Are we missing a trick with grammar schools?

[mam29]

Always a a tricky topic but struck how many people in public eye say grammar school changed their lives for the better.

examples

Thatcher
Toby young
most of bbc newsreaders John Sopel. Andrew neil.
Various other mps who all went to grammar schools and are proud.

My nan had 5kids and only went to grammar and had the best jobs.

I know some say they unfair but do wonder if they in someway improved social mobility.

Of course its changed today.

Theres very few grammar schools none here or where I grew up.

Now seen preserve of middle class wanting private education cheap.

That the child has to be tutored within inch of life to get in and that those who went prep had advantage as state does not prepare for 11+.

To me it seems vastly unfair that they exist but not in every area.

Wondering if comprehensive is a failed idea and that they should have kept grammars but reformed secondary moderns,

Would all the people named above be where they are now if they went to comp?

What is it that grammar schools do that comps dont?

Theres that old chestnut a bright child will do well where ever they go.

Do the new grammar entrants today especially in super selectives need to be brighter than the kids who passed in the 50,s?.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Yes indeed, we should resurrect this system and bring back secondary moderns. And I'm sure all the luminaries who are so vocal about having got where they did today due to their secondary modern education would fully support such a move.

[exoticfruits]

I have never yet heard a 'bring back our secondary modern schools' campaign. (mainly because it hasn't occurred to the people running the campaign that their DCs might get the secondary modern school.)

[deleted203]

Actually...(raises head above the parapet)

Quite a lot of people in our area would like to bring back the 'old' secondary modern - and these are people who went to one and whose DCs are at the local one. (I teach there).

Some of the most vocal complaints centre around the fact that everything nowadays focuses on exam results and pushing towards the magical 'C' grade. I have lost count of the number of parents who have complained to me that they do not see the point in their non academic child having to do a load of stuff they struggle with and are not interested in. Particularly when they fully accept that their child is unlikely to get particularly good grades.

Many, many parents would far prefer it if their DCs were taught practical subjects in the way secondary moderns used to. Suggestions in the past have included brick laying, plumbing, 'proper' woodwork, 'proper' cookery, how to run a home, child care, dressmaking, etc.

I have had endless parents telling me how much better the school was when they, or their parents went to it - purely because it was recognised that preparing pupils with practical, usable life skills was likely to be of greater value than pushing them towards academic grades that were always going to be 'average' at best when compared to other, brighter children.

I do actually get very frustrated that the only thing schools care about is their exam results. A lot of my pupils are never going to shine academically - and if we are telling them that the grade you received in your GCSE is the only thing that matters then that is wrong.

[exoticfruits]

There is a lot of truth there sowornout. The good thing about secondary moderns was that they didn't treat all pupils the same. They had the very bright and academic and they had the ones who were never going to pass exams but were still educated, often in practical ways. The disadvantage was that when you were the academic top there was very much a ceiling.
I can't see why a comprehensive can't take the best of the grammar school and the best of the secondary modern under one roof. The sad thing today is that even subjects like woodwork have changed names and have become academic with a lot of writing - they don't just go in and learn techniques and make things.

[NewFerry]

I am always frustrated when people hark back to the good old days. My friend failed the 11+, and went to the sec mod. He was/is very bright but wasn't able to take o-level because they weren't taught!
He had a real struggle to get to college to do A-levels, then went on to a good uni. But it was all so much harder than it needed to be for him.
Whereas those of us who passed the 11+ had it all handed to us on a plate.

I think it was a deeply divisive system even back in the 70s when the exams were sat by everyone in our LEA during the school day.

[exoticfruits]

I think that is the problem- I got there from an 11+ failure and so did thousands more, but it was harder than need be and unfair when some just got on the right track at 11yrs. At least the comprehensive gives all access to the right track.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

It seems to be much more competitive than it was in the 70s as well - at school I had some great teachers, most of whom had got into Oxford/Cambridge on EEE type offers because they were clearly passionate about their subject.

Now those kind of offers are so rare, every single grade and experience can count - and if you are at a school that doesn't even offer those subjects you need you can be forgiven for giving up and assuming you are stuffed. Kids should not be giving up on their dreams at 10/11 because they didn't do quite as well as others on a test.

I do think there is a place for a more vocational school alongside traditional GCSEs etc. I'm not sure what the best way to structure it would be, but definitely not via a grammar system.

[lljkk]

Isn't that what streaming & setting & BTECs are for, though, SoWornOut?

I suppose I would like the combined Grammar / SecModern system better if the division was done on a long body of work (at least 2 yrs of assessment), not a single one-off 11+ type exam. Also, there should be opportunities to switch between the systems in yrs 7, 8 & 9, for late developers.

