'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?

I work with kids now in Scotland with kids in the NEET group. They haven't a single qualification. I strongly believe that if they had been sent down the vocational path instead of made to sit subjects they had no interest in and were never going to pass they would be a hell of a lot better off now. Not all children are the same and not all want to do academic subjects.

Presumably they didn't attend school regularly enough to follow any path. They could certainly have chosen a more practical route had they wished. At standard grade, as well as English and Maths (basic literacy and numeracy at the lower levels), in most schools they could have opted for PE, Art and Design, Craft and Design, Home Economics and Technology.

Intelligence is composite & can't accurately be measured by an IQ test. Neither can an IQ test predict suitability for/whether you'd thrive in a Grammar but I appreciate that's not a widely held or popular opinion.

No, I agree with that. You can score highly on an IQ test without being able to write a coherent sentence. You can also score more highly on an IQ test by practising doing IQ tests.

If the comprehensives in your area are crap, then Grammar is the only option.

Scarlett, regarding your foster son, it sounds more like a failing in Learning Support provision, rather than the comprehensive system, per se.

The problem with many of the children I work with is that their literacy and numeracy is so poor that classroom based study resulting in exams is just not possible for them. What they actually need are life skills leading on to them being able to do jobs they actually want to do. I know it is controversial but I actually think allowing them to leave at fourteen to go into practical apprenticeships isn't a bad idea, especially if they are not going to get anything out of staying on to sixteen. I meet many young boys who just want to get a trade and young girls who want to be hairdressers/ beauticians etc and have spent aged fourteen to sixteen totally disengaged from school- even when doing the standard grades previously mentioned.

Cecily- the school are trying their best, he has a support assistant etc and is in a small class for Maths, however for the other subjects there are simply too many children across to great a spectrum of abilities for the teacher to cater for them all. And he is disruptive because he can not cope with the level of work and therefore is holding the very brightest back.

And round and round we go. if you live in a grammar school area, there are, by definition, no grammar schools.

The literacy and numeracy needed to have got a grade 5 or 6 at Standard Grade is really quite basic - and it is a level achieved in English and Maths by over 90% of Scottish pupils. Reader/scribes are often employed for pupils with low literacy. People offering apprenticeships have their pick of young people with those grades and above, so it is hard to see young people with no qualifications being particularly attractive to any employer, unless they have something else tangible to offer.

Sorry, I was basing what I was saying on Children getting anything below a four at standard grade. I personally do not see anything less than that as a pass.

I would agree that most employers would be looking for grade 4's to be offering apprenticeships - unless a family member will take you on - it is quite competitive. There are other jobs available which are not so dependent on school qualifications. They need to show they have been doing something.

The reality is that if we got rid of grammar schools entirely and only had comps, we would not have a better education system for the 77% as seeker calls it (surely less than that nationally, as the number of grammar schools these days is v low), just worse education for the 23% (or whatever).

The rich will cntinue to buy better educatin but the poor but bright will not have the opprtunity to access the highest quality specialist academic education any more.

Plus buying a better education by house prices will become even more rife.

It would mean that people like myself, my dd and many, many members of my family, who all benefitted or benefit from a grammar school education but are not rich as we are academics, teachers etc,would have ended up in a school that did not fully meet our needs. And Oxbridge and the govt would be even more full of thick rich kids.

Maybe your idea of paradise but not mine. Grammars promote social mobility. That's why David Cameron has no interest in promoting them. The electorate would love them. Big Daily Mail campaign in favour now.

"But I think there should be some mobility between the grammars and those that go to the 'secondary moderns' - perhaps some 13+ places for the late developers?"

That would mean two years of a child languishing in the wrong stream. A child needs to be moved into the correct class within weeks if there has been an error.

The problem is with this that the grammar school would have to kick out the thick kids who aren't keeping up to make room. This would result in law suits from the super rich who have paid for private school and tutoring to get their child into the grammar.

I would prefer the comprehensive system to be adapted rather than grammars. A child needs to be in a class with 30 kids of similar ablity or if they have moderate special needs - a class of 10 with a TA.

Prehaps grammar schools should have a rule that any child who is not level 7 in maths and English by the end of year 8 should be kicked out.

No excuses, no compassionate grounds, no allowances for special needs or anything. Lets be completely ruthless and not give a damm for the feelings of happiness of the child. Friendship groups are for the weak and the weak don't deserve friends.

Afteral ten years olds are treated with the same level of fairness. My mother could not sit the 11 plus because she had mumps. She had to wait until 13 to join the grammar even though it was blatent from a primary school work she would have coped.

I am being devil's advocate. But the unfairness of the grammar system still exists. A child in Kent with mumps would be sent to high school.

"Maybe your idea of paradise but not mine. Grammars promote social mobility. That's why David Cameron has no interest in promoting them. The electorate would love them. Big Daily Mail campaign in favour now."

