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.

But what some of you are talking about now is children's BEHAVIOUR and their parents ATTITUDE to learning. I absolutely agree that these are important factors in whether or not a child is likely to be successful at school but they're not the same as ABILITY are they? Don't knock Excellence in Cities Unquietdad where I teach this and other initatives like EMA are actually playing a big part in transforming the community. Excellence in Cities has paid for cross borough Gifted and Talented programmes ( I've taught kids from yr 10 and 11 an extra GCSE through this scheme), schemes to increase aspirations for young people which has led to applications for HE increasing dramatically as well as the no of kids going to FE to re-sit GCSEs or take up other qualifications, revision days etc etc. These sorts of schemes are increasing opportunities for young people so that if their schools are not doing as well as they should be and even if they are they are encouraged to succeed.

But will you ever get parents prepared to choose a school which has children who aren't motivated and have the wrong attitude when they can buy a more expensive house in an area where the children tend to be more motivated?
Has anyone compared say performance in Bucks which has grammar schools against another county with a similar wealth profile which hsa comprehensives and looked at exam results and university entrance to prove which system is best?
What I would like is all children to have the best education they can appropriate for their abilities in that subject which the best schools state and private manage and many others fail at.

To some extent I was being flippant about the Excellence thing, b&w. But you take my point about the impossibility of a genuinely "comprehensive" system ?

I feel tempted to quote from something I saw the other day. It is a passage from Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 short story Harrison Bergeron:

"The year was 2081 and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General. "

Unquietdad, if all our schools were genuinely comprehensive (meaning they selected only according from their local area)then we would have a genuinely comprehensive system.

Yes, there will always be people who are rich and poor and yes there will always be a link between poverty and low aspirations, lack of parental support and poor academic achievement but that would not be the fault of the schools or the system which would do everything in their power to help students achieve success. Yes, there will always be middle-class or aspirational parents who don't want their little darlings to be educated with the masses and so move catchments but this has more to do with snobbery than a genuine belief that the school has problems (as opposed to its children which is a different thing) and it is this kind of movement which exacerbates problems and inequalities in the education system (the 'good' schools get better and possibly lazier and the 'bad' schools get worse they sink in league tables, have problems recruiting etc even though they may have started with the most talented teachers adn managers and most progressive curriculum) . But if league tables were also abolished then this kind of movement would be less common.

I realize that faith schools, grammar schools, independent schools etc are never going to be abolished but I think the majority of people would agree that a genuinely comprehensive system would benefit the majority or our children.

What I can't understand is why some of you look around and see deprived children under-achieving at school and in life and inequalities in the system and think that a more explicitly unequal system which very clearly does not benefit the majority of our children as a desirable alternative. Having said all that I understand parents wanting to do the best for their own children. This is totally understandable though you should admit totally selfish.

If you genuinely want to increase social mobility and enhance the prospects for all our children (academic and beyond) then you cannot see grammar schools as a good thing. I've read somewhere that countries with the greatest social mobility are Norway, Sweden etc I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong but don't they have a much more comprehensive system than we do? And I know they have much more support for parents, free good quality child-care etc which are just as important for social mobility and enhancing achievement as are schools.

b&w cat, you're very muddled, not being socialist doesn't automatically equal being selfish you know.

b&w cat, I can't decide whether you are just very naive or..? If the school selected from the local area then the one in the middle of the rough council estate would still not do as well as the one in the middle of the estate with £500,000 houses...

IMO it is far fairer to select on ability than on your parents bank balance/ postcode.

3 of my kids passed the 11+ and one wasn't entered for it and went to the high school, so I think I know what I'm talking about. Our postcode qualifies us as "deprived" BTW, and my DH also failed his 11+ and left school with no qualifications. I went to grammar but it was turned into a comp while I was there and I did not fulfill my academic potential until many many years after I left school.

In our area the high schools have done a lot of work to pull up the standards for the kids who don't take the 11+, which makes far more sense than doing away with the grammars.

tallulah how do you propose selecting on ability???? How would you address the fact that children don't always show their true ability at 11? Children may mature accademically at 13 or 16?

The selection is on potential.

