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

It is very bad socially. A grammar school always does social events with another grammar school and never the sec mod, despite the fact that many pupils will have a sibling at the sec mod.
I can't see why my DS in lower sets should be separated from his friends in the top sets or is the general idea supposed to be that he shouldn't have friends in top sets!! Should he not be married to a woman who would have been in a grammar school, had there been one?!
No one has ever managed to explain to me why my RG university graduate son and apprenticeship at 16yrs son needed a different school- I wish they would.

fresh it has been explained again and again on this thread. I fail to see how you missed it...

But here goes.

The provision for high ability children in the state system is often inappropriate. This is particularly true for working class children ( by which I do not just mean the very disadvantaged).

Something needs to be done about this. And much of the efforts made thus far have been thwarted.

Why? Because there is a prevalent ideology within schools that high ability children are already privileged and so do not need anything different. That they do 'well enough'. That any prioritising of their needs entrenches elitism.

So what to do?

For growing numbers of parents and recent pupils, the answer is a return to selective schools. Not because they have any ideological allegiance to the system but as a possible solution to a problem which schools often refuse to accept even exists let fail to solve.

I have not missed it. Fail to see how I could!
The answer is not to have a system where the middle classes get an excellent education having used private schools for primary or tutors or merely have a home full of books and support and then think that because they are open to all they have done something for the poor and disadvantaged!
Comprehensive schools are excellent in 'good' areas - they are bog standard or dire in 'poor' areas. (Same goes for sec mod schools)
The answer is excellent education for ALL although I can see the cheap option is to rescue 20% and forget about the rest! ( although we are talking about a miniscule percentage of FSM children)
It is no solution at all in 21st Century and never was a solution. Why are only the academic supposed to have social mobility - it seems the rest are supposed to know their place and jolly well stay there! Give them chaotic home lives, poor nursery provision, get them far behind by school age and then say they have an equal chance of a grammar school!! If they swapped at birth with the child at prep school to specifically get a place then they would have a good chance!

I expect it has been done before but won't harm to do again the myths of the grammar school system
The day that I might see simething in it is the day that people cry out for a return of the 'wonderful secondary moderns' or the day that those who make the education policy actually have a child in one- it is always designed by those who expect to have a child in the grammar school, or who are using private education or don't have children.
My pet hate is those who say there are no secondary modern schools because they go under euphanisms of 'High School' or similar and try and tell us that it is possible for a school to be comprehensive without the top end. A good comprehensive has to be sending lots of pupils to top universities - which the successful ones already do.

There could possibly be a case for extremely high ability children having a different education but that should be no more than 2% in super selectives over a wide area. I wouldn't expect more than 1or 2 children per primary school to be in it ( some years none) and they would be outstanding and easily picked out.

Exactly - selective schools the cheap option that solve nothing. ( neither would football academies etc)
Good schools for all is the difficult option.
Teachers in primary schools could pick out the outstanding children and put them in for the exam. However - a red herring - just saying 2% is better than a dividing line where there is nothing to choose between those close to either side-as demonstrated by twins in different schools.

Did anyone watch the programme about the state secondary system in Birmingham? The difference between the top grammars and some of the secondary moderns was vast.....the worst of the latter was like a prison yard and even had its own police officer.

There are no secondary modern schools in Birmingham.
Birmingham City Council lists 88 mainstream secondary schools but only 8 of them are grammar schools - 8 grammar schools do not create 80 secondary modern schools (Kent has 32 grammar schools and 69 secondary modern schools to put this in context). What you saw were the worst of the comprehensive schools. The grammar schools have no catchment areas and will be the only chance that some poor children will ever have of attending a decent school (their parents having neglected to choose a home in the correct postcode area).

Teachers in primary schools could pick out the outstanding children and put them in for the exam.

In countries where this happens, the children picked out by the teachers have been shown to be mainly from higher socio-economic backgrounds and not necessarily those who have the most potential according to NVR and related tests.

