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.

Hmmm...had a brief look on The Sutton Trust site and that's not what I found. Here's one quotation, 'Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: "Last week we showed that state school admissions to our leading universities had grown by 35% between Autumn 1997 and 2002, compared with a 22% overall increase in numbers. Some commentators argued that this did not necessarily represent a major step towards widening access but our latest analysis shows that a number of these entrants are from poorer backgrounds. Since 1997, there has been a 49% growth in the admission of students from low participation neighbourhoods, well over the 20% increase experienced by more affluent areas"'

Also found this interesting for those of you who argue that state grammar schools are still somehow socially inclusive:

'The research follows a similar study by the Sutton Trust last October which showed that the proportion of children entitled to free school meals at the top 200 state schools (161 of which were grammar schools) was only 3%.
Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: "These findings starkly underline the extent of the social divide in our education system. The top fifth of schools - independents, grammars and leading comprehensives - are effectively closed to those from less privileged backgrounds. To access them, parents must pay for fees, pay for coaching or prep school for their children to pass the 11 plus, live in an affluent area or prove a religious commitment combined with strong parental support. For less privileged families these are not realistic options.'

That's the whole point b&w cat, of course the g schools are like that now, but they weren't in the past when the whole country had the same system.

I'm sorry b&w cat but I think that your last post come across as if you are wearing incredibly rose tinted glasses. You are implying that all comprehensives are good, and that any child that fails at a comprehensive fails for reasons that are entirely external to the school "laziness, or lack of parental support or behavioural issues". Well your school, and those you and your partner have taught at may be fantastic, but where I live and work, and in my experience of watching the children of my friends that just isn't so. Even very bright kids can fail in the wrong environment, and some schools are just that (for example I have another nephew who was moved from his fairly standard comprehensive when his parents realised he was going backwards, because he was so worried that his class mates thought he was a geek. It has taken two years at a private school for him to feel OK again about being intelligent - and the state school didn't even think there was a problem). There are many many excellent comprehensives, but there are also some truly awful ones. In my own area there is a stark contrast between our most local possibilities, two just out of special measures that I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, and two that are so sought after that the catchment area is scarcely bigger than a primary school. This is in outer London were the demographics are not terrible. As for the area where I work, which is in inner London, the whole area has appalling pass rates at GCSE level, and it is a borough with no grammar schools, and where all the new selective type schools have yet to prove their worth either way. Maybe university admission rates have gone up (although at what cost to their creditability) but there are also major issues with general levels of literacy and numeracy in school leavers. I think the jury is still very much out on what sort of schooling works best, which is indeed what the academic paper I cited earlier stated too, mainly because of the difficulties of judging "value added rates".

Nooka, I certainly don't have rose-tinted glasses about comprehensives. I just think we need to realize that to a large extent schools can only be as good as their students because parental influence etc is so much more important. So you can have schools with brilliant teachers, brilliant management, a brilliant curriculum etc etc but they don't appear at the top of any league tables because they're in really deprived areas where 'achievement' might mean the kids coming to school and getting Ds in their GCSEs. On the other hand there are schools at the top of the league tables where teachers do little work,lessons are unimaginatve etc etc because they don't have to.

And no, the schools where I've worked are not 'fantastic' in the sense that most have results that are slightly above average to well below average compared to national averages but I do believe they tehy have been successful and helping kids to fulfil their academic potential within the confines of the NC etc.My dp, having worked in some extremely rough inner-city schools, now works in a school for kids with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. You won't find it at all on the league tables but again the school is successful at helping kids try to meet their potential considering that for some of these kids just turning up at school is a real achievement and for others just being at school is doing them a favour cos otherways they'd be on the streets.

So, gramamr schools and otehr schools which select can and do get brillliant results without having to do a huge amount for them but that doesn't make them 'good' schools int he same way as many comprehensives are.

I've said that lots of comprehensive schools do have problems with behaviour but this is not the fault of the schools. If this govt really wants to improve educational standards and social mobility they need to focus on educating and supporting parents.

If a child gets to secondary school or even through the first few years of primary school unable to read or to see the value of learning, with low self-esteem and unaware of how to behave then there may be very little any school can do with that child which will go towards compensating for these failings regardless of how hard it tries and schools really do try.

b&w cat, I wasn't thinking of fantastic in terms of academic achievement, and I would absolutely agree with you in terms of selective schools - if they didn't achieve academic success that would be a scandal, considering what they are working with. But I would also say that there are schools who don't get the results that they probably should given the material they have, and I reiterate that some schools are better than others - indeed it would be odd if this wasn't so, in the same way that some teachers are better than others, as everyone no doubt has experience of - the inspiring rather than the deadly dull. Yes parental aspiration/education has been shown to make the most difference (and I have seen this at work in a very negative as well as a very positive way), but it is also fairly self fulfilling, and would dictates static social mobility. This is what grammar schools at their best were supposed to be able to overcome, providing opportunities that parents might not otherwise even think about, and there is also evidence that it was effective for some, at a point when going to university if you were not middle or indeed upper class and privately educated was unusual (think all those Labour grammar school MPs). One of the effects of getting rid of grammar schools has been a large growth in private schools, which could be argued is more divisive (although maybe more cost effective for the state).

