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.

I think the "High Crest Academy in High Wycombe" are trying the same thing.

dunno, soul. Shall ask said child's mother when I see her.

So basically duchesse, it was a Kent Sec Mod, which has decided that it will make a bit more effort for those children who just missed passing the 11+, (which was always a significant number)? So it's a fudge to get round Kent's system?

But why not just have comprehensives and be done with it? There was a reason why comprehensives came in, in a big way in the late sixties/early 70s - too many children were failing the 11+. There were good secondary moderns, but many were dire.

Despite what is printed in newspapers many many parents are satisfied with the comprehensive system.

LaV- a fudge? I suspect so. They're not allowed to open any more grammar schools. Sevenoaks has no grammar schools, and all the grammar children have to go to nearby towns. So I suspect it ticks a few parental boxes, and keeps higher ability children in the academy.

Duchese. In Sevonoaks , even Grammar School kids would be Peasants .

On a serious note , Sevonoaks pupils have I believe Very very high scores in the 11+ on average at least 7 points higher than other nearby Towns.

So if they get a decent number of 'grammar school' ability children, allow movement into the grammar stream but encourage mixing for some subjects and extra curricula activities, then in practice they are turning it into a genuine comprehensive, and not a Kent/Bucks 'comprehensive', i.e. one which is a Sec Mod.

(But we mustn't call them Sec Mods, so Bucks used to call theirs Upper Schools, although that was when there was a Middle school system.)

If the real problem is the problem with secondary moderns, I don't understand how mixing grammar school kids with secondary moderns is going to improve anything.

The brightest will do best, those in the middle will get less attention and less resources and those at the bottom will stay at the bottom and some of them will poison the experience for everyone.

If you look at some secondary moderns in a place like Bucks, they are doing very nicely, above national average representative of comprehensives. The kids in top set there got a much better chance t shine, than if they were crowded out by the grammar school lot.

If the problem is with poor teaching, low aspirations, disruptive culture, bringing in bright kids will not improve that. It would be a cynical way to hide the problem and avoid fixing it because bright kids will improve league table results.

Vanilla, the grammar school set are not a separate species- they are what would is present in any comprehensive area! What you are saying is that we all want a properly comprehensive system as long as everybody is pretty much the same ability- which they blatantly aren't!

And poor teaching among in your list in ime the least present of the conditions. If you could see the constant low-level disruption, the lack of will to complete any work displayed by a significant minority of pupils in our schools your head would swivel. Their parents seem to either have no idea or not to care- even when informed of problems they often remain unsupportive or blame the school for not enforcing proper discipline, whilst later kicking against any attempts at discipline on their child.

I remember I had very very good results with one remarkable parent (among very many unremarkable ones) who was truly supportive and as much at a loss to understand her child's behaviour in class as we were. The misbehaviour was not constant- in some classes she was an angel, in others, a complete demon. In the end the child's behaviour was sorted when I arranged a meeting with the child and her mother and ALL her teachers.

morethanpotatoprints - if you want a serious MFL course, it is best to purchase one (a) from an educational publisher in the country of the language and (b) that is linked to the CEFR for languages.

"If the real problem is the problem with secondary moderns, I don't understand how mixing grammar school kids with secondary moderns is going to improve anything.

The brightest will do best, those in the middle will get less attention and less resources and those at the bottom will stay at the bottom and some of them will poison the experience for everyone."

Vanilla Chocolate: You seem to be conflating the school with the children that go there. The problem with Secondary Moderns was never that the children were no good. The criticism was surely that the education was letting down the children

"Vanilla, the grammar school set are not a separate species- they are what would is present in any comprehensive area! "

This is the point that nobody seems to understand. Or be prepared to take on board. There seems to be a feeling that there is a group of children who are very clever and talented, but whose cleverness and talent is so fragile that it can be destroyed by contact with anyone less clever and talented. And who are so important that the entire education system should be constructed with them front and centre- regardless of the impact on their more "earthy" peers. And oddly, that these children only occur in the residual LEAs that have kept the selective system..........

Martorana, I don't think that anybody is suggesting what you just said. I think that the general consensus is that in a school with a very wide range of ability, there is certain pragmatic regression to the mean, which means the very high-achievers do not get stretched as much as they ought to academically.

The example of the 12yo good mathematician is a case in point- where would he or she get the right teaching in a set with other year 7s some of whom will barely be mastering two figure addition? At best, those maths lessons will be a waste of time. The general feeling is that he or she should feel grateful to find maths easy and just stfu and not want to do quadratic equations (which btw is the stage most of my Cambridge maths friends were at at 12), but that would be doing that particular child a grave disservice. It certainly isn't providing them with an education suited to their needs, only an education barely adequate for the average child.

duchesse - I agree with your last post.

