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.

gently yes to the serfdom.

I'm currently writing a YA thing (dystopian) where the the majoirty are kept in their place by the ruling classes not by violence and oppression but by poor education/lack of knowledge/lack of interest.

Of course a young woman from the lower order rebels against the status quo . Then there's sex. And fighting. And politics. And more sex.

Grammar schools are for those kids that present themselves as bright and quick at age 11. If your kid is bright and quick but misses out, that's bad luck. If they are bright but slow, it's not the right place for them and if they are late developers, they've missed the boat. Them's the rules, it's not fair, but it shouldn't be damaging.Do as I've done and tell them they've a better chance of getting a decent degree provided they work hard to get decent A level results (see previous post).

Thems the rules, it shouldn't be damaging?

In terms of doing what you've done, do you have a child at a secondary modern, having failed the 11+?

I just think it's inappropriate so I called it. Choose to belittle and then joke. It's a common tactic used by a certain group.

Word you might like to visit some of the areas in Kent you're not accustomed to for research into your YA thing.

The data about degree class is interesting and bears a little close reading.

Basically, state schooled students on less selective courses out perfrom their private counterparts.

I think it's fair to say, that if you've had small classes and excellent teaching lavished on you for you and you still only manage 3 Ds, tertiary education probably aint for you.
So no great surpirse.

As we move up the universities (based on their ability to select) the difference in outcome becomes negligible.

theoretical I've known far more poverty and disadvantage than most. I don't need to be a tourist.

Oh but Word it was a joke!

Well hak has a kid who failed the 11+ and she's pretty happy with his school and the differentiation he gets.

From her posts on here he seems happy and secure. Certainly hasn't written himself off as a failure.

Even living in The Vale of Tears appears to have had no lasting damage.

It's horrible when somebody you've disagreed with but respected for ages, and who you thought felt the same way takes the piss in that particular "Oh, lighten up, can't you take a joke" type way. Oh well. Over investment.

For the love of God theoretcial I wasn't taking offence. Simply stating a sad fact. I don't need to visit places where people are disadvanatged. I wish it were otherwise.

Well hak has a kid who failed the 11+ and she's pretty happy with his school and the differentiation he gets.From her posts on here he seems happy and secure. Certainly hasn't written himself off as a failure.Even living in The Vale of Tears appears to have had no lasting damage.

Hak should reply to this not me. I will just comment on how profoundly offensive I find your belittling "Vale of Tears" "joke".

Seriously far too invested hak !

We're complete strangers. And anonymous ones. None of s should need or seek the good opinions of strangers.

MN is a place for a bit of craic in the small chinks of boredom in an otherwise full life (probably far too full for me, yes, I hear you DH ).

Theoretical the middle attainers as a group achieve equally well under both systems so one has to question whether the psychological impact referred to is really as huge as some MN parents make out, since the kids in the grammar school system seem to pick themselves up well enough to achieve parity with their peers in non grammar areas.

10 is probably the optimum age, if one has to select when to select. A child will have been seven years in the system. That's a long time - half its school life. I can't really see why being told you're thick and second rate at an older potentially more turbulant age would be better. But then, as I've said previously, it really shouldn't ever be an issue of a child being told they're thick or second rate.

Having now realized (having looked after rabbit's comments) that our allocated school was (in current terminology) on notice to improve for most of my DCs secondary entrance years, I'm surprised at how little Kent like tension there was round here and how few obviously devastated children were left in the wake of their tests.

I agree with Word that you are reaching Hak when you say 'societal breakdown'. I've lived in Kent and plenty of people there are opposed to selective education and choose to by pass it altogether. Same with Belfast. The bigger picture is about the crap goings on in many comps. Wring your hands about that!

…and the relentless obsession with data that is crucifying teachers up and down the country.

Not to mention the catch-up classes 'needed' (due to low level disruption in lessons).

Who'd be a teacher?!

If only we could disentangle academic selection from ethos. If the real policy choice is over academic selection (and not whether a school is up to its job, whatever its intake), speaking from a narrow personal perspective, like everyone else, if we lived in say Kent (with its lovely orchards and undulating landscapes), our children would not be the first generation to contemplate state education. Public or any fee-paying school would be tolerated for its defects; any reasons for spending years selectively with the eager beaver clever quarter or resource-starved majority fail to convince, even if they were deemed 'high achieving'. We would continue to hope that their choice of values would be honorable, having little practical knowledge of socio-economic diversity.

