How do we ensure all UK children regardless of back ground/ability receive high quality education?

[happygardening]

Contrary to what some may think I'm not anti state ed and as someone who works with disadvantaged children it really matters to me that they receive a high quality broad education and they fulfil their potential. But sadly in many cases they are not (there are I know exceptions) frequently their parents cannot assist them for a variety of reasons.
Is there an answer to this problem or are they condemned by their circumstances which are not of their own making to remain at the bottom of the heap?
No judgey DM comments please.

In loads of parts of the country there is one school, one comp and just about all children go there. Often there will in such areas be very very few parents indeed who can afford private schools so fewer than the usual 8% of children go to them. They often cover fairly large rural areas and there is no choice of C of E or other schools - just the local comp. People forget that when they live in urban areas with a wide choice of schools of all kinds.

Russian
But the point is that superselectives only work in and around large cities
look at the map of where Grammars are in the UK
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammar_schools_in_England
and look where the "superselectives" are ....

Why should living in a rural area stop kids getting a good education?

So if the state is paying, there is no place for selection between schools
just lots of scope for setting and targeted learning styles within schools.

I think we should actually look at the superselective model and see if it could work- I don't see how it can, but I was hoping that the supporters would explain.

In my more whimsical moments, I imagine how good it would be if Oxbridge entrance was based on no more than 1 place per school to each university. (Dons hard hat and waits for flaming)

I don't think they they are necessarily any better than many other universities, but they do seem popular with those who believe in selective education.

So I wonder if support for selective education would diminish if it made it less likely that entrance to Oxbridge would happen.

In other words, do those who support selective education really think it is needed because it helps develop young learners, or is it because they think it will give their child a more competitive edge later on.

creamteas
Some of the Ivy League now only consider kids who came in the top ten in their school year : a similar system could work here to for the top ten universities

And even US valedictorians (those who came top in their year) often fail to gain entry to the Ivy League, if they come from lower to middle income homes. These families are so bamboozled by the while US HE funding/scholarship thing that sometimes they end up spending more to send their kids to inferior universities than to go to an Ivy League institution. This is because they don't fully understand the extensive nature of the financial support they are likely to receive. Meanwhile the brightest kids or the most talented kids in such cases are denied access to elite institutions through ignorance of how to apply, or reluctance to pay the application fee, etc.

Talkin yes I know. I just can't see it getting enough political support in the UK where so many want to preserve and/or increase rather decrease inequality.

Great for those of us with PhDs and loadsamoney, as it frees up places for our (possibly) less talented offspring, of course. We can keep self-replicating away ad infinitude, of course.

Ad infinitum (flipping iPad)

true and the offensive thing that children of alumni get first dibs at places is NOT something I support

BUT
there is the point that the top 30 kids at each secondary school will have a lot in common, regardless of the school or the area
so if UK Unis request kids who came in the top 10 or 20, that will help to even out the impact of different school areas

Talkin Are you not reading my posts? Or those of Yellow? Our school is a superselective. It serves a primarily rural area.

So if the super selectives were rolled out to cover the whole country, how would it work?

Russians
Where would you put the one for East Anglia?
Or the Lake District?
Or north Devon?
or the Isle of Wight?
or the far North East?

because
if you are going to make Superselectives truly fair, then they need to be equally accessible to every child in the country

and to keep the academic levels as high as you seem to want there should be maybe 40 of them nationally
but you have to keep the travel time for year 7's under an hour each way for humane reasons.

and who would pay the travel costs to get the kids to these schools?
not the parents : as that would be socially exclusive
not the LEA : as that would penalise the kids who are stuck in the local school

lay a few more of your cards on the table please

lljkk - comment from a few pages earlier... who ever said there are no private schools in China?!? Soviet Union had different things going on that were equally unfair.

Talkin, we have 4 super selectives already in East Anglia .

creamteas I'm amazed that you believe that an Oxford and Cambridge university education is not better than that of many other universities. On what evidence or grounds? No doubt some departments in some universities can rival the teaching and learning at Oxford and Cambridge but not many, surely? I assume you're restricting your comment to the UK?

I support selective education independently of the increased chance it offers of a decent university place. It offers seven good years of education. That's seven years more than some kids of equal aptitude currently get. That's of enormous value in itself.

Talkin my family is rural. Really quite rural (in that I've got highland cattle at the back of my cottage and the sea in front with the nearest big town 20 miles away). My DC attend a superselective. A successful superselective. I couldn't have paid for private education, no chance. And why on earth should the LEA or central government not pay travel? It should, it absolutely should.

Also seeker I'm not sure that I think a superselective/ comp set up would do. I think given total freedom of policy formulation I'd whack in a whole lot of vocational schools. Say for the 30% or 40% who'd probably be blissfully happy to be freed of the current grind of the NC. Then 50% or 60% to a middle tier. And the rest to the ss. I might very well expand the ss though, I'm not yet quite sure.

Yellow - when do you decide which child goes to which type of school? Why not a vocational path at a comprehensive school?

And I'm still puzzled about how the nationwide super selectives would work- it seems to me that the travelling would be horrendous for some kids.

Sorry- I missed the bit in your post about you being rural- how far do your children travel to school?

Yellow I think most people would be better off freed from the NC. Or at least, freed from this NC. That might actually be the best thing we could do to ensure all kids get a decent education. That and get rid of Gove.

I agree with getting rid of Gove.

I think that if only people realised that the National curriculum was intended to be the minumum that children should learn then it would work well. It's a shame that in some cases it's taken as "all we need" or even "all we are allowed" to teach.

4.7 miles seeker.

Yellow You're just lucky though! There are other rural people travelling from 50 miles away! And non rural people travelling from 30.

I think the model of plonking the school in a rural location instead of in the population centre (to call it a city is a joke really, but one that keeps on giving) is actually a good idea because some of the rural people are better placed than the less rural ones - which makes a change - and so many people are really in the same sort of boat.

So how many super selectives would we need?

very lucky, I know.

seeker in order to take up my direct grant place at secondary level my parents were quite happy for me to do bus/ train long walk which took about two hours on the way home (admittedly quicker in the morning - an hour by school bus).