Grammar schools - interesting article

[UnquietDad]

it be here

I know it's over a year old, but I'm new here, so apologies if people have seen it before!

As a former grammar school boy myself - whose parents could never have afforded to go private - I found it interesting. I find it a shame that my DD won't have the same opportunity.

Yes, I'd be interested Cam.

If people tell you the names of their schools, how is it going to prove anything about the people who didn't go there?

I've said which LEA mine was in. That's enough.

Mine's called Methodist College Belfast - you can google it!

Can't see anyone wanting to move to Belfast just for the education though

b&w, I think with respect that you've missed the point - that was said in response to an accusation about grammars being socially elitist. Nobody has levelled accusations at secondary moderns.

We were streamed for some subjects during the two years before I went to grammar school. It occurred to me that those who were in the C stream would now become the A stream., given that most of the A and B streams had departed to Grammar or "Tech".

There were no council estate school kids at my grammar - just those from well off homes. I lived in an area with a big council estates and not one kid from these went.

Plus the kids really believed that they were the cream of the best - they were all told that at the first day assembly. Bet the poorer kids at the sec mod weren't given this talk

Sorry, Unquietdad, don't get your last post (remember, I didn't have a grammar school education so need things to be put simply and clearly). Rojak, could you clarify, are you too saying your grammar school represented a wide range of backgrounds and abilities?

Pamina3 - I'll try and convince you, shall I? Lower housing costs! virtually NO commutes!

B&Wcat - yes - Northern Ireland is the only region in the UK where the 11+ is still in existance (until 2008) and many children from all different backgrounds who pass the 11+ gain admission to the grammar schools.

I know of many kids from what's termed areas of high depravation in Belfast who have gained places in the many grammar schools here.

b&w - explanation follows. You quoted me, out of context. You said: "The grammar school system was a terrible, class-ridden system which by and large ensures the middle-classes do well and are kept away from the nasty masses and the nasty masses stay in their place."

I said (you quoted) "My grammar school was full of people from all sorts of backgrounds, different types of houses and families."

You said "Well, if you really think your grammar school was full of people from different backgrounds and abilities (as opposed to a minority) then just imagine what the nearest secondary modern was like!"

I just thought that was a bit of a non-sequitur as I had never claimed a secondary modern wasn't - I was just answering the accusation about grammars. There were not just middle-class kids at my school. I was there for five years. I know it.

Marina and Realcam say the same as me. Milward's experience was different. I think all of this just proves anecdotal evidence is inconclusive, so we're going to have to agree to disagree.

perhaps there should be some sort of check on the soc-econ status of the kids in 11plus areas - see what happens with school mixes.

Also the head teachers report on the kids saying which school they should go to should be given to the parents - let them see the reasons why their kid got a place or wasn't admitted - it's not just the 11plus that determines the school. In my day this got kids places that would have been better at sec mod & excluded others from grammar as the school thought that they wouldn't benefit.

Message withdrawn

Pamina - they are getting rid of the 11+ which is the transfer test for post primary education here. No one knows what will quite happen then - there's speculation that we will go the way the English system has gone which is all comprehensive but with some of the grammar schools possibly having to go private and starting charging (horrors!) fees!

There aren't really any private schools in Northern Ireland at the moment.

or we may end up with the selection by postcode (postcode lottery) which has helped drive house prices up in England!

Professor Steve Machin, research director at the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE:
'Of course, the grammar school system was perceived at the time as being very elitist and a force for not being very good for social mobility. It's rather ironic that it's actually turned out that some kids from low income backgrounds did benefit from that system. And probably that system got more people through from the bottom end of the system than we currently have today.'

Andrew Neil:
'The barriers between the classes are starting to solidify and harden once again. Being born into a poor family of low educational attainment increasingly means you are likely to stay that way.It is not difficult to identify the culprit and it is not a conspiracy of Oxbridge-educated toffs, uniting to keep ordinary people down. The culprit is rather the good intentions of several generations of social reformers who have set about destroying quality, state, secondary education in Britain.I'm angry. I escaped a council estate but today's children can't. We've betrayed them.'

Interesting.

Was I middle-class? Well, my parents worked and owned their own house, so probably. Would I still have gone to grammar if they'd been a dustman and a dinner-lady? Possibly. As Ruud Gullit memorably said once (and I love this quote, it works in so many situations): 'In my country we have a saying - "If my auntie had a d1ck, she'd be my uncle".'

In my class at school (Prendergast in Catford by the way, B&WC, ethnically and socially diverse then as now, but perhaps less so in the 70s, as with the rest of the UK) all of the approximately 15% of sixth formers who went on to university or polytechnic, so that's about eight girls - we were all first generation undergraduates apart from one. None of the other parents had been able to attend university - for cost reasons as well as opportunity.

The grammar school I work at is very working class. Most of the kids come from blue-collar families, even those from outside the catchment area.

I think you may be missing my point about the secondary moderns unquietdad. If a grammar school creams of the most gifted children (which they may not be so much as the most privileged but let that stand) then this is going to be to the detriment of all the other schools in the area. I have seen interesting researh which proves this if you don't buy the common sense argument.

