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.

Thing is, I've just clicked on some of the schools on the list you have linked to, Vanilla.

In the randomly chosen ones I clicked on (I avoided those in fully-selective counties, because they are not comprehensive), there is little evidence of 'dysfunctionaility'. several had 'Good' recent Ofsteds, all have 'Good' or 'Outstanding' behaviour. Several had very high FSM, in others the Ofsted report makes reference to low entry points.

LaVolcan,

You seem to have summarised the problems with the system as you see them.

None of these have anything to do with selection. So what is the merit of your point about ordering bright kids to share in the dysfunctional system if you don't have appetite to fix it?

"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."

Excuse me??? Could you possibly quote me on that? (FYI, I think you may have me confused - with 2 children who passed for selective schools, I send them to comprehensive ones....)

I spend my life trying to improve the lot of the lowest achievers, as I outlined in my posts above. Just because I have the humanity to realise that they have more going on in their lives than school I 'collaborate with the system that doesn't care about the 20%'???

5 good GCSEs including English and Maths

This measure is defined by the DofE

It is also what is necessary to progress in jobs and FE in a global technological world in 21 century.

Earlier you argued about the people we have to pay benefits for... well indeed, it is better to give them employable skills than to pay for them to sit on benefits.

You consistently flipping around and contradicting your own rhetoric.

What do you actually want? That your DC go to a grammar school? Would that solve your problem?.

Oh for goodness sake, Vanilla. Of course we should be doing the best we possibly can for every child, of course we should aim for as many children as possible to get at least five good GCSEs. But, for all the reasons teacher has outlined so eloquently, that is never going to be possible for 100% of children, much as we might like it to be. Schools should be held accountable for helping every child to make the maximum amount of progress possible, whether that's a high ability child coming out with A* across the board or a child with SEN achieving a qualification that will be of use to them in the future and recognises how much hard work they have put in.

I'm delighted that secondary school accountability is moving in this direction at the moment.

I've just skimmed the list that Vanilla linked to
97 schools
of which 19 have since closed
many of the others are Labour era Sponsored academies (YobCentral is on that list) - ie the toughest schools in the country.
DH has worked at 13 of them

those results reflect what has arrived at the school in year 7
many of those schools have very good VA
and are much happier places than hothouses

to penalise teachers for working in schools in shitty areas is not going to deal with poor performance.

It's so hard to give you a sensible answer Vanilla because you choose to distort people's words all the time. Please show me a post where I (or anyone else) say 'most bright children must go to dysfunctional school'.

However, I acknowledge you think 40% is 'most'. It's not my definition of 'most'.

You remind me of the former Education Minister John Patten, who quite seriously once opined 'half the children are below average'. Duh! He really should have known better.

teacher,

What is your point, you can't have it both ways, 'caring about' and dedicating your life to fixing the low attainment of the bottom 20%, and refusing to acknowledge that it is the core problem of the comprehensive system?

Why are you wasting your time debating selection? Why are you here ordering other people's children arround into bad schools, instead of fixing those schools.

If comprehensives were attractive educational settings, the middle classes would not vote with their feet against them.

You need to improve the schools first. Then parents would stampede to get in.

And, Vanilla, perhaps you'd like to tell us what you're doing to bring about this utopian educational vision you claim to want? If you can't, I'd suggest you stop insulting the people on this thread who are actually spending their lives working very hard to improve the life chances of those children you claim you want to help.

Vanillachocolate
Here is the summary document for the 2013 performance tables
www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/download/Statement_of_Intent_2013.pdf

please find where it says that 5 GCSEs is a "basic benchmark" rather than a "target"
page and paragraph number

If comprehensives were attractive educational settings, the middle classes would not vote with their feet against them.
Where is your evidence for that poisonous assertion?

wordfactory tried to say that in Comp areas more people go private
but was unable to show data to that effect

Private schooling is most prevalent in selective areas like Kent and London after all

Talkin,

You keep on quoting data which are meaningless because of disagreement about the definition of success and the valid yardstick.

vanilla
You have invented a yardstick that suits your blinkered mind.
Nobody else uses it.

Now the rest of us will get on with a reasoned discussion.

teacher leaving aside all the very valuable points you make about circumstances which will drag a child down, can I ask what you were looking for from the 11+ test when you entered your 2 DC? Surely there was more to it than merely to say they passed, yet that you still opted for a comp?

"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...
Vanilla-
At no point have I ever said anything of the sort. What a deeply stupid thing to say.

Ventura,

As I said much earlier in the thread, I have a supersuperselective locally - a school which by a rough calculation takes a very small fraction of 1% of the children in its 'practical catchment area' [children commute up to 60 miles to it].

As i have also said right upthread, I do have sympathy for a 'Special School' model of selection, in which children of such outlying ability that they cannot be efficiently educated in comprehensives due to their rarity (probably less than 1 in 1,000, maybe as few as 1 in 10,000 according to some giftedness researchers).

Without making too much of a point of it, DS and DD sit quite close to that ability level. They sat the 11+, essentially for that school but shared with less selective schools locally, completely uncoached and untutored, tio see if they really sat in that ability bracket.

