Middle class access to grammars via tutorproof 11+ part 2

[boschy]

May I do this? only there were some contrasting views at the end of the last thread which I found interesting.

One was mine (sorry!): "I think fear actually drives a lot of those parents who are desperate to get their child into GS, so they can be 'protected' from these gangs of feral teenagers who apparently run rampage through every non-selective school in the country.

Because clearly if you are not 11+ material you are a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal who likes nothing better than beating up a geek before breakfast and then going to score behind the bike shed before chucking a chair at the maths teacher and making the lives of the nice but dim kids a misery."

And one was from gazzalw: "If you had the choice would you opt for a grammar school or a comprehensive that has gangs?"

Soooo, do people really think that all comprehensives have vicious gangs, and all GS children are angels? Or that only those of academic ability adequate enough to get them through the 11+ should not have to face behavioural disruption of any kind? If you are borderline, or struggling but still work hard, should you just have to put up with disruption because let's face it you're not academic?

PS, re the knuckle dragging Neanderthals I mention above, should have said - "and that's only the girls"

I think it's becoming obvious that comprehensive education (which the majority of DC experience in the UK) has not been an engine of social mobility.

Bonsoir
but surely that is more a symptom of the rigid, centralised way France does its schooling than of comprehensive education per se.
The French system of everybody ending up with the same set of qualifications, and rigid class structures is what holds it back, rather than the fact that all the kids are in the same buildings.

wordfactory
social mobility in the UK has dropped fastest since Bliar's parental choice accelerated the differences between schools.

Brycie

I am sure it was unintentional but "stressed and overworked single mothers" (corrected by you to stressed single parents) is lumped in by you with alcholics, drug users, badly educated etc.....talk about a generalization/stereotype...yes, the stress for single parents can come from lack of financial means or an inadequate support system rather than being singel parenmts per se ...but let's not group single parents together as signifying a automatic disadvantaged background for children ...there are too many shades of grey...you can have single parents on welfare who have all the time on their hands to spend with their kids and you can have professional middle class single parents with a great support system and nannies etc. and kids at prep school (hardly disadvantaged) and then you can have a working single parent on low income who is working all hours to make ends meet ...but that can also apply to two parent families also ...

Actually, TalkinPeace2, in French collège pupils all do an academic course that ensures that they don't do non-subjects and have a grounding in important life skills. I think that at collège level, the French system is infinitely preferable to most English state schools in terms of offering the subjects that will allow for social mobility.

But it still doesn't come out in the wash - at the end of the day, social mobility is low in France.

Talking Peace

That is simplistic...you are attributing declining social mobility over the last decade simply to differences in education yet we have more students going to university than before...and easier access than in the past ...the wider picture is that there are not the career opportunities for the sheer number of school leavers / graduates that there were when we joined the job market -that is an aspect of population growth, offshoring, mass immigration, economics of supply and demand, a work force that is retiring later - you only have to look at other countries like Egypt, Spain etc. there are young people with masters degrees doing jobs like waiting in tables or tourist guides - what social mobility did a better education afford them? Take law as another example, there are probably about four times as many aspiring wannabe lawyers in education as there are real legal jobs in firms. When that happens, those "sharp-elbowed middle classes" resort to using all their professional and family connections to get an internship for their DC to get their foot in the door and stamp on their CV - a continuation of close parental involvement that those children likely had during school also, declining socail mobility is a fact of life in the current economic climate and for years to come and as such I doubt it will change much due to abolishing differences between grammar schools and comps.

When I was a single mother I used to get very irritated by being lumped in a group with uneducated 16yr olds etc. I was a widow,over 30yrs, perfectly stable, educated and financially able to stay at home with my DS. It isn't in the least helpful to stereotype. Single mothers are like the rest of society - a huge range.

Amber
Increasing the number of people getting a qualification merely dilutes it.

Employers presented with hundreds of 'equally' qualified students will go for what they have heard of and know - ie like themselves.
As Bliar and his cronies so excellent demonstrated, its not what you know, its who you know.

A degree is not a passport to social mobility.
One of the most poisonous things in the UK in the last 15 years has been the interns system - jobs at the top companies are only available to those with the funds to work for free.

Sadly Grammar school intakes have been grossly distorted by tutoring.
Luckily, as there are only 164 Grammar schools, the vast bulk of which are in Kent and around London.

My kids and their friends have an equal chance of flying high in their academic and career options.

But talking how will your DCand their peers have equal access to career opportunities if they don't have equal access to funds and internships and contacts etc...

word
think of all the money I've saved on school fees!!!!!
no, seriously, internships are being severely limited at the moment - HMRC are seeing to that - and the schools round here have a pretty good record on getting kids to where they want to be.
And yes, if it came to it I'm as sharp elbowed as the next person.

