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.

I don't get this argument.

Apparently comprehensives only do well when they have a high achieving, m/c intake.

But the stellar results of many grammar schools are the result of their being great schools. Nowt to do with their intake.

GCSE results Bethnal Green

I have just done several links from them to show that it isn't just places like Horsham that were dismissed as expensive housing and well off parents.

On other threads I have frequently commented that the results of many grammar schools are to do with their intake (and that the teaching can be poor).

My objection was that in saying Stoke Newington is not leafy (true) it hides the fact that the catchment contains many million pound houses i.e. the demographics are different to what they have been in the past. The school may well be very good, but one needs to benchmark it against schools with similar demographics to tell (which Ofsted benchmarking does).

TBH I don't really get the point of this thread. The vast majority of secondary schools are comprehensive. Many UK schools are good so many comprehensives are good schools. But the results of any school reflect the demographics. So a school could still be doing very well indeed even if its headline results don't look particularly good and doing relatively poorly even if its headline results look fine.

Tower Hamlets is comprehensive with an ability and social mix.
They use banding for their admissions

Our 6 Ds s all went to comprehensive schools here in Wigan and have all done well .The youngest just got straight As at A level.We are lucky here in Wigan because our comprehensive schools are still mostly authority run.In a comprehensive a student can be in the top set for maths and a lower one for English.They can move up or down sets as and when needed. There are a couple of academies here - where the heads have no doubt been tempted by bumping up their own salaries to ridiculous amounts - more than the PM some of them! Who keeps a check on that I wonder ?

The vast majority of secondary schools are comprehensive. Many UK schools are good so many comprehensives are good schools.

Yes, quite, but on MN it seems to need spelling out. Anyone reading MN with all the Grammar school threads would a) not realise just what the proportion of comprehensives to grammars are, and b) not believe that comprehensives can cater for high achievers, (unless of course they are 'leafy'). With point b) especially, despite the title of this thread, a number of posters have tried to argue this.

Good comprehensives cater for high achievers.

Not so good comprehensives don't cater for high achievers well (and indeed not for other pupils either). Ofsted and top universities have made the point repeatedly that some comprehensives are not catering properly for high achievers. Academics repeatedly make the point on MN that we see bright students from some schools underachieving.

I'm still not sure how making a list of the many good comprehensives is going to convince people that not so good comprehensives can be improved (instead of re-introducing grammars).

And we all know that, as far as Mumsnet is concerned, high achievers are the only ones who matter.

A school could be fantastic in all other respects, but struggle with a child who is capable of A* in Maths in year 7 and it will automatically be deemed "failing" on here.

My own theory (and personal experience) is that schools which aren't dealing well with high achievers typically have many other issues as well which affect pupils of all ability levels.

Funny how nobody ever says "that school is failing because it doesn't do as well as it could for the low attainers"

haybott - yes, to your last post. But trying to do something about it would cost a lot of time and money, for which I don't see any political appetite at present.

I think that the majority of people would prefer to have improved comprehensives rather than reintroduce secondary moderns, which is what the majority would get.
The people who have entered into the spirit of the thread have praised the fact that the child who would fail because they were very good at maths but poor in English etc can be easily catered for in a comprehensive and many had a child who would have failed but then made great progress.

Maidenhead is not going to get a new grammar school without parents fighting to save their good comprehensives.

Ive been out all day ..

Anyhow this is a school 'nobody' would want to replicate

www.independent.co.uk/news/my-blueprint-for-saving-the-worst-school-in-britain-1267730.html

Sandy- you are aware that Ridings School closed 10 years ago?

2stripedsocks- you are aware of what. Comprehensive school is, aren't you? You know that it is about
Admissions criteria?

The school closed in 2009 and is now a local community centre !

The point of the article is to highlight how far all schools have come in the period from 1996 (the nadir of the Ridings school). It is useful to use such a school as a reference in how to make sure schools never allow the 'lunatics' to take over the asylum.

I do wonder though if 'Sarah Taylor' the 13 year old pupil that caused a full scale walk out by staff , became a productive member of society.

Clearly also Miss Taylor would have been better off learning a 'skill' in which to enable employment , rather than 'HORRIBLE' in the classroom.

I don't think that you do understand the meaning of comprehensive school.
You can look up any definition this one will do
It is the community school and it serves the local community. Once you start tinkering with the admissions criteria you are into social engineering.

No wonder there are problems and you have a poor opinion of comprehensive schools 2StripeySocks if you think they have to have the complete social range- they don't.

Anyway - where is an example of a comprehensive in a SE area that is all wealthy families at the top of the ability range?

If you want a more lengthy explanation of comprehensive schools this is very clear

In a few years when we have some statistics on the new 9-1 GCSE grades it will make these debates more interesting. We will have potential new information to chew over. At the moment on MN these debates seem to generate more heat than light. No one's opinions ever changed. They are classic, bad tempered arguments filled with confirmation bias and personal attacks born out of frustration.

Not saying the new GCSEs will settle the argument, just that they will freshen up the conversation a little.

It was never supposed to be an argument! It was merely supposed to be positive stories about comprehensive schools.

Nah, sandy. You were hoping people would skim read and say"Bloody hell, I knew comprehensive schools were crap.

2stripedsocks- if you know what a comprehensive school was, you wouldn't be saying that a school which happens to be in affluent area and have a high %age of affluent pupils can't be a comprehensive.