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"

TP: what are you talking about, if you don't mind me asking.

Brycie
you seem utterly convinced that bright kids cannot thrive in a comp
that they need the segregated atmosphere of a grammar or fee paying school to excel

so, I ask, what is your EVIDENCE for your views?

other people asked me to post the Kent data : it shows that the biggest GS county does not achieve the results that would be expected by the GS kids flying without the distraction of thickos.

PS many of the illiterate adults left school over 20 years ago.
Today's teachers cannot be blamed for that.

Brycie,

I have never said it doesn't matter - in fact, I think I have said again and again that one of the reasons why comprehensive education really matters is because it addresses the need to ensure that all children make the greatest progress that they are capable of, without any artificial ceilings on their progress through being sorted into 'passes' and 'fails' ay 11 [only worthy of a less good education / less good teachers / greater disruption / lower aspiration - insert all those things that supporters of grammars seem to desire, to escape, and realise that you are stating that secondary modern children are somehow only deseerving of these things].

The teachers on MN, and the ones I know in RL, are passionate about progress. progress for every child, progress without ceilings. Literacy and numeracy does matter - but today we used literacy skills in the context of history. Tomorrow we will use literacy skills in RE, and maths skills in science. You don't have to restrict the curriculum to improve core skills, in fact you need to make it as exciting and wide ranging as possible, to motivate every child to read, to write, and to calculate.

Are you talking to someone else? I haven't talked about this for two days, three days. Are you talking to Bonsoir or AMPF? My son went to a comp for a while. It wasn't very good.

My school has many illiterate parents.

None of their children will leave school illiterate, because we devote ourselves to teaching them to read. That is how we address the illiteracy issue.

fairy nuff - had a gutful of ampf earlier - thread nearly dead anyway

Bring history and RE into literacy as a tool to literacy but not the other way around. Why would you, if the children don't have a good enough grasp?

So it sounds really lovely and integrated, what you do at the moment. But if it's not working, why carry on doing it? It sounds like the process is more important than the result.

"Seeker asked earlier about the impact of vastly different reading levels in the same class. It does have an impact. A vast difference in comprehension, vocabulary and understanding will affect the bar of the whole class. If you are moving on to other humanities subjects that difference will affect the way they have to be taught."

No I didn't. I asked what impact the presence in a school of a bottom set child still reading Biff and Chip would have on a top set child in the same school reading the Lord of the Rings. None, is the answer. If they were in the same class then of course there would be an impact. Th same year group, no.

This whole selective debate always tiptoes round the unpalatable fact that the is no reason to support grammar schools except the purely self interested one that you think they are good for your child. The reason the pros get so heated is that the debate forces them to at least think briefly about the other 77%. And that makes them feel uncomfortable. So they lash out, and retire to their castle in the air, pulling the ladder up after themselves.

Brycie,

There are some not very good comps. There are some astonishingly poor private schools. There are some poor grammar schools, that rely on the abilities of their intake to coast them through to high GCSE results. They are not poor or good because of their sector - schools are individual, and they are poor or good individually not at a sector level. i am sorry that your son went to a not very good comp - but it does not prove that all comps are bad. My son's comp is better than all the private schools in the county which are open to boys, and several of the grammar schools. That equally does not prove that comps are ALL better, just that they can be.

I'll be disappointed when this thread goes.

"My school has many illiterate parents. None of their children will leave school illiterate, because we devote ourselves to teaching them to read. That is how we address the illiteracy issue."

Well quite. This is your school and these are your pupils. I am very impressed by you. I sound snarky and sarcastic but I'm not being that way in the least. I have said it before about what you do.

Brycie, Literacy doesn't exist in a vacuum. Children have to read and write about something - the more interesting the something is, the faster they progress in literacy AND in the other subject. What do you want them to do? Read words about nothing in particular, just so that they focus on 'literacy'???

And I challenge you to look at today's data, for today's primary school children, and claim that the approach isn't working in good schools.

Actually my children don't go to a grammar, have no chance of going to a grammar, and never have had a chance of going to a grammar, but I think selective education can be a good thing. So your unpalatable fact may be unpalatable because it isn't a fact.

