Theresa May to end ban on grammar schools

[noblegiraffe]

Theresa May to end ban on grammar schools, reports the Telegraph.

This is not a policy announcement, rather a testing of the waters, I suspect.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/06/theresa-may-to-end-ban-on-new-grammar-schools/

You wouldn't have this in a grammar.

But you might have it in a secondary modern.

Isn't the answer to improve resources for all schools, not put 25% of easy-to-teach children in schools which therefore find it easier to recruit and retain staff?

But of course in reality comps are not actually comps in many cases: my catchment comp has 50+% high achievers and less than 10% low achievers (almost a grammar) while a comp 15 miles away has almost the opposite demographics (a secondary modern in all but name). The high achievers in the latter certainly don't get what they deserve, but this reflects what would happen if we brought back grammars, as this school is already effectively a secondary modern.

Why don't they get what they deserve?
They should and defeatist to not aim for that.

yet another magic property of grammar schools

Along with their ability to have no bullying and no child ever being bored in any lesson.

There are actually a few Mumsnetters who believe the above.

Oh, and nobody is ever teased for being a swot, or for being in the bottom sets. And all the children are positively thirsting for knowledge............

From the standpoint of someone outside the UK, it seems ludicrous that the State should actively encourage a policy whereby certain children are given a chance at academic success and certain children are effectively precluded from pursuing academic careers by placing them in more challenging learning environments. Why on earth can't the UK fulfil its ethical responsibility towards all of its citizens to provide a good education for all?

This is particularly based on a test taken at the age of 10 which is bound to result in arbitrary divisions.

Most developed countries (Ireland, France, Germany) have in place good schools accessible to all. This is the way to optimise social mobility. This is just common sense.

Clavinova a lot has happened to London schools since 1999! Calling the school a comp if it's in a grammar area is also inaccurate.

Most developed countries (Ireland, France, Germany) have in place good schools accessible to all.

Um, no, they really don't - do you know anything about school systems in these countries?

Germany has a three tier system in which you have a 99% chance of getting into a grammar if you are the child of academics and a 99% chance of not getting into a grammar if you are from an immigrant working class family.

To succeed in French society you need to attend a Grande Ecole (not a university, these are lower valued), for which two years of prepa is necessary. To get into the right schools to do prepa, you need to attend the right schools through your school career. Again terrible social mobility, with very few from working class backgrounds making it through to Grandes Ecoles.

And Ireland: schools segregated by religion.

PonderingProsecco: but my point was that they should get what they deserve. Already the current system fails to deliver to high achievers in low performing schools, so why extend this even more instead of tackling the problems with targeted resources.

We certainly do have the same issues as other schools.
In general, swots aren't bullied, but bullies find other things to pick on.
The students are still teenagers with varying work ethics over time and as individuals.
We have teachers who coast and ones that are off a lot.
In most ways we are just a normal school. Just with an entrance exam. Latin and Greek. And some very talented and knowledgeable students and teachers. Our Maths department are beyond impressive.

pondering the high achievers don't get what they deserve ie an appropriate education for a number of reasons.

First, there are often not enough of them to justify the resources or make them practically achievable.

Second, much of school education is a collegiate experience. But you need enough pupils at a similar level to make that work at an optimum level.

Third, within the teaching community there still remains a stubborn adherence to the ideology of equivalence. To an anti-elitism stand point (or what is perceived to be elitism).

Fourth, policies have to be made. It is perfectly understandable for a school to make policies that benefit the majority. Unfortunately, these policies sometimes hinder the most able.

And we're back to what's best for the high achievers.

I just don't understand why high achievers are more important than anyone else. The grammar schools system is marginally better for the high achievers, but significantly worse for lower achievers. But what are people campaigning for?

I concentrate on high ability students, because that's my area of experience. And I think I do have a fair bit of it.

Unlike many I don't profess to be an expert in all things educational (often based upon relatively little).

There are plenty of good comprehensives GetAHairCut where all the things you state are possible. It's just that MN being heavily London centric with Grammars in London and Kent, just doesn't realise what a good Comprehensive is like. It took me a long time to realise that when Kent parents derided the local Comprehensives, they were talking about Secondary Moderns.

I'm not really sure what the long term benefits are of segregating one group of children from their peers on the basis of an exam taken at eleven. My understanding is that children in non selective areas seem to do as well as those who are in selective areas (ie Kent isn't outperforming everywhere else).

My nieces are in a selective private school so apparently doubly advantaged by both selection and greater investment. My children are in a totally comprehensive system. We are in different countries so not directly comparable, but I expect them all to go off to good universities and generally succeed. My children are occasionally bored and unchallenged. My nieces are under a lot of pressure. Is that really better?

Pressed too soon.

But on a macro societal level, we fail to nurture our high ability children at our peril.

As I said upthread, this is where we will find our future medics, scientists, economists, law makers.

And currently, these industries/areas (and many others that have a far reaching macro level impact on us all) are full of people coming from a rather narrow section of society. And that is partly fuelled by our education system (though of course there are other issues at play too).

Interestingly the 1945-51 Labour government had a lot of Cabinet members who left school very early. Ernest Bevin (widely respected on all sides as a particularly effective politician) was working as a labourer at age 11. Views on that government will vary according to your political leanings but the general historical verdict is they did a good job in difficult circumstances. Sometimes I wonder if we get too obsessed about education!!

peregrina there are indeed good comprehensives offering a very decent education to high ability pupils.

But it's simply not the case that schools not doing this are only in grammar areas. This is an issue country wide.

