Grammar schools -a "think" piece.

[seeker]

New readers start here. I live in a small town in Kent. We have a fully selective secondary education system,- children take 11+ tests in Sepetember of year 6, and are allocated either to the grammar school ( the "top" 23%) and the high school- the remaining 77%, which consists of those that don't reach the required mark in the test and those that didn't take it at all. The grammar school is an OFSTED outstanding school, with 99% a-c. The high school is a good school, with, if I recall 40% a-c. It has excellent vocational facilities and very good sport. There are no comprehensive schools in any sort of travelling distance. One or two children go to other selective schools in the area, and a few go private, but the vast majority go to either school A or school B. ( It's important to say here that I am only talking about a fully selective system here. The areas where there is a grammar school for the very top of the top 5% and all but comprehensives for everyone else are a different discussion)

The reason I think this is interesting in a broader context is that this is the model which many people would like to see replicated by the introduction of more grammar schools. To a grammar school enthusiast, it looks perfect. I think they sometimes forget that more grammar schools means more "secondary moderns" .

Living in in the middle of such system, is possible to see it's damaging, divisive consequences.

We have a town where children, at the age of 10, are told that they are not good enough for the grammar school, with all the societal and psychological problems this produces. The supporters of the system say that it isn't a "pass or fail" system- it is just an "allocation of appropriate school" system Which would be fine- if wasn't described as "passing" and "failing". If the town was not full of congratulations and comiserations when the results come out in March. If the children themselves were not fully aware-because they are not stupid- that tests produce passes and failures. And if the grammar school did not have less than 2% children with SEN and 2% FSM -against the high school's 27% and 22%.

Basically what we have is a comprehensive school cohort, but rigidly separated. The top set are educated completely separately half a mile away. There is no opportunity for kids at the high school to move into that top set if they suddenly discover an academic streak at the age of 12 or 13, and no opportunity for a Grammar school child to move if they discover that they are not as academic as they appeared on one day in their 10th September. Which a properly streamed comprehensive would provide. Such a school would also provide a proper top set, as well as opportunities for the less able. But there would be the possibility of movement. AND, crucially, you wouldn't have a massive group of kids who have been told, in however sugar coated a way, that they have failed at the age of 10. What's, as they say, not to like?

It's a rubbish system but not as rubbish as the so-called comprehensive system we live in.

We live in a rural village and the closest comprehensive is a truly sink school. Everyone who can ends up moving for a better catchment (hugely expensive housing, so selective by postcode), gets a faith or pays for private at secondary. The children who go to private tend to be the luckier ones who have wealthier parents as well as being bright.

Sadly this is the situation in many many places, so the "ideal" of having a comprehensive education doesn't always work. Parents who have the means will not send their children to a sink school and why should they.

At a risk of derailing my own thread, what defines a "sink school"?

The only answer is to make secondaries better so that people are happy to send their children there. And that means really good funding of SEN depts, properly staffed and funded vocational subjects as well as the traditional academic subjects and a very strong headteacher. This was tried in the county next to me and for a while it was THE school to go to, but the charismatic Head left under a cloud and the school was damaged in an arson attack. Middle class support drained away and has been the sink school ever since. The area still has a public school, two grammars, one very good secondary (house prices reflect this), one poor secondary on the up - inspired new head, one middling one on the way down, and the sink one.

Unless you determine school selection by lottery (logistical horribleness for families) or remove choice completely and take a like it or lump it approach, which is unlikely in an era where you can set up your own school, then there always will be unfairness in the system - either by virtue of the house you can afford, faith, or selection by ability.

OP - I completely agree with you that the grammar/secondary modern model is crap. My elder DD travels across London to attend a super selective grammar school. The overwhelming reason I chose it was because of behaviour - she is very clever and would do well academically at any school. Ten years ago a new Headteacher took over at a nearby comp and transformed it from being undersubscribed and failing in all areas to being an Outstanding and sought after. The behaviour is better but far from perfect. Younger DD goes to that school. Academically the top stream are similar in ability in grammar kids; their results are not quite as good but still impressive and some kids go to Oxbridge etc. It is a very good school, not as fantastic as the grammar, but definitely good enough. I think there is a substantial minority of people, certainly in inner cities, who are completely alienated from the education system, because of poverty, special needs or simple bad parenting. I think these make up a substantial minority of DD2s comp intake, are non existent in the grammar, but probably form a larger proportion of the intake of non grammar schools in grammar school areas.

Sink schools - normally intake comes from an area of high unemployment/social deprivation, reflected in the numbers of FSM and also higher than average SEN (with a focus on EBD). Social work becomes more of a feature of a teacher's job than education. Weak head, difficulty recruiting staff who can both maintain discipline and teach (some can do one but not both), and so many competing needs hard to fund - e.g. sufficient SEN specialists and TAs for SEN support; fully staffed and resourced vocational courses.

Because there is a ceiling on funding I would like to see greater movement at 14 so pupils who want to follow a vocational path move to where the specialist courses and teachers are. Not all schools can fund and source motor mechanics, but why shouldn't there be one school in the area that is the beacon school for this? Or another than offers a fully equipped and staffed film production?

