Grammar Schools : the debate is about what happens NOW

[TalkinPeace]

In the 20 years after WW2, when the baby boomers were kids, grammar schools did amazing things for social mobility.

But then, self preservation kicked back in
and since 1970, selective state schools have become progressively less inclusive
to the extent today where the (grammar school educated head of OFSTED) says
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25386784

the death knell has been rung
as it has for DB pensions (another great Baby Boomer nest lining idea)

so lets bite the bullet and put equal resources into all schools and reduce the carbon footprint of the grammar school madness.

redland green 80/952 pupils free school meals

The school has 3.70% of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) which places it in the LOW band. This compares with an average of 13.4% eligible in postcode BS6 and 19% eligible in Bristol, City of local authority area as a whole.

My localish affluent comp everyone clammers to get into.

3%school meals national average 19%
4%esl
ofsted rated good.
5gcses a-c including english and maths 74%
3or more alevels a -e 93%

but its huge school.
reckon catchment become even smaller.

schoolguide.co.uk/secondary-schools/?urn=135944

good picture of bristol state schools and thats not all of them thats my 20 nearest.

my nearest really is a worry kind of no way can we send them there.

It's such a load of twaddle when people say, "Let's make all schools good." Yep. Like, let's make all high rise blocks good. Then no one would throw their telly out of the window and no one would take drugs.

I don't truly know if ds's school is outstanding, good or crap, really, but I do know that all the kids are engaged and their parents even more so.

We moved from an area where the local secondary school was ok on paper, but one look at the kids pouring out - smoking, snogging, Britney Spears-style uniforms - and a pregnancy unit to boot - and one hand was clutching my pearls and the other was zooming onto Rightmove.

LOL

Yep - lets make all schools good. Just chuck all the disruptive, undersirable kids out onto the streets where they will end up anyway. Its only the middle classes naice bright kids that need to aboid them, though.

*avoid

I teach groups of up to 33 kids in entirely mixed ability groups in a supposedly outstanding state secondary. It's a nightmare. It's all very well to say train teachers to teach well in mixed ability, but it's not more training they need. It's more time. Time to prepare endless differentiated versions of every lesson. Or of course, they could damn well use setting. As any sensible person would, imo.

Ok, disruptive kids are more of a challenge but some schools achieve well with a high proportion of lower socioeconomic children so it is possible albeit a real challenge. Maybe what it comes down to, un pc as this may seem, is having an extension of specialist schools for disruptive children with the best qualified staff teaching them and reintegration to other schools when their learning behaviour has improved. Disruptive behaviour does not necessarily correlate with lower socioeconomic cirmcumstances and ability though.

In fact to follow on, some very bright children are disruptive, particularly when bored.

Summerends. I have said similar to you but not said it in a "PC" way.

If disruptive pupils were put in to specialist units until their behaviour and attitude to learning improved everybody including themselves would benefit.

No child no matter how "BIG" would want to be put into a unit 20 miles away with no one they know.

These schools could be sponsored by FOXY BINGO, in ASSOCIATION WITH JEREMY KYLE. THEY COULD BE PRIVATELY RUN BY SERCO OR G4S AND BE FEDERATED TO THE PRISON SERVICE. They could look to achieve 45% CAT A ,82% CAT B/C.

Only joking of course ........

Is anyone seriously suggesting mixed ability teaching in all subjects?

Mixed Ability teaching in all subjects, "A TRUE COMPREHENSIVE" I can't understand how those who love Comprehensive schools don't think this is a wonderful suggestion.

The whole idea of Comprehensive schools back to 1970 was just this.
Anyone who is a true believer in Comprehensive education wants mixed ability teaching. "IN ALL SUBJECTS".

Most of the Comprehensive loving people on this site, are nothing of the sort,
they just like the ideological idea of their children mixing with less fortunate kids. The problem though is when the reality of real comprehensive schooling is mentioned , they "HOWL" because they know their A grade kids need to be "SELECTED" away from the disruptive C-F kids. This of course is done by setting though selection.
However their kids can still see the C-F kids at "PLAYTIME" leading to the belief that Comprehensive schools are fully inclusive and P.C.

That's not what comprehensive means.

The whole idea of Comprehensive schools back to 1970 was just this.

Was it? Source please?

I am 'a true believer in comprehensive education', but I don't want mixed ability teachinbg in all subjects.

The poiint about a comprehnsive education - all abilities under a single roof - is the flexibility it offers for every child to be placed in the correct group for their ability, subject by subject. A child who excels at maths but struggles in English? Great - top group maths, low group English are both available. Excels at music, art and design, finds PE hard, middling at English? Again, top set for some subjects, not for others. Mixed ability teaching for some subjects, where it works or where ability is not easily measured on entry to the school: my DS's comp sets very little in year 7., much more in Year 8, and almost totally from then on, because in subjects like Design, Art, Music, PE, MFL there is no good data on which to base subject-by-subject setting until after the child has been taught that subject in a secondary setting for some time.

