Genuine question - why do some people have a problem with the grammar school system thread 2

[octopusinastringbag]

Original thread full so here goes.

I think the people who are concerned about aspirational/non-aspirational need to trust their DCs to select friends who are like minded. Generally it is my experience that they find their own groups who are similar to them, especially with setting and especially once the GCSEs have started.

Actually just had a look at house prices. To get in to the top performing comp in the area (94% with maths and English) you can get into a feeder school and there the cost of a three bedroomed house is £156k well below the average house price and therefore in no way selective.

Sorry this is in my area not Potters Bar where you would need more like £250k to get into the best school there.

The problem is that people are saying that a comprehensive school is only "top performing" if it gets similar results to a selective school. Which it can only be if it overtly or covertly selective.

If you look at how low, middle and high achievers perform, and whether they make expected progress in relation to their starting points then you can make a sensible judgement . A school can have fantastic results but still not be doing well by it's pupils. As one Kent a Grammar recently discovered.

There can be many definitions of top performing. Is a school that gets 94% A-C inc Eng and Maths but most of those grades are actually Cs, with a lot of soft qualifications along with the Eng and Maths 'top performing'? Or is school that gets 75% A-C inc Eng and Maths but many of those grades are actually A-B and most kids are doing solid academic exams? Or how about a school with 94% A-C but hardly anyone getting more than 5 good exam passes compared to a school where 80% get 9 or 10 good passes? Which is better?

It's just such a blunt instrument comparing league tables and OFSTED reports. Different schools will suit different kids, and there is a place for at least super selective grammars in the range of schools that should be available, just as there is a place for sports specialist schools and science specialist schools (even though I'd gouge out my own eyes before sending my kids to either).

OFSTED deeming a school failing is not necessarily the same as a school actually being, in any sensible view, a failing school.

That's why looking at low, middle and high achievers is so important. Nowhere for the school to hide there.

DD - while collecting all the 'entry cards' needed - has rejected going to a girls' grammar out of hand. She would hate single-sex education.

So I can relax, too:
Comprehensive school [technically secondary modern, but as it outperforms grammars, it is nitpicking to insist on its correct designation]. "Great facilities. Superb exam results in academic subjects [as well as some carefully-chosen, valuable vocational subjects, as the school recognises, as a comprehensive, that some of these are part of the mix for some of its pupils]. Virtually zero behaviour/discipline issues, ever."

The point is that what you ask for is not a NECESSARY consequence of grammar school designation. It is also available in comprehensive schools.

The only thing that is a NECESSARY copnsequence of grammar school designation is segregated education. None of what you suggest is a necessary consequence of segratated education - there just happens to be a coincidence in your case.

I can relax too. Great comp, choice for dd. not single sex which I hated at my first company. Ds doing all proper academic subjects (including Biology, Chemistry and Physics). Good selection. Has also in the past learnt woodwork, metalwork, textiles which he loved. Good choice for us. No need to have had to tutor or seot for silly exam at age 10 (for him).

What would happen if one of your kids got in and not the other?

Also where do you get the evidence that comps use soft subjects for high ability children? This certainly not the case at DS's school and the other high performing schools would have it in the next from ofsted and the parents if they did.

Sorry one last thing. Can also be safe in the knowledge that evidence points to children from comps beating those from grammars at uni.

I know below the belt but doge GCSE comment pissed me off royally.

Losing - me too. I love it that DS - at the comp DD will go to next year - has learned to cook and sew (as well as create designs using some very impressive ICT-driven cutters etc), while still having every intention of doing 2 MFL, History, Geography, and separate sciences for GCSE. Meanwhile others do do business studies or health and social care, computing or product design - because those are the courses that best fit them.

As I keep on saying, the question that needs to be asked about any given comp is 'Are the opportunities available for MY child to succeed?' It doesn't matter what pathways are there for other children to succeed - or even to fail. What matters is whether the school can enable YOUR child to make progress.

Losing Comfort yourself with the knowledge that the Lincolnshire grammars actually don't have 'superb academic results' - not for selective schools. Good. But not superb.

What are grubby bs?!

My chld is doing very well too. Aren't we all lucky. Thing is, I can't relax. Because the system creates a lot of victims and I have a vested interest in other children succeeding. Because from a purely selfish point of view, I do not want to live in a country with a growing and possibly disaffected underclass. And from a purely altruistic point of view, I don't see why my child should have a nicer life and more success because I can make sure it happens for him. I want all children to have the chance to succeed. Thy may not take that chance, but it is outrageous if they are not even offered it.

Curlew, exactly.

The fact remains that all our children will do well. Because we will make sure they will. Even mine, in the school many of you would draw your skirts away from with a moue of distaste. (I've been waiting all my life to use the word moue)

And who cares about the kids ours leave behind, eh? They just should have made sure they were born into different families.

Altruism. Coupled with unenlightened self interest. I notice you choose to ignore that bit.

Is it 'altruism' to want to live in a country that educates all its young people in a system that allows all of them to make all the progress that they are capable of - without putting a ceiling on the performance of those just below some arbitrarily defined cut-off line?

Surely we all have much to gain from a society in which young people are educated for the modern world, not for some white collar / blue collar paradigm that no longer exists? Does not the GDP as a whole benefit us all?