Grammar Schools (given green light by Theresa May part 3)

[sandyholme]

Part 3 ... Let the sparring continue..

White VAN man... before i get called up

What a self-indulgent bunch of wank that article was. Bloody hell I could barely get through it.

While there are still schools without any maths teachers with a degree in maths (let alone an Oxbridge double first) it seems criminal to be contemplating syphoning away even more of the adequately qualified teachers from the pool and so making the situation even harder to rectify. Remember these schools will be teaching the extraordinarily good mathematicians who happen to be hopeless at English and all the late developers (if we start selecting at 11 again, and everyone if not). On the subject of late developers I know a child whose parents were told (at age 11) was unlikely to get even c grades at GCSE, but who worked really hard, got reasonable GCSEs and A levels (at a good comprehensive) a really excellent first degree (top in faculty) and is now studying for an Oxbridge Phd. This child would have certainly failed 11+ in a selective environment and I rather doubt would have had the same outcome. 11+ is far too crude a selection tool to be used to choose who has access to the best teachers imo.

noblegiraffe, ok fair point, if people are prepared to put in serious unemployed time then... the whole country is screwed. I didn't consider that.

How much unemployed time would be needed? To be Pupil Premium you just need to have qualified for free school meals at some point in the past 6 years (Ever 6). If you time your free school meals claim right, you could get a whole sibling set into the disadvantaged promoting grammar.

This blog about why grammars won't help the bright or the poor is worth a look, especially the links www.lkmco.org/grammar-schools-bright-poor-wouldnt-help-either

I see none of the 'Comprehensive' advocates moved to Clacton or Burnley then !

I can't even begin to understand the logic behind this comment.

By the way, Rochdale has quite a few more better achieving comps than Oldham next door. What Oldham does have is an independent grammar school which charges £10000 a year. Given that housing costs in Oldham are low these fees would be within the range of affordability for many middle-class professionals. Being a native of Rochdale I can assure you the towns are very similar socio-economically (although Rochdale is far superior in other ways!). If even a private grammar can have this effect what the hell do you think a state grammar is going to do to the other schools?

Of course I didn't move to an area of poorly performing grammar schools when I left the 11+ area! I was looking for better options.

I hate the sheer hypocrisy on here.
It likes to make out that people just happen to live in grammar school areas and just happen to take the exam and that the exam can accurately pick out right children at 10 or 11 years of age but meanwhile comprehensives depend entirely on wealth and house price or people going to church.

There is no mention that people move specially to grammar school areas, that the grammar school puts thousands on a house price, that some people send to prep schools to get a free secondary place, that tutoring is big business or that people often move to get the best secondary modern in the area.
I can't see why this is in anyway different from people moving close to a good comprehensive.

People play the system to get the best for their child. I could have found my dream house but there is no way that I would have bought it if it were in the 'wrong' catchment area. The very top of the house buying list was 'school'. It was wonderfully liberating last time to be have the freedom to move anywhere.

The problem is that large parts of the population can't afford to choose their area. I know two families at the moment who have bright children but they don't play the system- they don't even realise that they need to play the system.

I chose 4 areas off the top of my head to say the comprehensives would be good and am then given the evidence that they were good! The purpose was to show that some areas have excellent comprehensives - if I had the time I could link hundreds. They are coping with the gifted and stretching the top 20-25%.
Parents in these areas expect the comprehensives to give an excellent education and they hold them to it. I love this idea that I would move to an area to get away from 11+ and choose one with poor teaching, discipline problems, mixed ability teaching and children with no aspirations! If parents had complaints about teaching or disruption in classes they phoned the school and expected something to be done about it.
I also can't see why there is something so special about my academic son that means he mustn't have disruption in his classes but that his brother, in lower sets, has to put up with it! I don't want any in his either- and since he finds everything so much more difficult he certainly can't do with it!

Putting new grammar schools into disadvantaged areas will not work in the way they are intended - the parents who 'play the system' will make full use of them and the ones they are intended for will get even worse schools!
The graph on your link nobkegiraffe is the one that I have been trying to find.

The estate agent who told me about people moving to the area for the grammar schools also told me about all the people outside the area who managed to take places- to the detriment of those in the area.

