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/

with over 70% of people wanting more grammar schools then that level of opinion has to be taken into account don't you think?

No! That's why we have political representatives and not merely a series of opinion polls! Opinion polls can be easily manipulated to give an intended outcome anyway - as this beautiful example about the reintroduction of national service from Yes Prime Minister shows:

Exactly that

To both giraffe and seek.

I'm sure there won't be a referendum on this but with over 70% of people wanting more grammar schools then that level of opinion has to be taken into account don't you think?

Do 70% of people want more secondary moderns?

I suspect that opinions would change when the reality becomes clearer to people: that grammar schools would mean their local comp becoming a secondary modern and their own children most likely attending this secondary modern.

Turkeys do vote for Christmas (and definitely have done so in 2015 and 2016) but I'm not sure that the figure in favour of grammars would be 70%.

Mum - I went onto that site but couldn't find a list.

Christ, I really couldn't stomach another bloody referendum! I doubt the Tories could either, to be fair to them.

DPs both went to grammar school and were from not very well off or privilged backgrounds where their family were manual workers.

This is trotted out time and time again. Should we examine it more closely? How many were in your DP's classes? How many of them went to the Grammar School. Which schools did the others go to?

For what it's worth: DF won a scholarship to the grammar school, DM and DMIL both failed. DM failed because she'd had a lot of time of sick and had been kept down a year. Had she been able to take the exam when she had done the work I am sure she would have passed with flying colours. (Still DM was middle class, so she doesn't count for the argument.)

DFIL is a slightly more interesting case - he didn't pass, (sorry, get selected) for the Grammar School, but went to something called a Central school. These seemed to be forerunners of Technical schools, and were a rung down from the Grammar, but still better than the alternatives. I would in fact say that DFILs central school gave him a much better preparation for adult life that a grammar school education would have done. There was no work where he lived in the North West, so he went to London. Undoubtedly the move to London is what gave him the leg up.

This highlights the other issue of course: an education for girls wasn't valued very much. DMILs sister wasn't allowed to go to the Grammar despite being more than able and passing the exam.

Hmm so, 1 out of three (or four counting the aunt), benefitted from the Grammar School. Not too much of a leg up for the vast majority then? But true anecdote is not data.

Child: "I want to go to school X"
Parent: "ok, there's an entrance exam. Lots of people will sit it, there aren't enough places for the number of people willing to try. Most people sitting the test will not get a place, that's will be fine and normal."
Child: "I want to go to school X."
Parent: "if you want to sit the test to try for a place, then you will be best served by doing some test preparation. Do you want to do that? Let's also investigate alternative schools."
Child: "I wanted to go to school X but I didn't get a high enough score"
Parent: "well you did your best, you're the same lovely child today as you were yesterday (before the results)."

Well obviously I've been doing it wrong

This is state schooling, of course it should be the greatest good for the greatest number

But it isn't - because they don't have the parent backing

How many schools have parents telling the kids education doesn't matter? You'll be fine - look at me??

You need to be realistic and educate those who want to be educated well - and those who don't have the attitude for formal education to be educated elsewhere - that would level the playing field

As would schools that could expel badly behaved kids without penalty.

It's not based on wealth, but attitude to learning.

I suspect a policy to the lift the ban would be popular enough to make it through parliament.

And we may get the odd super selective opening as a result. Probably not huge movement.

What we might see is more comprehensives rethinking their responsibilities to their high ability pupils, if faced with the possibility of a selective school luring some of their easiest pupils away.

Which would be something.

tell me how, short of a brutal revolution, we can deny the influence of parental wealth?

We can't, but at least Nick Clegg had a good shot at closing the gap when he got the coalition to introduce Pupil Premium. It may have its faults, but it does help. I was dubious about it when it was introduced, I didn't believe that less well off pupils were that disadvantaged, not in my school etc, but the stats are undeniable. Since the gap statistics are now published per school, we do put a lot of work into that group (in fact my school had a snap Ofsted triggered because they thought we weren't doing enough from the data, so it is taken very seriously). Even just knowing which kids in my classes are PP means they are more in my thoughts. Using PP money I can get free revision guides for them, ask for extra tuition for them, a free calculator, whatever I think they might need will be considered, because the money is there.

The 'psychological damage' alleged on this thread is entirely down to the parents handling of the results of the test, not the test itself. Masses of kids around our area take the test and aren't scarred. Masses of kids have siblings in the non selective schools and there aren't widespread family schisms. Children are more robust than some people on this thread give them credit for, provided they have sensible parents who don't act as though life has ended with the lack of a place at the grammar.

