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.

As for there being true comprehensives in non-grammar areas - many areas will lose more children to independent schools than they will to highly selective state schools. Many will lose children from particular backgrounds to religious state schools, so I doubt there are any true comprehensives.

I think that this would be true in places like London. It isn't true in my area. There is one C of E comprehensive but no more than one or two DCs per year go there because it is in a different town and so means years of churchgoing and being very involved with the church. It isn't worth doing, unless you are a devout Christian. One person who spent years building up points to do it then went to the open day at our local comprehensive and found she preferred it!
Very few per year go to private schools from the state system-no more than one or two and generally none. I am in a position to know having done supply teaching in most year 6 classes in the town. (and there are some very clever DCs)

I still wonder where you get all this disruption from Milly and why you think that parents in our area would put up with it?!
There is a discipline policy-disruptive DCs do not stay in the classroom causing more disruption. They are given work and supervision in isolation.

Do you agree with grammar schools Milly if your DC is at the secondary modern?

If there was wider acceptance that parents and teachers don't really support comprehensive

In my experience most parents and teachers support comprehensive education. Why would a teacher want to teach in a school where the best talent is missing? Why would parents want one DC at a grammar school and one at a secondary modern?
Grammar schools are supported by teachers who only want to teach the top small percentage and parents who think their DC would get a place!
(the parents might get a shock-their DC might not!)

We supposedly live in a comprehensive area but there are other factors at play.

1. This is an area with pockets of incredible affluence because of its proximity to the City. A large proportion of children go to independent school.

1. The next county is a grammar area and it will take exceptional children form out of catchment.

1. The best state school in the area is a faith school. It is impossible to get in unless you attend the requisite church regularly.

1. This area is well known as being a hub for home educators. They are small but not insiginicant in number.

So as you can imagine the comps here have their issues.

Greythorne - just read your post from yesterday about the comp you attended in the 80s in Lancashire.

I also went to a comp in Lancashire in the 80s and it was EXACTLY as you described - could we possibly have gone to the same school???

The problem in my school was that it had in the not-very-distant past been a secondary modern and the whole school had the mindset and low expectations of a secondary modern. It had the same head and senior teaching staff from the secondary modern days who had no idea how to stretch brighter pupils.

Near the end of my time there the old head and a lot of the "old guard" retired and a new head came in. Within a year I could see the difference the new, enthusiastic head had made due to his refusal to accept low standards in either academic performance or discipline. I hear it is now the most sought after school in the area and people are falling over themselves to move into the village in order to be in the catchment area.

By contrast, my DDs comp has very high expectations in both areas and gets the results. it really is cool to be a high achiever in this school and the minority of wasters are looked on with pity by the majority. I really wish i could have gone to this school myself!

This is a real comprehensive in action.

In the 80s, at least in Lancashire, I think the hangover from the recently abandoned grammar school system was still having an influence. the ex-secondary moderns still had low expectations and the ex-grammars were the sought after, high achieving schools. I went to an ex-grammar school for sixth form (the ex SM of course had no sixth form) and the difference in attitude in a school which was now a comprehensive also was amazing.

lequeen I also think one of the greatest distractions in lessons comes from good old fashioned noise.

I recall often not being able to even hear the teacher at school above the constant sea of chattering, laughing, scraping chairs etc.

Similarly, I was astonished when I went to collect a friend's child for her and the class was bedlam. They were only little tots, so we're not talking really poor behaviour but good lord, it was so noisy. There was a child trying to read to the teacher in a corner, while in the rest of the class two other pupils were listening to two seperate story tapes, a table of girls were singing and several little boys were literally running around in circles. It was unbelievable.

"Teacher you say this, but we're in a grammar area, and I've just been doing some research and our most local secondary modern has an Outstanding Ofsted, and 81% of children get grades A-C at GCSE."

