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).

To be perfectly honest, the overall country-wide stats don't really bother me that much. As a parent, micro is more of an issue than macro.

The GS I went to, 100% of students got 5 A-C GCSE's and the vast majority got 9 or 10 of them. 95% of students in my year went on the University - generally RG and some to Oxbridge.

Not a single comprehensive in my surrounding area can come close to that. I have a bright child, I don't intend to risk her future by experimenting with what she might or might not achieve there.

Just out of interest, how can a comprehensive be comprehensive and not mixed-ability?

I'd agree with that.

Hence, if you have a child who is very bright and you live in an area where the vast majority are behind, why wouldn't you be thrilled at the idea of a grammar school if you can't afford private fees?

Sorry, I meant comprehensive does not mean mixed ability teaching. A crucial missing word!

I put this question out tentatively- surely we should be looking for a system that provides the best possible education for all- isn't that in the best interest of all of us? A system that perpetuates division and entrenches privilege is bad for society as a whole.

In a comprehensive they are taught with those of a similar ability. Since no one has been 'creamed off' - they are still with the DCs who would have been at the grammar. They are merely under the same roof, able to move up or down the streams.

In fact it is better for the very bright because those who can't keep up, or give up on study, move down- at the grammar school they have to have them in the same class.

The best possible education for all isn't necessarily the same education for all seeker and it's probably beneficial to individuals as well as society to recognise that.

I thouight the stats showed that disadvantaged DC do better in GSs than in comprehensives?

Surely then, the way forward is to encourage more disadvanatged DC to apply and to weight the entrance exam, as is done in very selective universities?

But the grammar school system results in a minority of children doing only marginally better in exam terms than they would in a comprehensive school, while leaving the majority with what is often a worse education. And it has all the additional issues of dividing children into successes or failures at the age of 10 (nobody, surely, even the most fervent supporter of the system, can think that's a good idea! ) social division and entrenching privilege. So, a barely measurable benefit for an already privileged minority, against a major disbenefit (is that a word?) for the majority. I honestly can't see how that is acceptable.

seeker it's not just about disadvantaged DC doing marginally better in exam terms at GS. It's about what happens thereafter.

Bright disadvanatged DC end up socially mobile following GS. More so then at comprehensives.

Comprehensives have been an utter failure vis a vis social mobility.

So surely the answer is to get more disadvanaged DC into GS?

"Bright disadvanatged DC end up socially mobile following GS. More so then at comprehensives."

Is that true? Is there a big enough sample to say?

I know you've been directed to the research before seeker and I know you just don't want to accept it because it doesn't fit in with your world view...so you'll argue about sample size and pick at the minutae like an itchy scab.

But if you think about it, all you need to do is flip it. Instead of looking at GSs, loojk at comprehensives and ask yourself if they have been successful at helping bright DC out of poverty. The answer is clearly no!

I would be happy to accept it if it was properly researched and statistically significant.

So. How are you going to get more disadvantaged children into grammar schools, then?

The same way we are getting more disadvantaged DC into Oxbridge. By taking it seriously and getting out there are actually doing stuff!

To be honest there is never going to be social mobility while the movers and shakers continue to be (in the main- before anyone tries to prove me wrong by coming up with exceptions) white men who went to public school and Oxbridge. Not private school or "Indy"- public school. And only about 5 of them. People like that appoint people like that. And in their minds, comprehensives, secondary moderns, grammar schools and most private schools are all much of a muchness- places that other people's children go to. I think that's something us enthusiastic anti private education people sometimes forget- there may be good reasons forgetting rid of St Custards and Miss Joyful's School for Young Ladies, but changing things at the top isn't one of them. Their alumni have no more chance of getting to the top than the alumni of Bash St, Grange Hill or the Mary Seacole Academy.

And actually, I don't think there is much appetite for social change in the UK. I can't remember who said it, but somebody said something like "The British dearly love a toff". We've always liked to know out place. And it must be true- I can't think of any other reason for electing David Cameron!

"the same way we are getting more disadvantaged DC into Oxbridge. By taking it seriously and getting out there are actually doing stuff!"

What sort of stuff?

And I notice that you don't address the negative aspects of selection on the rest of the cohort.

word no-one wins under the grey educational ideal of seeker since once disadvantaged kids get through to Oxford or Cambridge they then become part of an elite and their natural talent and what they can offer to society (as well as do for themselves) has to be dumbed down, because otherwise it wouldn't be 'fair'. Sounds bloody awful. And not productive socially or economically either. Just bad all round except for possibly, possibly, possibly making those with no bent for an academic education feel a tiny bit better. But I don't think even that's a given, so it's just a bad idea overall all round.