As for your quotations:

'Of course, the grammar school system was perceived at the time as being very elitist and a force for not being very good for social mobility.'

Erm yes cos how many kids went to grammar school percentage wise again? And how many were not middle-class? Oh, and just remind me again how many kids didn't go to grammar schools. Ah, I see.

'It's rather ironic that it's actually turned out that some kids from low income backgrounds did benefit from that system.'

I've always agreed that a small minority of kids beat all the odds and benefited from grammar schools and I've always said shame about the many 100s who didn't.

'And probably that system got more people through from the bottom end of the system than we currently have today.'

How can that possibly be when we have a higher proportion of kids who a) stay at school till 16 b) leave school with qualifications c) go to university than ever before.

To argue that grammar schools somehow benefited the majority of kids is just silly.

I do agree that grammar schools are not the only problem in our education system though and there are other policies and schools which allow selection and which often mean that deprived families are v limited (to the worse-performing schools) in their choices.

As for Andrew Neil, I'm not even going to waste my typing on his views. And really using him as your 'evidence' of the value of grammar schools just confirms my opinion of them.

So, Cam, you really think your ability to do mathematical reasoning and verbal reasoning will not be affected at all by your parents attitude to learning, your schooling so far etc etc. Why on earth do we bother with schools then? And do you know the logic behind not assessing students' English and writing skills (I thought all grammar schools did this). If it was just mathematical and verbal reasoning I would definitely have failed and therefore been written off and wouldn't have been allowed to do O Levels. I therefore wouldn't have gone on to get As at GCSE and A Level and then University or become a teacher and neither would 100s of other people. Oh well, that wouldn't have mattered as long as the minority managed to benefit from a grammar school education!! And what if you weren't told you were sitting the 11+ what happened if you were off sick or did grammar schools not accept kids who got sick either?

Around here all the feeder primaries do extensive build up, it is only non verbal reasoning they test here as well.
Every child assuming they attend a feeder school has the same advantage.
In our area the grammars take the top 25%.
B+W cat you are very keen to pigeonhole the grammar system as middle class, while this may be true in London/home counties, in many other areas it is simply not true
My ds blows your theories all out of the water,the class issue, the aspiring parents... every one, so your remarks are a generalistaion nothing more.

Piffle I never pretended that my points were anything other than generalised. I have always said that there will always be exceptions. Exceptions do not blow my 'theories' (not theories actually but facts) out of the water at all. As you've just said the grammar schools in your area take 25% of kids (probably more than most grammar schools where they exist). That means 75% of kids are not benefiting from a grammar school education and are actually suffering from the absence of the kids who have been judged the most gifted. How terribly depressing that so many of you do not think all our kids deserve the very best education. I am not criticising those who exploit grammar schools and completely understand how parents want the best for their kids. What I am criticising is any system which selects and discriminates. It is wrong.

I am not missing your point, b&wcat, I am challenging it. "If a grammar school creams off the most gifted children (which they may not be so much as the most privileged but let that stand)"

No, I won't let that stand, as it is at the very least contentious and quite probably wrong.

"then this is going to be to the detriment of all the other schools in the area. I have seen interesting research which proves this if you don't buy the common sense argument."

Your argument is only "common sense" to those who agree with you. I hate the expression "common sense". It implies that you are stating something so uncontentious that anyone who doesn't agree must be a loony.

I put the quotations in because I wanted one from an "expert", and the Andrew Neil one I just put in because... well, because I knew some people spit blood as soon as they see his name and I was feeling wicked

I agree there are other problems in the system - the biggest of which is "selection by mortgage" where only people who live in £300K houses get to go to schools which are at the top of the league table. Now that really IS unfair, and worth getting very annoyed about.

You can mention some research by all means.
I don't think anyone will convince anyone by quoting any statstics, because what started this whole thing off, if you remember, was my link to an article with very strong evidence that the removal of grammar schools has helped to WIDEN the class divide. I stand by that. And there's nothing I can really add to it.

Well my dd may not yet turn tou to be grammar school material. So for ehr I will select the very excellent local comprehensive. You choose fom what is available, what best suits your child
I have a son who is G+T in the extreme in Maths and sciences, so I wanted the very best academic education for him, so here he had the hpoice to two excellent schools, he said he wold prefer the grammar as it had better science facilities and offered better language/music classes out of school hours.
My childs education is my business, how other children fare at school is their parents business. You make your choices.
Here children that do not pass still get a top performing school so its not always the scrapheap image many people portray.
I moved a long way to get this education for my ds, as private was not an option financially due to dd having special needs.
all loca schools here have a joint 6th form so the system works at keeping all schools high achieving and competitive.
I do wish the government would throw money/investment at sink schools though, they do nobody any favours and it is often a postcode lottery not everyone can move away from.

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Piffle, how does the joint 6th form work? In our area, not one of the state secondaries (except the Catholic one) has a 6th form - so if the councillors ever get round to reintroducing 6th forms round here, maybe a joint one would be a good solution.