In Birmingham it depends on area- green leafy one won't have prison yard schools! There will be 8 schools worth of academically bright children removed from the general system - also a lot of those will come from outside the city.
I have girl cousin twins, and friend twins, both sets up identical but nothing to choose between them academically. If there were a difference would people want a twin in a grammar and a twin in a sec mod? I wouldn't.
I think that you missed my point. It would be the top 2% so some schools simply wouldn't have any some years. They would still do the exam once picked out. 2% is very few. My DS is a science graduate from a RG university- he wouldn't have been super selective- he was pretty run of the mill at his comprehensive and never picked for gifted and talented programmes.

Exactly haybott which is why the money needs to catch them really early.
With our selective system as it stands you can look at a 2 yr old and see which ones are set up for failure.

Sorry not identical not up.

Super selectives are a red herring to the argument - I just think it better that it could cut out the heavily tutored and they would stand less chance with 2% pass rate.

I tell you what is a red herring , a misguided view that the'dreadful' schools of Birmingham would suddenly become 'gentrified' because the grammar school provision was dropped.

Posters on here are saying selective schools are the cheap option..

Crikey what do you think 'Comprehensive' schools are./were

They are a dream for Socialists and Capitalists alike.

They save money and perpetuate the myth of equality. Whats not to like about that for politicians.

The creation of a 'largely' Comprehensive system was down to 2 reasons most importantly to save 'money'.

The second one being because they had run out of ideas how to improve education (so rather like a football team, who have no idea how to score a goal and therefore resort to aimlessly hoofing the ball in to the penalty .
area).

I have twins.
Our choice was to send one to a highly selective secondary and one to a mixed ability school (though they are both now in the same school for sixth form).

But no one will be forced to apply to the selective schools. If a parent wants to keep keep siblings together in mixed ability schools, then of course they can.

It would be the top 2% so some schools simply wouldn't have any some years. They would still do the exam once picked out.

And how are they going to be pick top 2%? What would the exam actually measure? Because as soon as it measures educational background and achievement (and virtually any exam, even one with VR and NVR, does measure educational background) then you are giving a huge boost to pupils from better schools, who have been educated in classes with lots of bright peers, and have had access to tutoring.

And suppose you devise a system to pick out the top 2% accurately (although I don't think this is possible), what then happens to a child in the top 3% or 5%? Why should they be treated so differently to a child who barely makes it into the top 2%? (And I say this as a parent of DC who would easily test into the top 0.1%, whatever method you chose for testing, unless they had a bad day.)

Selective schools are not meant to deal with DC at genius level.

They're just an efficient mechanism for giving high ability pupils an appropriate education.

OK - forget about super selectives - I find it works in Reading because the comprehensives in a wide area around are good and people prefer to use them than travel. They work because it would be a nightmare for a child to get a place who couldn't cope.
I said they were a red herring.
If both twins ended up in the same 6th form I can't see why they couldn't start together.
I don't think people have any objection to mixed ability schools - if they are truly mixed and not just the lower 80% mixed.
As I said as I came in - it won't happen anyway, too unpopular and not fit for 21st century.

So just a crowd pleaser for the Tory party conference then FreshHorizons? To take away problems being encountered with 'Brexit means Brexit'? (Not allowed to mention that, except TM wouldn't be PM otherwise.)

Of course my twins could have had their secondary education together all along. But that was not our choice.

I simply stated my experience as a twin parent to counter the idea that all twin parents want their DC in the same schools.

We are very lucky in that we had a number of choices. That luck comes from cash. And I'd just like to see those sorts of choices extended to others.

It has been stated on this thread many times that high ability is a 'privilege'. But without the appropriate training and advice, it provides no access to the benefits associated with it.

I'm not sure 2% selection is a good thing socially. A proportion of those children will have social challenges, is it a good idea to separate them from others? My daughter would be in the 2% but she wouldn't want to be schooled away from a wider peer group.