Can we have a heated debate about ability setting in schools?

[pinksquidgy]

New education minister Nicky Morgan was rumoured to be considering making setting by ability a compulsory part of getting an 'outstanding' Ofsted classification. Caused a bit of a storm and now looks like she's rowing back.

When I heard this I thought 'I wish she bloody would'.

I know whole-class teaching/mixed groups are better for children who are struggling (for whatever reason) and I do get that that's important.

But I have two very bright DCs (i know, i know) and I cannot tell you how bloody sick I am of them being given things to colour in while the teacher gives most of her time to those who are at the lower end of the attainment range.

I'm guessing this is a result of the target culture - it seems to result in schools desperately scrabbling to get the 'D' student up to a 'C'. Students who were always going to be a B or an A just get left to stew and it's starting to drive me potty. (I do also realise this is partly a function of bad teaching and poor management - but that, unfortunately, is what our local primary is like.)

Don't clever kids matter too? Would it be so wrong to prioritise them just for once - maybe just for core subjects like numeracy and literacy?

My older DC has just gone up to secondary. EVERY single one of the 'clever' kids he started out with in infants (those who were getting similar SATS scores) has gone into the private sector or free schools, by hook or by crook. He is the ONLY one of his academic peers who has gone into a state comprehensive. This is the flipside of schools failing to look after clever kids: their parents simply opt out of the state system altogether - which is no good for anyone, surely?

I'm deeply committed to the ideal of comprehensive education in my heart (and in my wallet tbh) but once, just once, I'd like someone to think about what might work best for the children at the top end of the attainment range.

please don't kill me

The point about first and second-generation immigrants is interesting - isn't it the case that the parents of these children usually place enormous value on education and wouldn't tolerate their children doing anything other than knuckling down in school? (Realise this is an enormous generalisation, but children of immigrants do very well statistically, don't they?)

The children of immigrants anecdotally do well- because the sort of people who deliberately uproot their families and go halfway across the world to try to make a better life are the sort of people who are going to be the involved parents we are all talking about.

Statistically they achieve great results. The worst results are from White Working Class kids who are now significantly behind every other ethnic group.

Immigrant kids (or the kids of immigrants) dominate our local grammar schools. (More than 95%.) This is in part because they are willing to tutor their kids specifically for it years in advanced. The local white British population doesn't even try to compete. There is a feeling that it is too much pressure on the kids and things like sport, hobbies, free play and school friends need time and room to happen. Nobody is wrong. It's just different values.

minifingers
Yes, I am a crap mother. I should have more control over my wilful teen. He believes that he knows everything and going down a set has been a much needed shock. He is well behaved at school, but incredibly lazy.

Last year I decided to allow him to take responsiblity for his homework. Sometimes children need to experience failure to make them grow up and take responsiblity. It is easier to recover from messing up a french test in year 7 than messing up university. Where do you draw the line between being an involved parent and a helicopter parent?

pink

point taken - not everyone has choice and you certainly didn't, but the majority do

Sorry, I know the thread has moved on by about 8 pages but I HAVE to reply to this on P1

Right. Well. For a start, if your school really was leaving the higher ability to stew, then they will categorically fail their next OFSTED

It's been happening in some subjects - notably maths - where, by the way, her school don't/won't set - to my dd since Yr7. She's now started Yr11.
In the Summer Term, they got a 'Good' from OFSTED.

Just saying.

As you were

Dad164 - I don't think the majority of people in the UK do have a real choice of school.

I am in a large city with many schools, but where I live, there is only one secondary school I am in the catchment for. The next closest is so oversubscribed that you have to live within 500m to get a place (I am about 1km away). Other options either require you to be religious (I am not) or win a place through a lottery system (about a 1-in-20 or 1-in-30 chance, I think).

Of course if I wanted to send my children to one of the under-performing schools elsewhere in the city, I would probably get a place - most people are desperate to go elsewhere, so they always have spaces.

Otherwise the only way to exercise choice is by paying fees or moving, which also involves having plenty of money, as rents and house prices within catchment of the better schools are substantially higher than elsewhere.

I do not believe there is really any way for most parents (who cannot afford private school/an expensive house) to exercise any choice about whether their children will be set/streamed or in fact about anything much to do with their secondary education.

So I think there should be some large-scale research and evidence-based policy making on issues like this, rather than schools policy driven by ideology and gut feeling, which seems to be the general pattern at the moment.

I am in the catchment of 4 schools. A child passing the 11% has a choice of 3- co-ed or single sex grammar and a high school. A child failing has a choice of one.

