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.

"most schools with a fair spread should be getting 80% 5GCSEs"

the point is that many schools seen as 'failing' dion't have that fair spread - they have intakes that are skewed towards the bottom end. Would you accept that, if a school has an intake that is heavily skewed towards the bottom end of the distribution curve, then 60%, or 50%, or less, might well be a very good result?

"Martorana, it shouldn't depend, especially on the intake. All schools should provide minimum benchmark of secondary education to all children."

Childen, unfortunately in some cases, have more than school influencing their lives. As I said above, my DS's leafy comprehensive, if magically transported to a different socioeconomic area, with EXACTLY the same curriculum, teachers and resources - so delivering exactly the same 'minimum benchmark of education' - would achieve very much less good results, because of those outside influences.

Variables will incluide:

• Stability and suitability of housing - DS's school has virtually nobody living in temporary B&B accommodation, andother secondary school I am aware of has 30% + of its intake living in such housing, with whole families in a single room and with no facilities for study or homnework.
• SEN and chronic illness - siome caused / exacerbated by other issues in this list
• Hunger, and poor nutrition
• Neglect - perhaps due to primary carers who are in prison, addicted to one substance or another, working as prostitutes etc.
• Family income - which of course influences all the above, but will affect e.g. access to books, whether the child has to work outside school (even in primary I have taught children who e.g. help out in the family shop before and after school for many hiours each day), clothing, heating, space and suitability of housing e.g. mould which exacerbates eczema etc.
• Childcare or other young carer responsibilities - older children in some families provide the bulk of childcare for younger siblings (I have taught Y4s who care for all of their younger siblings while parents who work night shifts sleep during the day), others care for disabled, mentally ill etc parents.
• Value placed on education - which will influence attitude to school, absence, homework.

I could go in, but I am sure that you will agree that it takes much more than simply a schol to counteract some of these types of issues. I agree that every child should leave school with the maximum qualifications they are able to - but until ALL services are assembled around the children who have 'more than school' going on it is not right to lay all blame for their relative lack of achievement on schools.

[replace 'eczema' with 'asthma', apologies]

I am not saying, by the weay, that any of the obove list are an excuse for a school not to do the utmost in their power for every child they teach. Just that there are some things over which the school has no influence, and where the co-ordinated intervention by other services is necessary too.

[As an anecdotal aside, in a school I am aware of, the GCSE results included a teenager who was in prison at the time of the exams, and another who was in the local maternity ward giving birth. Because that was the last school in which they were registered, their 'non results' counted against the school's 5 A* to C total.....]

Sorry, venturabay- it was you saying "make a judgment about which students are able to benefit from a selective education and which students are likely to prosper better elsewhere" that gave me the idea that you thought the non selected children would prosper better elsewhere. My mistake.

Martorana I do think that, obviously. My question to you was: since I haven't ever previously expressed an opinion on the subject on MN, why would you 'be waiting for me'? Just curious to know who you mistook me for? It was slightly creepy that's all.

Oh,I'm sorry- I wasn't waiting for you specifically! I was waiting for someone who sees a benefit to the non selected children in a selective system and could tell me about them. Sorry- that must have sounded stalkerish - it was very late!

impatient
Out of interest, what would you have done if there had been no other state option except yob central?
Home educated while I went on appeal to one of the other five comparatively local schools that take the 500 other kids who have chosen not to go to YobCentral.
And local poor families do the same as I do : the other schools are on the same public bus route - so many use it that the company actually lay on a special bus in the afternoon.

YC is a school that started with 1700 pupils in two schools, got a brand new 900 pupil building and has around 400 pupils.
Only parents who do not care still send their kids there.
And I have specific ethical problems with the evangelical sponsors.

But academy chains are a whole different exciting ball game!

Interesting that the vast bulk of this thread has been about grammar schools
when the bulk of selective education in the UK is by God or gonads.

"most schools with a fair spread should be getting 80% 5GCSEs"

the point is that many schools seen as 'failing' dion't have that fair spread

All schools should be achieving 100% of good GCSEs regardless of spread. Otherwise you perpetuate the policy that some 20% of the spread should be left on the scrap heap.

I find in tedious that people from or close to the educational establishment who designed this cynical system keep on pedaling this assumption that schools should not be expected to teach effectively the bottom 20% and should not be accountable for the failure to educate them.

This is a crime against humanity.

An then they hypocritically argue that grammar school kids should be forced into schools with the 'uneducatable' bottom 20%, but not their own kids of course...

Who has argued that grammar school kids should be forced into schools with the 'uneducable' bottom 20%, Vanilla?

This is not to say that there aren't teachers who take the attitude 'What can you do with children like these'? (IMO, the answer should probably be, 'find yourself another job if you don't want to draw out the best from your pupils.')

BTW: Still waiting for your stats which show 'most' schools to be dysfunctional.

I was waiting for someone who sees a benefit to the non selected children in a selective system and could tell me about them. Sorry- that must have sounded stalkerish blush - it was very late!

But Martorana, you found your answer last evening. You said it yourself?

Martorana Sun 23-Feb-14 00:51:21
Actually, that's a really good idea, seriously. Take the "bottom" 25% and put them in a separate school. Find a way of telling them that they are there because they are "the elite" or "the leaders of the future". Give them all the advantages that apparently grammar school kids have- not forgetting the kudos. And see what happens.