What that means - and as I have said above - is that grammar schools are, in the main, in nice leafy areas. So in fact, should a comprehensive system become universal, you would not (in your area) get those 'sink' comrehensives you most fear. You would almost certainly get good comprehensives (unless you were terribly unlucky with staff selection) simply by virtue of catchment area and local social mix. No school, of any type, has NO difficult pupils and wholly engaged parents (no, not even a grammar or a private school - I know a family in a grammar area where the whole business of schooling is pretty much delegated to whichever au pair is with the family at the moment).

The comprehensives who really do struggle are in the toughest areas, the areas of high deprivation, the areas of high unemployment etc. You don't live in one of those, so that isn't what you would get if your area turned comprehensive.

The question then is, given that the type of area in which you live would mitigate against truly 'sink' comprehensives arising, in what type of school system would the HIGHEST PROPORTION of children succeed?

My DS1 has just started at grammar school. He is very academic and I have no doubt it is the best school for him. Had he not passed, he would have gone to a 'true' comprehensive, which is out of our county but only just. I was happy with that school but felt that grammar school was the best place for him.
DD will apply for grammar in 2 years - again if she doesn't pass I am more than happy for her to go to the comprehensive. DS2 is a whole other issue and who knows where he'll end up.
Our grammar schools cover the whole borough - some leafy areas and some terrible estates. It is not just the middle class who get in, everyone who's bright and whose parents are bothered can apply. And yes, I know children who got in without tutoring

But 3 you would send any children who didn't pass to an out of county comprehensive, not to a secondary that is linked to your grammar system. If grammars were country-wide there would be no comprehensives and you wouldn't have that option. Where would that leave your less-academic offspring then?

Behaviour will be best in a private school because they can be asked to leave-they do not have the difficulties that a state school has to go through to exclude a DC (and if they are excluded they get another school).

Had to chuckle at this comment from exotic fruits. At DCs comp, the lad that was expelled walked straight into the local private school - he was found trying to sell weed at 10am and expelled by 11.30am.

So not always difficult to expel from state schools.

Not read the whole thread but can I just point out for the millionth time that you can have comprehensive schools and grammar schools.

We live in a village between two towns, one town is all comps and the other town is a grammar and secondary modern. We are in the catchment area for the grammar and for the comps. However we are not in the catchment area for the secondary modern even though its closer than the grammar.

It's the sneers, and dirty looks, the muttered comments in class, the muted jeering in the corridors...the insiduous inference that being clever, and doing all your homework on time is nerdy, pathetic and desperately unc-cool.

I don't know how many times I have to say that this is not true in all comprehensives. It isn't true in my area-the 'cool' DCs are the winners-the ones who are clever, do their homework and get the results. The very successful ones are pictured in the local paper-they are proud and happy and they know perfectly well that they will not be jeered at! It is 'cool' to be clever. (I think that people watch too much television or live in London or live in an area with poor schools).

That is the whole problem jgbmum, had he gone to another state schools it would take weeks for him to be expelled.

I have 3 very different DCs, DC1 is academic, DC2 is unacademic but very practical and DS3 is the middle of the road, artistic dreamer. I fail to see why they have to go to different schools.

I think that you ought to take into account that only the top few percentage of DCs would get to grammar schools-they are for the academic, they are not for the average or even the moderately above average. Most DCs are average (that it what the word means) and most DCs wouldn't get a place-and even most MN's DCs wouldn't get places!

word funny you should say that, DD2 is standing for the School Council elections this week, and on her manifesto is her wish To make our classroom quieter, it's too noisy and I can't hear Mrs. XYZ

I think that you must live in an area of poor state schools and will insist on linking it to all state schools, whatever the area. I was supply teaching in quite a few schools-your DD wouldn't have to have that as a manifesto-teachers don't talk unless they are being listened to in my area -and they do a lot of talking!

My 2 DDs are at a comp. DD1 is a straight A student and is now at a RG uni. DD2 is heading the same way.

