In praise of comprehensive schools

[FreshHorizons]

It was cheering to see the Sutton Trust announce that 60% of Team GB medalists came from comprehensive schools.

I have finally come off a thread where certain people can't find a good word to say about comprehensive schools. They equate them with mixed ability teaching, poor behaviour and an inability to stretch bright children.

I would like a thread to celebrate the best of comprehensive education.

In my case it allowed my 3 , very different, children to be able to go to the same school without being judged by outsiders. It meant the stability of knowing one school over a long period of time and them knowing our family. It meant that days off and parent evenings didn't clash and that money was saved by handing down uniform. They were able to move up with the bulk from their primary school. They were able to mix with children of different abilities and backgrounds, as you do in adult life. It meant being able to enjoy education for the joy of learning new things, without the stress of an exam that would determine their path in life, aged only 10 or 11yrs.

Those things didn't really matter, although they were helpful.

What really mattered was that they could all blossom at their own rate.
They all got a good education and are now happily established in careers- the careers that they chose.

It wasn't all about the academic side- there were opportunities in sport, music, outdoor activities etc.

It would be nice to have some success stories. Please don't post about crap schools- start another thread for that if you have grievances you want to air.

It is the summer, the sun is out and some happy, optimistic stories would be nice.

Earlier i noted that opinions of posters rarely tally with the general public !

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-labour-working-class-grammar-schools-crobyn-rayner-theresa-may-a7197971.html

The findings from this 'poll' highlights positive feelings towards grammar schools away from the ' Chattering' classes.

However, no doubt the chattering classes will tell the 'underlings' that they possibly could not understand through 'ignorance' the truth about grammar schools !

I think this is a decent reflection .

Unfortunately Corbyn & co. don't seem to realise that the working class is not content to accept it's lot in life. It actually wants something better - especially for their children. I went to one of the worst comprehensive schools in 1970s Wales and received a sub-standard education as a result. You think I wouldn't have jumped at the chance to go to a grammer school? Unfortunately the Labour controlled LEA had long since got rid of them. Didn't his previous marriage break up because he wanted to send his son to a sink comprehensive in his constituency instead of a grammer school? Thank God his ex had more sense than him.

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Earlier i noted that opinions of posters rarely tally with the general public

Unfortunately a lot of the general public have opinions which don't make sense or are not based on evidence. FFS more than half of the general public surveyed recently don't believe we landed on on the moon.

I think the person stating his reflections might have failed his 11+!

Spelling and Grammar score 57 /140
'GRAMMER' Why do people keep spelling Grammer !

Bad example .........

Bloody hell this thread is intense! Having recently moved to UK I am little qualified to comment I admit and only really starting to get to grips with the system. However after my partners DS having a party with 50 x 15yr olds last weekend i noticed very clear behaviour differences between 'comprehensive school girls' and 'private school girls' that would too make me be in praise for comprehensive schools. Those girls were better behaved, more polite, had more clothes on, less make up and far more sensible then the 'private school girls'. The difference was startling. Certainly opened my eyes.

It is seriously annoying reading people's spellings !

I am Dyslexic yet i don't make such basic mistakes of 'GRAMMER'

I am not surprised by your link sandyholme.

Noble. That is because you either believe in the 'VAN ALLEN RADIATION BELT ' or you believe in the Mars Colony (1978 space jump via Mt Shasta) led by 'Barry Soetoro'. There appears to be no middle ground.....

Personally i like to believe in 'hard' facts via Fox News....

Fox News! Blurgh

Thanks HellsBells . I was rather surprised to come back and find the thread had gone into an argument about schools.
I appreciate that you have no control of a thread once you start it but it was in praise of comprehensives so I can't see why other types of schools need to come into it.
I really don't think that tax payers are willing to pay for anything that matches top private schools!!

MNHQ

Why has my post at Mon 29 Aug 10:31:27 been removed and yet HPFA's post at 15:07: 08 (calling me a liar) remains? Quite clearly I have proved that HPFA has been 'fibbing' on several points. Would you prefer it if I named the schools involved and linked to the statistics?