In fact some of the worst areas, geographically, are fully comprehensive areas.

The grammar schools system is marginally better for the high achievers.

I am not particularly in favour of grammars, but grammars would be significantly better for the high achievers currently trapped in low achieving schools even if they would be only marginally better for high achievers in leafy comprehensives.

As a society we are under-producing scientists and engineers. We have skills gaps in many areas requiring high levels of education. We are about to exit the EU and are trying to bring down immigration, reducing the possibility of importing skilled workers from abroad. So making sure all high ability children realise their potential should be important to all of us, if we want to have enough doctors, engineers, scientists etc in the future.

Similarly we need to improve our education and training for vocational workers, where we also have big shortages.

Hay I'm interested in why you're not a fan of selective education in state education, but choose a selective independent school for your DC?

This isn't a criticism by the way. I do the same for my DC.

Haybott there is a serious shortage of qualified maths teachers, the situation is absolutely dire. Given that we need scientists and engineers who need high-quality maths teaching at schools, but then we also need a maths-literate population, including for shortage areas such as nursing, and this middle group also need high-quality maths teaching, which school, grammar or secondary modern, would you prefer to get the qualified maths teacher?

I'm doubtful that grammar schools are the reason why the rich-poor attainment divide is steeper in Kent than in many other local authority areas (graph on page 11 of this thread).
The government have produced maps showing indices of deprivation:
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2015
Statistical release - main findings. The maps show that Kent/Medway have some of the most uneven distribution of wealth/poverty in England - some of the most deprived areas in the country and some of the most affluent - the gap in educational attainment is going to be greater here than in many other areas with less variation of wealth no matter what school system the pupils attend (bar massive funding as in London).

I think we should focus on why local authority areas such as affluent Hampshire (fully comp) aren't higher up the local authority league tables for 5 A* to C GCSE averages (they are lower than Kent or Medway) and why Norfolk and Suffolk (fully comp) languish near the bottom of the league tables and more than 60 places lower than deprived Medway. All five areas mentioned are largely white British.

In fact some of the worst areas, geographically, are fully comprehensive areas.

One of the worst areas in the country is Bristol (or at least it was a few years ago when I was researching stuff for my PGCE, not sure what it's like now). You could say that Bristol is a fully comprehensive area and point to this as a failing of the comp system. However, Bristol is an interesting case because it has an extraordinarily high number of independent schools, so rather than being fully comprehensive, it operates a two-tier system whereby any parent who can remotely afford to avoid the poor state school offering goes private (and the bright kids get scholarships). I believe that when grammar schools were scrapped, rather than becoming comprehensives, the grammar schools went private, leaving behind secondary moderns.

I just don't think more selection is a magic solution to improving state education. Reorganising secondary schools into grammars and secondary moderns would take away resources which could be better spent on education. (Similarly the academisation programme imo takes away resources which could be spent on teaching.) Many high ability children from poorer backgrounds wouldn't make the cut for grammars (due to tutoring, poor primary education) and would be stuck into schools which are even worse for them than the current schools. So for society as a whole I'm unconvinced about more selection.

My own DC are extreme outliers and I don't think the state education system should be designed just to cater for them. My DC would have few peers either in our catchment comprehensive or in the nearest grammar. My DC's school (like your DC's school) has the resources needed to teach my DC and makes my DC's lives much better than when they were in other schools. BTW it is not the selection that makes DC's school attractive (DC still have rather few peers) but the ability to teach way beyond the curriculum.

My DC's best chance in the state sector would probably be a really super-selective state boarding school, but I would hesitate to argue for one on the grounds that (a) resources are limited; (b) it would be hard to design a tutor proof selection procedure for such a school which picks up outliers and spiky profiles (maths genius, poor at English) and (c) I'm not keen on boarding anyhow.

The schools who fear more grammar schools being created, are the ones that achieve the 50-60% pass rates at GCSE. The the truly average comprehensives in other words. These schools that don't do anything well or above average. The fear being for these schools, is that their educational mediocrity will be highlighted when the 10 or so children who carry the school are no longer there.

However, what damage would a grammar school do to the schools in Hull or other similar towns . These towns schools offer nothing for academic children in effect many of these comprehensives operate a 'modern' system for everybody !.

I think the very reason that Justine Greening was educated in a Doncaster Comprehensive gives her an understanding and awareness of the problems. The problems are that these schools are unable to educate/ motivate pupils who's ambition is more than sitting at home watching 'JEREMY KYLE '.

I think some schools should just rerun Jeremy Kyle episodes all the time in the classrooms !

The benefit being at least the disruptive and no hopers would be engaged , allowing those who want to learn a chance to.

The 'bright' or hardworking children from these areas deserve the chance of an academic education. The only way to allow this to happen is to place these children in a school that is separate from those who would rather watch 'KYLE' than engage in education !

I would have thought low achieving schools were bad for everyone who attends them, not just the very bright. In fact the very bright are most likely to be protected as they are much better placed to access other sources of support, and are likely to have better educated parents too (statistically speaking as the educational attainment of children is most predicated by the educational attainment of their mothers).

Children who struggle need more support and better teachers surely? My ds is very bright and has been disappointed that not that many of his classmates are engaged with some of his subjects (especially humanities where he'd love to have more people to debate with). But he engaged his teachers for challenge, has found resources online and we have got him stretching books. He didn't seem to find it difficult to match private selective taught children at the debate camp we sent him to recently and when he gets to university I'm sure he will fly despite going to a comp and never being streamed or setted. I'd worry much more about children who not being taught well means effectively failing school.