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.

I know, Camel. Most of these kids who behave in such a nasty way are not 'bad'. They can be helped. They may well be victims of abuse in their own families. Why else would a little girl of 11 come to a school, for an induction day, and say to the first child she sees (my son) 'you're a spaz, you look like a div'. Why would a kid say that to someone she's never met before in her life?

I think it's clear. She isn't a horrible, bad child because she was born that way; she's been abused somehow. Someone has most likely been saying that to her, for 11 years.

Yes of course I know kids personally. Lots. They're fine. I genuinely can't think of one who hasn't bounced back. Lots of kids round here take the test because we're on the doorstep he grammar pretty much, even though it's a superselective. The impact is not huge round here, unless the parents make it.

I'm another one very uncomfortable about the idea of a block of kids being 'bad'. I think that's a grim outlook. What's more, the idea that teachers at a grammar are fluffy bunnies and never yell at kids to tuck their shirts in is a joke. My boys are always being yelled at for precisely that crime. Also the notion that grammar kids are supremely well behaved. Where does this come from?!

My mum was talking to me the other day about how she failed to get in the grammar, and how she resented those who had passed and then squandered their opportunities. She is 74. Still not quite over it.

Molio - when you query the psychological impact, are you making a comparison with a 25/75 grammar area or a comprehensive area with super selectives?

There is a massive difference.

Tinkly - my 46 yo DH also still isn't over it. He was the first of his family not to get in. but he outearns them all

Theoretical all these comments about 'devastation' or 'not being over it' are about places such as Kent or about pre-comprehensive days, which as you say, is very different from an area with a superselective, such as mine.

First, that said, my own community, which has been home for 35 years, and which is the sort of community where everyone knows everyone, is one where almost all kids 'have a go', purely because of proximity to the school. It's our nearest school, has a strong reputation, and most parents (not all) would like their kids to get in. So in that sense it's a little closer to the Kent atmosphere than it would be if we lived further afield. And over the past fifteen or so years since my first DC took the test, and since I've known the outcomes for DC in each successive year, I can absolutely say without any shadow of doubt that it's the parents who determine the impact. Overwhelmingly the kids go off to the local comp or some to private school and I've only come across the rarest person who can't let it go (at least for a while) and that's always a parent. No kid should be 'devastated' - perhaps disappointed for a while, but not 'devastated' - that's a huge indictment of the parent, and vastly unfair on the child.

Secondly, any discussion about the future of grammars and abolition/ expansion should learn from the past. So I don't see the relevance of experience dating back to the '70's. A new model should be just that - new.

But I don't think that's true. In Germany - which if I am remembering correctly was meant to be the model for the post 1945 reorganisation of the education system - there are different secondary schools, some technical, some vocational and some academic. The difference is that they manage the selection better. And I am sure that France has some highly selective secondary schools too.

"Theoretical all these comments about 'devastation' or 'not being over it' are about places such as Kent or about pre-comprehensive days, which as you say, is very different from an area with a superselective, such as mine"

Hmm. Thought you were talking about a superselective. Completlely different kettle of fish. Or "scuttle of fish" as ds once multipley- guessed....

France had 20% of DC at secondary level in private.

Mostly to secure some selection. Certainly not for an elite education ( the fees are cheap as chips, the teachers remain state emploees and the facilities not marvellous ).

The Uk is not unique.

Quietlysuggests, are you a teacher? Mixed ability teaching is very hard, and even advocates of comprehensives are mostly in favour of setting by ability. And there are plenty of other countries with selective education systems.

Quietlysuggests - The Grammar School Obsession is indeed a peculiarly MN obsession and in RL most of us in non Grammar areas get on and use our local comprehensive schools.

Our family has the possibility of super-selectives within range but decided that the top sets of our (choice of two) good local comp (s) was preferable for the social, walk-to-school, community benefits, and my friends locally with top achieveing kids have made the same decision.

They can keep siblings with differing abilities in the same school, some of the slower-starting Yr 7s have been moved up from where they would have been on a grammar / secondary modern system, some middle set kids with a talent for languages have been put into the 2-MFL stream - the kind of flexibility that a comp excels in.

I do recognise that many many parents do not feel they have a satisfactory secondary offer, but I don't see why the state should prioritise the parents of the top 25% achieving students and jettison the rest! Put the energy and resources in and make every comp a good comp.

Comp does not automatically = mixed ability teaching.

DC's school does a rough streaming and then sets within and across streams. So wider subjects are within the rough 'stream' (but students can be mobile across these) while English, maths, languages and science are more precisely setted, again across streams. So a middle stream child can be put in top set MFL, for example, and a top stream child can be put in a middle Maths set if they have a weak spot for maths and need more support or a lower pace.

If the worst thing that happens to you in your life is not passing an 11+ exam you will have a pretty good life !

It is an exam at 11 years of age and is not definitive in how your life will turn out, anybody who can't get over failing an 11+ exam needs to get a life.

I for instance 'laugh' and joke about failing with friends who passed and those who also failed ! I see it as a snapshot from a long time ago and I don't think failing has had any impact on where I am know.

The other important factor is schools are not quite the same as they were in the 70s and 80s and pupils are not thrown in to a 'holding' pen today by failing.

In Germany the "lower" schools don't offer the same qualifications as the grammar schools, but here you can still do A levels if you don't pass the 11+ so no path is closed.

My neighbour (often) tells the story of how she passed the 11+, soon after she was severely ill causing brain damage. She went to the grammar but was always bottom of the class & ridiculed by teachers for being such a dunce. The way she tells it, going to the grammar messed her up, a more broad-curriculum school would have found some opportunities for her.

I reckon a good solution would be to have a staged intake, with testing at 11+, 13+ and sixth form, allowing for the different development rates of children and removing the do-or-die, winner or loser effect at 11. It could be done by having a junior house for year 7/8 and then having the main school 13-16 and then a sixth form unit. But that would involve a radical restructure and probably couldn't and wouldn't be done.

It would also mean a bit of flow between schools, potentially opening up spaces in oversubscribed comps at 13.

Or alternatively we could put money and expertise into providing a better standard of comprehensive education, that provides for the whole of the ability spectrum, in a nurturing, safe, environment.

Hakluyt I expanded on that, if you read the post. So my comments are based on living for decades in an area very close to a superselective, which therefore has more of an ordinary grammar area ethos since most kids where I live take the test. You were a little selective in your post!

The problem is the parents, not the kids. The parents have a duty to represent the test properly to the kids beforehand and to brush them off afterwards if they don't get in. To encourage or allow a child to be 'devastated' amounts to real default by the parent. But my main point was that even with the experience I have, I just don't see devastated kids. The vast majority of the parents are very civil to those who do get in and say well done etc, even if their child didn't get in. Maybe we just have more grounded parents round here :) Anyhow, I feel really strongly about that, because there's definitely worst stuff in life than not getting in and plenty of bigger disappointments ahead.

typo - worse not worst.

Well, Sunshield, there are many parents who seem determined that unless their kids are separated from 'the others' (defined by either intelligence or behaviour) by attending a grammar their lives will be blighted. If school destination is no biggy for the secondary modern dwellers in terms of affect on your life, , we might reasonably assume that it isn't a biggy for Grammar students either....so what's the big imperative for Grammar schools?

But the problem is that in full grammar areas the High Schools (secondary modern) are not set up for the most academically able kids- that is the whole point of them. So although a large ratio of kids will be the ones who missed grammar by a narrow margin they may find that they are unable to do more than one MFL, more than one humanity or triple science, or a limited combination of those academic options.

And actually that could have a lifelong impact, especially in these increasingly competitive results and exam orientated times.