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.

Well, of course there's a "bottom" set. You're just setting by (potential) ability rather than using the bottom set punitively.

Er, no. In common with many other schools we have one top set and then parallel sets. If it were my choice we would probably have completely mixed ability but I'm not going to win that argument right now.

There's also the advantage that, in theory, any child can move up to the single top set which aids motivation as opposed to having to move from set 5 to set 4 which many kids may not find to be much of a carrot.

I think the idea of using setting 'punitively' stinks btw.

And there is no greater force for teenage kids than peer pressure which can work both ways of course. This is one reason why value added in a school where the majority or a significant minority of kids are demotivated and poor attainers is not likely to be very good.

Some people here are just not accepting the arguments they don't like. Middle class educated mothers with kids doing well in good schools arguing about bringing down brighter kids and deliberately ignoring the real issue with the education of less able and disadvantaged kids. What is the motivation here?

The selection debate is a red herring while the real issues are poor schools due to poor education for the low ability students right from pre-school. That's where passion should be channeled.

It is flawed to only consider the benefit to those not selected without considering the benefit to those selected. You also need to balance advantages and disadvantages.

On balance selective system is better suited to meet the needs of broader spectrum of ability and improve achievement for larger number of students.

• It helps the most able students
• It helps middle ability students in good schools by giving them more attention compared to the situation where they would be overshadowed by brighter kids
• In theory it offers space to better serve those at lower end of ability, provided they were given good schools with adequate resources and methods.

• The fact that lower ability students do less well is born out entirely out of political choices made in resource allocation (i.e. leaving less able behind).

This was a political choice nothing to do with selection as such.

• The main barrier is that there are bad schools and that the attainment by the least able is not viewed as a priority. It isn't by the establishment, it isn't by the middle class parents arguing here for the benefits of comprehensive education.

Why do they show remarkable indifference to this point, while complaining that low achievers are pulling comprehensives down without bright kids? There is a contradiction there.

We need more good schools.

To help middle and especially low ability students to achieve, you need to improve outcomes in primary education and review the whole system to better serve the least able and socially disadvantaged.

Removing selection will do nothing to help standards and raise attainment among low achievers. It will only limit the opportunities for the brighter students.

Bright kids in comprehensives are just hiding the issue and shielding the dysfunctional system.

On balance selection is doing good for one group and no harm to any other group.

'arguing about bringing down brighter kids'

I challenge you to find a single such argument.

What people are actually arguing for is raising the achievement of ALL of our kids.

It sounds more than a bit paranoid to assume that helping one child will be at the expense of another. And you might want to ask yourself what makes you feel this way. Sounds like massive insecurity and sharp elbows to me.

'On balance selective system is better suited to meet the needs of broader spectrum of ability and improve achievement for larger number of students.'

According to you only. There is absolutely no evidence to support such an assertion.

HEAR HEAR

Vanilla, you cannot grade and allocate children according to different destinations the way you might with bananas without expecting this to have an impact on their motivation. Children are not bananas.

It has been widely documented that any school which is selective, including covert selection by faith, take fewer children on FSM.

Wealthy and educated parents are able to take advantage of exclusive education in a way that poor and uneducated parents are not, regardless of how bright their offspring are.

Can you really not understand how kids who fall on the wrong side of a test or who end up in the bottom set will be further demotivated and are likely to have a negative impact on each other?

Any system which further privileges the already privileged and effectively demotes the rest is morally, socially and economically objectionable.

are hugs allowed on this board?

Any system which further privileges the already privileged and effectively demotes the rest is morally, socially and economically objectionable
Especially when it is funded by those who have been excluded

I find it shoking that people on this thread fond that high ability is a privilege that should be denied, but wealth and selection by wealth is OK,

This is the whole ethos of this thread.

Eh? Vanilla this sounds like more paranoia rather than a response to what people are actually saying.

Where has anybody said that 'high ability is a privilege that should be denied'? Where has anybody even vaguely hinted that bright kids should be held back.

What I am saying (based on evidence) is that it tends to be families who are already privileged i.e. rich and/or well educated who can take advantage of selection. Parents who do not have money and/or education often cannot.

Selection by wealth is NOT OK but this is what currently happens.

There are significantly fewer children on free school meals in grammar schools and faith schools and in fact in all of the highest performing state schools. Any sort of selection penalises the poor, however bright their offspring may be.

Everybody in work funds the education system. Even people who will never use the education system because they don't have children or don't educate their children in the state sector will fund it. My children have never (thank goodness) needed a pupil referral unit or a hospital school or a state funded home ed service, yet my taxes go towards funding them. The funding argument is specious.

The issue is far more about access to selective education and whether selection is being done on income rather than ability. Which is to my mind a very valid debate to have.

But if your children DID need a PRU or hospital school they wouldn't be excluded would they? Whereas the majority of our children could never get in to a grammar school even if they lived next door.

There is no other public service which discriminates by faith or ability.

Imagine if we had Muslim or Catholic hospitals or buses which only accepted people who'd passed the 11+

I think it's certainly true that far too few poor DC end up at selective schools.

However, I don't think it follows that this means we should close them! I'd rather we aimed to help more get in.

I mean we don't close Oxbridge or LSE or Bristol or Imperial...we just make as much effort as we can to widen access.

I'm surprised you're dragging faith into this debate given the strict criteria for admission to faith schools!

That was to whendidyoulast by the way.

Why is that surprising? Like I said would it be OK for you to get a place at your nearest Catholic hospital which just happened to be better funded and better performing that the nearest non-faith hospital because you are Catholic but your neighbour is not?

Oh, I see- you're equally opposed to faith schools as to grammars.

Thing is, I think that theoretically at least grammars do not discriminate socially except on an individual's ability. Faith schools to my mind exist purely to exclude particular lifestyles and are a lot more discriminatory.

'I'd rather we aimed to help more get in.'

You don't see a problem with the principle of exclusive education even if you get 90% in and only exclude 10%??

'you're equally opposed to faith schools as to grammars.'

Yes.

Just as I would be opposed to faith hospitals or faith parks.

This thread is venting anxieties of middle class mothers seeing diminishing social mobility and chances of their children slipping away. But instead of addressing the problem and reforming the education to make it work, they derive reassurance by comparing themselves favourably with Chinese oppressed workers and direct their aggression towards non wealthy bright kids within their grasp.

Selection by wealth is the biggest injustice in education in this country, not selection by ability. The comprehensives that work well are invariably enclaves of leafiness or exceptional pet projects and political showcases. They are exceptional and cannot be replicated to all schools in country.

The comprehensive system also stratifies kids by ability and leaves behind those at the bottom.

The high paid jobs go disproportionally to the small group from a handful of public schools that effectively run the country through finance, law, media and politics. However mothers here are raving abount the injusices of the priviledge to be exceptionally bright and going to a state funded selective school.

Grammer schools are some few places left to offer social mobility to non wealthy capable kids along with outstanding exceptional comprehensives.

If you want address injustice, you should look at public schools, not debate about unfair selection by ability.