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

[sandyholme]

Part 3 ... Let the sparring continue..

haybott but can you think of several examples of similarly very, very clever students at your university who failed but where there was no obvious reason for under performance, as in the two cases you quote?

Yes, I have known of a few with no obvious reason.

In general however I wouldn't know if somebody had failed the 11+ unless they told me so I definitely don't have a sense of how many 11+ failures make it through to my university. (Particularly 11+ failures who were sent to private schools, so it's invisible that they would have been sent to a secondary modern.)

I have known people who came into higher education later in life, did very well and became academics, years after failing the 11+ and going to secondary moderns. A woman in my year was in this category (attended a college for mature students) but I don't know why she failed the 11+ in the first place. She was British and AFAIK did not have any learning disability but of course she could still have been ill, bereaved etc when the 11+ took place.

How well planned out new free schools are:

headguruteacher.com/2016/08/22/a-free-school-on-our-doorstep-i-have-some-questions/

Or not.

Those saying 'oh it'll just be a few free schools in some really poor areas' need to be very wary of how the law change is worded.
Ability to open new selective free schools? How will they prevent them from opening in areas less disadvantaged?
Ability for state schools to select their intake? How will they prevent every Head from applying to do this? Or even some heads? Like I said in thread 1, my MAT CEO will be watching this very carefully.

And then once the floodgates are opened...

Nobel as a brilliant Mathematician , you will know they will only succeed through market forces I.E supply and demand !

Therefore if there is a demand from parents for 'selective' free schools , why can't they have them ?

There were all sorts of dodges with the old 11+. One friend in particular is very able and has done extremely well in adult life. I asked her why on earth she hadn't passed. She said that only one girl and one boy ever passed in her village. Anecdote isn't data, but we went through the list of people from her village who had gone to the grammar school over a period of ten years, and we could only think of one girl and one boy in each year.

Then again DH lived in a completely different area to me, and he said he took the 'city' exam, which was easier than the one taken by children outside the city. So there it was again, this idea that 'country' children didn't pass. As well as already mentioned, the results being rigged against girls.

I would hope that such blatant tinkering wouldn't happen again, but who knows, having seen the tinkering around over the last ten years?

Therefore if there is a demand from parents for 'selective' free schools , why can't they have them

Because new schools cost millions and millions of pounds of taxpayers money?

I want a new hospital built right next to my house because that would be more convenient to me. Perhaps I should lobby the government to set up a 'Free hospital'?

In West Kent the system is 'rigged' against boys now !

I am fed up with people stating evidence from 30-40 years ago when talking about today.

It is easier for a girl to get a grammar school place in West Kent than a boy (especially with the new Weald of Kent annexe partly due to being Banned from having a coed intake at pre 6th form level)

Why do posters not bring this fact up, or do they instinctively only see things from a female perspective .

Vote for Corbyn/Smith then they will give you free 'RAIL' travel as well no doubt and a pound worth the same as 30 billion Zimbabwe Dollars !

Thankfully the pair of them will not get more than 25% at the next General
Election !

It is worth talking about 30-40 years ago so that we can avoid some of the mistakes made then.

Bear in mind that a lot of us don't live in Kent, so we don't know how the places are split between boys and girls, so we don't know that it's an issue worth bringing up. But if you live in West Kent, then make a fuss.

Neither do i , but when posting things its good to have knowledge about relevant items about a specific subject.

I don't think we can be expected to know the minutiae of specific areas. I could ask you which schools were considered the best in Oxfordshire, but I wouldn't expect you to know. Or if you did know, it would be sketchy knowledge based on things like league tables - which is not the same as local knowledge. Even local knowledge has problems in that schools gain reputations, for good or ill, which no longer apply, but some parents chose on that basis.

Therefore if there is a demand from parents for 'selective' free schools , why can't they have them ?

Because the majority of people in an area may want to keep their comprehensive schools. And if a grammar is opened other schools will become de facto secondary moderns. Where's my choice to have a comprehensive school? Logic is pointless, I know.

By the way, I'm checking data for Lincs at the moment and currently I'm getting a gap between high attainers at KS2 in grammars and HAs in secondary moderns of over 100 points (that means an average A- versus an average of D+) You'd expect a gap obviously but that much???

Am re-checking the data cos it can't be right surely?

Sandy your figures don't show the quality of grades received. You'd expect in wealthy areas like Bucks or Trafford that most secondary moderns would be able to get most pupils over the threshold. You need to look at what's happening to the High Achievers, you know those bright kids that everyone's so concerned about in comps, but doesn't give a toss about when they end up in secondary moderns.

a typical (unlikely) sec modern in Lincolnshire for you HPFA I cannot quite fathom how it can call itself a comprehensive being in a largely grammar county. Of course it is a CofE school so perhaps largely selective by other means.

www.williamfarr.lincs.sch.uk/news/latest-news/2016/a-level-results

be interesting to see what their GCSE results are this week and how they compare with the nearby - by Lincolnshire standards given the size of the county - grammars.

On holiday and met a girl who mentioned that they are preparing for this Sept 11+ exams and having a break before(still working on the homework daily every morning). Spoke to mom and they live in SE London/Kent and her mom said they are having 1 hour tutor a week since yr4 and 2/week from yr 5. It costs £75/hr. I wasnt prepared for this, £150/week for grammar school tutoring with materials on top of it, its such a crazy competition and making a year 4 mother like me very nervous

William Farr is an oversubscribed Faith school. It therefore selects on religious grounds, and is by no means a secondary modern.

