'new' grammar schools in kent...

[oliverreed]

well, not technically. The local authority have been given the go-ahead for two (I think) annexe grammar schools in Sevenoaks. Gove is surely rubbing his hands with glee. I agree with the decision as pressure on places in this area is causing a lot of heartache for many families whose children are travelling a long way, but is it paving the way for the creation of new grammar schools.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts?

metabilis- is that the school with the massively over-paid head whose wife is a massively paid deputy?

All my kids have statements. But they are deemed 'not SEN' for the purposes of DfES stats since they are all either at the expected level for their age or exceeding it (a bit of a fudge there for DS since he got a 3A for the writing bit of his English SAT in Y6 but since he got a 5 for speaking and listening and a 4 something for the reading the overall mark was a 4. He is actually achieving well below his potential (he has dyslexia and some Mild AS issues) but for the purposes of the stats, this is irrelevant.

"All my kids have statements. But they are deemed 'not SEN' for the purposes of DfES stats"

How on earth is the schools doing this? And more to the point, why? SEN attracts funding!

@duchesse that was a long time ago though since your DS is now at university. Every single secondary school in the city has been rebuilt in the last few years at massive expense to deliver - not much, in my opinion. The GS has not been rebuilt at all. However since I had most of my education in portacabins I'm not one of those people who think that a sprauncey building automatically improves the quality of the education on offer. I have very fond memories of thise poracabins. After all, the scandal school (which you have of course correctly identified) has the swishest buildings imaginable (I've been in there, I'm guessing you haven't?).

It's not in the city, it's CVCC.

Our county LEA is rather peculiar.

A few years ago, they tried to remove my friend's 10yo severely autistic, epileptic and non-verbal DS's statement altogether. Another friend with a DS with evident ASD was refused a statement assessment altogether and told he was a) naughty, b) they knew how to deal with him (they didn't and c) his problems were caused by poor parenting. He is now living in a sheltered facility in a different county to which they moved to get adequate support. Even so they needed to employ a specialist barrister to threaten negotiate with their new LEA.

@seeker it's not the schools that are doing it, it's the DfES. There was a policy change a few years ago, apparently.

Haven't read the whole thread, but picking up a point on grammar school funding - where I live there are a few 'residual' grammar schoools, the only local one is superselective (c. 100 applicants per place). For all of them, their LEA funding is only part of the funding as they all have significant endowment income from historic gifts and endowments. Therefore, whatever the LEA formula for funding (which might well be slightly lower on average than the neighbouring non-grammar schools, as the proportions of children who attract extra funding for their support e.g. EAL, SEN are very low) the total funding pot is much larger, particularly insofar as large capital projects are concerned.

@duchesse has that not been rebuilt? That's an outrage. I used to know someone who taught there but she moved to Cornwall. Is it in the same LEA though? Or is it in ED? Still outrageous though.

The dreadful and upsetting situations you report re those poor families don't surprise me. But it's not just our LEA, it's a national thing. :(

It is the same LEA- all the county's schools are apart from Torbay which is a unitary authority. It's been kept hanging on for years re rebuilding/modernisation. They were given 2 million a couple of years ago to buy some prefab classrooms as they were bursting at the seams.

@duchesse Plymouth also is unitary. CV has become an academy though which might let it access more funding? A lot of the kids from DS's school go there for 6th form, to avoid the college (I know your DD is very happy there, but I guess it's not for everyone). But I don't know personally anyone who has gone there.

Everything will change with the new town being built over that way though, I suppose.

Anyway, we have gone well off topic gradually over the course of this thread. Clearly most people on the thread don't like grammars, but some of us do. It remains to be seen what relevance most of this will have to the students in Sevenoaks.

"@seeker it's not the schools that are doing it, it's the DfES. There was a policy change a few years ago, apparently."

I haven't been able to track down anything like this-any clues where I can look?

@ exotic fruits

'The simplistic approach is often the correct one. If you cherry pick your DCs in the first place then educating them should be easier. '

Why do you think this to be the case? This would only apply if yu think 'educating' = getting all kids up to minimum standards. In that case, yes, the brightest would reach those standards quicker. But if, as I (a teacher) believe, that education is about enabling EVERY child to reach their potential - and that includes the brightest ones - then it is no easier to enable that than it is to help the least academic achieve theirs.

What matters is surely that every child gets an appropriate education - and grammar schools happen to provide that for some - but not all - kids.

B&B, The point is, though, that the two sets:

"Children for whom a grammar school would provide a suitable education" and
"Children who get into a grammar school"

do not fully overlap.

Equally, the set
"Children for whom ONLY a grammar school [and not a decent comprehensive school in an all-comprehesive system] can provide an appropriate education" is very small, certainly much, much smaller than the set
"Children who get into a grammar school", and again those two sets probably don't fully overlap, as in many areas exactly those children who grammar schools were set up to educate (the exceptionally bright children from poorer backgrounds for whom private education was out of reach) are not in a position to receive the intensive coaching in grammar school entry papers that is necessary to get into the most selective grammar schools.

I always find it interesting that the educational outcomes for all children are essentially the same in grammar counties and in similar counties which do not have grammars - so even if there are (small) additional benefits for the tiny minority who can ONLY find a suitable education in a grammar school (as opposed to a good comprehensive in a similar county) then these are balanced by disbenefits elsewhere in the systen.

In other words, while a grammar school may provide the most appropriate education available for some children in all-grammar areas, it does not follow that the vast majority of those children could not access an appropriate education if they lived in an all-comprehensive area.