I think I can't add much more here without repeating myself.

b&w: well, we still disagree! I think any more modern system of selection would not be ascrude as what you describe. But, hooray! here's something we can agree on:"we all need to think what we mean by 'best' schools. In my experience some of the best schools with the best teachers are those getting exam results way down the league tables but dealing brilliantly with challenging students and ading value to them." I second that.

Xenia: agree with your main points although I'm not convinced vouchers are the answer - might be even more divisive.

nooka: "value added" is a bit nebulous at times - you're right, it is so hard to judge it.

What I said about the Sutton trust findings re 1960s and 1990s is true. Lampl said this who runs it - see below. Is is this change that shows the appalling results caused by the comprehensives - that fewer poor children now get to university because the grammar school route has gone.

""I went back to visit my old school, in Reigate, where I'd gone in the 1960s at no cost to my parents. It was a direct grant school funded by the state. My best friend was a farm labourer's son.

""Now, though, after comprehensives came in, it had gone independent. A lot of the kids who'd gone there with me couldn't go there any more." He also noticed a similar development at his old university. In the 1960s, two thirds of Oxford students came from state schools, he says. "In the 1990s, the proportion had dropped to less than a half. I was appalled.""

Vouchers would of course not be very good in the hands of parents who don't value education although Blair even now issues vouchers you can use at private schools for 4 year olds - my siser and I have both used them for our twins for money off school fees. You'd need primary schools to do IQ testing and some guidance to parents who have not a clue but have a bright child as to the best next school to choose.

UnquietDad, how do you think your life/career would have played out had you been off colour on the day of the 11+ and as a consequence failed it. I was educated in Ireland where streaming was the norm and where there was some flexibility throughout your school life to move up and down the streams.

I know a little about the 11+ as DP and his sister failed it and his other two siblings passed (one achieving the second highest score in Kent at the time). I can still see the tremors from those passes and failures to this day in his family.

drosophila UnquietDad said he didn't get into grammar via the 11+ but through assessment at 13.

So there was flexibility in the GS system?

UnquietDad - I couldn't agree more.

Where I live, in a village in Bucks, Grammar schools are still going strong. There are also heaps of private schools. The downside is that the local comp is awful. So we are faced with either sending our children to a rubbish school or paying for tuition for preparation for the 11+. The primary school headteacher told me during my school visit that if I wanted DS to have any chance at passing the 11+ to pay for tuition because the school do the minimum preparation. At least he was honest. To some extent the tuition would only be useful for a child who was heading that way anyway. I don't think the ability to think so logically so fast can be taught in a few months.(speaking as someone who failed the 11+ after taking it without ever seeing a past paper or doing any prep work. But I probably wouldn't have passed anyway - I just don't think in a logical manner! Much to my logical DH's annoyance !!!)

Good thread by the way.

My DS is only 7 but I hope he gets the opportunity to go to Grammar school. We certainly can't afford private schooling. Well maybe for one child but not three.

I don't think at all that I was a lesser person for going to my local comp but I do think I would have had better opportunities and been pushed more had I gone to a Grammar school.

Comprehensives just can't cope with the wide range of abilities so some will always suffer.

Most of the children here that go to the Grammar schools have been educated at the private schools first - double whammy!!

Yes, I went through a weird system. Kent, early 80s - no idea if it happened elsewhere. No 11+, in fact no exams apart from school ones. Everyone went from primary to one of the local secondaries - so in effect we were all at a comprehensive for two years, with some subjects streamed - and then diversified at 13. My school used to start in "third form" (Year 9 now).

I don't really understand why, if you have good grammar schools and private schools in your area why the local comp would be dreadful.

Is the teachers? the teaching methods? lack of discipline? what?

I'm guessing it might depend on what the comp's catchment area is. I live in a big city and they can vary hugely in quality from one suburb to the next - or even if you happen to be living on the "wrong" side of the street. It's perfectly possible to have an "outstanding" school cheek-by-jowl with an "awful" one - with house prices to match. Selection by mortgage.

I wish I knew why the comp was so bad. It serves all surrounding villages. It is 5 miles from me.

In the area that we are thinking of moving to there is a comprehensive school that has very strong links to the church. So much so that to get a place you HAVE to be a member of one of the 'churches together' churchs and attend once a week.

We are not church goers.

Now what I can't ork out is why that school is in the top 10 performance wise, only behind 9 private schools. The other comp in the same place is no where near as good, but still above average.

How does going to church get you brighter children??? Surely church goers are a cross section of society and would have children of all abilities.

The Grammar school there is also private. So not only do you have to pass the exam but your parents then have to pay £4,000 per term !!!
Insane.

