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).

word I've long since thought that the Oxford Access Scheme provides an excellent blueprint for widening access to grammars. I hope that the now perceptible shift towards the Durham tests is accompanied by more moves in that direction.

seeker Y7 is the obvious year in which to start at a grammar/ other. How much more time do children need? Seven years of schooling is enough to see which was wind is blowing for most. 11yrs old isn't that young.

Why is year 7 'obvious'? After all public schools start at 13 and have done so for very many years. It seems to work for them.

seeker - MN is full of anecdotes from people who went to a non selective school and went on to RG/Oxbridge and then a successful career.

The anecdotes are supposed to illustrate that a bright kid will suceed anywhere.

Would you care to convince those posters that they are in denial?

By non selective I mean Sec Mod

You obviously wasn't that 'repelled' seeker when it came to selecting which school you wanted for your DS.

Is MN really full of anecdotes from people who went to secondary moderns and thence Oxbridge? I've certainly seen some from comprehensives, but not sms.

Wait a few years and seeker will probably be posting such an anecdote. In the mean time feel free to use 'Search'.

"seeker - MN is full of anecdotes from people who went to a non selective school and went on to RG/Oxbridge and then a successful career."

Is it? There are, obviously, loads of such anecdotes from people who went to comprehensive schools. There are very few posters I can think of who went to secondary modern schools. And very few whose children are at them.

will do! I'll start with 'secondary modern oxbridge', unless you have any suggestions for more useful search terms?

To be honest, I think if you're going to slate a point of view, and the person you predict will make it, based on your imagining that it will most probably happen in the future, you might be losing the plot a little bit.

Nit - to paraphrase Michael Douglas in "Wall Street" do you want me to come over and eat your lunch for you as well?

Not at all, I just thought there might be specific threads you thought I should be aware of!

I haven't turned up much, I'm afraid, and I wonder whether 'you was' confusing secondary moderns with comprehensives. Or, alternatively, could it be one of things you are engaging with in advance in case anyone says it in the future, rather than anything that's been said?

A final possibility could be that you've confused 'secondary modern' with 'modern languages', which might be a term that comes up in relation to Oxbridge.

Well, I'm one of those who provides the anecdote of going to Cambridge from a disadvantaged (in some crucial ways, not in every way, I had wonderful parents) background having gone to a comp. But I certainly don't believe that a bright child will do well anywhere. Quite the reverse. I strongly believe in selective education or, failing that, fair banding and rigorous setting. I couldn't be more opposed to selection by depth of pockets (which is what school allocation by catchment area actually is). I have no time at all for parents who claim they want their kids to go to school 'in their local community'. That's great if you live somewhere nice and want to make sure your kids only mix with kids in a similar situation. Not so great if you live somewhere grotty and would like your kids to mix with people from all walks of life. The surest way to entrench both privilege and disadvantage is to enforce catchment area school allocation. That's why posh people love it.

Seeker - I seem to remember a recent thread where you quoted the stats for your DSs school and the stats you quoted are better than every comprehensive in the city in which I live.

Russians- my dd''s school is a very good example of a secondary modern. And it gets good results. Not, obviously, as good as the look at first glance. But it is a type of school that should not existt.
Can I ask you, if selective education is so good, and bright children don't do we'll anywhere, why don't wholly selective areas like Kent get much better results over all than non selective ones?

Russians - you seem to be under the impression that seeker disaproves of her DSs SM because of its academic record.

Going by her past postings, it has done an excellent job of taking the intake of barely literate Year 7 kids and raisingi them a number of levels. Also her DS is working at a higher level than her DD when she was in Year 7 at her GS.

So, no, seeker's issue has nothing to do with the academics at her SM.

Seeker because Kent isn't the world.

Mts- please will you cut ant paste rather than quote me. You are in lined to get significant details wrong.

seeker - going by the posts of other MNetters, there are comp areas that do worse than your GS.

You can't argue that the GS model doesn't work because Kent doesn't do better than a comparable area with comps while ignoring that Kent does better than a lot of comp areas.

Basically, there are various reasons why one area does better than others, reasons that has nothing to do with the education system.

What do you mean, Russians?

If selective education was intrinsically better than no selective education, a wholly selective authority should have significant better results than a non selective one. Surely that's logical?

Well, apparently you can ignore the fact that there are comp areas with worst result than your GS area.

I don't understand that post.

Are you saying that Kent's exam results are significantly better than other Authorities?

Seeker and MTS,

I think - as far as I remember - that the point is that grammar counties and other counties with comprehensives WITH THE SAME DEMOGRAPHICS have very similar results, indicating that there is no advantage of a grammar school system when other factors are reasonably equal

There will be authorities where the demographics are very different which may have lower results than Kent - but that is a feature of the demographics, not the education system. The point is that grammars convey no advantage given similar demographics.