Are you now saying that your real problem is not the what the benefits of selection to the low achievers are, but that you are actually worried about something else?

Oh wait, yesterday you also disclosed that your problem was that your DC have to share the school with the 'uneducateable', but why do you then oppose educating them well? That would solve your DC problem too...

"should not be expected to teach effectively the bottom 20% and should not be accountable for the failure to educate them"

Did you not read my second post?

Teachers alone - without help from social services, the legal profession and police, psychiatrists and psychologists, specialists in addiction, town planners and housing associations, the medical profession, the benefits system, those involved in immigration and asylum, to name but a few - cannot always solve all the problems in a child's life that affect their education.

A teacher in some schools will spend a very large amount of time on 'social services' issues, and barely scratch the surface of the issues. A teacher in another will not spend any, and will have done everuything needed.

I am absolutely accountable for the education of the children in my class. I also counsel them, get other services involved, feed them, clothe them in some cases and speak to many other services about their situation - but I cannot on my own take away their childcare responsibilities, remove their parents from prison / addiction, give them decent housing or repair the damage caused by foetal alcohol syndrome. Do I commit a crime against humanity daily?

(And tbh many of these children are not, or do not need to be, in the 'bottom' 20%, as their 'raw ability' is not necessarily low, and day to day in lessons they may make appropriate progress. What affects their final educational outcome is not what the school does, but what they bring to school with them from all the outside influences going on in their lives.)

A teacher in some schools will spend a very large amount of time on 'social services' issues, and barely scratch the surface of the issues
that was why DH decided not to take a full time job in a school after his PGCE
when a kid from one of his training schools was killed in circumstances linked to the neglect at home he decided to take a different path.

Vanilla
your cotton wool sheltered life has not shown you about kids who are not allowed to be at home when mum's boyfriend is visiting, or are never given a proper meal at home and do not know how to use a knife and fork at age 11
teachers cannot deal with them alone

To condemn the bottom 20% as ineducable - that is a crime against humanity, and i would never suggest it. To say that 5A* to C GCSEs is not necessarily a totally appropriate benchmark for all of those children at 16 is NOT the same as suggesting for one moment that they cannot be educated, or cannot make enormous progress from their starting points.

I had a child in my class who arrived with no speech, and could only recognise the first letter of their name. They left with some speech, and able to recognise their full name and the letters of it in other contexts, not to mention progress in many other ways in e.g. maths, social interaction etc. that was progress, just not in a way or at a timescakle that will get that child 5 A* to C GCSEs 6 years later.

Vanilla, could you find me a state school with a full spread of ability (20% lower, 60% middle, 20% higher - DfE website is a good source of this information if yiou don't know where to find it) which gets 100% on the 5A* to C benchmark?

The league table information says that the national average for a school is 50 to 59% of students achieving 5 good GCSEs including English and Maths. That means 40% of students at 16 have not achieved the basic benchmark of secondary education. This is faillure by any standard, except when british educational establishment measures itself...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25849548

That means that half of the schools, those below national average, graduate less that 59% of students achieving good GCSEs.

It also means that a fair bit of schools above the national average also graduate students with less than 5 good GCSEs.

Otherwise the national average would be 75% of students, where the majority of schools get 100%

All schools that fail a part of their students to achieve 100% are dysfunctional.

Yes, you could excuse severe learning difficulties and explain away 1-5% here and there. But not 40%!

But of course the top of dysfunctional schools is known www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25849549

In the words of the Great "Harold Wilson" A comprehensive is A Grammar School For all..

I don't think even the greatest advocates of "Comps" would claim that one.

Vanilla, could you find me a state school with a full spread of ability (20% lower, 60% middle, 20% higher - DfE website is a good source of this information if yiou don't know where to find it) which gets 100% on the 5A* to C benchmark?

There shouldn't be an acceptance that the school are not expected to do well for low ability students and should not be accountable for faillure.

Soul . You have mentioned Buckingham school. The Mixed Grammar did not reply to DD One of the letters went to that one . DD did not even get a Sorry letter from them, very Inconsiderate.

Some of your arguments would have merit Vanilla, if only you weren't peddling the same weary cliches all the time. Some schools are dysfunctional, most schools are comprehensive, therefore most comprehensives are dysfunctional seems to be your (flawed) logic.

A good few pages back someone posted OSTED stats to show that something like two thirds of schools, are deemed to be good or outstanding. Such measures are invariably a fairly blunt instrument, and we can argue about what OFSTED figures really mean and how much they are really worth, but at the moment, they are the best we have to work with.

Yes, there are problems with a longish tail of underachievers, and there has been no political appetite to seriously address these issues despite a number of good reports about effective ways to tackle them being commissioned (and then ignored) over the years.

My DD was designated Low Ability based on her Levels when she arrived at secondary school. ( What A blunt Instrument)

teacher

Do I commit a crime against humanity daily?

Well, yes, because you accepted the cynical premise that the system doesn't care about the bottom 20% and collaborate and cooperate with it, rationalizing away why it's that way, unless it touches you own children. Than you become passionate and argue for whatever you think will help your own darling.

We can see on TV the passion of teachers about their pensions (rightly so), but I never heard the passion for giving good education for those who are now failed by the system.

It is the educational profession that designed the system, not the parents from the council estate.

Vanilla
5 good GCSEs including English and Maths ....the basic benchmark of secondary education
Could you please link to where anybody other than yourself has described it as such?