This whole hypocrisy argument is just nonsense:

You live next door to an outstanding comprehensive (say, Wallingford in Oxfordshire with A-C pass rate of 82%). You have always supported the selective system but you realise that your own child is unlikely to pass the 11+. Do you deliberately move to say' Lincolnshire where the lowest achieving secondary moderns have a 20% A-C pass rate? Or do you stay put?

Is this person a hypocrite? Or just someone doing the best for their own child.

In my dreams I pass a law which says that anyone who enters a child for the 11+ has to sign an agreement that if their child fails they have to go to the nearest secondary modern school. No hopping across the border to a nearby comp, no going private. If you think these schools are good enough for other people's children, they should be good enough for your own.

I've now had chance to look at the figures for Oldham and Lincolnshire:

In Oldham 25% of the comprehensive schools have GCSE pass rates below 40%

In Lincolshire (selective system) 57% of the non-selective schools have pass rates below 40%.

Now given that any new state grammar in Oldham will presumably take in a large number who would otherwise have paid to go to Oldham Hulme plus the ones who would have gone to Bluecoat it's very hard to see how the majority of children in Oldham will benefit.

Of course it is hypocrisy,but it is hypocrisy both sides and that was my point.
I like your law HPFA but there is no chance!

So far the only reason that I have been given for not having my sons in the same school is a shortage of good teachers.
Since the attitude is the highly academic must have the best and sod the rest - I am not impressed!

I like your law HPFA but there is no chance!

No, I realise that. But it would be such fun to see the pro-grammar advocates in Thame and Maidenhead squeal when they realise their kids are expected to go to the Bucks secondary moderns, oh sorry ....upper schools...

If they had failed the 11+ ours would just have gone to one of the good comp options.

You mean like those great "comp" options in Lincolnshire where 57% of the non-selectives are have less than 40% pass rate at GCSE. Six schools in Lincolnshire have rates in the 20s.

Look at the results in Redcar and Cleveland which actually has a higher percentage of disadvantaged pupils than Lincs:

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=phase&region=807&geographic=la&phase=secondary

Only one school in the 20s, two in the forties, and the rest all 50% or over. That is about 10% under 40 by the way.

Please explain to me after looking at these figure how the majority are not going to suffer in Redcar and Cleveland if we bring back secondary moderns. People like mathsmum who are arguing for superselectives can excuse themselves from this one

Of course I have read all the posts and they back up my views. I don't know where you live but in certain places grammar schools put up the prices- that is why I happened to be talking to the estate agent.
I have already said earlier that you will get disruption in grammar schools- intelligent children are quick to pick up weaknesses and exploit them- in subtle ways that are often more upsetting.
It is how the school handles it that matters.

Grammars with no catchment are virtually inaccessible to those who live more than 20 or 30 mins away, due to the cost of travel. Those who want to send their children to the grammars tend to live close or live on a direct transport route to the grammar. There can hence be slightly higher house prices near to the grammars and along direct routes - you can see this for the Wiltshire grammars, which take children from large distances.

There are also towns where the grammars are a significant factor in house prices: Bournemouth and Poole are examples.

To follow HPFAs point about Wallingford School, one couple told me they were seriously thinking of moving there because the Comprehensive was good, and took all abilities. Unlike Oxford City, where the schools are very polarised, with Cherwell serving a large North Oxford academic community and getting good results, and Oxford Academy serving a much poorer area near the car factory and traditionally not getting the results.

But hey, good comprehensives don't exist anywhere do they?

The demographics of the Wiltshire grammars would seem to contradict you. Not accessible for many due to cost of tutoring required to get in, cost of transport (£500-£600 per year) etc.

Do low income families actually send their DC to the alternative comp? Or is this a middle income thing?

People who can spend £500-600 per year on anything apart from essentials are not low income.

I agree that some families prioritise education more than others. But there are families which simply could not afford bus passes for several DC to go to schools other than their nearest school, along with associated costs such as more expensive uniforms etc. (And yet would not necessarily be sufficiently low income to get grants for these costs - particularly if schools started taking a bigger fraction of their pupils from low income backgrounds.)