Oh, I forgot the faith school-that gives Christian 11+passers a 4th choice. Many of the 11+ failures parents don't consider it because of the expensive uniform and air of being never so slightly "better than yaow"

exexpat. Why should you only have one type of school available to you and that being a typical 'one size fits all' comprehensive school. These types of schools are destroying real social mobility access to aspiration. Why cant new grammar schools/vocational schools be built anywhere people want them or is a need for them. There should be all types of schools available to any one.

Another thing will people stop referring to 'modern' schools in a 1970s way when a lot of non selective schools in selective areas today are equal to comprehensives. They provide a decent education, that could be better if they could manage trouble makers away from main-stream schooling.

"way when a lot of non selective schools in selective areas today are equal to comprehensives."

They aren't comprehensives because they do not have all ability groups. A comprehensive school does

What about schools that are designated as secondary modern schools that achieve over 70% A* -C Maths/English and whose average grade for high ability students is B+ which is in line with many grammar schools. The school in question has 29% high ability /60% middle and only 10% of low ability.

But no school is actually designated a secondary modern any more- it's just something people say to distinguish a non selective school in a selective area. They are called High schools round here.

And I would have questions about a grammar school that had 70% A*-C, frankly.

I was talking about the average grade a high ability student achieves for his GCSEs not about the percentage pass rate of a grammar school. The designation Modern is still used in the Department Of Education Performance statistics. It is though odd because one school in a selective area is called comprehensive, yet a higher achieving school is called a modern.

I suppose Blessed Thomas Holford has been 'expelled' from the modern group after scoring 85% in 2013 and 84% 2014 with Maths/English. Is it allowed to now become a comprehensive Hakult !

Check out the performance tables on the department of education.
N.B 2014 pass rate from local newspaper.

I've never seen "modern" used by the DFES- could you show me where?

Oh, hang on- yes I see. Well every day's a school day!

Its a new type of school 'the selective modern' requiring minimum B grades for sixth form study . The figures for the A levels are for their first cohort though, the local paper said over 50% of A level grades were A*-B this year. I expect a large increase on the 3% AAB with 2 facilitating subjects from 2013.This school along with its neighbour Wellington are showing what so called modern schools can achieve. There is even one in Kent ,Hillview scores 74% this year for GCSE Maths/English. These are schools that though are designated modern schools are sought after almost as much as grammar schools.

Choice doesn't mean getting exactly what you want. It means having a choice even if you don't like the choices available.

There are usually 4 - 6 spaces on the form for secondary school preferences. The majority of people are able to list at least 3 school that have applicable admission policies. That is exercising choice via preference. You might not like the schools, but it is choice.

Of course, the schools choose you in the end via their admissions process. If you choose to list only one school that is still a choice.

Dad164 - of the five state secondary schools within a roughly two-mile radius of my house, one has a roughly 500m catchment area, one has religious entry requirements, two are ex-private-turned academies which are hugely oversubscribed and operate on a sort of lottery system (with equal eligibility for people in the whole of this city and the neighbouring two or three counties), and one is my catchment school, which is what I would have a 99% chance of being allocated if I put my closest five schools down on the form. Oh, and one of the five is girls only, so that knocks one off the list for boys. How is that a choice?

I'm a secondary teacher. At our school we don't set for English, ever. Not even GCSE. We have an 'outstanding' English department and get really good results. Maths set, as do science at gcse. Other option subjects are mixed ability.

It is hard as a teacher to cater to all the needs of a mixed ability class of 32, but it is possible. I'm not sure where I stand on setting. I think it's great for high ability, but it often leads to sink groups.

I do think, as I said earlier, that it depends on the subject. My ds's school doesn't set for history until year 9 and I was very apprehensive about that. But it works well- everyone has something they can contribute to a class discussion.

I have to agree re lack of choice. Plenty if school around where we are but in reality just one secondary where my dcs can go. The others are oversubscribed. One that exists on paper but hasn't been build yet. One private school. No grammar school at all or any school with any sort if selective entrance.
First criteria for selection to go into the school is .... having a sibling at that school. Distance from the school is the 5th point taken into consideration.
So in effect no choice at all.

I agree too that putting children in sets has so e big advantages in some subjects (maths is a good one) but less in others.

Personally, I would see English as a prime candidate for setting.

There seems little point having students who are gaining full marks in GCSE controlled assessments sitting with students who are having trouble even accessing the curriculum.

I guess if you don't have outlying students at either end it's less of a problem.

I'm also interested in this idea that no school will be allowed to let high ability pupils underachieve. I think Hak said they would be 'fried'.

But how? What will actually happen?

As we can see from posts in the thread, sometimes nothing will happen. And even those schools who are downgraded...won't that just increase the likelihood of parents of able children avoiding it? How does that help?

And even if OFSTED were given anything like a decent pair of teeth, what would be the criteria for action? Would it be ambitious enough?

Sorry, but I really don't see this as a solution to the problem (though I suppose it at least accepts there is a problem).