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 worth pointing out, also, that 30% 5 A-C grades, in many schools, means 5 Cs. Which is hardly worth writing home about. If I were considering sending my child to a comprehensive, I'd be looking very closely at the A/A* pass rate and the number of children achieving top grades. Many comprehensives (my own included) have adequate 5A-C rates but if you look closely they're clearly failing to stretch more able pupils.

Seeker - given you have one child at one school and one at the other - are both your children of similar academic persuasion? Which one of their schools are you least happy with for them as an individual? Were you happier/did you feel better with either of the schools before the other child failed to get a place there? I just wonder how a completely theoretical stance can fail to be coloured by actual real life happenings with the people you care most about in the world?

I was really hoping that this thread was not going to be about my children. I formed my views about selective education before I had them, and seeing it in action has confirmed my views, not changed them. However,as others have brought up my personal situation.....

My dd has had an excellent, if very traditional, education in a grammar school. she is clever, but not especially so- she would have been in the lower end of the 23% however, she is a hard worker and her teaching has been excellent, so she is predicted A*s and As at GCSE. She and her friends strike me as being incredibly naieve and politically unaware. My dd is slightly more aware than many because she went to a very socially diverse primary school and comes (it will not surprise you to hear) from a very political home. Generally, though, she and her friends live in a happy, privileged bubble.

I can only talk theoretically about my ds because he doesn't start at the high school until September. But he is very bright ( brighter than his sister). He is also sporty and self confident, and well supported at home. He will, if all goes to plan do well. However, it will be much harder for him- he will be one of a very small group of high achievers, and that is of course not a particularly good place to be. The school also doesn't cater for some of his interests, so I will have to be more proactive then I've had to be for dd. However, the real. world will be much less of a shock for him than it's going to be for dd!

I haven't read the entire thread. In my area there is postcode selection.

If you live a in particular post code then you go to the worse school in Hertfordshire. The results are worse than many of the high schools in kent. People move house, catch religion to avoid the particular school. It does not matter how bright a child is, they do not get opportunities to do seperate sciences. The top set has very few bright kids and its really no different to going to a secondary modern. There is a lot of social deprivation and low expectations.

Ironically half mile away there is an outstanding school with excellent results. However you need to wealthy to own a house in the catchment area. The children have better facilites, and the opportunity to do more music, a second language and three seperate sciences.

I sympathise with the postion that seeker's son is in as he is clearly a child would benefit from a grammar education. However its a fairer set up than selection on parental wealth or religion.

I am not so sure about the "real world". My 5 children went to/are at fee paying schools. They have no trouble with the "real world". They have had friends from state schools. TYhey know how other people live. In fact the girls in City jobs they fit in there and earn quite a bit in their mid 20s precisely because they were made suitable for that real world, the real world where women earn £50k+ in their school. I am suspect a high school comp prepares chidlren for the dole or plumbing jobs not a real world where your accent, clothes, looks, A level results and confidence is what counts. I think I prefer a world for my chidlren which is a middle class high paid real world not a real world of inner city poverty.

My chidlren know how to speak to and deal with people of all classes. I dont' think private school deprives you of the ability to speak to taxi drivers and the like. In fact I think it can make you better at speaking to all kinds of people. Those schools also do much more charitable work, work in OAP homes, Duke of E awards and thus show you people in all situations than many comps do.

For Real Tilly, though if your mother has a high paid job of course in Herts and your chidl is bright you can pay to send it to very good schools in Herts like Haberdashers though.

Yes, dd's grammar school does poor people as anthropology too .

You always cheer me up Xenia- you are so funny.

Actually, I think I'm with Xenia- there are lots of different real worlds, and although I daresay it is good to be aware of, or even able to fit in to, many of them; but there are only some I'd want to live in.

I've never really understood the point. The private schools tend to produce children with confidence who fit in anywhere and know how to behave in all kinds of contexts. I do not think you need to be educated ni a class of children who disrupt it and have low IQs to be able to fit into a real world. Obviously we ensure they learn how to do things like take the tube, catch a night bus, cope abroad without parents around, manage money, manage difficult physical circumstances whether in jungles or just at university,.

Surely at some schools you mix with people and take on their persona, accent, low expectations and you are prepared for al ife in effect on the dole. If you look at our local comp GCSEs travel and tourism and the car mechanic GCSE are some of the favourties (32% A - C at GCSE). I really don't think those chidlren are prepared better for the real world than say Haberdashers.

Xenia- I was really hoping that this would be a thread about state selective education. I know you think that everyone should go private, but not everyone can, or would want to. I'm happy to scrap on other threads about whether anyone could earn 50k+ if only they tried a little harder, or how fantastic it is that privately educated people know how to talk to taxi drivers, but could it be somewhere else, please? There is an interesting debate to be had about whether selective state education is the way forward, or the way back- please join in on that one! But could we keep state/private out of it?

I think my other comments above looking at the Sutton Trust lastest report which concluded there was very little difference between areas with comps and those with high schools/grammars was probably the most detailed no the thread. I went through the whole report and quoted the relevant parts.

It did not answer my basic question which was if you take two areas of the country both same prosperity level and one has grammars ssay Kent or Bucks and another doesn't and is not an area that does, do more children get A and A* in GCSE and A levels of the better kind (not needlework but French/physics). That would show if grammars improve standards. Sutton does not seem to conclude that that is so and in fact says there is not much difference. That surprises me as I am an exponent of selection by IQ from age 5 and think bright children do better in schools only with other bright children.