The test of whether it is really viewed as the most equitable and successful system for the population as a whole is whether you ever hear anyone saying, 'i wish we lived in XXX county, it's got a great secondary mod system'

Exactly Pendulum-it is easy to educated the top 23% or so of the population well-the real test is educating the rest.

I have a friend who is really pleased because she has recently moved house next to a very good grammar school. Her DC will take the 11-plus next year and while I expect (and hope for her sake) that they will pass, I do wonder how she will feel about the system if they don't.

We have already established that I am a hypocrite-I deliberately moved out of an 11+ area but I used it as a selling point so that I pointed out that it was in the catchment area of the grammar school. The people who bought it had a very bright DS-he failed. They appealed and even employed a solicitor to plead their case. He did not get a place.
There seems a massive assumption that a bright DC who would suit an academic education will get a place-this is simply not true. Maybe had the DS taken it the year after his marks would have got him a place-you are in marked competition with your year group-if you have a very bright one the number of places doesn't go up.

While those with money opt out for private and the middle classes manipulate the system, one way or another, you won't get a fair system for all.

Our education system needs to be devised by a very clever person who lives in the inner city, with a very low income and children of below average ability, but with a real work ethic and huge ambition-BUT such a person doesn't exist-they played the system long ago and got out!

Everyone deserves an excellent education. I hate the sentiment that the 11+ helps the DC from the disadvantaged background move up and out because the hidden message is -' if you are not very bright you should know your place and stay there'!! Of course they should have the opportunity, but no one 'should know their place'-everyone should be able to be upwardly mobile.

What grates is that so-called sink schools are having to plough the same GCSE furrow that is clearly not suited to a significant % of their pupils - hard to inspire a class of 30 if they all they can aspire to is an E grade. Yes, within their school will be pupils capable of taking and passing GCSEs but they are often educated disruptively alongside those who are in a system, to quote Willy Russell "designed and funded to fail" kids who can't pass. Modern apprenticeships need to start off in schools at 14.

Seeker - it's in a very affluent area, the rates aren't massively different, but it's still higher in the Grammar than the Secondary!

Most of the Social Housing has been built in the catchment for a far less well performing school, leaving the people whose DC are on FSM's much more likely to go to the worse performing school. Some of us, but not many, lucked into the very few Social Housing houses built IN the catchment for the better performing school. Hence a far lower proportion of FSM's at this school.

The local Secondary has 1,800 pupils, and a 2% rate of FSM's. The Grammar has a lot less pupils, but has a 3.5% rate of FSM's.

Yet the other Secondary school down the road has a 29% rate of FSM's...

Selection by affluence, more people that don't qualify for FSM's live in the catchment for my local school, as the houses command a overinflated premium on their price, with very little social housing as it is just the 5/6 per private development that the rules insist on.

Down the road, there is a whole estate of Hpusing Association houses, I.e. social housing, and far more people get FSM's.

It's the way it has always been, those with money can 'buy' a place at a better performing school for their DC, by buying s house in catchment, those without money have to take what they're given.

The Grammars go some way to addressing this, as an able poor DC can pass the 11+ and get a place. Thus bypassing the worse school by ability rather than money.

I fully believe that if ALL Secondaries were made to have as good an SEN Dept as DD's school, and we're as good as DD's school at stretching their more able pupils who didn't quite get into the Grammar due to shortage of spaces, then our education system would be fine.

Instead of bemoaning the Grammar schools, why din't people start INSISTING that ALL Secondaries are brought up to the same standard. I have seen a local school turned around from one of the worst performing in the County, to something approaching acceptable in just two years, their aim is to outperform my DD's school in another two years!

Yes exoticfruits -in his book A Theory of Justice John Rawls employs a thought experiment to show how the way to achieve the most just society is to take away people's knowledge of their own circumstances in that society.

This applies to this discussion as follows: if you had to design a school system, and knowledge of i) your own status in society b) your child's academic ability and c) your child's capability to perform better than their peers in a test at the age of 11 was hidden from you, would you design the grammar system?

(I went to a grammar school. I remember vividly the day a group of my friends phoned around each other to determine who had 'passed' and 'failed' the 11 plus. I remember the awkwardness and the sense of 'them and us'.)

Ugh! Excuse my spelling mistakes, Autocorrect is a bastard!

I think it's all down to an underfunded education system, and successive Governments that haven't done enough to fix the education system, Labour and Tory.

If every Secondary had a well funded SEN Dept and a teacher whose job it is to 'push' the more academic (just like DD's school), then every school would achieve near enough the same results, and would do away with the need for Grammar schools.

But it's never going to happen. Successive Governments have come up with ever crazier initiatives that waste money, instead of ploughing it into where it's actually needed, on the front line.

Inclusion has a lot to answer for IMO, too. So many specialised SEN schools have closed down, and their pupils sent to MS schools that don't have the funds to help them effectively. And if your school is the closest one to a SEN one that closes down, you are going to end up taking a much higher percentage of DC with SEN.