Some state schools are selecting on ability to ensure there are X children with IQ of 100 in the class, Y with IQ of 110, and X with 115 which is completely ludicrous but aims to ensure a mixture. So some children are finding if they are not hugely bright they are too bright to fall in the less bright category. I would just laugh at the mess labour is making of all this if children didn't lose out.

"What I can't understand is why some of you look around and see deprived children under-achieving at school and in life and inequalities in the system and think that a more explicitly unequal system which very clearly does not benefit the majority of our children as a desirable alternative." Good point. I think a system though which allows the brightest poor children to escape is better than one which incarcerates many in schools where failure is endemic and you only expect 40% to get A - C in GCSEs.

I agree that places like Switzerland and Sweden have more social mobility and fewer private schools. They have much higher taxes and more people in the same income band. Obviously we are all free to move to those countries. There are fewer differences between rich and poor, more child care and less endemic sexism in society.

Most people don't think we even out inequalities by making clever middle class children go to their local sink comprehensives which a lot of left wing parents did in London a few decades ago and I see their children writing even now about how they were sacrificed on the altar of their parents' principles. Even the Blairs weren't prepared to do it.

If you want fair (apart from genetically engineering us all to look the same and have the same IQ etc which at some point will be technically possible) then you need in a very wide local area which covers council housing and £500k value homes to have a draw from a hat which will be one option when the new trust schools are set up, and children are allocated by the random draw and then you bus them around to ensure the mixing and also prohibit any education except that in those schools.

drosophila we are in Kent which still has the 11+

Kids do move between schools at later ages- if a child at high school is identified as being suitable for grammar they can (and do) move across at 13 or 14 or for GCSEs. Our high schools don't have 6th form so there is more movement then, either to grammar or to college. It isn't set in stone, and there is a lot of co-operation between the various schools.

I agree with Xenia that the only other way would be to randomly allocated school places and bus kids around- and that isn't going to happen.

drosophilia: In my ideal system, there would be flexibility built in for this. Even in my day, people could join my grammar school in the third form, or Lower or Upper Sixth if they wanted.

xenia: Random draw and bussing around - exactly what I was saying below would be the only "fair" system. It would never work in practice - would be an admin, traffic etc. nightmare. Would abolish league tables, though, which would be good!

b&wcat: We're still disagreeing, unsurprisingly! Let's suppose for a minute that we put everyone back in the system by abolishing all private schools (surely impossible in practice) and all faith schools (I want to do that too, but again very hard to do) and achieved a fully-comprehensive system, based on catchments. It would still be "selection by mortgage". You're absolutely right, it would not be the system's INTENTION for that to happen, but it will. Parents who previously paid for private schools would fly to the affluent suburbs, just as most of them already do - the situation would just get worse. If forced against their will to send their children to a comprehensive, those with the money and influence to make a "choice" would make damn sure they got the best one in the LEA. I agree with you that snobbery is part of the problem, but whatever the cause, the effect is surely the same - you DO NOT get true social mixing in comprehensive schools, and I defy anybody to demonstrate to me that you do. Right now, with 27 comprehensive schools in the area where I live, I could sit down and write you next year's percentages and placings in the league table and, although I'd be wrong on one or two details, I bet you I'd get the order almost exactly right.

I'll believe the comprehensive system works when I see doctors and lawyers from posh postcodes actively choosing to send their kids to a school on a sink estate which gets 15% in the league tables...

tallulah: "IMO it is far fairer to select on ability than on your parents' bank balance/ postcode." I absolutely agree. I would have said this if you hadn't got there first!

I'm with Unquietdad's analysis.
However, it's necessary to drill down a little on why there is "selection by morgage".
Although it will always be the case that you can say that school A is better than school B, it does not have to the base case that School A has a drugs and truancy problem and School B does not.

A lot of the reason people will pay more for a house near a given school, is to avoid the really crap ones.

