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.

No? Segregating children by ability / parental income / parental religion / skin colour / any other way in which people might discriminate doesn't contribute to social stratification? I disagree.

I have statistics of two successful girls state secondary schools here, 1 is a Highly regarded Comprehensive/ the other one is a "MODERN" but which is which.

School 1 1182 pupils, F.S.M 11.3% Ability range 11% Low 56% Middle 33% High
74% 5 A* to C Average grade of students of Low Ability D- Middle Ability C High Ability B

Average attainment at A level C 8% @ 2 Facilitating subjects.

School 2 1377 pupils F.S.M 10.5% Ability range 9% Low, 54% Middle 37% High. 77% 5 A* to C Average grade of Low Ability C Middle Ability C+ High Ability B+.

Average attainment at A level C- 8% @ 2 Facilitating subjects.

So are you going to tell us Vanilla that your son is in a Grammar school, and will you then go on to tell us that bullying doesn't happen in Grammar Schools?

Quite frankly a school which says it doesn't have bullying is IMO lying. A good school is one which recognises that it happens and has an effective policy to deal with it.

Well, as I've posted (twice) Ofsted said:

65% of pupils who achieved Level 5 or above in both English and mathematics at the end of Year 6 failed to attain A or A grades in both these subjects at GCSE in 2012 in non-selective schools

Which suggests that they expect them to achieve those grades if they enter with Level 5 or above. I've tried to find the equivalent figures for selective schools but haven't managed to as yet. But I'd bet my house that they're much higher. And in this instance we are comparing like with like

I was a bit bored so looked at some of the figures. A and A is quite a small part of the overall figures so they can go up and down quite a lot when you are looking at smaller groups of schools. So, going by the data on p13 of the OFSTED report I am using A-B instead. This states that 75% get A*-B in English and 78% get it in Maths.

I then looked at the DfE figures for grammar schools in Lincolnshire as this is an area close to me. The comparable figures for Lincs grammar schools were 78% and 82% respectively.

However, this is only on a very small sample of 12 grammar schools, so the fact that the figures are 3% points higher isn't really significant given the variation that exists between individual schools.

For example, in English the grammar schools varied between 94% and 49% and in Maths the grammar schools varied between 93% and 60%

Why anyone would want to compare against such countries that have nothing in common with us is beyond me.

Because the jobs are going there. They can do better job for lower wages...

The school DS goes to have policies about bullying and they work. DS is not bullied and that is what is relevant.

Because the jobs are going there. They can do better job for lower wages...

Well, yes, loads of things have been outsourced to China, but as already discussed, China didn't count all its pupils when crowing about how well it was doing. It didn't count its peasant population working for slave wages.

What, it's irrelevant that other kids are being bullied as long as yours isn't?
Why does this not surprise me?

Vanilla, you appear to have a habit of ducking the questions asked. Do you think that Grammar schools don't have problems with bullying?

I am glad that your son's school seems to have an effective policy. It's a pity that his primary school didn't.

Vanilla,

Your DS may not be bullied in his (grammar? private?) school. That does not mean that other children aren't. Bullying happens in all schools, though it takes slightly different forms and is more or less effectively dealt with.

(Locally, the examples I can find of teenagers cmmitting suicide due to in-school bullying are from private and selective schools. I realise that this is one 'extreme', but perhaps it illustrates that even in very highly selective schools, bullying happens)

It didn't count its peasant population working for slave wages.

This is a complacent and unhelpful position to hold. Their wages improve their living standards, so the buy all those goods, while non skilled wages in UK don't even feed the workers without top ups from food banks and benefits. British low skilled worker has nothing more to offer than a Chinese one, except the Chinese would be more motivated and have better work ethic.

PISA analysis of poor vs wealthy students shows that the Chinese poor outperform UK public school lot in Maths. It concludes that it is not wealth, but educational sustem that matters.

In this article an ealier analysis shows that UK high acheivers in Maths are 2 years behind Asians because of the curriculum. This gap widens between 10 and 16 years of age. It also say that the gap is formed in primary school
Maths-pupils-england-behind-chinese

"The research also found England's most able youngsters make less progress generally than those of similar abilities across the 12 other countries studied. The other countries studied were Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Slovenia, Norway, Scotland, the US, Italy, Lithuania and Russia."
"The researchers concluded that England should focus on helping all youngsters with their maths skills at an early age.

Overall the findings showed that the nation's pupils are already some distance behind those in east Asia in their maths achievement by age 10"

Their wages in China help the population buy all those goods? Quite honestly, I doubt it. The Chinese live in a totalitarian state; you would seem to be implying that you think it's a good thing.

Don't kid yourself that it's only the low skilled or unskilled who has become dependent on food banks. You could be made redundant, or become disabled and be unable to work and then you might find you changed your tune.

Anti bullying policy at DS's school works.

Vanilla,

The pioint about the Pisa study - and any analsis derived from it - is that the data collection on which its figures are based is extremely dodgy. ANY analysis based on it is flawed as a result.

The conclusions MAY be accurate - but if they are, that is essentially as a result of luck. It really is like taking data about 20 pupils from Winchester and 20 pupils from St paul's Girls, and saying that they are in all respects a true representation of children of that age in the UK. It simply doesn't stack up as a statistica methodology.

LaVolcan, you are ill informed. You lifestyle and general advantage over emerging economies is mainly an illusion and fast disappearing. The Chinese would find nothing enviable in the lives of UK unskilled workers on zero hours contracts.

Vanilla, how can you be so sure? Have you asked EVERY child, in private, about their true experience of bullying? Or are you basing this on a statistical sample of 1?

DS was bullied in his first primary school and not in his second. Do I assume from that that 50% of state primaries have no bullying? No, I simply conclude that he, as an individual, wasn't bullied in his seciond school.

'The existing social stratification in UK distorts all the school landscape. '

I agree with that but I think the stratification in the school system both reflects and reinforces social inequalities rather than being a force for social mobility. The more that 'choice' and segregation is encouraged in schools the less equality and social mobility there will be in general.

teacherwith2kids , you should disclose that your point about 20 from Winchester and St Paul are your speculations. You don't know the samples of PISA study not.

OK, Vanilla, so your son's current school has an anti bullying policy which works now, but it didn't work at primary school.... and the bullies went onto a sink school. But that's OK because it didn't affect your son.

Meanwhile those happy Chinese peasants are busily working to provide goods for rich Westerners (once referred to as the running dogs of capitalism), but that's OK too, because they are good at Maths.

Now as one who nearly went into Maths teaching our attitude towards Maths leads me to despair, but apart from that I would say that words fail me, but they don't. I think you are winding me up, or being incredibly naive!

Why would I change my tune if I become redundant?

I won't repeat the points already made upthread about issues with data collection for the Pisa study.

Articles such as
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6344672
www.statslife.org.uk/opinion/1074-the-problems-with-pisa-statistical-methods

may be helpful.

But again there is a failure to recognize the impact of culture on educational outcomes.

OK the Chinese as a nation are better at maths but at what price? Their kids are expected to put in long hours and extra tuition, they have very little understanding or tolerance of SN, a one child so high stakes attitude to children's attainment etc.

Why would I change my tune if I become redundant?

You might suddenly find that you had no money coming in and were dependent on a food bank. They are not just for the workshy undeserving poor you know.

Hmm.. you are likely to have less social problems of all sorts where you are dealing with a privileged group. It is not that the school in inherently better, merely that they are excluding all but the already privileged.