Theresa May to end ban on grammar schools part 2

[noblegiraffe]

Continuation of the first thread from here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/2702565-Theresa-May-to-end-ban-on-grammar-schools

hay but we're already creaming off kids, without any grammars. I don't disagree that introducing a grammar locally would suddenly solve the problems. However it wouldn't make any overall change either way. And on an individual child level would be positive for some able wc children, while the mc middle/low achievers would end up at the inadequate schools instead. Which actually is a more than fair swop. It would make no odds to the rest. Because until people actually admit the entire state system is unfair, they'll still get the worst schools. But whilst that might not be the majority opinion on here, in rl most of the group capable of forcing that change don't want it, as social selection by religion and postcode guarentees their own dc a decent education, with wc and deprived kids viewed as collateral damage.

When I was at school we had corporal punishment, crap teaching and predatory paedophiles.
And that was fee paying.

PLEASE
Do not judge schools today by what you experienced years ago.
Unless you have been to lots of schools in the last 5 years
my DH averages 100 schools a year
DO NOT judge every school by what you see locally
and never judge it by what you experienced

The 11+ doesn't test every subject in the curriculum.

Which is one of its big failings, but on that basis we decide that some children can go to a school where they will have the choice of learning 3 languages, and triple science, but send other children to a school where they may have a more restricted choice, but concentrate on 'vocational' subjects.

I don't think it follows at all that those who are academic necessarily have the best ear for languages.

If only there was some solution to the problem of children having different aptitudes for different subjects, like maybe keeping them in the same school and setting them by subject.

GCSE's do not test every subject on the curriculum for that matter.

DCs Comp offered around 20 GCSEs, around 20 BTECs and around 20 vocational courses in year 11
Every child was able to mix and match within that to fit their needs.

No simple 11+ can ever match the mix of analytical and technical skills needed to get on in the various ways of life now available.

Only academic narrow minded luddites want to try.
Time they were consigned to history.

Nah, giraffe- that's never work. All the clever children would have to queue for lunch with the others and they'd all catch low aspiration.

Why is high ability deemed so fragile? Practically anything seems to rub it off............

peregrina but that's exactly what happens round here anyway. Our local so called comp doesn't offer seperate science, only one mfl, one maths gcse etc. How is that any fairer than an exam?

Lurked
Our local so called comp doesn't offer seperate science, only one mfl, one maths gcse etc.
Then complain

• to the MP
• to the press
• to the LEA
• to the governors

Grammar schools are not your solution there, licking the SLT up the backside is the solution. Comps that do not offer Triple Science should be named and shamed

talkin it does not work.

You could spend the rest of your life campaigning and complaining. You won't budge the SLT.

2striped
Every parent visits secondary schools
Um no.
Most parents visit their feeder secondary school on induction night.
Only in big cities is there a choice
and only among the middle classes is there a real choice

getahair
sorry but experience tells me you are wrong - DH has been to schools that got bad press for SLT decisions and the noise made the SLT change PDQ : and his list of site visits covers nearly every county in England and Wales

An interesting take her from an ex high master of St Pauls. Encouraging the more able is about the quality of teaching not putting them in grammar schools.

Trouble with things like 3 sciences and further Maths (I must find an acronym for "everything revolving around the high ability kids") is that double science is a lot better for a lot of children. It doesn't hold anyone back, and gives middle ability kids a chance of decent grades.

If I was going to become a supporter of grammar schools it wouldn't be anything to do with the subjects they take for GCSE that would turn me. Within reason it actually doesn't matter what subjects you take for GCSE, it's the grades that are important. And clever, supported children will get them anywhere.

It's the cultural capital that I think is the issue. Grammar schools can (not all do) provide bags of it. Actually, thinking about it, it's the kids who don't pass the 11+ who need a grammar school education more than the ones who do!

2striped
we live in a tiny town and have plenty of choice
Sorry but how does a tiny town support multiple secondary schools ?
1000 kids per school = 10,000 census per school = 40,000 people = not a tiny town

bertrand
Where schools want to find a way they can.
Sadly many schools are very lazy and think its easier to offer everybody the middle ground rather than teaching their kids to aspire.
It just takes a few changes in teachers for a school to aim high
or for a new HOD to be utterly useless and destroy a 7 subject language department in three terms flat
Chances are that the schools that do not offer 3 sciences also do not offer the full range of artisan subjects that would allow their non academic students to thrive.

As I say, it's very difficult to get an SLT to budge, let alone take seriously a parent who wants proper provision for their able child.

getahair
let alone take seriously a parent who wants proper provision for their able child
there is no money in providing for able children
and SLTs take the chance that able kids have able adults who will help them
therefore they put their effort into the kids who

• are funded
• have nobody to fight their corner

as the parent of two reasonably able children, I cannot argue with the fact that if I wanted schools to be able to magic up everything I'd need to pay an extra 10% in Income tax.

talkin it doesn't work. The slt give the impression the cohort resembles shameless, when in actual fact the deprived families are more like the dingles, hardly an abundance of historical, ingrained social problems. It never gets bad press for the curriculum, although does get bad press. I have no doubt that sooner or later, now they can't fiddle league tables with the new standards they will get pulled on it. And assuming they even find someone both capable and mad enough to take it on with all the associated staffing issues you'd expect, even then academic subjects are hardly going to be the first priority.

bert how come you had a grammar as your preference if that's your opinion? Surely as you think it's suitable for able dc you could have skipped the exam and gone straight for the sm? Or are we back to your generous offer to sacrifice other peoples dc for the common good?

Lurked
Bertrand got one kid through the 11+ and one not.
When the "not" options have websites like this
www.marshacademy.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=14&Itemid=226
can you blame her for trying?
Me, I'd move out of Kent.
Many other parents cough up for preps that "guarantee 11+ success"
but the majority suck it up thinking that the rest of the country operates just like their county.

I admit that until I fell into the black hole that is MN I thought Grammars had gone the way of the ark ....

I admit that until I fell into the black hole that is MN I thought Grammars had gone the way of the ark ....

I thought so too. Then I found that a lot of parents called the remaining Sec Mods 'Comprehensive'. And then there is this curious bread of 'super-selective', backed up with 3 years of tutoring to get in.

2StripedSocks Every parent visits secondary schools ... Very few parents send their kids to a school they have never visited. You visit to make a choice.

Have you any idea how many parents send their DCs schools they have never even set foot in?

www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=47642&sid=c7cafa2af1b4f05b99f79203d227b630

When i did the school day tours there were loads of local parents who visited the top ranked schools (I had to question why some of them were there given the fact that results were out before the open days and some of the DCs were so far off the cut off to get in that it really was a pointless exercise in showing the DC something they couldn't have).

When I went to the day tours at the lower ranked and non ranked schools there were hardly any parents there full stop.

Some of the parents I know who were allocated non ranked schools had never set foot in them. It was no surprise to me that they were upset. All they had to go on was the reputation of the non ranked school (located a few hundred meters from one of the top ranked selectives) and the few horror stories that do the rounds every single year and have done for god knows how long.

I had one parent ranting about how her DC really wanted to do Latin so the non ranked school was simply not an option. She was genuinely surprised when I pointed out that the non ranked school offered Latin and the 6th form was managed by the selective school she preferred. She still opted for private though.