Do you think he should be doing Y? etc. And the answer was always the same: "He's above average at everything, so don't worry". That was it, as far as they were concerned they'd done their job with that simple statement, and we had no further need to engage about his education.

We might have been able to find him a secondary that didn't operate the same way, but in the area where we lived it didn't seem worth the risk. He's now in a grammar, feels completely at home, and valued because he is stretched and made to think.

I really think you're naive if you think that all or even most comps - particularly those in poorer areas - cater effectively for the most academic and motivated students. I'm all for it in theory, but in practice we need to consider what actually happens.

I agree five, we have some disruptive students in our school, not a huge number but they exist. They do not disrupt the learning of other classes and if they appear to be a disruption within their own class and will not stop they are removed and have to repeat the lesson with me after school.

I'm with you there fivecandles.

Yes, there might be a small 'social' effect on the top set children - no more than they might get e.g. walking down the high street on an average Saturday, say - but that would not normally have an 'academic' effect in class as the effect on learning and teaching within the classroom containing those children would be minimal.

And as I say, much, much less harm than failing a whole raft of children by segregating them into a separate institution..

lequeen, the bottom line is that

1. you seem to have had a bad experience of local comps near you (where there are grammar schools) and you are using this experience to cast doubts about the comprehensive system as a whole in spite of the fact that there is evidence (good exam results) which undermines your assertions.

2. you have made it clear that your main if not only concern is that those students who are already performing well (and most of whom almost certainly from privileged backgrounds) should not be bothered by students who are not as lucky/well behaved. You have offered no valid advantages for a 2 tier system for those who do not get into the grammar school i.e. the majority of children.

I wrote a long reply-it took me half an hour and then the thread was full and I lost it!

I think that LeQueen has never seen a good comprehensive. To answer the last thread it is complete rubbish that DCs mess about when the teacher isn't looking and that the bright DCs are unusual and get picked on. The local paper puts their photo in the paper in August with the names of the high achievers. They are in the paper when they beat the local private schools in debating. It is cool to be intelligent.

I live in a an area of high parental expectation and they simply wouldn't stand for it. The only time that my DS had his lessons disrupted (he was in lower sets-it simply doesn't happen in high ones) I phoned up and it was sorted. The disruptive are removed-they have to work in isolation-they do not get break with the rest.
The top end is huge-there are no grammar schools.

Teachers send their DCs to the same school, which tells you a lot. If they don't like them at the same school they teach in, they go to another comprehensive. Some pay of course-teachers have the same choice as anyone else.

Those in lower sets don't mind-why would they want to be in a set where they didn't understand the work? They can go up and often do.
DS2 was in lower sets but he had most of his friends in higher sets, he had a mix of friends. He scraped a C in English at GCSE (I was hugely proud, he is dyslexic) his girlfriend got an A at A level for English. Why should they be at different schools, why should my DS not have the choice of academic DCs as friends? He isn't academic but he isn't stupid! He can be on equal level with his girlfriend.

The thing wrong with the education system is that there should be a 2 tier exam system- instead of having far too many A* students ,and far too many with no qualifications. We need to have courses that are technical, vocational and practical- and take pride in them. We need to stop making the practical e.g. woodwork, academic-teach skills and not include lots of written work.

There is no reason why they should be in different schools.

I find it deeply hypocritical to say that you don't mind your DC not getting a grammar school place, but you would pay for a private education-a secondary modern school is OK for other people's DCs -who are patronisingly told they have other strengths, but not for your own. (it is not comprehensive if the top is missing).

Every DC deserves the BEST and if a school isn't good enough for your DC it isn't good enough for anyone's DC. In fact it is deeply insulting to say that most DCs can be dumped in a school that you would pay to avoid.

Confidence as a teacher I am judged by how may students meet their target. If a student in my class is targeted an A* and gets a B I need to explain why.

We also report on our number of A*, it is a key focus of the school and of key interest to OFSTED.

Confidence, yes, there are poor primaries, and poor comprehensives. But that doesn't mean that the whole system should be replaced by a 2-tier system that fails so many.

DS is in Year 6 at a local state primary and the discussions with his teachers do not sound like yours ... 'Yes, he's Level 5 at this point in the year, so this is what we are doing to extend these more able mathematicians' etc

Agree with exotic, with the single caveat - LeQ has seen NO comprehensives AT ALL, not just no good ones. She has seen secondary moderns, in a grammar area.

To be fair to LeQueen if you have seen a poor school in action it is demoralising. I have worked in dire comprehensives and even me with my lefty ways considered the independent sector - albeit briefly and flirted with the idea of a grammar school. Having seen an outstanding comp with motivated and successful staff it has opened my eyes to how things should be.

I agree that a) disruption of any kid should not interrupt learning and b) that bright students deserve attention and challenge too

However, while I can see how segregation would help deliver those aims for a a minority of top performing students who are already doing well and almost certainly have supportive parents, I cannot see any advantages for the rest.

I can see how parents of top performing students might want their students to be taught separately BUT please be honest about your motivation.

Any system of segregation will further benefit the already privileged, it will not help those who are not.

And it is not in the interests of the MAJORITY of all our children.

LeQ, you have still failed to explain to me how it affects the 'top set' child's learning in the classroom to have to share the corridor with less academic children if the school has decent discipline procedures in place?

I am sorry that the secondary moderns you have been in do not have those, and I am also surprised that you use this experience as an argument FOR a grammar system when you have such inside knowledge of the downside of exactly the system you advocate.

It is also laughable that grammar schools are seen as places without bullying. I know a boy who was beaten up as he got off his school bus ,by boys at the same grammar school-his nose was broken!
They are full of high achieving boys-often good at sport too-boys that see themselves as 'alpha' males and they can be deeply unpleasant and intolerant. You don't have to fail the 11+ to bully others!