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.

Postcode? I live high density social housing with high levels of deprivation are literally next door to multi-million pound houses in a conservation area! Any London area, for example, is like that!

Yes of course FSM is a pretty crude measure. But if selection at 11 was anything like fair, then grammar schools woild have something approaching the level of FSm that was seen in their catchment areas. And they don't.

I suppose it it remotely possible that our grammar school, with it's 0% FSM figure has a significant number who are just outside the parameter to get it, but it seems unlikely. Particularly when its attendant secondary modern has a FSM figure that matches the demographic.

And notice that I didn't say that practically all grammar school kids come from rich families. I said they practically all came from middle class ones. Very different.

Yes but I think the system used is able to discriminate fairly well in that situation. I mean, that's an obvious problem and they're not that daft!

The superselective my dd's go to is in a socially deprived area. They have done lots of active work in the area, working with the primary schools, running clubs etc. but no big change in the demographic of students attending. So the question is why?

Yes, post code would be about the worst way to assess this around this bit of London. You have my estate where no house is worth under £1m and I don't know a single child who even at age 3 goes to a state school. Then 2 minutes from the house is a council estate and a state primary where people are not too well off and more women are covered than not and 2 minutes the other way a state secondary which gets 34% good grades at GCSE and seems to specialise in travel and tourism GCSE.

Actually that's one of the nice things about outer London that all kinds of people live close to each other.

Yes Lotus and you'd find they had different postcodes.

practically all came from middle class ones.

Ime, they tend to come from families where education is very highly regarded - thats certainly not exclusive to the mcs.

There are virtually no children on FSM in the top sets of comps too. I presume comps are under a lot of pressure to sort out the demographics of those who are successful too. There are clearly lots of inequalities in the system.

DorothyL Fri 15-May-15 13:01:31
The superselective my dd's go to is in a socially deprived area. They have done lots of active work in the area, working with the primary schools, running clubs etc. but no big change in the demographic of students attending. So the question is why?

I guess the question is - does it select using catchment at all? If not, it is totally irrelevant it's in a "socially deprived" area, as all the pupils will bus in from anywhere else.

DorothyL - For example, my DS sat for a test at one of the top SSs in the country. We live in a disgustingly white area. I'm not sure of exact ethnic numbers but they are definitely very very low.

When he sat the test we turned up with around 750 other children and DS was one of around 10% that were white. It was wonderful to see. (It's the one thing I hate about living round here, the lack of multiculturalism).

It was a very obvious visual representation that the children sitting the test did not live locally.

Theoretical it's not totally irrelevant, in that while in theory any child could bus in, buses cost money. And until recently that was an effective bar for less well off kids attending superselectives. Some schools are now helping with that issue but these kids have to get through the door first. And a key problem is the social barrier. Given the pervasive myth that grammars are now only for the comfortably off and (connected to that) that tutoring is essential to success in the test, outreach has a long way to go and I doubt real change will be seen for a while. Nevertheless it's a main plank of grammar school policy at the moment. The tests are changing across the country but it will take a good few years for any change to filter down. That doesn't mean change isn't taking place, just that it takes time.

No, Molio, you wouldn't!

In our road there is a row of very expensive houses (not mine, LOL!), double fronted Victorian semis with drives in front, then a 5 storey LA block, with another one directly behind it, then more expensive houses and then some maisonettes, and they all have the same postcode.

Why on earth do you think that small cramped estates on the same roads as private houses have different postcodes? Why, and how, would 'the system' 'discriminate'?

Molio - when I attended grammar school in Essex the bus pass was free for everyone who lived more than 3 miles away from school. The rule then was 3 miles from catchment school, or religious school, or grammar school. When I was in sixth form the County Council removed the funding from the grammar school students. While my sister was at the Catholic school, they removed funding for those (about 5 years later). It was not the grammar schools' fault that the transport situation arose. But yes, it is an issue, as is people assuming that 'normal' children don't go to grammars. They do, but not in as high numbers as I like, why not? Because it's more difficult to enter than it used to be. I sat my exam in my primary school. Two years on from that due to pressure from the teaching unions that no longer happened. I thinking many people genuinely don't know how the system works and that is one of the key factors behind the lack of 'diversity'. We do outreach work, but that in itself doesn't seem to be changing attitudes.

Schools change. After the first 11 years of private education (both selective and non-selective) DS moved to the local rural community college. It's very large indeed, mainly white, with below average % on FSM and is on the border of a grammar school area, so its top set headroom is influenced. It has been rated outstanding by OFSTED for several years and is the in-demand school locally.

Yesterday, OFSTED put it into Special Measures. Having been among a tiny minority that was unable to see why it was deemed outstanding because it didn't seem to aspire very high or expect much from its students, I wasn't totally stunned by the news. DS is changing schools in September for A levels anyway, but imagine the shock for all those parents who really believed that their children were being well-educated in a school that achieved above average results. Waving my red rag controversially at the Gove-haters, I suggest that his shake-up of expectations has roused OFSTED into naming and shaming a complacently coasting school, as intended.

The first 4 bits of the post code are the same for my road and the very near council estate.

My parents came from large families (lived on a Council estate in an inner city). My Mum was selected out of her seven siblings to go to Grammar, but it hasn't been divisive and she stayed close to her family. The teacher knocked on my grandparents door and wouldn't leave until my Grandmother said she would allow my Mum to go the Grammar.

My Dad's family was split down the middle (3 to Grammar and 2 to Secondary Modern). They both had to leave school at 16 (lack of money and it wasn't the expected thing to stay on at school) but took extra qualifications in later life at night school. Apparently I used to eat my Mum's A Level papers when I was a baby! Those Grammar schools completely changed their lives for the better.

I don't know the pluses and minuses of all the systems but I do know that it had a profound positive effect on both their lives (& mine as well come to that).

The first 4 bits of my postcode covers a town and 4 and a half villages...I'm assuming by postcode it must be the whole postcode?

I mean, that's flawed as other people have mentioned, but not as much as just part of it.

Laurie, I don't know exactly what the methodology is or the research behind it, just that it's used. And I have a touching faith in the calibre of the people who carried out the research given their reasons for it also a hunch that the problem you describe might just have occurred to them.

My precise postcode is shared by only six houses, all in extremely close proximity. It would probably take me no more than 30 seconds to walk past them all. Also, the house I used to own is a few yards away and backs on to my current house. The two back gardens are small (well huge for this area, but objectively small) and the postcode in the other house is six letters different.

Lotus it's not going to be the first four bits though is it. These people are university dons, they think of stuff you know!

Postcodes most often correspond with streets, unless they're huge or a strange layout IME.

My precise postcode covers my street, which is about 50 houses...mostly 3 bed semis a few 3, 4 and 5 bed detached and 3 lots of 2 bed terraces.

They're a mix of owner occupied, private rented and housing association.

FSM eligibility would definitely tell you more than postcode here.

I don't live on a proper street so maybe that's why then tabulahrasa. But perhaps there's something else thrown into the mix with the postcode. My point really was that FSM is a hugely crude measure which misses millions of people on low income and is not used for that reason in a number of universities as a flag for deprivation.

OK. I live in a small market town, with an area of significant social deprivation on the outskirts. Practically all the town's children go either to the grammar school or the high school. The two schools are about a mile apart, and if you live in the town you walk to school. The grammar school has 0%FSM- the high school 38%. Now if you believe that poor children are inherently less clever than better off ones that makes perfect sense. If, however, you don't........

And, I have to say, even if you think that FSM is a crude measure, which it is, that must give you pause, surely?