11+ being scrapped

[musu]

At one school in Essex here

Interesting development which follows on from Bucks CC overhauling their 11+ and trying to make it tutor proof (although everyone I know in Bucks is still employing tutors).

I'm very wary of this 'better to be normalised' thing. How do you decide what's the right thing to normalise? Why do you need to be normalised for being good at academic subjects more than anything else? Is being normalised as 'the ones that are left behind' especially 'nice'?

Life isn't normalised.

I don't think that was what she was saying, though.

Pickled - you do. Or at least, sometimes you do. Although needing and getting are not the same thing.

Well seeker I think the top 10% do need somehting different.

And the results for many comprehensives would back me up.

"And the top kid? Has to work at the pace of the 5th or 6th kid. Even if that kid is working several sublevels below him or her"

Isn't that going to happen to a greater or lesser degree anywhere? Unless children have a school each? I can see how in something like maths there might be a problem, although I can't see how good teaching and good differentiation wouldn't cure it, but in something like English it's perfectly possible to be working very effectively with other people but at a different level.

Nit - it's good to be normalised for being 'good' at academic subjects in a school environment. It's probably a good idea to normalise for being good at sport of music or art in an environment devoted to those things. But in a school, academic potential is the thing to focus on. Not art. Not PE. Not even music although personally I'm much more interested in that than eg chemistry.

nit it matters very much to me that my DS has a normal school life.

I'm just suggesting that others have the same choice.

If you think it would be better for your DC to be outliers within the comp system then that would be entirely your choice.

No one is advocating the forced removal of pupils.

I think there is a significant gap between 'being made to feel abnormal', which of course is unpleasant, and being 'normalised'. Thus, I think a child can know that he or she is brighter than many in a school, or less bright, and that needn't be a bad thing as long as there aren't forces at play which make him or her feel unpleasantly abnormal.

Right, but I'm not clear what the 'choice' you envisage for the child who doesn't pass and get into the selective school is Word?

seeker it is problematic in many more subjects than maths.

What about MFL? How can you possibly try to challenge those who are getting towards fluent, in the same classroom as those who are working towards proficiency?

And Latin. How can you discuss a text if half the class are not capable of translating it?

At super selectives of the top 10% setting is still rigorous! It is still completely accepted that children need to be taught with their academic peers.

Word- I don't think anyone is advocating mixed ability teaching.

A top set in a comp will always have mixed ability.

Nit - and that is why superselectives are a good thing. There will be people at each end of the curve there, for each subject. But the furthest out in either direction is unlikely to be miles out and to feel uncomfortably different. This is a huge thing for kids, especially ones who have experienced bullying in the past.

Word - a top set in a SS may have mixed ability too of course, But the spread will be narrower. And that is the best we can do, really.

Yes, indeed.

But one-to-one might be a big ask .

Plus I do think you need a certain number for that collegiate experience.

"A top set in a comp will always have mixed ability."

Well, so will any set in any school!

Did I see someone mention bullying? Are we somehow saying that bullying doesn't happen in grammar schools?

'And Latin. How can you discuss a text if half the class are not capable of translating it?'

Pair up the ones that can translate with those that can't. Two minutes later they can all discuss it - there are positives for both parties by doing it this way.

Mixed ability teaching if done well can work. There will always be a level of mixed ability in any classroom.

seeker the gap of ability is much narrower in selectives. Obvious really.

pickled I don't think a peer group of two offers much in the way of a collegiate sharing experience!

You need a group. All on the same level, all bringing things to the party!
More fun. More challenging.

Seeker we are certainly not saying that. The total tonnage of the hollow laughter that your comment prompted could stun a team of Oxen in its tracks.

Some kids really do not react well to being paired up as 'the one who can't do it' with a kid who is the designated 'one who can do it'. Some kids who are designated 'the one who can do it' don't like it much either. And they don't then like being told it's a valuable learning experience for them (it's not) or that it's their fault if the 'one who can't do it' gets arsey with them (it's not).

'I can understand how hard some Schools have to work to get,very ordinary results. what about the girl potato prints talked about in a recent post,because the girl is in a area of lower social economic density, the options of Secondary Education in that area,are incapable of helping that girl reach her potential. In previous posts i have said i know of 2 "MODERNS" that last year got over 70% A ToC "EVEN SEEKER" accepts what i have said,because she has seen the proof. In some areas of northen england, a modern school in a Grammar School area can be signifanctaly better than a comprehensive in a non selective area. The girl that potato prints is talking about,would be better in the "Modern" schoo'l

Is that because the people of the North are:

A) dead clever

or

B) the selective schools are in densely populated urban areas surrounded by other non-selective LEAs and take a considerable proportion of their pupils from those LEAs, so that, although the non-selectives may call themselves secondary moderns, they are effectively comprehensives?

Is Trafford the Sutton of the North?

I'm not convinced that the spread of abilities is that different. It's lower, obviously but is it narrower?

So why mention bullying then? It happens everywhere for a million reasons- why is it relevant to this debate?

Because identifying kids as different by giving them extension work, or by constantly using them as TAs in class, is one of the things that can trigger or be used as an excuse for, bullying. It's not the only one, but it's a very well known one. In many ways, isolating kids in this manner within an environment from which they cannot escape is like painting a target on them. So it is extremely relevant to the debate.

But you knew that.

RE Educating GS kids and SM kids in the same building ...

Going by the description of my neighbours who send their kids there, the HT at the local non selective is very anti competition. Prize Giving Day was watered down because he didn't think that it was right that the same high achievers kept getting up to accept the awards. As for sports, the school football team kids are swapped in and out of the A, B and C teams, regardless of ability. Why? So no child feels a failure for always being in the C team.

Contrast that our selective. Prize Giving Day is one long boring protracted affair what with the award for x the Netball Team captain, award for Y for her contribution to the school music scene and the Mrs Huffington-Smythe award for an outstanding Year 11 essay on xyz. Then there is the focus on getting as many students as possible into Oxbridge or failing that, into a RG uni.

If you merge the two schools together the two ethos (I've no idea what the plural of ethos is)will be in conflict. If your child is 'average' then do you want to hear your HT banging on about Oxbridge, child x who won the local Maths Olympiad etc? Conversely, If your child is exceptionally bright, do you really want to listen to the HT go on about how there is more to life than Oxbridge and a highly paid City job and how we shouldn't single out the winner for attention blah blah blah.

No one suggests merging Oxford U with Oxford Poly (or whatever its called). Yet merging GMs and SMs is popular with some people. Strange.

Of course the spread of ability is more narrow in a setted SS!!!!

You've started with the top 10% then split them into smaller groups. DS who would have been in top set for everyhting at comp, finds himself in only top set for three subjects at SS!

A top set containing the full range of 15 to 20% of ability is pretty mixed in comparisson!