Also ParkingLottie's post at Mon 29-Aug-16 13:39:32 calling me a stalker needs to be removed otherwise I will feel obliged to answer that as well.

Can someone please report the two posts mentioned above.

Clavinova I reported your post to MNHQ because I thought it was inappropriate to collate in one post such identifying details about the school of the DC of another poster.

noblegiraffe
So it's ok to call someone a liar when clearly they are not? You did not read the posts in context then?
I have now reported the other two posts.

Clavinova TBH I don't care what you were arguing about, but it is totally out of order to collate details about a poster and put them together in a potentially identifying post. You could have done it by PM if you felt the urge.

"But the system is no better. It selects. It simply works in your favour so you deem it ok."

Are you arguing that a school which selects only children who are already attaining highly academically, and educates them separately is no more selective than a school which has a lottery system for 85% of its places, and selects 15% on the basis of potential in sports and music?

Oh come on, you must see that's silly?

Ok, I withdraw the term 'stalker' and replace it with 'I think it is against the spirit of MN to collate information about posters from different threads, collate it, research and match it against different schools so as to let posters know you have identified their school. It could lead to posters feeling stalked"

ParkingLottie - I think you'll find that HPFA did quite a lot of collating and matching herself with statistics from her dd's school.
I did not answer your stalking accusation before simply because I did not want to be accused of directing you to minifingerz's school - I see that you went and 'stalked' her yourself instead.

noblegiraffe - you have simply caused more trouble because we had already moved on - let sleeping dogs lie and all that.

Clavinova I reported your post this morning, just after you posted it.

Don't try to say that I have caused trouble by reporting your unacceptable post.

noblegiraffe
I cannot see that revealing potentially identifying information is against MNHQ guidelines if that is what you accused me of. No personal attacks is number one on the list - calling someone a liar or a stalker is pretty personal - perhaps you should have sent a pm to me and the offending posts could have been deleted at the same time.

Could we stick to the topic, which is celebrating the success of Comprehensives? There are plenty of threads elsewhere for those who don't feel that they can do so.

Clavinova Nothing is stopping you from reporting posts that you find offensive.

Peregrina here here. I saw the success last week at partners DS's party. Kind, polite, sensible teens from local comp- lovely to see

DS's comp is amazing. Top pastoral care, sparky engaged kids, 1/3 of the kids get A/A* GCSE, great A level results, positive thoughtful atmosphere, low staff turn over, approachable staff, grounds with attached woodlands, school pets. My son is very happy there.

Thanks noblegiraffe I thought about reporting but decided it was better to let Clavinova's "argument" speak for itself.

As for calling you a liar, I repeat that was because you stated AGAIN that I had sent my DD to a particular school because nearer schools "were not good enough". I will repeat again -that was not the case. I notice you have not withdrawn this claim.

But why do you think this is an argument worth pursuing ? Even if you were right about my choice of school what difference would it make? Should I go to the people in my town and say "People of X town, your schools are not good enough for me so I insist that millions are spent on a new school from which 80% of your children will be excluded. Evidence suggests that this will make things worse for your children but it will save me the bus fare to Y town and that's all that matters."

You are choosing to make your case on the basis of attacking individual posters rather than setting out a rational case for a return to selection. Don't you think more people would be persuaded if you were to make that case? If I conclude that that's because you don't have one its because you're giving me no reason to believe that you have.

And just to counter your odd claims that I have been derailing this thread, this was posted by the OP to you on the second page:

*I am cross that I am having this conversation when it was purely a thread for celebrating our comprehensives.

You started with 'I hate to point out....' When actually you loved it! A pity you didn't get the facts first.*

At the time when Fresh was repeatedly asking people (including you) not to derail the thread, I had posted twice, once to praise my godchildren's comp and then to link to a particular comp in Oxford which is achieving great outcomes for its pupils.

My personal feeling about derailing threads is that a good thread is like a good conversation - it may end up in a different place from where you started! That's very different from setting out to sabotage them.