Yellow tip- it would be so much more interesting and fun if you were prepared to address what I actually say, rather than what you want me to be saying! I have never said or even suggested anything like the opinions you attribute to me in that post.

I don't mind grammars taking steps to reduce the reliance on tutoring, but I do feel that CCHS going their own way means that children like my DD are left with the worst of both worlds if they aspire to go to a grammar - she will need to take two difference 11+ exams using two different formats. One if she wants to apply to the grammars in Southend as well as Chelmsford.
That's a huge amount of pressure for a young child.

A comprehensive may not have mixed ability teaching, but the top 10% at one comprehensive may be very different from the top 10% at another. In the same way that one comprehensive may serve a catchment that supplies few children with serious educational needs.

My nearest comp, you can set all you like but they will still do badly. When I checked their latest stats they didn't even have a column for 'high achievers', just for average and below average. Hardly truly comprehensive.

I imagine that comprehensive schools in Sutton do particularly well given the number of students who only just don't get a place at Tiffin and are therefore an extremely bright and motivated cohort.

I'm sure it would be hugely beneficial if I and parents like me decided to send our PFBs to sink comps and thus improve things, but I suspect few parents want to use their children as some kind of social engineering experiment when they have other options.

If you want to get more disadvantaged children into Grammar schools, then - in the current climate where places are uber-desirable to the not so disadvantaged - then build lots more.

seeker I agree that social mobility will hardly improve under DC et al. But then again, it didn't improve under Blair/Brown when there was huge financial commitment and more importantly the will to make a change.

The reality it seems, is that social mobility does not follow government policy, but is more likely affected by individualised and direct initiatives.

The widening access prog at Oxbridge is a good example of this. There is so much going on; school liason, community liason, mentoring, fundraising...

Much of this could be done to encourage disadantged students to apply to GS too.

As for the disadvantages on the general populace where there are selective schools, well what actually are they? It seems to me that disadvantaged DC do badly in society whether they attend comprhensives or secondary moderns. You talk about social separation in GS areas, yet there is just as much social separation in comprehensive areas.

The reality is this is sadly what the UK is like. Grammar schools are not causing it and comprehensives are not fixing it!

Sorry, should also have addressed the issue of movers and shakers coming from a few schools...

Well yes, but frankly most bright young people don't want to be mayor of bloody London or Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The pay's too crap for a start .

Most bright young people want to be surgeons, CEOs, scientists, actuaries, vets, lawyers etc etc. all perfectly achievable for a bright kid who gets a good education.

"Most bright young people want to be surgeons, CEOs, scientists, actuaries, vets, lawyers etc etc. all perfectly achievable for a bright kid who gets a good education."

Absolutely. But there is no reason why that education should be in a separate building to the bright young people who want to be nurses, shop managers, plumbers or electricians. Or the perhaps less bright young people who want to be care assistants or ( whisper it not on mumsnet) hairdressers. And if it is in a separate building, how are the potential plumbers, nurses and electricians ever going to realise that actually, they might like to have a go at being doctors or architects? It's all about aspiration. The selective school system puts a cap on the mqjority's aspirations, while offering the world to the minority.

seeker I'm all for selective education as I see the benefit. At GS we were setted for different subjects. It was co-ed but we had science lessons separate from boys for O levels as the school realised the boys would take over doing the experiments. If there is no setting and no selection then the range of ability in a class could be vast.

Ds has moved from a non-selective prep to another supposedly non-selective prep. The change has been vast. The difference was the first prep was the junior dept of a senior (non-selective) school, the second had no attached senior school and therefore bases its reputation on the senior school entries it achieves and it sets. The expectations placed on ds are now far higher and he has responded accordingly. He has gone from wanting to go to the non-selective senior school to wanting to get a scholarship to Winchester or Eton (and we'd need a stonking bursary to facilitate that!).

I've been surprised at the change. I always worked hard at school and did well but I wasn't as naturally clever as ds appears to be. Things come easily to him, helped because he has an amazing memory (he was discussing at the weekend about having to let some information go as his brain was too overloaded sometimes - I pointed out that forgetting is something that comes with age!).

But there is setting in comprehensives. There is setting in my ds's secondary modern school!

I'm not advocating mixed ability teaching)although I know there are studies which show that it works extremely well that's too counter intuitive for me). It's the separation of children into completely different schools at the age of 10 that I find repellent.