Grammar vs. SM is inherently elitist, though. No denying that. One of the wealthiest people in my extended family is an electrician, but let's face it, most Tradesmen don't get so lucky.

[Erebus]

A major problem is that we don't value 'vocational'- which is one reason why Germany will stride out of the economic crash far sooner than we will as they do. We turned our FE colleges and Polys into Unis, our Diplomas and HNDs into degrees, we measure all school subjects in their 'GCSE equivalent'- because we have all been lead to believe that if it's not measurable on the GCSE/A level/degree continuum, it ain't worth diddly-squat.

sowornout re 'bringing back the SM'.. How can it be possible to really decide a DC's potential and future based on one exam taken when they're 10? What about the DC who has a real flair for, say music, but is rubbish at say Maths? And conversely the brilliant mathematician who is barely able to express themselves on the written page? The former might be heading for an A* in music, the latter for an E in English, but the 11+ system more or less prevents them from being taught in appropriate classes for their strong and weak subject.

I would agree entirely that there's no point in forcing further algebra or Chinese on a DC who is, at 14, evidently heading for a good career in carpentry. But a) that DC has to hit 14, really (and fairly) before that decision should be made, and b), the boy sitting next to him who was pretty average at 10 but who now is showing real talent in English shouldn't only have 'English for apprentices' available to him.

Surely a true comprehensive school would be the best place for all of these DC?

DH went to one. He left to go to university to do Biochemistry. Other DC there learned catering to 'employable' standards, in the industrial kitchens. Some learned carpentry in sheds that wouldn't look out of place in an industrial estate; not just diddy hack-saws on pegs on walls, but bloody great gantry mounted band saws as well. DC could learn how to birth a cow and lay a line of fencing straight; and do farm accountancy. Some learned performance art skills or stage management in the school's professional theatre. DH did his science 'A' levels, as it were, in properly equipped science labs with properly trained teachers.

This was in rural Australia.

exotic Q: "The good thing about secondary moderns was that they didn't treat all pupils the same. They had the very bright and academic and they had the ones who were never going to pass exams but were still educated, often in practical ways. The disadvantage was that when you were the academic top there was very much a ceiling."

My experience was that many if not most SMs certainly didn't differentiate between the 'very bright and academic' (because they were sitting in a GS class!) and the SN. The 'ceiling' academically was there because a test taken at 10 dictated that that DC didn't have the ability to do any better- by definition of the system, if they were able, they shouldn't have been at a SM!

As I said earlier, a problem with SMs were size; too small to be able to offer a wide range of subjects to a wide range of pupils; the potential gulf of ability between the most and least able; the inability to necessarily attract the best teachers; the sense of 'Fail' written all over the establishment before you even began.

By all means beef up vocational provision, by all means campaign to get qualifications other than the GCSE/degree continuum valued, but please don't return to the out-dated, out-moded, discredited pass/fail mentality of the 11+ to do so!

[Scrazy]

Re the intelligence over better teaching debate.

2 scenarios, 2 clever DC's getting A's and A stars at gsce, one moves to the grammar 6th form and gets 3 A's at A level, the other stays in the local comp and comes out with 3 B's at A level. These are hard subjects and the comp doesn't get any pupil up to 3 A's at all, even in less academic subjects.

Both go to Uni, do the same course and get similar results. That's why I don't think it's down to intelligence.

It happens to lots of comprehensive bright students, round here anyway.

[seeker]

I haven't read the whole thread, so I'm sorry if I am repeating others.

I think the important thing to remember that in areas which are wholly selective, the results as a whole are exactly the same as a similar LEA with comprehensive schools. If selective education was better, then surely that would not be the case. Yes, the grammar school results are fantastic, and the high achool's underwhelming, but put them together and they are the same as a comprehensive school. Because it is the same children- just with the top set creamed off into another school, with all the social and psychological issues that creates.

[glaurung]

It's not exactly the same seeker, only the average is the same. In a grammar system some groups do better (especially the marginal ones who make the grammar) and some do less well (notably the marginal ones who don't make the grammar) than in a comprehensive. The same results overall, does not mean the same results for sub groups, let alone individuals.

[camilamoran]

scrazy - It doesn't have to happen though. Other comprehensives get plenty of 3 A's at A level - the one my son goes to for starters. It's not an inherent fault in the comprehensive system.

I suspect your local comprehensive is like the one down the road from here, the one I didn't send my kids to. This is a school with mostly working class pupils, which just assumes that they (we) have low expectations and doesn't attempt to challenge that. So bright kids leave this school with fewer qualifications than they should have and - as in your example - have to try to remedy this in further education.

