Benefits of selective education?

[AmberTheCat]

I'm aware that I've been cluttering up the 11+ tutoring thread with discussions the OP said she didn't want, on the merits or otherwise of grammar schools in principle, so I'll stop doing that and start my own thread!

So, I genuinely don't get why so many people think separating children by ability (or potential, or however you try to do it) at 11 or even younger is a good thing. Why will they benefit more from that than from properly differentiated teaching in a comprehensive school? And what about the children who aren't selected? How does a selective system benefit them?

Genuine questions. I'm strongly in favour of comprehensive education, but would really like to better understand the arguments against.

soul2000 - why does anyone 'need' a grammar school education? I don't understand what you mean by that.

I really can see both sides tbh. Another poster mentioned that NI grammar schools have very small numbers on free school meals, and that is undoubtedly true. I mean, thinking back to my own school days, I didn't even know anyone at school who luved in a semi detached house much less came from 'an estate'.

And yet, I know a girl who is in 6th form at that same school now, who gets fsm, whose life has been one of poverty and deprivation from the start but who is determined to study medicine. And I think in the back of my mind I'm thinking 'ok, she is one out of 200 in her year, but she got there, and she's doing it' whereas if her entrance into a 'good' school had depended on living in the right area, she wouldn't have stood a chance.

I do understand that academic selection is not fair, but I really fear the alternative.

Yes my DD's excellent comp has only 12 in the lower set + a TA, so probably better than private school.

You're right Blu the benefits I list are achieveable by setting/streaming (not sure what the right word is) rather than different schools. I don't agree with different schools at 11, what happens to late bloomers, people who are good at English but not Maths, etc. I do agree with setting though with flexibility to move between sets.

Does anyone remember the amazing girl Niamh from the Breadline Britain documentary? They one who'd spotted age 7 that she was going end up in a dead end unless she did something about it, and put her name down for an exam for a scholarship at a fee-paying school and got in?

Unfortunately kids with her level of get up and go and ability to assert themselves in the system are rare, but I have no doubt that are many other children in Britain who have the brains and talent to go on the kind of fast track offered by selective schools.

"I do understand that academic selection is not fair, but I really fear the alternative."

What, the alternative that the vast majority of the country's children to to?

People are talking on this thread as if grammar schools are justified because the "top" 2% (chosen by two or three test papers at the age of 10 might benefit. Even if there is some slight benefit to that small group, why on earth should our education system be planned around what might be best for the top 2%? Frankly, I would much rather it was planned around what was best for the "bottom" 20%. Certainly that would be much more beneficial to society at large.

Martorana, on principle I agree with you.

Unfortunately I also know many VERY clever people who have either limited social skills or are so timid that these skills would never have to light unless they were placed in the right environment. It's very tempting to think that the top whatever% will graft for themselves and achieve the same results as they would have but actually incongruously that often isn't the case. My FIL was a case in point. He would have sunk utterly without trace in a comprehensive system where he would have had to assert himself. Instead he became a very gifted research scientist and contributed a great deal to the sum total of knowledge for over 40 years. My husband is very similar. I dread what he would be doing now if he hadn't had the safe haven of academia to shelter in- rather like his father.

Martorana, I have to correct your assumption that schools are all taking the same exams. Many grammars and independents have replaced GCSEs with IGCSEs and some A level with IB -- because as other posters have said, modern GCSE does not prepare adequately for sixth form and because of grade inflation, A level has lost some currency internationally. So in many cases the schools are not in fact teaching the same courses. An A at IGCSE is not the same as an A at GCSE and that messes up the value added calculations and makes the league tables pretty much meaningless.

Going back to the OP, it depends what you think the main aim of the school system is, I think. If it's social cohesion, a fully comprehensive system is obviously better. If it's academic achievement (therefore students who can compete on the world stage and make £££s in future taxes), then selection by academic ability is probably more likely to achieve that.

I was very struck by the poster who said there should be testing for vocational ability. I'm sure the future belongs to those who have academic and vocational skills, along with creativity. I don't actually care how the UK school system is organised if it can achieve that.

I've got it!

We should school children by learning style!! Not achievement.

Tests at 11 should be aimed at finding what each child's individual learning style is, and secondary schools chosen accordingly.

Then we could have comprehensive education that benefits every child.

DFIL took the equivalent of A levels at 14 at his fee-paying school during the war. He then started degree level stuff. You could do that then. You can still do it now, in the right school. He even had time aged 16 to take up the clarinet (he reached grade 8 equivalent by age 18).

Carrying on with my learning style idea;

So you could have active school/ outdoor school/ bookish school/ arty school and the curriculum could be tailored in each to allow for a lot more of the specialism (rather than the barely comitted sideways glances they do now in so-called specialist schools).

Sorry, bad form, multiple posts. I'll shut up now. Got to do some work anyway.

Not a bad idea though, duchesse - why do we set such a store by academic achievement? Yes, I've been pretty good at passing exams in my life, but does it make me more worthwhile as a person? I don't think so.

Martorana I was talking from my own local viewpoint, personal experience, where the vast majority don't go to comprehensive schools because there are none. Well not many, and none in my area.

Simple, Kate- do you want to learn chemistry through the medium of dance or textbook?

"but the top 2% are where we get our scientists and engineers and the people who designed your computer. "

Really? Top 2%?

I question that. I couldn't put a % on it obviously but I bet all our scientists and engineers don't come from the top 2%.

No - most of our scientists and engineers don't come from the top 2% - they mainly come from abroad.

Is there any evidence to show that our top scientists etc went to selective schools? Or that, if they did, they wouldn't have achieved great things if they hadn't? Like Martorana, I don't understand why, in order to help the brightest students achieve their potential, they need to be educated in entirely separate institutions from everybody else.

Interesting point re. the purpose of the school system, Finicky. Given the evidence that societies with the smallest gap between rich and poor are the happiest and, I think, also the most economically productive, I'd go for a system that encourages social cohesion over one that helps a small number of people to become super wealthy.