I think that, as a general rule, people find it hard to grasp just how wide the spectrum of ability can be in a given age group.

"The example of the 12yo good mathematician is a case in point- where would he or she get the right teaching in a set with other year 7s some of whom will barely be mastering two figure addition?"

No, of course not. He wouldn't be in that set in a comprehensive. He would be in the set with the other able mathematicians who would in a different LEA be in the grammar school.

But the probability of a single good mathematician in year 7 in a class where an influential majority are barely mastering two figure addition would seem to me very low...

Of course the spectrum is wide in an age group, but in a maths class of 30, and particularly in a set maths class, it's illogical to assume the majority will be useless and they will be the bigger influence!

No martorana posters are saying these DC do exist in non selective LEAs and are often poorly served. Too many take flight to private schools at secondary level or to a GS in a neighbouring LEA. Those who can't do either are in a tough position. The number of kids taking up the most competitive courses at the most selective universities is woefully low. The supposed grammar school sets just aint producing the goods!

nit the fact that every SS is packed t the rafters with absurdly able DC would seem to indicate that it is common!

Martorana- there are hardly any state grammar schools left in most parts of the country!

I thought your beef was with selective education being bad when everyone is well served in comprehensives? Which as a teacher myself I know not to be true.

Many schools do not set in year 7, some not even in year 8. There really is an enormous range of ability by age 11. That difference doesn't just go away if you ignore it. You have still not explained afaic how a comprehensive handles very differing ability.

What I meant by pragmatic regression to the mean, which is an entirely logical response by schools in a world of league tables and constant scrutiny, is that more time is spent with the two-figure addition children than with the quadratic equation kid because in 4 years' time, the 2 figure kids will be dragging the school down the league table if they're not addressed immediately. Why is more right for those children's needs to be addressed and Quadratic Kid's not to be?

How many schools don't set in Y7/Y8? Genuine question. I mean statistically, not just anecdotally?

Incidentally, answering one of the points above about kids in top sets - actually I should probably put it on record that my darling DD1 was not in the top set of maths (admittedly for an 'absurdly able' year according to her maths teacher, whom obviously I dotingly believed). She wasn't top banded for secondary school transfer either. I am genuinely unsure whether she'd have passed the 11+ as a result. She is now flying. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons I like comps.

"Many schools do not set in year 7, some not even in year 8. There really is an enormous range of ability by age 11. That difference doesn't just go away if you ignore it. You have still not explained afaic how a comprehensive handles very differing ability."

So maybe the important change that needs to be made is that all comprehensive schools should set from day 1.

And on the subject of different abilities- the grammar school near me has 7 maths sets. Which suggests a pretty wide range of ability there too. Nobody seems to be suggesting that there is a problem with handing very differing ability there........

Look what I just found- a comment from the parent of a very bright child on an article in the DT:

^The writer is right in many respects.

I raised one of these gifted children with an IQ of 167. I do not recall teaching him to read only reading to him but he could read before his sister was born 2.5 years after him. He thrived at the local village school and was working on the O level courses in Maths and English by the age of the 10. Unable to afford private education we sent him to the local comprehensive where he was bullied for being "clever" and grew to detest his intelligence and do as little as possible. He got 10 O levels without working but failed dismally at A levels when work rather than memory was required.

He found life easy but employers do not pay for exam results at the end of the term - they require a days work for a days pay and this combined with a very low boredom threshold has seem him jump from job to job over his working years so far.

His sister, bright but not to the same degree worked hard and has done much better.

I would add that we never pushed the boy - indeed we recognised the dangers in making him different.

Having said all this, our country needs bright intelligent people but our education system fails them, leaving them to the mercy of those who are either jealous of or do not understand intelligence.

To those who wish their child to be extraordinarily clever I would say don't - raising a gifted child can be as hard as raising a child with learning difficulties.
^

From this article.

Nit the fact that every SS is packed t the rafters with absurdly able DC would seem to indicate that it is common!

Would indicate that what is common? That each of these rafter packed children would otherwise be in a class of 29 children who can't add double figures? I don't see how that follows?

I think what our education system was or wasn't doing in the days of O levels is probably something we should hope to be beyond, by now!

And whoever failed that kid at schools back in the 1980s can share culpability with the parents who never taught him to value work over memory!