Are there not just 164 state gramnar schools left on uk?
when i watch tv programmes mainly political ones theres never any shortage of mps, journalists and tv presenters andrew neil proudly saying i was grammer school boy or grammer school girl and how much it did for them.
Ed miliband went to leafy sought after affluent comp
so many guradian journos send their kids private.
mps magically get their kids into very sough after state shols cameron is coe and cleggs son just got into oratory and they can afford the school fees.
I you look at that example you would think many of them did well as lots went uni at oxford or cambridge and dominate the top jobs as only 7%of uk go independent /private yet dominate russel group and the top posts.
Can we define comprehensive please?
Reason I ask is based on my comp and what people did yes could be as it was shit
but few went on to better things.
reckon there was lots lost potential.
but the bright kids were in the minority,
which left large middle co-hort
large bottom co-hort who needed lots of extra support and were fairly disruptive to the school at times in terms of behaviour as the remedial class wasent just for non bright was kids with emotional issues and was complete zoo.
I was in bottom sets for few things and tops for others but in bottom if you seemed keen or swotty you would get bullied and teacher spent most of time trying to control the class.
A lot of the popular state senior schools here
are faith
rc
coe
take kids wide catchment.
Then theres 3acdaemies one all girls .
2/3acedemies were ex independents.
They can select 10%bu test on their speciality music/language then the remaining 90T%take test are fair banded so they hve equal amounts of ability i each co-hort, wide catchment then when they get past this state its random allocation so basically alottery name puled out of hat if one gets in siblings then get in.
But mostly in a way its engineered and skewed towards middleclasses as theres
stress of them taking the tests-I dont think ist as bad as 11+grammar schools but as parent of primary child im bit vague on exactly what tests entail think some type of verbal reasoning.
Then we only get 3 preferences on admissions so its potentially risky choice its a gamble.
All 3 stupidly oversubscribed I like 2of them but cant put 2lottery schools down unless had secure backup comp.
I spoke to mate whos son wanted to go and she said she thinks as he was middle co-hort and middle probaby biggest so his chances would have been less ta if he was very bright or bottom.
Then theres finance 2/3schools have expensive uniforms.
bus no longer funded £60 amonth
this creates barriers to lower classes -be silly to think it dident deter people which is why on whole this is just observation growing up in wales and where lives now the working classes tend to stay local no matter how bad the school is on their doorstep
hence lower social mobility.
My local comp is connundrum its in leafy affluent area with mostly good well performing primaries but most choose out of area ie the many academies within the city which are quite good or they choose faith/independent which means the local school is full of kids from other areas whos local school is worse than ours so to te seems good but 38%gcse a-c i dont think thats impressive and hear bullyings bad but new heads amazing plus its now like another poor performing school partnered up with a good one but in reality the 2schools are distance apart very diffrenet with different demographoc but they think will raise standards at the poorere school if with the richer school.
But a small town not far from me is in uproar as basically their poor performing comp went academy and partenered up with acedemically well performing afflunet school and they just made decision to scrap a levels and academic subjects at small town school and make them bus it to the academic school which basically says ypu all rubbish lets just focus on vocational, I dont think the town has alternative fe provison has 2 other seniors but parents expeted to pay the bus too if their child wants to do a levels seems but unfair.
In terms of grammars if some are doing well it almost discriminates against areas that dont have them. some travel bristol to gloucestershire but its long way,not even bath has grammars but bristol/bath do have highest independent sector outside london mostly skews results so if people dont get their preferences then many an afford private as backup know few who done that at primary but sheer cost independt at seniors is scary.
On exam results day is same schools that dominate the results mostly indepenendent or the highly sought after faith schools/academies.
I did hear the now state girls schools has achieved really good results and is comprehensive but its also 10%aptitude and fair banded so its balanced and ethos/teaching provision good so guess can be done.
We did have one new comp built in very affleunet area and surprise surprise its oversubscribed and does well although not sure its yet had a gcse results . So i find selection by catchment just as bad.
we have very few free schools yet and they are strange.
in area of shortage places yet take city wide catchment by lottory.
The free senior school is odd location but atracts afflunet postode as like other cities we have nice areas that are blackspots for schools which is ok if you can afford private.