It does seem to be the case that house prices are geared towards areas with good schools, you are right.

meant to say work out not ork

"Surely church goers are a cross section of society and would have children of all abilities."

Not sure.
In my experience churchgoing is yet another thing in Britain that is very class-defined. As a teenager I went to a local evangelical church for a while that was primarily working class. Quaker meeting is as middle class-educated-Bohemian as anything, while the CofE churches I have known are a broader sort of mc. Catholic churches may be more mixed. (Big generalisations of course, and of course class certainly doesn't map onto ability exactly, but you get the idea.)

This school offers most of it's places to a C of E church and a Catholic church. With some places then being offered to 'free churches'.

Both DH and I attended different church schools in the primary sector but there was never any specifications about going to church. I wouldn't have been there if there had.
I was from a very working class background. I enjoyed singing hyms (spelling ?) but never really got bombarded with any heavy stuff.

The village we live in now is fairly middleclass (apart from me, of course!)and seems to be quite a churchy place. We are in the minority for not attending church and certainly for not having our children christened.

DH said that most wars stem from religion so he is not about to start getting into it for the sake of a good school. He said it's brainwashing.
Not really sure what I believe. Also wander if all of the parents at that particular school are genuine church goers or are they doing so for the sake of their childrens education. Very cynical of me, I know.

I think one of the problems here is that some of you look around and see an education system which has problems (but which also has its successes) - our not quite comprehensive system (with grammar schools, faith schools, independent schools, city techn colleges, specialist colleges, high-performing schools and low-performigns chools etc)- so you want to replace it with another system which also had its problems (but which also had its successes) - grammar schools, secondary moderns, technicals schools. Why can't you see that there is a third way - a truly comprehensive system which offers a brilliant education to all with no grammar schools, faith schools or other way of selecting together with much better parental support and education of parents, expansion of iniatives like 'excellence in cities' and so on.

As I've said a school can and is usually only as good as the kids that make it up so if we improve the aspirations, academic ability, motivation and behaviour of the kids then the schools will be better. I've tried to teach kids at secondary school who couldn't read properly and didn't know how to sit down and listen and didn't value education. These kids weren't necessariyl born less academically able than other kids but if they can't read at secondary school it's usually too late to do anything to help them (compete with their peers). Arguably if kids don't value education and can't read or write properly by 6 or 7 then it's also too late for many of them and all our schools with their limited resources can teach them is that they are failures when really it's that they have been failed by their parents.

Grammar schools, however good you think they are or have been or could be, can only ever benefit those who go to them. ALL our children deserve teh very best education we can give them but the foundations for learning are laid at home.

"Excellence in cities" - that took me back a few years. Every other presentation I went to when I worked in the voluntary sector seemed to have the word "Excellence" in it. After a while it ceased to have any meaning. We can't all be excellent, much as some city councils would like to promote the idea. I suppose "striving towards mediocity" doesn't have the same ring to it...

The current system is imperfect, but there will always be disagreement on what should be done about that - what should replace it and how.

I personally don't think the "truly comprehensive system" is ever achievable (we've debated enough about whether it's desirable). There will always be "better" and "worse" schools as long as there are league tables and catchment areas, and parents jostling for places and doing the school-run halfway across town.

The only truly comprehensive system would be one which IGNORED ALL SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS - which, in a city of half-a-million people like mine, would mean putting the names of several thousand children a year into a big hat (or computer program), mixing them up and allocating the school places totally at random. Democratic, but totally impractical - think of the traffic chaos. Also, for it to work you'd need to get rid of faith schools (I'm with you there, at least) and outlaw private schools (damn near impossible, I'd have thought).

Totally agree about it all starting in the home, though. Too many parents seem to forget that it is their individual and collective responsibility to support their children's learning, and not just the job of the teachers.

that's "mediocrity"... damn lack of post-edit button!

I'd guess the reason why people might look to grammar schools etc as being better is that as parents who care very much about their children and value education (self selected by contributing to this thread) we worry about our children being taught in environments with large numbers of kids who have been brought up not to, and we worry about the effects on our kids. I think this is a fairly legitimate worry, given the positive effect of a good education vs the problems resulting from a poor education. I don't think that anyone here has actually said that the old system should be brought back, rather that there were some positive effects of it, and one of them was that if your child went to a grammar you could assume that the vast majority of families with children there were supporting that child to do well. I'm not sure that you get that from any other system, including the independent system.

Well said Nooka.

I am not sure how religion applies class-wise these days. I assume more middle class parents go to church nowadays but I might be wrong. They may be stricter and more careful about their children's behaviour because of their moral codes which we find locally with strict Jewish and Muslim households too so the children do better academically.

What I have found particularly useful with children in private schools is the ethos amongst the children that it's cool to learn so you don't get disruption in class even in those private schools for children who have a fairly low IQ. I am not sure that ethos is present in all comprehensives. I know you can stream in comprehensives. In fact I think the very clever child will do well anywhere. It's the one who is in the middle who may lose out in a school which is not as good as it might be.