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.

Also, unlike pips, I would say that despite having both grammars and superselectives here, our high schools are very good.

I've spent many years now attempting to contribute to access actually Hakluyt, so please don't include me in the ''I'm all right Jack'' brigade. That's actually what introduced me to MN, the fact that one of my senior colleagues pointed out what myths were peddled on here.

"I've spent many years now attempting to contribute to access actually Hakluyt, so please don't include me in the ''I'm all right Jack'' brigade. That's actually what introduced me to MN, the fact that one of my senior colleagues pointed out what myths were peddled on here."

I do find it a little.....odd..... that without actually having experienced a "traditional" selective area you seem to feel qualified to comment on and even dismiss the lived experience of those of us that do.

"
Hakluyt you need to be more explicit in your teminolgy , otherwise people will think you mean Grammar schools when you say High school...."

Why would they think that?

The problem is that schools are called all types of different names in areas. There are even some state schools called "Grammar" in Scotland which does not any Grammar schools at all.

Where I live the Girls Grammar schools are called "High schools" confusing the matter even more as to what type of school they are !.

Yes well the somewhat ignorant but incorrect assumption that you make Hakluyt is that I haven't actually experienced a ''traditional'' selective area. Because I have. I grew up in one. Just a few miles from you. I experienced it absolutely directly. I recall its ramifications very well. I've also been a parent of eight children for twenty five years in a superselective model as a slightly different customer and I'm clear which I prefer: I'm a staunch supporter of grammars in their modern superselective form, provided the tests can successfully be adjusted to make access open to all.

And didn't you say that you were home schooled Hakluyt, so in fact you've only ever experienced grammar school ed as a parent, but not as a child?

It doesn't actually matter what sort of education any of us had- things have changed so completely that no comparisons can be possible.

But as you seem to know so much about me- I have no idea who you are- I will await with interest your next ad hominem comments.

I repeat. There is no comparison at all between what happens in an area where there are super selectives and de facto comprehensives and an area where there are "traditional" grammar schools. And it is ....egregious....to dismiss the experience of those of us who have lived in a "traditional" area based on your compltely different experience.

Re the naming of secondary moderns these days. In my bit of Kent, the secondary moderns I know of are variously called academies, technology colleges, or simply "schools". Not high schools, and definitively not comprehensives, as they aren't.

I'm not sure either about the reference to what education one had as a child. I was variously schooled abroad, as a boarder in the private sector, at a prep school, at an all girls comprehensive and at local state primaries. As a child I was totally unaware of all the complex issues surrounding education - other than vague feelings of being more comfortable in one environment than another, class sizes, subjects on offer. I certainly couldn't reliably speak about any aspect I experienced, it doesn't compare to the knowledge I now have as a parent having explored and investigated the options rigorously and from a position of adult knowledge. I wouldn't comment on private education as I experienced it as a child but not a parent. Apart from anything else, my experience is 30 years out of date.

Even my DH, who failed the 11+ locally, and attended a secondary modern, wasn't in a position to understand and comment about the issues, ramifications, cultural and social aspects these days of the grammar system as so much has changed in the secondary modern schools around here since he went to school 30 years ago. One very small example - there were no drugs at his secondary modern 30 years ago......

provided the tests can successfully be adjusted to make access open to all.

This is a bit of a sticking point. No matter what format the tests take, they will be infinitely more passable with tutoring for most children. And a lot of people do invest in tutoring, either private or group - even those whose children are guaranteed to pass. If you can afford it, you do it, apparently.

We didn't bother, because there was no access to a tutor who could help a dyslexic child, and the group we tried that didn't deal with dyslexia, was useless for ds. No information went in. We only did two sessions. I hated it anyway - I hated the idea that people were paying to give their child an advantage, and wanted nothing to do with it.

However many sessions he had done I don't think it would have made an ounce of difference. Another dyslexic child in his class had a private tutor for two years prior to the exam. She still didn't pass, but got in to a grammar on appeal (there are more spaces for girls here).

I really don't understand why there has to be different schools for different kinds of children, or really even why selection has to be made at 11. It presupposes that intelligence is fixed by then and that children are never going to change.

Molio, the discussion around a super selective in a sea of schools which are comprehensives because the super selective has such little impact on surrounding schools is completely different form the impact if a grammar system. Discussion about super selectives to discuss a grammar system is spurious. I am glad you were happy with your choice and access to that type of school, but they don't divide children en masse like a grammar system does. They don't consign children to a more restricted education, and not getting a place is not 'failure' becahse so few do get in, and those that don't can end up in a highly academic top set at a comp.