They have never been bullied for working hard, infact the students are actually encouraged to work hard and have ambition to do well in life.
There is only one rule-Respect all people and property.
Mobiles are banned, uniform is very strict. The students do a lot of community work. It's a bloody good school, as are the other 3 nearby comps.

Some of the generalisations about comprehensives on this thread are ridiculous.

My dd is at a state primary, she has been picked on for being rich, for being poor, for not being allowed to dress like a tart. She has never ever been picked on for being hard working or clever.

I deal with fall outs and bullying at work, I cannot remember hearing that someone was making mean comments about being clever or working hard.

I am glad that I am not the only one with schools like that QuickLookBusy-I can't imagine all this sneering about being clever and hard working-not when the majority are just that!

You're right , I wouldn't send them to the local high school as it's terrible! No one from our primary school sent their child there this year. There are other high schools around us that are ok. The out of county school is only 5 miles away. The grammar schools are our nearest schools

Exoticfruits, you are quoting me out of context. My point was that parents and teachers pay lip service to comprehensive education but they don't actually want to teach highly disruptive children or have their children in a classroom with highly disruptive children. People on this thread who claim to support comprehensive education have clearly stated this. They moan and complain about the top few percent being taken out of grammar school and how this is ruining comprehensive education, but are strangely silent on the matter of the bottom few percent being removed. Surely this also destroys the experience of a truly comprehensive education?

In answer to your question, there are no secondary modern schools in my area. I don't know what exactly the curriculum is at a secondary modern school or how it differs from the curriculum in a comprehensive so I can't comment on it. I said in my first post that I have one child who will probably go to the local comprehensive (she sits the 11 plus this year) and yes, I am happier to be in a grammar school area because at least one of my children is in a grammar school and getting an excellent education.

Aaargh we'renot moaning about the top few being taken out, we're saying it's not fair that they get the good education and everyone else doesn't.

Why are you happy to be in a grammar area where one of your children is getting an excellent education, if you were in a good comprehensive area all of your children could have an excellent education - wouldn't that be preferable?

If current education is so wonderful, why is there a boom in tutoring?

A recent survey of schoolchildren in England and Wales aged 11 to 16 found that 23% of children have received some private tuition at some point in the past. This is up from 18% the last time the research was carried out.
Most children said they needed "help in a particular exam" which I assumed was principally 11+ tutoring but it actually says that "pupils aged 15 and 16 were most likely to be tutored"

Although the wealthy did more tutoring than the poor, I found this posting in the comments section interesting: "The poor parents are, if anything, more desperate for their children to succeed than the well-off ones, because they know that their only alternative is comprehensive schools, of which they are all very scared, while the well-off parents know that they do at least have the option of buying their way into a lesser independent if their child doesn't get into one of the [good State schools]. Or to put it another way, as a Pakistani parent said to me on one occasion, 'I came all the way here to get a better life for my children. Why is it that the schools here are all so much worse than the schools I left behind me in Karachi?' "

So, in the good old days, a Grammar school place was the way out of poverty. Now it is tutoring.

article

No, onemoremum, because I don't believe that comprehensive schools provide a decent education, as I have said before. It is all very well people saying that their local comprehensive school in some posh area is wonderful, but I can't afford to live in those areas. As such, it is in my children's best interests to live in an area where selection is by aptitude not post code.

You are clearly unprepared to listen to anybody else's perspective. It has nothing to do with the existence of a grammar school that my local comprehensive forces children to take GCSEs at 13. It has nothing to do with the grammar school that the comprehensive school forces children to take vocational BTECs at GCSE. I went to a much smaller comp in a grammar school area and we could do a full range of academic, creative or practical subjects. Comprehensive schools are now forcing children down particular paths now because they are chasing Cs in easy subjects at GCSE for league table reasons.

Our comprehensive school isn't that far behind the grammar in the league tables, but if you take a closer look at what 5 GCSEs kids are getting, the difference becomes obvious.