Walking the world and media is not enough to understand the lives of very different people. Spending your days with them does the job. It's much harder to use or kill someone when you've looked them in the eye for years and shared your lunches together, both ways. You realise that intelligence doesn't come only in the chosen flavour of the current dominant group. Hopefully you'd realised at the start that even being in the current dominant group was sheer luck, and not immovable.

For those whose children's intellectual acrobatics are a matter of personal worth, a fair few respected academics are of the general view that fee-paying starlets start fraying at the seams around their first December in college. "Coached to the hilt" is a phrase repeatedly used. Supply is always there to match demand, and that's what many parents seem to think is the best buy. The proportion of top firsts in the best universities is skewed to those of state provenance. Small surprise, despite the increase in fee-paying for sixth form. There is added advantage that gift-aided contributions to the comprehensive of fees saved almost certainly make the future for my children far far better than if spent at public school. My scholars are better dragging up performance (didn't you know that's what they're for at public schools?) where they also gain immeasurably. This is not about social tourism, it's about influencing a future that is more resilient to manipulation, because people are better educated. And it's pretty obvious after 40 years' trials that academic selection has very little contribution to how good a school is at training minds and preparing children for adulthood.

Word, I read from the data that AAB (comp) vs AAA (grammar/Independent) had better degree outcomes. I don't imagine many of those students are on non selective courses, so it's not the DDD cohort that I'm talking about.

I suspect that 10 might be slightly on the young side for selection. Other systems - CE/public schools at 12 or Dutch schools at 11 - select children slightly later to good effect. 15, which is the point at which selection starts in French schools, is far too late.

Maryso, you're not exactly a good example of the understanding and sympathy that state education provides. 'eager beaver clever quartet' and 'intellectual acrobatics are a matter of personal worth.' An outside observer would almost think that you were afraid about the choices you'd made and need to defend them to the hilt.

I know that we are lucky, I also know that we had to move DD because she was being absolutely made miserable and bored by her state school, as I explained upthread. I'd love to live in your utopia, but it just doesn't exist in a lot of places.

I would be prepared to buy that comprehensives promote social tolerance and mobility etc if it weren't for that fact that most kids attend comps and we just voted in Cameron.

pickled I will reply on the university thing but have to work now. Not ignoring .

Bonsoir I doubt the selection made at 12 would vary vastly from those selected at 10 but that's purely a guess. The disadvantage is that it would miss out faster paced teaching at KS3 which is an important stage in that there's more freedom in the curriculum before one gets to the prescriptions of GCSEs and also before subjects are dropped. Anyhow, those who are determined that there should be devastating psycholgical impact for DC would simply move their argument on to how devastating it was aged 12 etc. The younger children are, the more accepting and less upset I'd have thought. Again, purely a guess.

"An outside observer would almost think that you were afraid about the choices you'd made and need to defend them to the hilt."
hahaha you certainly intimate as much, sam

You are wrong to deduce a disdain for state education, having relied on my shorthand of the historical grammar system. Certainly my children retain a better command of basic reasoning that yours, even after our choices. And, happily, our choices have only increased their gains. It's a no brainer, at least for us. It's good that your DD has left a bad school for one you deem adequate. Possibly you're looking at some added currency from paying fees? But what has that got to do with academic selection?

Have you never met parents who live through their children? They are everywhere, of course, but seem to be multiplying exponentially at even the public schools with which we're familiar. Good luck to your DD. It must have been awful being so bored and miserable. Luckily boredom and misery weren't an issue for us, but one can always ask for more. Self-interested investment in the future is hardly believing in utopia. The world is hardly ever a personal place.

There is some very selective answering going on on this thread.

Here are a couple of questions I have asked that have been ignored:

theoretical the outcomes for low ability children seem to be far more connected to their LEA's polices on funding and SEN provision than selection etc

To Word : I ask again Where do you get that from? How can you prove the outcomes of low attainers ( are these low attainers the middle band children from primary who have been stamped on and the fight gone out of them? ) are not affected by selection at 10?

To pickled: "do as I do" comment - I ask again, do you have a child that failed the 11+ at a secondary modern?

TheWordFactory - kids don't get the vote. If they could vote, and adults couldn't, I suspect we'd have a far more interesting political situation, now.