It is not possible to have 100% great schools, all human enterprises occasionally go tits up.
But we're not talking of 100%, we're talking of thousands of schools which don't even maintain order within their grounds, much less do good teaching. A huge % of kids leave primaries functionally illiterate. The support for kids whose parents speak some brain damaged lingo is pathetic.
Teachers fight against any sort of merit based pay, and the criteria for merit are frankly deranged.
We put Ruth Kelly, a promininent member of a psedophile cult up as education minister, who promptly writes letters to sex offenders saying they are a "loss to the teaching profession".
"Media sutdies"
God, give me break. "Media Studies". There I've said it again.
French kids at 16 with a qualification in English have pretty much the same books as English kids studying their own language. The Brits struggle to read TinTin comics in the original French

The only league table which we are not bottom of is maths. That is because the arts graduate civil servants did the sums wrong when submitting our scores. Yes really.
The Palestinian Authority managed to do these stats even though their education minsitry had been bombed by the Israelis, perhaps we should hire them ?
That's why religious schools aren't such a big issue. It's like complaining about the people in the cabin next door maming too much noise when you are on the Titanic.

Oh yes, school "choice" is often a negative decision rather than a positive one - it's "Oh, Christ, we're in the catchment for sodding Bogsville Lane. We've got to move, then at least we can get him into King Canute's which isn't too bad."

In a system that selects about 25% of the children on ability and places them in a Grammar School what would you suggest would or should happen to the remaining 75%. Also what did happen to the remaining 75% back in the day when Grammar Schools were the norm.

As a matter of interest can children who have been selected for Grammar Schools be moved out if they start to fail. I assume this can and does happen to children in Grammar Schools?

I really don't like Ruth Kelly but that is a bit strong Domm or is it? Tell me more....

'&w cat, you're very muddled, not being socialist doesn't automatically equal being selfish you know.'

I am not muddled. If you decide to opt for a school (grammar or independent or faith) which is not your nearest comprehensive because you believe your child deserves the 'best' education you can provide for him or her then that is a selfish motivation. Understandable but selfish like a lot of decisions and human behaviour.

'If the school selected from the local area then the one in the middle of the rough council estate would still not do as well as the one in the middle of the estate with £500,000 houses...'

Erm, I think you'll find that I've already said this more-or-less but as catchments for secondary schools are actually quite large it's not as common as you might think to have a catchment which contains only or even a vast majority of kids from deprived areas. But, yes, clearly schools with more deprived cathcments are likely to get worse results in league table terms. This doesn't actually mean tehy are bad schools and it doesn't mean they aren't enhancing the academic achievement etc of their students. The schools aren't the problem and can only be a partial solution when it comes to gaps between rich and poor and their achievements. However as many of you have pointed out the parents who opt for gramamr schools, private schools and faith schools are very often the ones who are in the catchment of a poorly performing school (in league table tterms at least). So if the 10% from private schools, I don't know how many who are in grammar schools and I don't know how many are in faith schools but it's a huge number (30%) were to suddenly go to their nearest comp it would make a vast difference to the performance, aspirations etc etc of those schools. Yes, before you start, I know this is never going to happen but it should.

'IMO it is far fairer to select on ability than on your parents bank balance/ postcode.'

But don't you understand that bank balance and 'ability' are linked??? And giving those with 'less ability' who are very often those with parents who have less in the bank/ a less desirable postcode but even if they aren't a second class education is discriminatory, unfair and is certainyl not going to improve social mobility.

'In our area the high schools have done a lot of work to pull up the standards for the kids who don't take the 11+, which makes far more sense than doing away with the grammars.'

That's great about schools pulling up standards and I absolutely believe this is happening across the country in most schools but think how much bett3er the standards would be if we got rid of the grammars etc.

'I think a system though which allows the brightest poor children to escape is better than one which incarcerates many in schools where failure is endemic and you only expect 40% to get A - C in GCSEs.'

But bright children (some of whom will be getting A grades will be included in that 40% figure). Bright kids will do well anywhere and in this day and age they have to be given the education to suit their needs wherever they are. I've taught at some fairly average schools in outer London and had placements in inner city comps in Hackney and Walthamstow and I have seen and taught bright kids who have fulfilled their potential (in fact Walthamstow School for GIrls came near top of value added league tables though probably not near the top of results league tables). As I've said before my college has just sent 7 comp educated kids to Oxbridge). And don't give me that 'Oh, you obviously work in some fantastic places real life isn't like that'. I am currently working in one of the most multi-cultural and deprived places in the country and I have seen kids achieve success at GCSE and A Level which wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't been in the 40% or less who went to grammar school which they wouldn't (some would have had difficulty reading the instructions since they have ENglish as a second language for example and I've taught students in Essex who didn't even know abouth the 11+ and went on to get A*s in the local comp) and my dp has done supply teaching in Salford where it was really tough but the kids in those schools weren't being deprived of a grammar school education because many of them had already failed and been failed by society and life in general by teh age of 4.