It was a pro active choice of yours to go for the school that seperated your DD from her friends, and that's fine : they do make new ones. And it was because she gotbthrougb a competitive process. That is not the equivalent of being seperated from friends on a pass / fail divide.

Indeed Sarf. There is a psychological impact on children that go to secondary moderns in grammar areas, no doubt about it. Being told at 11 that you don't make the cut is harsh, no two ways about it. And it's often nothing to do with how the parents position it, you can wrap your child in cotton wool as much as you like, put maximum spin on best school for you etc, but what you have no control over is what their peer group are saying.

We see it from Y1 in my DCs primary, as its streamed. The teachers call the classes by names, and there is no talk from staff of "lower class" or "higher class" but the kids oh the pesky kids! Amongst the classics I have heard over the past few years "No, that's the thick kids class", "This is where the clever children go" ( to a potential Reception parent being shown round) "oh no! She's in with the stupid ones" etc etc. Multiply this by approx 1,000 for the 11+.

My DD generally gets things about a year later than her elder brother, since potty training etc. She's an August birthday. So she may be ready for the 11+ when she's 12.

"I really don't understand why there has to be different schools for different kinds of children, "

This really is the crux of it. There has only ever been one Mumsnetter who was brave enough to say openly that it was because she didn't want her children mixing with the hoi polloi in the lunch queue. Everyone else finds weasel words- but it amounts to the same thing. My own ds's pool of "naice" friends was certainly greatly reduced when he went to the high school -

The important thing to remember is that wholly selective LEAs do not have better results than comparable comprehensive ones. If the selective model was educationally better, then they would.

SarfEast. I think at either end of the spectrum you do need a different kind of education, whether that's special schools or super-selectives.

I don't think anyone would disagree that some children are much better served by a special school, and equally there is a fair amount of research to show that the top 1-2% also don't tend to be that well served by a comprehensive school.

But for vast majority, it does work.

I think the issue for the outliers is critical mass.

If you take the school where I'm governor, we have probably five children on a good year who fall in the top 5%. Often fewer. Out of a year group of 150-180.

That leaves those DC very much out on a limb.

We can't direct too many resources their way. And they can't make up a set of their own (especially once they make their GCSE choices, which might not be the same).

IMVHO, they would be far better served in a school where the other pupils were in the same ability group, so the curriculum could serve them better, the resources pooled etc.

At the school where my niece attends no one has got an A* in English Lit for the last three years.

Imagine you're a kid who excels at English.

When people talk about bringing back grammar schools, they are not talking about super selectives. And anyway, the discourse around super selectives is interesting- the % varies according to context! I don't actually think 1-2% is a viable number unless you're talking about a boarding school. And once you start getting into the 5-10% then the argument for the need for a special environment weakens. And, frankly, you can't make policy predicated primarily on the needs of the outliers.

"At the school where my niece attends no one has got an A* in English Lit for the last three years.

Imagine you're a kid who excels at English."

Presumably you get an A*!

Yes of course. But you will have spent the last five years being taught in a set with others nowhere near your level.

How is that okay? How will that have helped your development in the subject you excel in?

In our county about 6000 pupils transfer to secondary per year, so on2% you could run a school quite easily.

Well super-selectives can and do work in urban areas. And I think in a lot of places people would travel quite a significant distance to access a school like that. So it only becomes a problem in rural areas.

In the US they have gifted magnet schools, so all the eligible children (usually done by IQ rather than achievement testing) are grouped in one class in an otherwise comprehensive school. I really can't see why that's not possible here.

When people talk about bringing back grammar schools, they are not talking about super selectives. And anyway, the discourse around super selectives is interesting- the % varies according to context! I don't actually think 1-2% is a viable number unless you're talking about a boarding school. And once you start getting into the 5-10% then the argument for the need for a special environment weakens. And, frankly, you can't make policy predicated primarily on the needs of the outliers.

[nods, again]

The real issue here are that insidious band in the middle. Otherwise known as "the majority". In a grammar area, those that are the 26th to say 65th percentile. And those that are in actuality in the top 25% but didn't pass the exam on one day.

Word Factory, I am with you entirely. In my case, the experience of O Level Business Studies in an entirely mixed class was grim. I stopped listening and started misbehaving really quite badly (fortunately the teacher was sympathetic and understood the reasons).

"In our county about 6000 pupils transfer to secondary per year, so on2% you could run a school quite easily."

Where would you put it? Who would pay for travel to it? To ask but to questions!