You have to compare like with like Xenia. We have had the argument, over and over again, that we only need a smallish number of surgeons and lawyers, but that we need a whole army of cleaners, car mechanics,waiters, taxi drivers etc etc to support them. There is no point in being a lawyer if you can't have your hair cut, go out for a meal, even do your shop at the supermarket because every DC should be getting the highest qualifications-all it would tell you is that the qualifications are too easy.
Most children are average, some are below and some are above-you can't have an average with none below!
The comprehensive has the top streams with DCs who have huge ambition and work ethic but they also need to be realistic and cater for the car mechanics -we need more of that sort of thing and not less. I don't see why they can't all be under the same roof. The DC who wants to be a doctor is not going to be 'tainted' by the one who wants to be a hairdresser.

In your first post you lump in plumbers with being on the dole!!! I would love to see how you would manage if your toilet was blocked and their were no skilled plumbers!
We will never get a decent education system until we recognise that people with technical and practical skills are what the country needs. America has already got to the position of turning out too many lawyers!
Germany gets ahead because they recognise the importance of engineers etc.

sorry-getting carried away -there not their

I'm not too bad with plumbing myself actually but leaving that aside my point was I wanted to see a comparison between areas with selecti e education and those without. On average do children do better in comprehensive areas or where there are grammars (4% of children are in state grammars in the UK). Some comprehensives do not set children. There was a teenager on radio 4 (any questions) the other week asking a question and he said he was set only for two subjects, maths and one other and the worst thing was constant disruption in class.

You can actually choose your comprehensive Xenia. I wouldn't send mine to one that didn't set.I hardly think that my DS would have been to a RG university to do a science subject if his lessons had been disrupted!! I think that people watch too many TV dramas and read the DM -rather than visit a good comprehensive!

The Sutton Trust says that there is no difference in attainment between selective and non selective areas. It looks on the surface as if selective areas do better because selective schools tend to get spectacular results. However, obviously a comprehensive school would have the same children in it as a grammar and a high school combined. So the results look very different. The A*s are still there, but so are the Cs.

So Sutton has not found a difference based on abolition of grammars. What does it conclude then about its view that there is less social mobility and fewer poor children getting into good universities than in the 50s/60s? I think it wants children to have rights to be funded at fee paying schools.

Not all areas allow you to choose the comprehensive. Plenty of parts of the UK particularly rural will have one school only. The boy on the radio I think was somewhere like North Yorks.

I cdertainly agree that it is ludicrous that tax payer's money is wasted on different systems. What is special about Kent children that they are regarded as needing selective education whereas those in te NE have not had it since the 1960s unless they pay? Either as a state you think selection is good and allow all areas to have it or you don't. Then I suppose you get parents moving to Kent or Bucks to use grammar schools rather than fee paying schools.

I'm a raving lefty, but I will eternally be grateful that I grew up in a county with grammar schools. Going to one changed me from being the bullied swot at junior school to being an accepted member of a group of peers.

Scrapping grammar schools (in most areas) has done absolute diddly squat for social mobility.

But Sutton says it has not altered exam results and children in comps do just as well. I cannot see how that can be so but that seems to be their research linked above. That means they have to find another way to sort out the social mobility issue.

Other reasons might be accent perhaps - comps result in chidlren with worse accents than those in grammars? Or perhaps all the poor are now low IQ hence fewer of course will come through to the top as social mobility of the bright poor has already happened. I don't think we are quite there yet though.

seeker this report shows that show that children of equivalent ability at grammars schools do do better and those at secondary moderns slightly worse than those educated in an equivalent comprehensive system although overall the outcomes for each are roughly the same.

It's hard to know quite what to believe, and it's clear that quite small changes in input variables and where you draw the line as to what is a selective area and exactly how you make the comparisons makes quite a difference to the results of these surveys. I'm slightly wary of Sutton Trust here as they are very pro grammar school.

Xenia, your assertation that the poor are all low IQ is rubbish at best, and insulting at worst.

My DS1 is on FSM's. At 8yo, his IQ was measured as 132. If that is being low IQ due to lack of wealth, I would love to know what his IQ would be if I was wealthier!

And my DS2, despite numerous health problems, disabilities and regular time off school each year for hospital admissions, and being on the SEN register, has just been moved up into the top sets in everything. He is now working above his age almost all round, except for his writing, but that's only due to his physical disability that makes writing difficult.

And if wary of Sutton even more surprising the report of theirs linked above does not come down in favour of proving grammars are best either which must have put them out a bit.`

I wonder what they compare too? Perhaps they should compare income at 40, not whether to you go Oxford etc.

Other reasons might be accent perhaps - comps result in chidlren with worse accents than those in grammars?

(One of the few times I am at a loss for words!)

I will have a go- most of the country has NO grammar schools-DCs who go to comprehensives in the areas that they have no choice do not alter their speech. You have been watching too many TV dramas about London Comprehensives.

I think the problem is xenia that the studies that show grammars do better also tend to show secondary moderns do worse and that is politically unacceptable.

I've read several studies that show the children that benefit most from grammar education (ie: have their outcomes raised most - significantly more than if they'd gone to another school type) are:

firstly poorer students, although not many of these pass the test to get in - it's mostly the middle class children who would do well anywhere that go.

and secondly, those who are more borderline in the entrance tests (which is counter to the widely held opinion that these children will struggle - or maybe they do struggle a bit, but then raise their game, so their outcome is that much better than it would have been).

It seems to me that Xenia is helping me to make my case - living in a privileged bubble produces some very odd attitudes!