Bertrand given that the new government isn't ever going to re-introduce a full grammar system, why don't you move the discussion on to the introduction of more super selectives, which is what this is about. The arguments about the Kent system are very parochial and not of relevance to the wider picture nationwide. I'd certainly hope that any new super selectives would be for the top ten percent or so, which is about the range that a lot of top super selectives take now, and no doubt all the measures currently adopted or being adopted to widen access in those schools would be adopted by the new schools too -.perhaps extended as Carl suggests with 'flagging', if that's sanctioned by the DfE. Many of these complaints don't impact on the introduction of new super selectives for a sizeable tranche of the most able nationwide.

By which I mean the complaints on this thread (and all the other threads too!).

You need to be realistic and educate those who want to be educated well - and those who don't have the attitude for formal education to be educated elsewhere - that would level the playing field

What has that got to do with grammar schools?

Can I just check then - do we know that what they are talking about at the moment is a few more superselectives?

It's not dragging down it is about the opportunities and aspirations of the school. So no foreign trips, trips to 6th forms etc. 2/3rds not getting 5 gcses inc english and maths. Even in a non grammar town people are opting elsewhere. It has come up recently from inadequate to requires improvement.

I think we all agree that superselectives are a different issue.

I don't agree that superselectives are a different issue. People keep saying that superselectives don't impact on the comprehensives but this is not always true - you have to draw children from a very large range of schools to have no effects on surrounding comprehensives. This is possible in the London area, but not in most of the rest of the country. Some schools which people would call superselectives do have all the negative effects of grammars.

Look at the Dorset schools in Bournemouth/Poole. These are superselectives in the sense that they do not have fixed catchments, and children can travel from a long way away to attend. Children who travel from 10+ miles to attend are pulled from their local comprehensives, but rather few children are lost to these comprehensives (it's too expensive and too far to travel to the grammar), so the grammars indeed have little effect on them.

But now look at the secondary schools closer to the grammars. There are quite a lot of them, so at first sight you would say that they are unaffected by the grammars. This is emphatically not true for schools within a few miles of the grammars - they have lost almost all their high achieving, affluent children and are most definitely secondary moderns.

Then there are a lot more schools 4-6 miles from the grammars. Many children from these areas don't take the grammar exam, so the comps keep some high achievers. However, they still lose some to the grammar and have less very high achievers than they should, which affects the top sets and years 12/13 particularly.

Apart from the grammar schools, almost all of these state secondaries appear on Bristol University's list for contextual offers i.e. their A level results are below national averages.

How many schools have parents telling the kids education doesn't matter? You'll be fine - look at me??

There is certainly some truth in this. The only problem now is that the unskilled and semi-skilled jobs have disappeared, so it's going to be much less true for the current generation of children.

why don't you move the discussion on to the introduction of more super selectives, which is what this is about?

Is it? I've not seen that mentioned, merely a suggestion from the Tories leading this that they want to open 20 grammar schools in poor areas to start with, to show that it's not about appealing to the rich, then they can get about the business of opening them for the rich.

I think we must be tough as old boots in Casa Carl as we don't take our failures forward with us.

Sure, some of them sting like a fucker at the time but no lasting damage.

I come from Rochdale and my mother always used to mention Clitheroe in hushed tones! Having had a quick decko at the admission rules it appears to have a very wide catchment area and to take from outside that if not enough catchment kids meet the "required standard". If the pass mark is set very high then I think the school is perhaps more similar to a superselective than say a Medway grammar. And if my mother was right about it being a "nice" area I can well believe that decent comps can co-exist with it.

How many schools have parents telling the kids education doesn't matter? You'll be fine - look at me??

That's why you shouldn't have the children of all those parents in one school, without any children who hear a different narrative. The school should be able to counter that, not base their intake on the premise that it is determining. Parents saying that aren't going to be putting their children forward for selective tests, no matter how potentially able the child, are they? So again, the 11+ does not give a leg up to the bright child, but the bright child with ambitious parents.

noblegiraffe there is not going to be a re-introduction of e full grammar system anywhere. It's not going to happen. Of course the new schools should be located in non affluent areas - nothing else makes sense.

I think 7 years in a school you had no choice about and from which the valued pupils, the bright and able who are the priority, have been removed, is a sting more fucker-like in its impact, than the kind you are talking about though Carl.

"It's not dragging down it is about the opportunities and aspirations of the school. So no foreign trips, trips to 6th forms etc. 2/3rds not getting 5 gcses inc english and maths"

What are you basing this on? My ds's secondary modern does foreign trips- sadly Brexit will mean that there will be fewer of them and we will have to think of ways to pay for them. Not sure about trips to 6th forms- are they usual? And most comprehensives do better than 33% A* to C.......