As it happens, they don't quite. I know that they passed for the less selective schools - top 5% ish - because the results were shared and it was important for them to know in conversations with their peers, though they always knew we would not send them there.

Vanilla,

As it happens, we did improve our school - over 30% SEN, very high FSM, 30%+ Traveller, very large numbers of vulnerable children - so much that the middle classes from the 'nice' village school in the 'nice' village down the road DID stampede to get in. They lost about half of their pupils, we gained nearly all of them...

Up to and during the 'stampede', our headline results changed very little - because it happened over a relatively short period and most of the children moved were younger.

What did happen was that MC parents actually came to look at the school, behind the headline stats, and realised the enormous care and attendtion we gave to every child, whatever their ability, to maximise their potential, even if in the end it would not show up as a 'success' in our stats... and compared it with the complacency of 'we have easy, able kids, they'll get good results without us putting any effort in, the only ones who really matter are the children just below the critical borderline so we'll do lots of coaching with them in the last term' culture of the other school....

(I should also say that locally, virtually all MC parents send their children to the comp, despite the presence of selective and private options)

After reading some of this thread, I'm glad I live in an area with only comps or private schools! The majority of children in my area go to a comp (or I think most have converted to academies now). As long as the comps are 'decent', I think the most important thing for a child to be well educated is for the parents to support the child and school. The child has to want to work and if necessary needs to be 'made' to work - a teacher cannot force that but a parent has more control over this.
When I read a lot of the threads about secondary education on MN, most of the problems appear to be in areas that have selective schools.
I think if all areas only had good comps, then a lot of the problems would go away.
My DCs comp is 200 intake per year, with an average of 25 in a class and uses 'setting' - initially for maths, and then for English, science and languages. The lower sets have fewer numbers and the highest sets are larger as less 1-2-1 is needed.
Every child is entitled to a decent education but as teacherwith2kids says, to get that sometimes the child needs input/support from other areas such as social services.
And a decent education may not end up with every child getting 5 gcses incl. maths and English - neither of my siblings got maths 'o' level and both have successful careers. My dh didn't get English and did an apprenticeship at 16 and has gone on to have a successful career.

Teacher. why did you not let your DCs make up their own minds if they wanted to or did not want to attend the Grammar School.

Why did you impose your own ideological ideas on your Dcs ?

I can see the future your Dcs start talking to new friends , who will ask them "What School did you go to " your Dcs we reply X New friends "Did you not take 11+ then or fail It (looking Surprised).

Your Dcs will reply No We passed it but parents said " Over our dead bodies are you going there, its against our principles and beliefs" ,New friends will look "Shocked" and tell them what a wonderful school they missed out on .

This all because of the political dogma their parents want to spread not based on what school is right for their child.

Don't worry, soul, they had full input into the decision too - lots of factors in that family discussion, including travel, mixed / single sex, extra-curricular opportunities, range of subjects. The school they attemnd / will attend is right for them, don't be concerned.

It is very common round here for able children either not to take the 11+ or not to take up the place and go to the comprehensive instead. In fact, most children in the conversation above would go 'yes, I hear that your comp is a great school and my parents would send me there if they could, but we're not in catchment' (the primary they attended is on the borderline).

(I just relayed your concern to DS, who laughed like a drain. He loves his school, and is quite happy tell friends who go elsewhere all about its wonders...)

Talkinpeace :^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^

I could equally argue that on the same principle, only parents who don't care would send their kids to the local non selective school if they have the choice of something they believe to be better.
If all the parents in your area sent their kids to the local school, whether that is yob central or somewhere else then yob central might become less of a yob central.
You might not like to class yourself in the selective bracket, but it clearly is if you have chosen to avoid the closest school in favour of one you deem to be better.

To what extent exercising choice between 2 non-selective schools is the same as supporting selection is perhaps open to debate.....

Whether removing all school choice except state or private might well have a significant impact on attainment in some schools, though not on schools with very 'unmixed' catchments (whether good or bad), is an interesting one.

Teacher,

Why do you keep on arguing that other people should compromise on the best placement for their child when you act in the interest of your DS and not send him to the local sink school whatever it is. What kind of moral high ground is this?

Why are you hiding behind a 'moral authority' as a teacher, while you argue as a mother that it is in the interest of your child in a comprehensive to have more bright kids from grammars around? The parents of those kids decoided it is not in their interests.

How can you climb on the high horse if you believe educating all to an acceptable standard is a utopia, for which you should not be responsible?

You exibit double standards but argue here page after page about wrongs of other parents who openly do what is right for their kids.

You promote an ideology for others, but you don't act on it consistently yourself.

Brightest kids compete for jobs with those in public schools and those from abroad.

If you pull every kid whose parents can't afford Westminster into the mediocrity of most comprehensives, the UBS etc of this world will hire the Poles, the Chinese and the lot from Westminster, Eton and St. Paul.

If you don't want your DS to go after these jobs, why do you want to hold back the others?