What I have against education that is segregated by a crude measure of 'ability' at a fixed age [whether VR, NVR, or a test of maths and english as well, it is a really crude measure] is that it denies access to correct groups for many children. A child who is level 7 maths but Level 3/4 English will fail the 11+, and therefore be unable to access the true 'top set' in Maths which is their educationally correct place. Equally, the hundreds of children who are essentially identical in ability - those 4 or 5 marks each side of the pass mark, who could on another day have been swapped over with absolutely no effect on the average ability of the cohort in each school - have different access to e.g. separate sciences, vocational courses etc.

There is no educational justification for the child 1 mark above and the child 1 mark below the pass mark receiving wholly different educations under se[arate roofs - their educational needs are so similar that they SHOULD be co-located, with all the flexibility over time that that allows.

I think actually, that a lot of people think that comprehensive is synonymous with mixed ability, which is why they are so terrified of the very idea.

Actually teacherwithtwokids, I anecdotally know of some very high achieving mathematicians who have poor English but got through a superselective elevenplus VR test. I think the elevenplus is worse for immature or anxious bright children.

Oh I think most people understand about setting.

But of coursde not all comprehensives do it. Of my three local ones, one does, one doesn't and one does banding ie streaming .

To be honest, I suspect what most people want out of a selective school is an academic environment. I see the difference in my DC's schools even though they're both private. The more selective school is more academic in feel for want of a better word.

Many parents don't want that of course, and this cuts across the socio economic lines. There's a thread now in primary where a HT has requested some homework be completed by the pupils over Xmas and the vast majority of posters are telling the OP not to get her DC to do it. Apparently 'piss off' is a reasonable answer to the HT.

Talkin may I ask, in your excellent comprehensive you said in another thread that only the top science set were deemed capable of choosing to do science A levels. How many of 300 or so pupils are in that top set? I am hoping more than 30 otherwise that really is limiting aspirations of children even in your school.

summerends
you said in another thread that only the top science set were deemed capable of choosing to do science A levels
No I did not. Reread my posts.

there are two sets of each level (1-5)
so 60 kids are doing triple science in double slot and another 60 are doing triple in triple
so 120 out of 300 could do a science A level.

not quite sure how that limits aspirations
when the 60 in the bottom set will struggle to get the single science foundation GCSE
and many in sets 3 and 4 do science because they cannot take triple art or music or drama or pe or history or RE

There were as Cecily knows certain schools and heads who held these beliefs.
one of those Heads was Molly hattersley ( Ex wife of Roy Hattersley).
There
were some extraordinary schools about in the early 1970s, one of these was Countesthorpe in Leicestershire which was a Utopian dream.

Cecily will also be aware of the "Black Papers", which was first published in 1969, it criticised and despaired the direction education was going.

Fortunately certain Educationalists realised (Rhodes Boyson) being one, that if Comprehensive education was to become mainstream and the dominant system within the U.K, a form of selection was still needed.

This was the total opposite of what many wanted from Comprehensive education. Many schools in the 70s and early 80s shunned high educational standards.

In 1975 Reg Prentice Harold Wilson's Education Secretary, demanded that all Direct Grant Grammar Schools become Comprehensive. This was a bit unusual because Prentice was on the right of the Labour party , and in time jumped ship to join Margaret Thatcher. The Speech from Harold Wilson about Comprehensives being a Grammar School for all, was designed to appease aspirational working class voters. The reality was that Wilson wanted everyone educated together in the same classes because of political ideology.

That's more reassuring Talkin. If you read through your post below you didn't say that before. The last group seemed to refer just to the top set
^for the lowest ability, just to get through the Ebacc, they do Single Science which is modules B1, C1 and P1 of the syllabus

middle ability kids to Double Science which is modules B1, B2, C1, C2, P1, P2

pretty bright kids do triple science in three timetable slots - being B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3, P1, P2, P3

the top set do triple science in two timetable sets, allowing them to do another option.

If your child wants to do science A levels, they need to be in that last group.^

curlew, mixed ability done badly is awful but it can be done well you know.

sumerends
Please do not quote my posts from one thread, out of context, in another.
I know that what I say must be utterly fascinating to you,
but that is stalking.

mixed ability sets at even upper primary level for certain subjects is a disaster especially maths and languages (excruciating for the top and bottom I would think) ...perhaps for others like history less so

DCs primary school was only 30 per year so not really an option

Hurst I must admit that when setting was introduced at DC's prep school in year 3 or 4, I was .

But I quickly saw how well it worked and got over myself.