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

I just wish that politicians, and posters on MN if it comes to that, would stop the wholesale knocking of Comprehensives. Up and down the land there are good, proper Comprehensives which serve their pupils well. Get off their backs and let them continue to do the job.

In other places no, the Comprehensives aren't as good, but find out why. Banging a Comprehensive label on a Sec Mod with a deprived catchment didn't make it a Comprehensive, something more would be needed.

We have found this too with Academies; some academies fail, they change to a new academy chain and they still fail.

peregrina In theory I agree. However for people whose children are at those comprehensives that aren't good, right now, it's small consolation to say we should find out why, without any actual change happening.

It's also very easy for parents whose dc aren't at those inadequate comprehensives to say it's a fairer system, when at present it's not.

I don't think grammars are the answer, and except for ss I don't think they are necessary at all. In theory. And I think they are unfair, but no more so than selecting by social status as the comprehensive system does. However, right this minute, I wouldn't campaign against them alone. Although I'd be fully behind any worthwhile campaign to make the whole state system fair.

why not try to provide economic prosperity for all children?
Somehow in that recipe a good variety of jobs needs to be included. The lack of industrial work is a problem on several levels.

comps have had more than enough time to sort themselves out
Indeed.
So have grammars
and yet there are grammar schools that get lower results than Comps.
Surely they should be closed

It's also very easy for parents whose dc aren't at those inadequate comprehensives to say it's a fairer system, when at present it's not.

I don't say that the current system is fair and I do argue that it needs to be changed, with the low performing schools improved.

However, all the evidence suggests that moving to more grammars could make the inadequate comprehensives worse than ever (as they lose their high achievers), with only a small fraction of disadvantaged children "rescued" and sent to grammars.

I can totally see why parents faced with poor schools want something to change but I don't believe that allowing new grammars to form is going to lead to significant changes for most of these families. Many of the beneficiaries of new grammars will be middle class children whose academic performance was already OK in middling comprehensives but who could have been pushed to achieved more. Helping this group of children may well be a good thing (as other posters argue high achievers are often not being catered for properly) but an entrance barrier will also have the effect of excluding many bright but disadvantaged kids who don't pass the tests.

People like quick fixes to complicated problems, but quick fixes don't work when they don't actually get to the root of all the problems (whether the fixes are Brexit, grammar schools,...).

Comps were introduced 40-50 years ago, and so many haven't let children down. By contrast Secondary Moderns were introduced in the late 1940s and after 20 years there was deep hostility to them. So why have the Comprehensives lasted about twice as long, and why is no one clamouring to bring Secondary Moderns back?

Lots and lots of time and effort has gone into attempting to make comprehensives offer a more appropriate education for high ability children, both on a macro and a micro level.

It won't work if schools are resistant due to ideological reasons or because they have bigger fish to fry or whatever other reason.

Noble - a late reply to your comment at about 12. It's anecdotal so feel free to ignore. We actually got a student who had achieved a Level 3 in SATs a few years ago (English) so below average. He managed to get an A in Lang and a B in Lit. Would he have achieved that at a comp, who knows.

"The fact that so many have let children down in the past and far too many are still doing so really makes me question if it is possible to make all work."

To sow that a comp - as in the school, by itself, simply by being comprehensive - lets children down, then you have to do a controlled match in which you compare schools with the same intake, in communities with the same socio-economic intake, but of different types e.g. comp, secondary modern, grammar.

In the times I have been on this thread, when people have posted details of 'dire' comprehensives, they have been schools in communities 9either immediately around the school or wider) with high unemployment or collapse of traditional employment (post-industrial or seaside); above the national average FSM; about to close / have already closed; in areas with surplus school places where other schools (religious, selective, private) have siphoned off children with engaged parents; or actually been secondary moderns but 'called' comps.

Of course there are comprehensives that don't do as well as they should with more average intakes. There are definitely grammars that do less well than they should with their highly able intakes (statistically, given its level of selectivity, any grade less than an A, or even in some cases an A* ,from a superselective probably represents less than expected progress).

However, in saying that comprehensive have 'failed', we do need to consider whether a school of a different type, given the same intake - or the average of the 2 schools that split the intake between them (weighted to represent the proportion of the pupils each take), if in a selective system - would produce better results. The information we have from comparing existing selective vs non-selective areas is that the cohort results for comprehensives and selective systems are pretty much the same, with a small gain at the top end in selective areas being offset by a larger loss for the less able.

The trouble is with the "comprehensives have let children down" trope is that replacing the comprehensive with. Grammar and a secondary modern might parachute out (that doesn't sound right- airlift out) Mumsnetters high ability children but will do absolutely nothing for the vast majority who wouldn't get a place.

Depends on the micro community not the county, 2Striped. I live in a very rich town in a naice county - but it contains one much more deprived area (partially redeveloped historically heavy industrial + very large council estate). The school in that deprived ward has, unsurprisingly, significantly lower raw results than the schools in other parts of the town - and has nearly 50% FSM compared with another comp serving a different area of the town's FSM of less than 10%.

How long ago were you there? What are its results like now?

I mean, I wouldn't post about my own educational experience as an example of what schools are like now - or expect schools to be in any way similar, because we are talking about a generation ago and I know professionally that schools have changed very significantly since then.

Why do you think that your old comprehensive, or indeed any comprehensive, or any school other than perhaps the most traditional private school, immune to all political vageries and educational changes, is the same now as it was a generation ago?

(When I was at school, the comprehensive my DCs are at was a boys' 11-16 secondary modern and not a prized educational destination. Even in its first years as a comprehensive, it was utterly unlike what it is now.

I know from experience how long it can take to turn a school's reputation round - 20+ years after education was reorganised within the town, the primary i chose for my DCs was derided as being 'second class' because 20 years previously it had houses a 3-16 all through school with the secondary part being a secondary modern. 20 YEARS later it was still considered 'substandard' in reputation compared with the church school which had always fed the grammars ... despite the fact that alll data indicated that my DCs' primary was a significantly better school than the church school now..

Saying that all comprehensives are not good enough because yours wasn't a generation ago seems ... odd.

I take issue with any grade less than an A is less than expected progress. The 11+ doesn't test every subject in the curriculum.

But that's how the government measures expected progress, from an average of KS2 SATs results, not from a baseline in each individual subject.

The TES reports that opening grammar schools may make the teacher recruitment crisis worse, because a lot of teachers won't want to teach in a school where the most able have been sent elsewhere.

I'd certainly reconsider my teaching position if the top sets disappeared from my school.

TES link: www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/opening-more-grammars-could-make-teacher-supply-crisis-worse

Which is crazy. Regardless of type of school involved.
Anyway, all I know on that front is that our value added is good. But then the stupid LEA closed another school in the area that had excellent value added, however it didn't meet the basic requirement. Quite what they were expected to do I don't know. They dealt with a deprived area, students with pastoral issues and parents who were not engaged. Among people who didn't know about education it had a bad reputation and was closed, despite helping it's children to improve more than local naice schools. It was a terrible shame.

"I take issue with any grade less than an A less than expected progress"

You can take issue with it all you like, but that's what Government expectations are. And it's also what grammar school expectations are. well, have Ben, and are this year- all bets are off this year. And there are many Mumsnetters who think that As are ridiculously easy and are hardly worth the paper they are written on!

Considering many grammar schools require A grades to study subjects at A Level it is hardly surprising that is what is needed to be deemed progress!