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

My dad got his civil service job in IT without a degree. Wouldn't happen now.
Anyway, I'm a bit weird when it comes to academia. I don't see it as necessarily linked to employment. I did my degree in English and my Masters in political philosophy because I was interested in them. I suppose that's a bit of a 'luxury' way of thinking of higher education but there we go.
Still interested to know in the 2 x Latin by the way.
And it's good to see more state schools offering Greek apparently. Very, very few do. It's why you don't need Greek for Classics at University, most offer summer schools.

DoctorDonnaNoble Thu 11-Aug-16 08:56:46 My dad got his civil service job in IT without a degree. Wouldn't happen now.

My DH is in IT as are a fair number of our friends. I worked for Gartner for quite a number of years. You still do not need to have a dregree to get a job in IT. BTEC is still a good route in.

Not in the senior levels of the civil service. It's graduate entry now.
Nothing against BTECs at all. In fact, it annoys me what you see as graduate entry professions these days when there's no need for a degree.

You can get into University with a BTec: it is possible. So this would not rule out graduate entry jobs.

I guess school choice has taken away son's choice to do Latin and Ancient Greek. Aware taken him away from children whose families feel those subjects are important as well.
Time will tell if school right for him....

The WJEC Latin is worth 2 GCSEs somehow so that might be what Talkin is ... Talking about

People saying 'oh it's good for there to be a choice of schools, faith, grammar, music and so on' are totally missing the point that exclusionary entry criteria mean that there is no choice.

If you've got an area with a catholic school, a grammar, and a specialist sports school, then where's the choice for the atheist parents of the averagely intelligent dyspraxic child? It's telling that so many people on here have talked about parents 'finding religion' to get their child into the school that does triple science (or whatever). There shouldn't be this expectation that lying about your religious beliefs is part and parcel of the school applications procedure in many areas.

MumTryingHerBest I know this on the very, very simple basis that it's almost unheard of for pupils at either of the local comprehensives (or even at the comprehensives further afield which they wouldn't qualify for) to get the sort of grades mine did and almost unheard of pupils at these schools to go to Oxbridge. So I don't need to be a rocket scientist to make that judgment. Also I know my kids would have wanted to go with the flow like so many normal kids do, and they wouldn't have pushed themselves particularly, nor would I have been able to push them since I'm constitutionally unable, or possibly they're too strong willed. I know other kids at these schools as I said upthread: some are at least as able but you'd never know it by their results, sadly.

I'll try and answer your second question if you can phrase it in a way which is a little more comprehensible and preferably a little less rude.

Out of interest, with the possible exception of Oxford entry, what are the practical benefits of 10 As as opposed to 10 As?*

The FE and job market is highly competitive. Someone with A*s may be further up the list when it comes to being chosen than someone with A's, whether it's for a FE college, Uni, or job, even if it's not Oxford! Even with A levels, with so many people getting top A level grades, employers and universities are also considering GCE subjects and gradings to try to reduce the size of their "short lists".

A completely foreseeable and inevitable consequence of grade inflation over the last couple of decades unfortunately. A great shame that it's come to this stage!

And Badbadbunny given the brutality of the graduate job market, I'd also add that an Oxbridge degree is not to be sniffed at.

Also I know my kids would have wanted to go with the flow like so many normal kids do, and they wouldn't have pushed themselves particularly

My son is exactly the same. The thrives on competition, but in his case that's competing with the other "top of the class" kids which he sets in his own mind as the benchmark. I honestly don't think he'd ever be streets ahead of his peer group but he always puts enough effort in to be there at the top with the others in whatever subject/group he is in. Eg, last year he saw others in his class getting A grades in tests/homeworks so he was happy getting A grades. This last year, he saw others starting to get As so he put a bit more effort in and got a string of As in his year end tests. He's a great follower/emulator rather than a leader. If he was in a group/class where everyone was getting Cs, he'd have been happy with a C and wouldn't have put the effort in to do better.

"bert your endless mockery of anything appropriate for high ability kids is a perfect example of the mindset of many SLTs in comprehensive schools; entrenched and dismissive."
I am not mocking. My own children are positively overflowing with the cultural capital which come with the stuff "appropriate to high ability children" I love that sort of stuff. What I don't love is the assumption that is the most important stuff, and it's OK to get it at the expense of the poor bloody kids whose parents can't/won't give support them and whose only hope is what school can provide. And my comment on the Rolls Royce thing was just that it is so bloody typical "look how in touch with gritty realities of life we are- one of our boys actually got an Apprenticeship! It's with Rolls Royce, obviously , not the local mechanic........"

