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/

[teacherwith2kids]

I should add, for context, as I have done for other schools where people have given raw results without context - it has

[Peregrina]

Up thread someone said 'how many towns only have one school?'
I take it to mean secondary (and not including private schools). In the southern part of Oxfordshire: Wantage, Wallingford, Thame, Faringdon, Eysham (biggish village), Chiltern Edge school (serves a cluster of villages north of Reading). Didcot has two secondary schools, but they are both single sex, so for practical purposes 1.

Depending on how typical Oxfordshire is, I would suspect that there were quite a lot of places with only one Secondary School.

[Lurkedforever1]

noble and teacher I don't think comprehensives like that are exceptions. But nor do I believe the ones that do fail their most able dc, or in some cases all dc except those required for massaging figures, are exceptions either.

In exactly the same way a secondary modern is the flip side of grammar, the inadequate comprehensives are the flip side of the good ones.

I know there are many individual teachers, and slt's who do meet the needs of the most able, or at least give it the best try they practically can. However if a school decides not to bother, there is absolutely no policy, or recourse to require them to do so.

[teacherwith2kids]

peregrina, I agree. I live in a town with >1 school, and the neighbouring town also has several schools. You then have to travel about 20 miles in any direction to reach another town with more than 1 school. I'd say it's pretty typical of 'counties' outside the South East.

[teacherwith2kids]

Lurked, but as i have repeatedly said, how much is due to the SCHOOL, and how much due to the characteristics of the COMMUNITY?

Is a school on an area with 2--3x the national average of unemployment, isolated in terms of transport, very low median income and high %FSM 'inadequate' just because its raw results are lower than a school in an affluent area with lower than average employment?

Ofsted grades, and raw results, are both functions of factors of the community as much as - or even more than - of the school 'in and of itself'. Any solutions have to look wider than simply the schools.

[teacherwith2kids]

2striped - however, when choosing to turn down grammar places for both my DCs in favour of the local comp, I deliberately chose an option that not only worked for us, but didn't specifically disadvantage anyone else.

[teacherwith2kids]

(In terms of my knowledge of who is in what set, I have the advantage of working locally, and so have a certain amount of access to the wider context)

[Peregrina]

Lurked, but as i have repeatedly said, how much is due to the SCHOOL, and how much due to the characteristics of the COMMUNITY?

Someone talked about the Death Spiral that some schools get into. There is also a Death Spiral for Communities too: there are few job opportunities, if rural, then almost invariably poor or bad public transport; they become stifling and the young people and those with a bit of get up and go can't wait to leave, do so, and never return.

[sandyholme]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/07/why-cheer-elite-athletes-but-not-top-students-bring-back-grammar/?WTmcid=tmgoff_soc_spf_fb&WT.mc_id=sf32765531

[teacherwith2kids]

And in terms of knowledge of predictions, a) I have what their teacher tells me ('like most of the set, DS has a predicted grade of...) and also b) children talk.

I would agree that predicting grades in he new GCSE is an extremely inexact science, but they are going with the generally understood 'top end of old A*' for a 9.

[teacherwith2kids]

2striped - what is the feeder comp's %FSM? And your local community's %unemployment?

[BertrandRussell]

Lurked- I am on record as saying that I think that admission by postcode and be religion are unacceptable too. But there is a huge difference to a 10 year old between not being able to go to a school because they didn't live close enough and because they failed a one off exam.

[teacherwith2kids]

X-posted, obviously. As I said, they are predicting 9s for those who used to be predicted top A*.

[BertrandRussell]

"goodbyestranger - The numbers of disadvantaged but able children are increasing and certain to increase even more"

I still don't know what you mean by this. It certainly doesn't apply to the 3 secondary schools I know about.

[teacherwith2kids]

Ah, sorry, not clarified. I am aware of the KS2 results from my job. The predictions from the sources that I have given.

Effort grades (though not predictions) are openly shared and displayed in my DC's school, and it possibly encourages a more generally open approach to 'are you meeting your targets / what are they' than might be the norm elsewhere.

[Peregrina]

sandyholme The Telegraph piece is exactly what you would expect from them. Bring back Grammars and the stretched middle classes, especially in the South East, can save oodles of money not going private. OK and pretend that social mobility happens by allowing one or two able poor children in.

Ages ago on this thread, I asked if those who subscribe to the view that the Grammar Schools enabled their working class parents to be socially mobile, what happened to the rest of the class? Which schools did they go to? No one has replied yet.

[goodbyestranger]

Haybott I think the point about super selectives is about aspiration isn't it?

Bertrand the linear GCSEs and the reformed A2s are about a 'one off' exam. We've seen a period in education where no-one was allowed to fail, but it used to be the case that people did and it's going to be the case again. The philosophy has come full circle. The 11+ is no worse than the new GCSEs or the A2s - these kids have had six years of compulsory education by the time they sit the test, it's not completely random.

[TaIkinPeace]

And mostly transfers between sets/streams doesn't happen in comps either. It's usually a one-way street with pupils who struggle being moved down with very few pupils being moved up.
Piffle.
Two bands of Five sets of 30 kids.
One goes down, one goes up.
The lower sets are smaller than the higher ones - and better resourced.

One of DDs friends moved up 5 sets in 3 terms in English.
Another moved down two and then back up one the next year.

[goodbyestranger]

Bertrand I clearly mean the numbers of able but disadvantaged kids getting places at grammars. It's up to you to go to the think tanks and policy makers who drive the access initiatives and find out what theyr'e doing, or to specific schools to ask for numbers. If you wish to sit on a small throne in Kent generalizing from a small parochial particular then that's entirely up to you. Your mind seems extremely closed.

[HPFA]

But if the conversation had been 'sorry son, you didn't get x school because we can't afford to live in catchment, and because I work Sunday's you didn't get y either, therefore you get z' then the disappointment would have been exactly the same.

Sorry, Lurked I really don't think it's the same thing at all.