I'm aware of that teacher: but the "something" should be secondary to the literacy. Yes there have been improvements, and we'll see a lot more now that increased rigour is being brought to the table.

It mustn't be forgotten that achieving a certain government accepted level of literacy does not mean you are literate. When you look at what a level this or that can actually read, it's less impressive.

And in maths the picture is not good. Maybe that's why there's less comment on the maths here - because of that tacit understanding that numeracy is seriously wanting? In literacy lessons write about history or . Then drop the history or and do more maths.

Brycie,

Again, could you point me to the data about today's children, in today's primary schools, which show the doom-laden scenario in maths and literacy that you so confidently proclaim?

I do maths in history, maths in ICT, maths in science, maths in geography, maths in French, as well as maths in maths and maths in PE of course. Where else would you like me to put it??

Oh, sorry, obviously maths in D&T and Maths in art - those oare self-evident.

Most DCs don't go to a grammar school and most stand no chance of going to one. It would seem that, as most only have a choice of comprehensives, we should concentrate on improving the ones that need improving. Selective education won't come back because 77% are not going to vote to send their DC to a 'comprehensive' with the top sets creamed off, when they could have the good influence of the top sets being there. Whenever I say 'you mean a vote to bring back secondary moderns' there is a strange silence!

If you are basing all of your asserions on the basis of a sample of 1 - your own child - I will offer you a counter-example of a state primary educated, comprehensive-attending year 7 who is working at the level of a child 4 years ahead of his age in maths.

It is a great pity that we can't try your ideas Brycie because I predict failure with them- but we shall never know as they won't be put to the test. I certainly wouldn't want my DCs having such a narrow education.

I taught a year 5 boy who went to the comprehensive once a week for a 'master class' in maths. He was exceptional, but there were many talented mathematicians in the class.- there generally are in any school.

Teacher: yes I'm grateful and thankful things are improving under the Conservatives but teachers seem under-appreciative to say the list.

These things (which you talked about above) have been integrated in this way in primary schools for years - and the result is millions and millions of adults, an increasing number, with poor levels of numeracy. It didn't work.

Today it was announced that only five hundred schools instead of 1500 last year failed their pupils. Level 4 is the absolute floor standard and five hundred schools have failed even to reach that.

I've tutored for selective exams at eleven and they were not that hard. Not too hard for 11-year-olds at all. But markedly beyond what was required by their NC schools. The whole debate about tutoring is based on the premise that state school children are largely unable to do these exams without special tutoring.

I don't believe that the vast majority of children in the UK are actually utterly incapable of reaching this level. Of course they aren't. Most of them are perfectly capable of it. But they don't. They haven't been educated to that level.

It's a good level, but it's not a genius level or a specialist level, or a weirdo very large huge brain level. It's a solidly good level which most state school children cannot reach without special intensive tutoring.

I think that's wrong.

Hey hey - why are you getting so personal about a standard of one, and "my child" If you're going to goad me I'll go, which you probably won't mind, but then why are you bothering talking to me. I've said loads of times, eight different schools, maybe nine I can't remember, comps, private, state, faith,hard working children, non hardworking children, setting up reading programmes etc etc.

Actually I think I will go. That was uncalled for.

Exotic - I should think you would predict failure - many teachers do seem to have have a rather-minded and peevish approach to anything anything that can't be over-complicated by jargon.

We can all be snarky if we want to - some of us were more interested in the exchange that scoring points. Were.

yes I'm grateful and thankful things are improving under the Conservatives but teachers seem under-appreciative to say the list.

I laughed out loud at this statement. It will take more than two years for any changes to be seen, so I think you must be attributing the improvements to the previous Labour administration.

I didn't vote for either of them, so it's not a personal bias in favour of one or the other.

We shall never know Brycie. However you seem to be going the wrong way to get teachers on your side- lumping them together isn't a good start.

Did you Volcan? I had fun at a few of yours earlier but forbore to say so. A culture of higher expectation can kick in very quickly - of course.