Just going to throw this into the mix to see if it adds anything to the debate:

In Finland, if we look at the performance in mathematics of high school students from different 'cultural' groups it goes like this -

Finnish speaking Finns> Finnish speaking Swedes

but if you compare Swedish speaking Finns with Finnish speaking Swedes, the Swedish speaking Finns do better.

And my point...

'Culture permeates all aspects of educational endeavour and should be acknowledged more explicitly than it is.'

And I suppose what I'm really saying is that British culture is not aligned with inclusive (comprehensive/mixed ability) education.

is any?
truly?

TalkinPeace2: I give you Finland.

No private schools in Finland either.

True, but the cohort sixes, ethnic diversity, and demographic churn in Finland is not comparable with countries like the UK.
The population of Finland is less than that of Scotland.
The vast bulk of Scottish Children go to state schools too.
Finland has both religious and Steiner schools (according to your link)
and I wonder how many children of the rich and powerful are educated abroad?

The education that Finland provides meshes with the Finnish mindset/culture and that is why it works IMHO.

We need an education system in this country that meshes with ours - ideas?

ours is a lot less broken than Mumsnet, the Daily Fail and Gove would have you believe.

Private schools are only a consideration for around 8% of the population.
Grammar schools ditto
The majority of state schools do well by the majority of their pupils

unfortunately the Academy / Free School systems are reducing accountability and transparency.
But we shall see.

Looks like they have similar issues in the US:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20154358

exoticfruitsWed 12-Dec-12 18:27:00
Exotic: When I was a single mother I used to get very irritated by being lumped in a group with uneducated 16yr olds etc. I was a widow,over 30yrs, perfectly stable, educated and financially able to stay at home with my DS. It isn't in the least helpful to stereotype. Single mothers are like the rest of society - a huge range.

Sorry - I wasn't trying to stereotype negatively - I was thinking of people under a lot of stress without a lot of time and having been a single parent for a period I know how difficult it was to spread myself between three.

AMPF: 'and all our chances as well'. A soundbite worthy of a politician but what does it mean?

It means that when everyone is educated, everyone benefits. Better jobs, a more vibrant and energetic economy, less welfare, less crime, happier people, with more money to spend and a better quality of life, a better generation next time and next time around. It's not a soundbite.

In macro terms, look at a country like India with huge growth. The growth is coming from a low base, so seems astonishing. That will plateau (and not just because of the growing economy). It still has, and will have for a long time, a huge mass of extremely poor, badly educated, ignored and exploited people. The country as a whole will grow and benefit when those people are better educated, literate, more employable.

Heez what is wrong with me? "not just because of the global economy"

What I find interesting is that people who are anti-grammar schools seem very in favour of the idea of parental involvement when that creates its own elitism.

Amber I accept exotic's complaint completely. You, however, seem to be using it as excuse to avoid the point that there is a vast body of parents unable and, yes, unwilling, to help their children.

Of course they should. Of course they ought. But should and ought are not shall and will, and nor will they ever be until we all get to heaven and live in a perfect world.

We live with reality: state provision of all kinds is created to manage and ease the difficulties of that reality. Children should not be written off because of their backgrounds : if you consign getting a good grasp of the essentials to the parents then that is exactly what you are doing.

This is why teachers on this thread (and on others where I have bored all and sundry) describe how they do extra reading and extra maths and focussed work and have teaching assistants to help those children. Because they matter just as much as yours or mine and they would be utterly lost without it.

"IMO opinion the conversation should be about parental involvement and aspirations and their impact on their children and teachers and their attitudes towards education. "

I'm afraid this won't, as they say, buy the baby a new bonnet.

I'm anti-grammar but pro-parental involvement. Perhaps I have a different take on "involvement" to you, though, Brycie. My idea of parental "involvement" is parents who attend parents' evenings and turn up to cheer DC on in concerts/school plays/football matches/swimming galas. As opposed to those who don't really care what their DC get up to.

We had Year 9 parents' evening this week - turnout was 49%.
Last term, 25 of my students were involved in a fabulous drama project with our local theatre - they worked with just 6 schools in the county, and each performed a piece of devised drama based on a Dickens novel. We performed in a professional theatre. It was fabulous. I had to drive two kids home afterwards as their parents weren't interested in going to see the performance, or in picking them up afterwards.

That's what I'm thinking when it comes to parental involvement - as opposed to the sort of parents who do their DC's homework for them, or tutor them within an inch of their lives.

You don't create elitism by showing up to the school play or to parents' evening, but you do create a child who feels valued, and that has a knock-on effect IMO.

Exactly EvilTwins- as a teacher you know that the parents that you really want to see are the ones most likely not to turn up and you never get chance to give them guidance on what they could do to help, and if you did it would probably be taken as criticism.
There are many disadvantaged DCs and they can easily be spotted as toddlers- that is where the money should be spent to be of the most use in evening up chances in life.