There isn't really a mechanism to fix this. This school is actually very popular, over subscribed, and manages to hit government targets. There are actually better run schools that are further down the league tables. So the only way this school will improve is if a new head happens to take over and happens to want to do something about it.

[camilamoran]

Glaurung - it sounds like you have found the statistics I have been looking for. Where did you find them?

[glaurung]

I've read that it's the borderline pupils that are most affected by being at a grammar or not (in selective areas) in several places camilamoran, here is one - it's quite old now, so there's probably more recent studies about somewhere.

[Talkinpeace]

Many moons ago I asked the BBC to compile a league table of secondary school results, that only counted the top 60 kids at each school.

The result of which would be that the top streams at comps would be compared with grammars and private schools.

Strangely enough there was never the political will to collect the data in that way.

Because it would of course show that Comps can do a really rather good job with bright kids for much less money and stress

while at the same time doing a pretty good job with the kids that the other schools won't touch.

[creamteas]

I passed my 11+ an went to a grammar school, it was a disaster for me. I was the only child in my year to go from a huge council estate. You were entered automatically at this time, and had no choice in where you went.

I was ostracised by all my friends who refused to associate with me, and struggled to make friends at the grammar school as I was from the wrong part of town. The isolation and bullying was terrible.

Eventually, I found other working-class kids in the same position in other years and also from the other town grammar school. We pretty much stopped going to school for lessons (just turned up at registration) and spent most of the time hanging out in the cafe at the bus station. The school never chased us, they must have noticed, so I assume they didn't really care if we were there or not.

I went back into education later, but most of my friends didn't. If you look at the research, this was a quite a common outcome for poorer kids who got into grammars.

[seeker]

Glarung- that paper is, as you say, old, and actually doesn't show much of a difference. And the group most disadvantaged by the system is, ironically, poor bright children. And I would imagine that, since that paper was written, the results at grammar schools have remained static while those at comprehensives have improved. So probably the difference is even smaller now.

I am prepared to stick my neck out too, and say that if a couple of kids get a grade lower in their GCSEs, it's a small price to pay to get rid of the hideous divisive awfulness that is the 11+.

[glaurung]

Why do you think comprehensives have improved more than grammars & sec mods recently seeker?

Any system that penalises one group over another is difficult to justify, so I do tend to agree over 11+, but it's not black & white imo.

[seeker]

Because generally speaking there wasn't much room for improvement in grammar schools and there was- and is- at comprehensives and secondary moderns.......

[muminlondon]

camilamoran 'Could the 11+ areas go comprehensive - would that be an act of political will by the county council, and if so would it become impossible once all schools are out of local authority control?'

To be honest, not sure! But David Cameron also described the grammar school debate as 'pointless':

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6658613.stm

What's a comprehensive anyway? There are huge differences. Academy chains are very like secondary moderns - GCSE pass rates look good, till you take out equivalents (soon to be abolished from the league tables). Theoretically at least, you choose the school rather than the school choosing you. Look at the differences between types of comprehensives for those studying for Ebacc:

Sponsored academy 36%
Community schools (LA maintained) 46%
VA (faith) schools 52%
Academy converters 57% (does include some selectives)
Free schools ???

It's a creeping divide that is supposed to be market-driven. Compare that with:

Secondary Modern 33%
Comprehensive 48%
Selective 84%

[glaurung]

leaving aside whether or not there's room for improvement at grammar schools (I think virtually all schools have massive scope for improvement, and grammars have often been accused of complacency, just getting good results by virtue of selection rather than good teaching, so arguably there is more scope there than anywhere), if the secondary moderns have improved as well as the comprehensives then the differences between the two systems should be broadly the same?

[seeker]

All schools have room for improvement - but I though we were only talking about results?

And yes, that's my point- grammar+sec mod in one LEA = comprehensive in another as far as results go- but with added divisiveness and general horridity.

[muminlondon]

Just having a look at league tables re complacency at grammars. Interesting variation in 2012 Ebacc results if you just concentrate on the high attainers:

Grammars
(Top) Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar: 100% entered/98% achieved
(Middle) Poole Grammar: 87% entered/74% achieved
(Bottom) Dover Grammar School for Boys: 49% entered/20% achieved

Some Good Comps
Tauheedul Islam Girls: 100% entered/100% achieved
Wembley High Technical College 98% entered/87% achieved
St Alban's Girls 92% entered/91% achieved

[muminlondon]

Best secondary modern in Kent for high attainers passing Ebacc is one in Dartford: 55% entered/40% achieved. Better than the Dover grammar school.