'I agree with you that snobbery is part of the problem, but whatever the cause, the effect is surely the same - you DO NOT get true social mixing in comprehensive schools, and I defy anybody to demonstrate to me that you do.'

That's absolute rubbish. For a start, I went to my local comp (my dad is a professor at a university and my mum is a teacher) and my best friend's parents were both unemployed. I came out with 5 A grades at GCSE, 1 B and 3 Cs and went on to be (surprise) a teacher. Maybe I could have got better grades if I'd gone to a grammar or private school (although I almost certainyl would have failed the 11+ because I'm hopeless at maths) but this would have been because I would have been pushed more (so that I would have kept up the school's reputation) and not because I would have deserved them. And I teach and have taught many kids at local comps whose parents are doctors, lawyers etc but who mix with otehr kids from totally different backgrounds. In fact I can't believe you can come out with such a crass and untrue comment.

'Right now, with 27 comprehensive schools in the area where I live, I could sit down and write you next year's percentages and placings in the league table and, although I'd be wrong on one or two details, I bet you I'd get the order almost exactly right.'

Great, fantastic, and what does that prove exactly? Does it tell you whether the school has got great teachers, great managers and the kids enjoy being there? My dp now works in a school for kids with severe EBD. You won't find the school on any league tables and most of us wouldn't choose the school for our own kids for obvious reasons but the kids and parents are overwhelmingly positive about the school. And the schools has some fantastic acheivements (including getting some of them in the door on a regular basis when they've previously been school refusers).

'I'll believe the comprehensive system works when I see doctors and lawyers from posh postcodes actively choosing to send their kids to a school on a sink estate which gets 15% in the league tables... '

But that's exactly the point, although some do choose the local comp (in spite of what you said earleir) most won't because they have league tables and alternatives. If there weren't those alternatives then you're right they may not choose the 15% school but they might choose one with 55% and you might find that the school wouldn't be getting 15% anyway it might be doing much better. And they wouldn't be living on a sink estate anyway which brings be back to my earlier point that there will always be wealthy and less wealthy areas. There's nothing schools can do about this and it's not their job to.

To clarify my argument, getting rid of pockets of deprivation in the country so that there would be fewer or no rubbish catchments should be the Govt's job and nothing to do with the education system. And it's to do with better, cheaper child care, better education for parents etc etc. To repeat comprehensive schools are not the problem when it comes to lack of social mobility and they could only ever be part of the solution.

B&W you raise another question for me. You mention that you were hopeless at Maths and as a consequence would have failed the 11+. I take it that this is/was a real failing of this system i.e. looking for all rounders when excellence in only a couple of areas would have meant you would have failed.

A real weakness I think in any selective system to look for all rounders. Perhaps I have misunderstood but if you were ace at the sciences but rubbish at grammar and spelling would you get into a grammar school. Which country has the most Nobel prize winner again. The country with selective education?

Yes, I raised this issue earlier Dros, but didn't really get a response. I'm rubbish at maths and not great at sciences (though I got an A in biology somehow for GCSE) but I'm good at artsy subjects and really good at English. I have pretty much always been destined and wanted to be an English teacher but under the grammar school system I wouldn't have ever had that chance. Not blowing my own trumpet at all but in a time of teacher shortages this wouldn't have been just my loss and my loss of career I mean would have also meant I would have had to become a secretary or something so would have less career satisfaction, paid less taxes blah di blah. I've always thought that IQ tests were unfairly weighted on maths, spatial awareness etc. Often considered very male charactersitcs these (and didn't many more boys than boys get into gramamr schools in th good old days?) They don't seem to test emotional or linguistic intelligence which are equally important. So, I bet a lot of autistic children would score highly on the 11+ but how would they cope with grammar schools and the schools with them?

Which country does have the most Nobel winners BTW?

BTW Domm, do you actually have any experience of Media Studies (one of the subjects I teach as well as English and Literacy) as a teacher or student or are you basing your judgement on some good old Daily Mail type stereo-types? You don't think that in the 21st century when mass media is crucial and unavoidable that it may be helpful to be able to analyse and produce it?? And maybe these skills are as relevant or much more relevant than say Latin or even the history of the Middle Ages?