The schools with low pass rates aren't failing their higher achievers, they ARE the ones getting the 30% A*-C grades. It's the DC that AREN'T so academic or have SEN that are being failed in a lot of Secondaries.

I have read that the most socially selective state schools are comprehensives (presumably in very leafy suburbs) not grammars. At least there isn't the pass-fail issue at 11, but there's an awful lot wrong with the comprehensive system too.

ReportMeNow - what you are describing is what is happening in my town from September. 5 Secondaries are becoming an Academy Consortium, and DC will get offered many more Vocational Courses, as each school is going to have different specialist teachers, the DC will be able to choose when they do their options.

The DC won't travel to the other schools, or rarely, but the TEACHERS will go from school to school.

Also it means that the more academic will be taught at a much higher rate.

I am as to whether it will work, and the fact that this will start the year DD takes her options, BUT it has allowed my DD to take two technology subjects for GCSE, which she wouldn't have been able to do if she was in the year above.

It remains to be seen if this will drive up standards across all 5 schools, I am not an Academy fan, but it sounds like on paper it will work better for all DC...

It depends what you mean though by 'improving'. Some schools have improved (if you mean by increasing the 5A-C figs) by farming some of their worst performing students out of the system, massaging data (and exploit loopholes where an IT qualification can be worth 3 GCSES), tactically targeting the best teachers to teach the mid bands to get the E/D students to C, as the weakest won't pass anyway and the brighter will do ok. Because it's a system where schools live and die (or have Ofsted swoop in) on their exam results. That is not a system designed to do the best for the students in it.

If each course is funded properly and has a specialist within it, it can be great. Have seen it and it's fantastic. The problem often is, for instance, doing a qualification in Film but only having half a dozen cameras shared amongst a class of 30 that aren't up to spec, using outmoded film editing packages or, if they've invested in the IT software they often don't have the skilled staff who know how it works. And in some vocational subjects it's hard to get the level of expertise in front of the class on a teacher's wage.

This applies to this discussion as follows: if you had to design a school system, and knowledge of i) your own status in society b) your child's academic ability and c) your child's capability to perform better than their peers in a test at the age of 11 was hidden from you, would you design the grammar system?

This is the only way to get a fair system IMO, because they would have to ensure that those at the bottom got the opportunities.

The problem with the comprehensives is that they treat all DCs the same. At least the old secondary moderns treated them differently.

And that's why schools don't go the vocational route, as it's much harder to make it successful, compared with buying 30 texts books and sticking them behind a desk.

A lot of people who want their kids to go to grammars had a bad experience at comprehensive - bullied for being clever, feeling they were dumbed down or not stretched to their potential. Or at least feeling like the kids that went to the top fee paying schools had a better, more rounded education and already had massive advantages in life when they left - not even the academic results, but confidence, the ability to present themselves professionally, connections with people who can help get them into the career they want and a massive boost to their CV by merely having that particular prestigious school on it.

Some of the grammars in Kent are in the top 10 for all schools, fee paying and state, in the whole country. Of course people want their academically able kids to go. They want to make life as easy as possible for them, to give them as many choices in life as they can.

Personally I'd like to get rid of all private schools and faith schools and absorb them into the state system and make sure all schools provide an equally good education, and have a system where it doesn't matter who you know or what school you went to...but that isn't the system, and it isn't likely to change in the next few years, so I'm sure as hell going to make sure my kids get all the advantages possible in the current system. I wouldn't sacrifice their life chances for these political views.

To me and the majority of parents who actively will avoid the local comp....
it's a sink because:
32% (on a good year) of pupils get A-C
with 4% an ebacc
hardly any go onto selective unis
no real competitive sports
no music (ensembles, etc)
barbed wire around the premises
school falling apart, it looks really terrible
huge drug problem
parents who have been there as children say they would never send their children there, as some of the same teachers were there and they were terrible
and the list goes on and on
As i said in other threads the parents who did brave it ended up pulling their children out after a terget or so.
Sink comps really do exist and fail the children - in my opinion they should be closed down. I am hoping they will do just that.
Funnily enough most of my friends with Y6 children were more than happy to send their children to the comp up the road and did apply but didn't get in. It is a much better school but not fantastic but massively oversubscribed because there are so many sink schools around here. Sigh.

PS and the Ofsted is pretty damning too.

The comp nearest me gets similar results to the comp I went to. Above national average but nothing to write home about. I just want something better for my daughters than something like the comp I went to.

What soup fails to mention - no doubt by accident - is that if the school of which she speaks - my old school - was a catchment area comp it would have an even lower percentage of free school meals. That is what drives the parents of the area in which it is based mad.

I am also in Kent and totally agree with Mary'sbeard. Ideologically, a good comp should be great, but I went to a comp and it was crap being an academic child at a non academic school, and my dc go to one of the grammars mentioned above. I hope they won't assume they are cleverer than others educated elsewhere- in fact at the moment I suspect they just assume everyone is equally academic.
If you are in a grammar system, all the things seeker says are true. But the alternative is, in my experience, equally bad - it just damages a different group of children.

Common sense alone should tell us that you can't sort out a DCs future prospects at 10/11years.