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.

No I was being facetious as it's as ridiculous a thing to say about Essex as it is about Kent.

Camel: I have worked in a huge range of schools, I attended a selective private school, my DC attend a good comp in a tough area.

The out of school behaviour is better from children at our local comp than that of the behaviour of boys travelling to the public school a couple of miles away.

Ethos is specific to each school but all the comps round us have a good academic ethos and produce, in the main, kids with a happy social outlook.

Are you saying that elitism produces a superior ethos?

Pastoral support enables kids who have been acting up to settle down and focus. Having done so they get better academic performance , fulfil their own potential and move up a set.

My work is involved in this area.

What you are describing could be described as simply cherry picking the kids who already have the means to do well , including the 'right' parents and creating a good school through social segregation.

Who knows whether I know best or not. You seem to feel you know best because of your experience. I am saying I have experience and have a different point of view.

That's not an "ethos". That's the practicalities of a cohort. The "ethos" is about expectations- both behaviourally and academically and personally and for the school at large. Having a cohort of middle class, well behaved, well supported, high achieving pupils and achieving good behaviour and high achievement does not constitute an "ethos".

No I think there are differences in approach at different schools that have nothing to do with the cohort.

The leadership teams make decisions (which you could describe as an ethos) which are different. They have differing policies.

And those policies do impact on the behaviours and mind sets of the cohort, irrespective of socio economic factors.

"But... with very different stakeholders the ethos is bound to be very different."

Why?

"No I think there are differences in approach at different schools that have nothing to do with the cohort."

Absolutely.

"The biggest single factor in success at school is parental engagement and grammar schools can rely on this far more. " CamelHump

That's my theory and that's why I think the "type" of school is a bit of a red herring.

1. there is no reason why comprehensives couldn't be as good as other schools given enough resource (i.e. they don't get enough money)

2. the "fixing" of under performing schools will not address the key issues of home life and parental commitment and resources.

Schooling is only a part of creating a happy and creative person and when I step back from the "which school is best debate" it is very clear to me that there are much more significant factors for each child that which school they go to. Hence, I am much more relaxed than others about the education system - it should all be high quality - but I am much more exercised about overall social welfare and health.

I think the arbitrary line of FSM denoting poverty is incorrect and misleading! Posters on here talk about the low number of FSM pupils at grammar schools as evidence that they are completely full of Privileged economically students . We don't know how many students at grammar schools have families that incomes are marginally above the arbitrary FSM line. Therefore it is impossible and incorrect to say that grammar schools are 100% full or (nearly) of children from economically prosperous families.

I think your experiences at school has a massive part to play on how you see yourself in relation to your peers. If your school is a high-achieving academic hot house, and you don't quite measure up to you peers it can have a shattering affect on your self-esteem. A school that offers, drama, games, languages and values those achievements as highly as the academic achievements have got to be better for a child.

I wonder what they mean by 'parental engagement' - being interested and engaged in your child's development? or is it shorthand for spending a lot of money of private tutoring...

"Therefore it is impossible and incorrect to say that grammar schools are 100% full or (nearly) of children from economically prosperous families."

It isn't if you ever spent any time in one!

But then, given that most people seem to agree that top set in a decent comp equates to the grammar, in terms of teaching and academic achievement, why are so many parents dead set on the grammar school system?

It boils down to not wanting your precious flower mixing with the riff raff doesn't it?

I also think it has a lot to do with parents not knowing enough about the schools in question. No-one wants to take chances with their kids education, and lots of people still think 'grammar = elite - comp = bog standard' I think it's a great shame.

"It boils down to not wanting your precious flower mixing with the riff raff doesn't it?"

Frequently, yes.

However, if you live in a wholly selective area , which means there are no comprehensive schools, and if you have a "top set" child, and you want that child to have a significant academic peer group, then you have no choice but to go for the grammar school. Also, because of their overwhelmingly middle class intake, grammar schools are more likely to have enough kids at Grade 5 and up for a decent orchestra. And, even more unfairly, are more likely to have kids who have been taken to sports clubs all though primary school so often have more successful teams.

'Also, because of their overwhelmingly middle class intake, grammar schools are more likely to have enough kids at Grade 5 and up for a decent orchestra. And, even more unfairly, are more likely to have kids who have been taken to sports clubs all though primary school so often have more successful teams'.

Sounds awful to me - but then I am a fully paid up member of the riff-raff.

Camel - no I am not a pastoral support worker exactly.

But I am a specialist working with schools.

If a Grammar school 'ethos' is considered to be a strength of the type of school, and is based in better behaviour and better support from parents, why not ask for selectivity that reflects that?

A school with a studious approach and overall better behaviour available for the highest ability children but also the just-sub-grammar, and the hard working interested middle ability children? And lowest set children who want to do well on their own terms? Why have a grammar system that only offers this ethos' to one ability level?

Average ability children also want to pass exams and have parents who care about their education, and it is in our interests as a country to educate them well, too.

Well run comps, with a parallel system of specialist units seems to me the best way of gaining this - not revoking to the Grammar system.

There are only a few kids on FSM in DCs grammar - probably about the equivalent number of kids on FSM in the top sets at the local comps.

I don't agree that grammars are full of middle class kids. - Unless you think everyone who is not on FSM is automatically middle class. Is that the thinking here?

We are working people - we buy our own furniture ;) DC has three mates whose parents are taxi drivers - at the grammar - my DC had FSM for a couple of years when they were young.

You seriously have to be in a very privileged position if you are all excited by the comp for giving your kids that rare opportunity to mix with "common people".

"You seriously have to be in a very privileged position if you are all excited by the comp for giving your kids that rare opportunity to mix with "common people".

I do hope nobody said anything so crass..............

Hakluyt sunshield is absolutely correct about FSM. It's a very misleading measure for all sorts of reasons and that's why it's not used by certain highly selective universities as a flag. Postcode is used instead - that's far more telling.

And I've spent years and years and years as a parent in a modern grammar. The friends of my eight DC were/ are by no means all well off. Some were very well off, many were middling and some were struggling.

Also, there are some silly generalizations on this thread about grammar school kids, as though they live in a bubble. It really does make me wonder what experience the posters making these generalizations have - I suspect very little.