Fiona Millar on grammar schools in the Grauniad

[samsonagonistes]

This article here is doing my head in on a number of levels, not because I necessarily disagree with it, but mainly because I don't know what I think and I don't know enough about some of the research/thinking behind it to come to a conclusion on my own. So I'd be really grateful for any thoughts and/or pointers.

She's working from the premise that grammar schools are inherently bad, and that this is a clear thing for all right thinking left wing people. Now, when I read MN, I can see that plenty of parents want grammar schools and are fighting to get into them. So I end up feeling about this pretty much as I do about UKIP, that the point is not only/necessarily to condemn them outright, but what would be more useful would be to find out why people feel this way and what is actually going on for them right now. So what's the gap between theory and experience here and why?

Also, she seems to think that the main argument against grammar schools is that they are not engines of social equality. Now, this may be one argument against them, but surely the point of school is to deliver education, with equality of opportunity in achieving that. Lots of other things do not deliver social equality - like private schools, expensive clothes and London house prices to name but a few - but that's never part of the argument against them.

Also - and I am aware that this is going to be controversial - but an argument against their social mobility is that they take reduced numbers on FSM. Now, for this argument to be valid, we would have to assume that IQ is spread absolutely evenly throughout the population.* I would like this to be the case, but has this theory ever been tested/proven?

• and yes I am aware about the cultural relativity of testing, etc etc, but then schools are also culturally relative in that they privilege theater and art over other activities and there are so many knots in this problem that it's hard to disentangle.

Lotus yes it's extremely unfair, and purely about historical/ political accident. Unfortunately no political party is brave enough to re-introduce any grammar school system, even a less intensive one, not even your Tories!

"That's not the only reason Hakluyt. Catch up funding is huge as well, for those with level 3 or under in y7."

Well, once again, there's a reason why grammar schools don't get that!!!!

Obviously I'm being facetious. I don't want grammar schools to take a random selection of kids on FSM. I am pointing out that because children on FSM don't get in to grammar schools, you have either to accept that disadvantaged children are less intelligent than privileged ones or that selection at 10 is inherently unfair. And the simple solution is to abolish the remaining grammar schools and create more comprehensives. Yes, there are bad comprehnsive schools- but I am not suggesting turning the grammar/high school combos into bad comprehensives, but into good ones. The combination of a grammar staff and a secondary modern staff would have a seriously awesome skill set.

The FSM parents would have to want to take that offer up CamelHump, and it's being made in certain areas. But they won't want to for as long as they're freaked out by (self serving?) MN type protestations that grammars are completely peopled by affluent kids. And are for nerds who aren't cool and don't 'fit in', because they're so incredibly clever etc.

Hakluyt it's not about FSM kids being thick, it's about why they're performing so badly by comparison. That's the inescapable point, but I'd be interested to hear your response. This really can't be laid at the grammars' door - it's about the early years, isn't it?

"Selection at 10 is no more unfair than children not getting into their parents' first choice of school, or a child who loves dancing not being selected for a dance school. Or not being selected in all the myriad of other ways that people are."

That is absolute rubbish. You can't possibly compare selective state education with a dancing school!

But why is the issue 'how can we get FSM children into Grammars' rather than 'how can we make sure that comps continue to improve so that all children can attend a school in which they can meet their full potential'? Sorting the social divisiveness of grammars doesn't' address all the problems with the system.

"Hakluyt it's not about FSM kids being thick, it's about why they're performing so badly by comparison. That's the inescapable point, but I'd be interested to hear your response."

Of course it's not the grammar's fault. We really need to address what's happening in the early years. But if you have this drastic split at 10 you are entrenching the difference. You either pass the test and fail. Or you don't take it because that's not what we do. And the gulf- academic and social- widens. If everyone just goes to the same school it's never too late. And there isn't that hideous psychological impact of non-selection- even if it's self imposed- at 10.

I have to say I don't think there is a huge psychological impact here, where 25% go to grammars- of the children I know, a few feel "thick" at their grammar, a few were out of place at high schools (and all of those I know in that situation transferred to grammars in year 8), but most seem happy, we have a lot of good schools here. It might be different in more competitive areas?

I've realised through this that I'm not too concerned with 'outcomes', not if by that we mean GCSE/A level results and ensuing university entry.