If you think grammar schools promote social mobility then you are sadly mistaken. Maybe they did once- I don't know. But now they are exclusively populated by the children of the professional middle classes.

Really you might be right in many cases. But in dd's last primary, they had separate sessions for 11+ (dd would not do them because they made her anxious, hence she practiced 4 times at home instead having seen the choice of schools and chosen selective - it was hideous)Anyway, in her class were 11+ kids, below Sats level 4 kids and average kids, different 'streams' sharing same tables doing different work. So mixed ability can obv work if done properly. If it works years R - 6 why not yr 7 up?

Seeker - If you think grammar schools promote social mobility then you are sadly mistaken. Maybe they did once- I don't know. But now they are exclusively populated by the children of the professional middle classes.

could that not be because the only areas that fought to keep them were very middle class areas? They used to promote social mobility because they had grammer schools in all towns in all parts of the country and poor children got to go to them too.

That is certainly not the case in northern ireland seeker. This could be because there are more grammars and all the primary schools have a large proportion of children going on to them. My husbands father is a joiner and mother shop assistant, my dad didn't go to uni, best friends parents blue collar workers, she is now a barrister.

Also on social mix, the majority on fsm (like dd) have a disabled parent, hence benefit claimants
Many of us were middle class professional workers pre disability, so not you typical benefit scrounger chav. You get a better cklassof scrounger at the grammars

Certainly, my own and my family's experience of grammar schols is that they absolutely do provide social mobility. My uncle arrived in this country as a penniliess refugee, living in a hostel, and became a top Oxford professor via a grammar school.

I agree that grammar schols are probably less meritocratic than when I got into one, from a not stunningly wealthy background, r when my parents-in-law, who came from v poor/uneducated backgrounds, got into theirs, in the heyday of grammar schools in the 50s, but that is not an excuse for ending the grammar system - it's a reason t return to the best parts of the system as it then was - a local grammar school for every child who reached the standard, so that there was no need for the current caching madness to get one of the very few, precious places.

As stated before, we need to ensure the disadvantages of the system as it then was do not also return ie the return of the secndary modern.

But you have still not answred the point, seeker, why you see that as the only possible alternative type of school in a grammar school system. scarlettsmummy's point stands - that for many kids an academic education in the same schools as the v academic children is not actually the best option.

It seems to me that you are the real snobs, by seeing anyone who has practical rather than academic talents as 'failures'. That's not how the world works. In reality, peple with practical skills are very much in demand and likely to be as well or higher paid than academics. Or teachers.

Being god at exams is one skill, but certainly not the only thing schools should be teaching or the only thing that will benefit all children.

I'm v good at passing exams but humbly in awe of people who can do things I can't, like drive, type properly, make things etc etc ad infinitum. I don't look down on them or see them as failures because they are not as good at exams as I am. Why do you? and why must we all be educated in a ne-size-fits-all schhol when in reality, our interests and strengths are completely different?

Excuse sticky 'o' on keyboard.

Also, with regards to those from poor families not getting to go to grammars, this has very much not been the case in nationalist working class areas of Belfast, where following on from the troubles the catholic primary schools have really pushed for catholic children to get into the grammars. One of my friends is currently working in a catholic primary in the ardoyne, which is a very deprived area, and she was telling me recently how the children are being geared up for the 11 plus from p1 and that the parents are totally behind it as they do see going to the grammar as a route to social mobility.

I don't look down on anyone- I just observe the system and the children who fail or are told not even to take the test frequently- not always, obviously, see themselves as failures.

And I just don't believe that the 23% that pass are all the intellectuals you seem to think they are. Neither do I regard the other 77% as necessarily more suited to vocational or skills based education. How can we possibly know whether children in that 77% might turnout to be suited to a more academic education givennthe choice? Or children in the 23% might actually be happier doing child care or hairdressing BTECs than Latin GCSE?

And I can assure you, there is practically no social mobility in the system in Kent. Occasionally a middle class child fails. But it is incredibly rare for a working class child to pass.

But no-one is forcing the children in the 23% to go down the grammar route if that is not where their interests lie. so they can do hairdressing etc. Or do that post school.

And I don't think that everyone in the 23% is 'an intellectual' whatever yu mean by that. I just think that peple who both are motivated to apply to a grammar school and go there and are good enough to get in will probably have academic interests.

That said, i think the whole tutoring thing is silly, as I think a child who is borderline will actually do much better and be much more confident being top of a comp than bottom of a grammar - my dd's best friend is in this position - she is now G&T at a reasonable comp which she would never have been in a grammar and wasn't at primary because the grammar school kids always took on that role - now she is blooming and her confidence is growing hugely.

You also seem to be equating class and money. Why shouldn't bright middle class kids go to grammar school exactly? What do you mean by working class?