My background is a bit of an odd one ! born and went to school in Essex left to work at 18 for my uncle in Oldham ( lived with him and his family in North Cheshire until 11 years ago then moved back to Essex with my kids to be near my mum and sister ! Hence my knowledge about Trafford (Uncle's children went to the Altrincham grammar's) Also an understanding of the culture of Oldham/ Ashton which unless you have either lived there or ran a business can not be explained to anyone.

Right back to the point Wellington School in Altrincham high achievers get B+ average grade at GCSE . This is a higher level than some of the grammar schools in Lincolnshire achieve , clearly this is exceptional and not representative of non selective schools in selective areas.

However, if you look at the government statistics that show fully 'Comprehensive' schools only achieving 7% higher than ' Modern' schools it is clear that 'Comps' are not pulling up any trees !

No wonder Bertrand is nowhere to be seen ... However, she will be back having worked out how to 'spin' the results for her benefit.

Interesting, Peregrina - in the 'good old days' of grammar schools someone told me that their village school got one grammar school place- I have never quoted it because it seemed so unfair but perhaps it really was the case. (It was in 1950's)

At least when I took it, it was a fairer system in that everyone took it on one day and the rest of the school had a holiday. The schools prepared for it and you just had to turn up. I don't know anyone who had tutors. Some parents did extra papers to the school ones, but you couldn't buy them in the numbers there are today and of course there was no internet.

It struck me this morning that the gap has now widened, depending on how much your parents do, and the schools do not do what they used to. I was looking up grammar school catchment areas- the ones that I was told did not exist- and thought all the web sites and admissions information must look very intimidating to those not used to dealing with officialdom.

I think that it is something that needs looking into.

Sandy- I was hoping that someone who knew more than I do would come along and interpret those figures. I assume that they are including as "Modern" schools the ones in areas like Trafford, where, as you so frequently point out, the presence of grammars have no effect on other schools? I couldn't find a definition of "modern" anywhere. In any case, it's a bit difficult to understand why private schools aren't doing much better than comprehensives according to that table. That seems a bit odd too.

Thank you Bertrand , any comments i make are not meant in way' malicious' !.

Yes it is a bit odd that independents are only equal to Comprehensive schools having said that would you spend £28, 000 a year for this school !

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/father-sues-private-school-abbotsholme-independent-rocester-son-fails-all-but-one-gcses-a7195716.html

I don't know why wanting to improve education for all children gets deemed 'hysterical'.
My preferred way is to keep all doors of opportunity open for all children. 14 would be a good age for them to choose different paths, according to suitability and personal choice.
One size doesn't fit all and all children are not going to jump through the same hoops at the same time, some may never attain them. It doesn't matter - we need all sorts of workers for the future. What does matter is that they are not forced onto a particular path aged 10/11yrs.
I still can't see any reason why one school can't do it all. My secondary modern did it. They had children who were the equivalent of grammar school taking GCE and then they had children who couldn't get to that taking CSE, they had a class doing shorthand and typing, and they had their own farm so a lot of the boys did agriculture and the basics without exams.
It wouldn't work like that today- very sexist with the girls doing the typing and there simply are not the jobs in agriculture - but there could be modern day equivalents. They are not paths to be chosen at 10/11yrs.
It worked fine in one school- the same as one school worked fine for my sons.
I still haven't got reasons for why they shouldn't -apart from a shortage of good teachers and some undisclosed comprehensive in a different part of the country would let the academic ones get bored. Hardly relevant to my sons- where the school managed them fine. I am hoping for more reasons.

PeMy daughter has attended this school for the last two years and I honestly believe it is one of the best in the country. Unlike most independent schools they are not selective in who the allow to enter... In fact, they specialise in taking in dyslexic children that are often left behind in the state system and do a fantastic job of providing them with not only an individually focuses academic education but also providing life skills and experiences that other schools simply can't. If your child is never going to be a maths genius, Abbotsholme will enable them to find whatever it is they can be good at and nurture that in to a career. This is the core reason for their lower exam results! It is not a school for the posh or an academic hot hot house for child robots. It is nurturing and creative and it rewards kids for being the best they can be. This man made a scene at the leavers ceremony at the end of term when emotional children were trying to celebrate their success and say goodbye to life long friends. His inappropriate disruption lead to calls of "shame on you sir" from other parents present. A feeling that is shared by the vast majority of abbotsholmians and their families.
ReplyShare+2rhaps though give a parent the right to reply !

I do believe though that any decent state 'secondary' school can better 1 GCSE .

So you don't understand your table either- you just posted it and made arsy comments. Right. Fine.

As far as I can see, the only people arguing strongly for grammar schools are the parents of the very gifted, who would probably find that an ordinary grammar school wouldn't meet their needs either- and there is a separate argument to be had about super selectives- and those with a whole raft of arguments which basically add up to "I don't want my child mixing with the nasty rough kids from the estate"

I understand the averages and the percentages of the numbers !.

Perhaps we should take out all the 'nice' High schools and leave only the ones that fit the stereotype of 'Modern' schools and compare them with nice Comprehensive schools in Surrey !

That would give the required result