(Anecdotal aside, from an acquaintaince who teaches in our local superselective "Well, my job's easy, really. They learn by themselves mostly, I don't really have to teach at all. And I don't have any problems with behaviour or motivating them. Don't think I could handle going back to a real teaching job after this.")

But teacher with2kids- surely you are mistaken! Teaching 'less bright kids' is 'a piece of piss'. A teacher here has already stated that! And I have been challenged to name my profession because how could I possibly disagree??!

Rather a few years ago, I went on the walkabout at my DB's soon to be secondary, a SM. A year later I went to my secondary, a GS. The facilities at my DB's SM were far superior to my GS, streets ahead. But my GS turned out far superior exam results. Can't for the life of me think why, seeing as the only difference was that the GS took the top 15% of girls. measured academicaly.... Maybe it WAS the 'piece of piss' teaching at the SM?!

TW2K, not entirely true re: educational outcomes, Sutton is top of the LAs GCSE table last year according to the BBC and has 5 superselectives. When only a tiny percentage go to the GS everyone benefits.

Totally agree with you though when you talk about all-grammar areas like Kent and perhaps more rural areas where a higher percentage go to GS. I think top 5% of the 11+ going to GS seems like the best amount (Kingston also has superselectives and is also near the top of the LEA tables).

And before everyone jumps on me for saying "everyone benefits" let me clarify. I mean that there are still good comps because only about 5% (probably less) are "creamed off" to GS and there are hardly any (only 1 for girls in Sutton) private secondaries as most middle class parents would prefer a GS. This means that the "creaming off" based on money is fairly rare. You may say that is elitest that MC parents try for GS by hook or by crook but it certainly means the demand for private schools is less and so the MC kids that don't get in tend to go to the comps which naturally increases results, parental involvement etc for all the reasons mentioned through this thread (unless they go to Croydon or Wimbledon and most people can't afford it as the house prices are so vast in a GS area ).

I truly believe the comprehensive schools benefit from the lack of privates more than they lose out to the Grammar Schools in Sutton.

littentree - astonished you made it to grammar as you appear to have completely missed the point of my previous post.

I shall repost the relevant part for your benefit:
"This would only apply if yu think 'educating' = getting all kids up to minimum standards. In that case, yes, the brightest would reach those standards quicker. But if, as I (a teacher) believe, that education is about enabling EVERY child to reach their potential - and that includes the brightest ones - then it is no easier to enable that than it is to help the least academic achieve theirs. "

ie of course the selective kids get better results - but because the kids are brighter to start with, not because the other kids get an inferior education!!! Contrary to your beautifully naive belief, teachers aren't magicians - we can only work with what we've got. The point is 'value added' - not absolute scores - and there is no evidence to suggest that grammars routinely add less value ie that the pupils fail to make aapropriate progress relative to the levels they arrived at, than kids at comps or SMs.. If there was, there would be an outcry and middle class parents would happily desert them.

@ teacherwith2kids

Agree that the system as it stands is imperfect, and have said so repeatedly over the course of this thread. But I think the solution is to improve it, not to thrw the baby out with the bathwater.

More grammars so less pressure n those left, plus exam preparation for all pupils in year 5 and/r an exam that was harder to prepare for couldsolve that.

Re your friend who claims to do less work to teach at a superselective, can I suggest their lessons are shit?

My dd's lessons are fantastic, inspiring and certainly not easy to teach. I have huge admiration for her teachers and all the hard work they put in.

To be fair B&B you do get shit teachers at a grammar, we had some shockers. They tend not to get pulled up because they get good results anyway.

However I had some truly astounding teachers that had their work cut out teaching high ability classes. Teaching certain classes also may be a problem if you had real mathematical brains that couldn't cope with French or textiles for example. The worst part of their day must be dealing with fairly bizarre mischief, especially from a girls GS I would think! We had some corkers...

Just checked - my dd's grammar is second in our county in terms of value added . So I'm happy with that.

The elephant on the room. Do you care what happens to the 77% or not? Most mumsnetters don't.

I do think the waters have been very much muddied for grammar schools since all 16 yo began taking GCSEs, rather than O levels and CSEs, with a genuinely vocational strand. Some children genuinely need to begin vocational courses early on in secondary school in order to stay in education in a meaningful way (ie children who are very practically minded, desperate to get to work, and often struggling with the more academic aspects of learning). I do not believe that these children are currently well catered for in any school.

Similarly, from my experience of working in about a dozen comprehensives, I do not believe that in most schools the higher ability children are catered for adequately as in many the staff are all too busy (and exhausted) dealing with disruption both high- and low-level to have anything left for the higher achievers. Furthermore, in areas where there are a lot of lower-achievers, a certain educational entropy seems to set in as schools play a range of tricks to make their school not appear too shite in the blasted league tables.

Also IMO, it is NOT easy teaching either the lower ability (if you expect them to achieve) or the top ability and they keep you very very much on your toes, and nigh on bloody impossible to teach them all adequately in the same classes (as one was expected to do in MFL).

IMVHO, the only children for whom the current comprehensive is truly working is the middle range of ability- it's as though a bell curve has been drawn and an executive decision made not to worry too much about the bits at either end. Numbers seem more important than children achieving their potential.

Ime of working in comprehensives, the children who achieve most often have the strongest parental support, and those who do not the least. Tell me, how is that fairer? The more time goes on, the more I think that the Germans have it right with their three-part secondary system, in which they try to achieve excellence in every type of secondary education.