So because your children need those 'above' them to 'pull them along' to achieve more highly, it is OK to remove them to a different istitution so that the slightly lower kids don't have access to those children who might have pulled them along?

You see, that's where people like me - interested in the good of the whole cohort, not just my children (as I said above, I send my DCs to the closest 'near -comp' turning down grammar places for them) - slightly despair. Because if all those who 'can', act only in the interests of their children even when it has a proven disadvantage to others, then those who have parents who 'can't/won't', for whatever reason, then the cohort as a whole, and therefore the country, suffers.

I can intellectually understand your position.But it doesn't stop me being very sad about my fellow humans.

Ever feel like you are pissing in the wind?
I certainly do.....

teacher If you are so resolutely opposed to selective schools and you had a thoroughly excellent comprehensive on your door step, why on earth did you have your DC sit for grammar schools?

teacher I don't think I should be the cause of sadness in particular. Incidentally you haven't responded at all to the aspersion you threw out about window dressing on the part of the people (myself included) who are actively trying to get more disadvantaged but able DC into the selective sector. But obviously you feel nice and comfy taking the moral high ground!

Also, you're misrepresenting what I said: my DC are able but would most likely have dumbed down their ability to fit in with the crowd.

My DC all go to the nearest state school, the next nearest is two miles further. It's far more convenient for all of us that they go there. But plenty of these others posters who oppose selection (yourself and Bertrand being laudable exceptions) have taken active steps to avoid their nearest school, thus being guilty of selection themselves.

Yes pondering I do feel like that.

I spend a lot of my time trying to widen access for high ability children. And I meet the attitudes displayed on this thread all the flipping time.

As do parents. As do high ability DC.

And IMVHO this is why there is huge support for the lifting of the ban. There is no love for the 11+ but there is a desperate desire for provision.

You can only bang your head so many times against the glass before you just try a different entrance.

Also, same question to teacher as Carl.

GetA,

That's a really good question, tbh, and something that I would do differently now.

At the time, particularly for DS, I was somewhat in the 'going along with it' camp (and also placating the ILs, who anyway think that we are failing our children by not educating them privately). I look back and think how daft it was!

(especially because we knew that even if they passed we weren't going to put the grammar schools first on the admissions form.... shakes head over early daftnesses)

It has had an unexpectedly positive effect for the DC, because they do a lot of outside school activities with grammar kids, and it s helped them with the occasional child who has said 'you don't go to my school so you must be less clever than me'. But that wasn't why we did it, and it wasn't something that we thought about when we did it... as I say, daft.

But plenty of these others posters who oppose selection (yourself and Bertrand being laudable exceptions) have taken active steps to avoid their nearest school, thus being guilty of selection themselves

I'm aware of one who has self-declared doing this.

teacher so your conversion to utter opposition to selective schools is recent?

Would some of the pro grammar people be prepared to answer some questions?
Would more grammar schools make things better or worse for a) disadvantaged children of high ability? b) other disadvantaged children? c) middle ability children generally? d) low ability children generally?
If you think "better" to any or all, could you say why?

People saying 'oh it's good for there to be a choice of schools, faith, grammar, music and so on' are totally missing the point that exclusionary entry criteria mean that there is no choice.

As I have said MANY times, I'd rather that there was NO selection at all, i.e. no selection by faith, no selection by sports, languages, arts. etc. I.e. ALL state schools being comps open to all in their catchment areas.

But, we're in the real world, whilst we allow and encourage selection by faith, sports, arts, languages, then it's a travesty that for some unfathomable reason, selection by academic ability is frowned on. It's just completely illogical.

People who lie and cheat to get into a faith school don't receive the same amount of vitriol as those parents with high ability kids who want a decent academic education for their kids. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Either NO selection at all, or selection by all criteria should be available.

Goodbye, while my local grammar has 1.6%FSM (1.3% in 2014, 1.3% in 2013, 1.4% 2012, 1.6% 2011), while the other school that serves its immediate locality has 44.4% then I would say that its very minor tweak to admissions to allow a PP child in if they were a couple of marks below the final admitted mark for everyone else IS window dressing, yes.