And I would argue that you/we shouldn't be getting angry about kids leaving school without functional literacy so much as kids starting school without the foundations for it. Parents need to sing, talk and read to their children from the early years and this doesn't always happen. Children who are not properly cared for or encouraged to learn at home will rarely succeed at school. How much can a teacher do with an 11 yr old who can't even spell his own name when you teach him English for 3 hours a week alongside 29 other kids?

Drosophila, Ruth Kelly is a prominent member of Opus Dei, the people who paid the hush money used by Catholic bishops on parents whose children were raped. Although senior Catholic leaders have admitted to helping paedophile priests hide and commit other rapes, no criminal action has been taken against them, and at least one Cardinal responsible for stopping this has been promoted.
Ruth Kelly wrote to a convicted sex offender (a Catholic, applying for a job at a Catholic school) saying he could be a teacher, because he would be such a loss.

As for media studies, several of my godchildren have taken it.
It's dross.
My test for a proper subject is can you understand an A level text book without having studied it.

History just scrapes through since without appropriate reading the context is hard to get, but media studies, like Computer "Studies" is trivialised.
I'm not saying that Media Studies is inherently trivial. All subjects can be made demanding or easy. My home subject is IT and I have at least as much contempt of the way that's taught.

MS and IT are symptoms of the same diseaase.
They are "inclusive", rather than enhancing or demanding. It's a new disease, but we are seeing it hit the sciences as well.

drosophilia: it's a good question, and one which any properly integated system of selection should address.

As I've said before, I have no desire simply to go back to the 11+ system (although that wasn't the one I came through).

Nobel prize winners: the answer is the USA with 160, followed by the UK with 110 and Germany with 94. I'm not sure why this was asked, sorry.

b&wcat: you'll note I said "true social mixing", not "a bit of social mixing" or "some middle-class people sending their kids to rough schools", which is the situation we have at the moment. I still maintain that schools in the more affluent areas will be seen as "better" - and yes, it's not the school's job to alter this, but did I ever say it was?... I agree with you entirely that there is more to a school than just its league table position and exam results, and that these are no reflection on the teaching or the school's "ethos". You're going to have to convince a lot more people before we have the kind of migration which would make the system truly comprehensive... And surely if we can agree that a school shouldn't be judged purely on exam results, then why shouldn't we have a divergent system? Why should those who come out of school with less "academic" results be stigmatised? They might be better qualified for other things they would never have got the chance to do at a grammar school. This is what I have been arguing since the beginning - that it's the senseless labelling, the division into "better" and "worse", which hobbles people's chances, not the actual opportunities they ARE given. It's not the fact that some people qualify as barristers and others qualify as welders which is wrong - what is wrong is a perception in society that barristers are "better" than welders because they have more academic qualifications.

My DW is a teacher in a school whose league-table position doesn't tell the whole story by any means, while the one she used to teach in always came bottom and wasn't recognised for its Value Added. None of this counters my criticism of the comprehensive system - parents with money, influence and empowerment will CHOOSE better schools, while those who live on an estate and have no choice but the failing school have NO WAY OUT of this - apart from,as you say, being helped by long-term government policy. It is absolutely right that it should be in the long-term interest of the country to improve living standards, health, diet, employment, etc. across the board - but while it IS unequal, we have to work with the system as it is and not how we'd like it to be.

I don't understand this assertion: "bank balance and 'ability' are linked...And giving those with 'less ability' who are very often those with parents who have less in the bank/ a less desirable postcode but even if they aren't a second class education is discriminatory, unfair and is certainly not going to improve social mobility." Bank balance and ability are linked? I think this is using "ability" in a very different way from how the other poster used it. Giving bright kids from poor homes a chance of going to a good school IS going to improve social mobility. I don't see how it can't. (I suppose you're going to say their comprehensive should be the "good school".)

We're not finding it easy to get in the UK to a position like in Germany where many skilled technical people, builders, plumbers, mechanics are as appreciated in society as those in the professions.
Is it better not so clever children study a practical trade at 14 than some fairly pointless subject with the word studies in its title which most employers and universities know aren't of quite the same status as a traditional A level or GCSE.