I don't give a stuff about that - not for my smart, but dyslexic eldest boy, and not for my super smart, academically shining middle boy either, who is after all only 7

I don't care how they 'do'. What I want for them, every single day of their lives, is to be happy. That means being at a school where the other kids are not constantly having a go at them, shoving them in the corridor, pulling faces at them, asking intrusive questions, threatening to come to their house and fuck their mother, and making spastic jokes around them.

Also where the teachers do not yell at them for no good reason, do not threaten them with detention for forgetting to tuck in their shirt, do not treat them like reprobates and do not make them cry.

This is the difference between the grammar and the 'high schools' we have experienced round here. The way the teachers and the other kids behave towards you.

It's really upsetting. I live in hope that the non selective we've just secured a place at, is different. We have to try.

Plus, if we had a good outcome at the high school he was at before, it would not be because of his being at the high school. It would be, partly, despite it.

THAT is the issue. Don't people see? Outcomes will come! However clever your child is, it will shine through, barring accident or illness or depression or other crisis.

what they NEED is to be treated well by the teachers, first of all, and to be among children who are kind to them, or at least kind enough not to harm them.

THAT is what will enable them to have a good outcome, to reach their potential. Being inspired, and happy, and enthusiastic and encouraged. Being believed in.

I think there were teachers there who believed in the children, but SO MANY horribly mean children who had come from homes where they were probably treated like shit themselves, that the environment made it virtually impossible for ds to function. Within a term he went from happy, sociable, confident boy to someone who was too depressed and fearful to go in to school in the morning. He loved some of his teachers, but the other kids? Fucking awful.

I don't see how we CAN rescue all the children, because it's some of the children themselves that are the problem. Or at least part of it.

CamelHump yes they are allowed to and are being encouraged to do so as well, along with changing the tests.

Whether or not they are allowed to depends on area. Certainly in this area LEA schools are not allowed, unless this has changed in last 12 months.

If 4% of children are in grammars and 8% in independents interesting then that we have "There are 163 grammar schools in the UK. There are over 2,500 independent schools. It could also be seen as unfair that children of wealthy kids have the option of going to a private school. And unfair that wealthy parents have exotic holidays."
Must be very small independents with few pupils.

In fact the full time working parents of children at fee paying schools might well have less exotic holidays than children at posh comps in the SE who choose instead to use precious state resources by clogging up state places they could perfectly easily pay for if they were not so mean as to damage the poor by choosing not to pay school fees.

Yes, it was terrible. I liked a lot of the staff. They had a lot to cope with.

I think those kids need a lot more intervention, small classes, one to one support, pastoral assistance. they did have some.

Where do you draw the line between where you send the unhappy, unstable children, the ones who put out aggression, call names - and where you send the 'nice' children? No child is perfect. It isn't all about cleverness.

I wouldn't mind him being in a school with nice, but not very clever children. I mind him being in a school with really unpleasant children.

This is the major factor driving, I believe, almost every parent in this county's desire for their child to be at a grammar. Because at the grammar, this sort of unpleasant behaviour may happen but it really is just SO much less usual.

Also Hakluyt, I think you may be over dramatizing the 'hideous psychological impact' of not being selected at 10. Dozens and dozens of kids round here haven't been selected and most (all?) seem to function just fine. Still socializing locally and kicking around and, well, generally looking quite happy. It's overwhelmingly down to the parents. If a child perceives it as 'hideous', then shame on the parents.

I'm referring to grammars themselves. They're being encouraged to help give help to primary kids. it's a suggestion which is out there anyhow and being widely discussed.

Good. I presume you never listen to programmes like Desert Island Discs? The number of people on there who talk about the impact failing the 11+ had on them..........

It is easy for the parents of children who passed to be cheerful about the situation!

Dozens and dozens of kids round here haven't been selected and most (all?) seem to function just fine.

What choice do they have? Have you any personal insight into the effects of selection on a child? On any child?

I have seen it over and over again, with my friends in primary, with other people's kids and latterly with my own son and his classmates.

The impact is HUGE. Huge, and devastating. They cope with it, as they have no other option.

I passed and I remember the day we found out - the class was divided instantly and irreparably into those who won, and those who lost. Those who felt embarrassed, guilty, sorry for their friends and for having to separate from their friends in a few short months, and those who resented the winners, resented the unfairness of life, were to ashamed to tell anyone their result, or just had never expected any more from life to begin with

We would never be the same again. It isn't overdramatic - it IS a drama to these children. It hurts all of them.