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.

Just as a response to people questioning the validity of the thread. It is necessary to promote the idea of great comps (even the leafy ones) because there is a threat even to these schools.

The local authority of in Windsor and Maidenhead has a 64% GCSE (E&M) pass rate compared to Bucks at 68%. Given that Bucks imports high achieving children by the bucketload from its neighbouring authorities this doesn't suggest much wrong with the comprehensive system in RBWM. Yet the council still wants to set up a selective system there - just because a few councillors like the idea of grammars. They are making it clear that they do not recognise any desire not to have secondary moderns - the only "choice" is to be given to those who might wish for a grammar. This is not paranoia on my part - it is what is being said by the Leader of the Council. There is a large section in the Conservative party that is simply opposed to comps in general - they don't mind at all destroying the good ones along with the bad.

I can agree with you again 2stripedsocks. 30 bright boys are not going to be challenging- girls will be too, but often in a more subtle manner.
It all depends on the leadership and how they manage the behaviour.

I have done supply teaching (supply teachers often get the worst behaviour) in many primary schools. I picked my schools. The children didn't put me off in any way but the Head and staff certainly did! I went back to the ones where I was supported and there was a definite behaviour policy to follow. I didn't go back if I was just left to handle challenging children alone.

It will be interesting in Maidenhead to see what happens. I think that the level of opposition to a grammar school may take the council by surprise.

Sorry - the opposite of what I meant! 30 bright boys will be challenging.

'There are making it clear they do not have any desire not to have secondary moderns'

There is obviously a strong demand for a grammar school in Maidenhead .

The same parents who be 'manning' the placards will be the same ones making sure their children get in to the grammar !

They are making ...

Since it will be 3/4 left with a sec mod I think we can be pretty sure which side is the strongest.

However - as I said- it will be interesting.

There is obviously a strong demand for a grammar school in Maidenhead

So why after a year (I think) has there been only one letter of support to the local press, why has no-one has bothered to set up a campaign group in support, why has the council not released the results of a survey conducted months ago expressly designed to promote the subject and why was the local rag only able to find one supporter of the project when it sent a reporter to randomly interview people off the street? If people are making their placards it seems to be taking an awful long time for them to do it. Does it take a year to make a placard?

I expect it's all a left-wing conspiracy to suppress the popular will.

I actually meant it the other way , parents who join the'militia' against any form of selection will be privately preparing for it !.

If as HPFA says there is very little local support, the idea will become a non starter or will be a grammar school that takes very few local children. Therefore why the concern when most of the local children will go to the existing schools.

No what HPFA fears is that there will be a 'flood' of applications from Academies, Businesses and parents requesting grammar schools across the country. The result they fear is a 'Berlin Wall' moment and the collapse of the 50 year socialist dream of one size fits all schools !

Another thing i can never get my head round , is why do those who have had the best educations via grammar/public schools and Oxbridge always seem to resent their educations !

It is like they suffer from a form of 'guilt' that their education was built on the backs of the poor 'illiterate' classes .

It might be because their Grammar Schools were not all that good.

Or because they realize that the system is unfair and perpetuates social divide?

And it appears those like me who had 'shit' educations and not fortunate to have gone to RG Universities or the like tend to be pro selection !

Witnessed by the views and opinions of the members of the 11+ support club , who like me did not pass....

Though my grammar school teacher mother (in her late 60s) who was ardent in her support for selection has gone all 'mushy' in her feelings towards selection since helping out at my old 'prison' . ( n.b I am not an ex JAIL BIRD...)

I did go to university - there was no such thing as RG universities then. But this was despite my Grammar School and not because of it. I can well remember my headmistress saying that I would never get to university or at best might be a borderline candidate. I thought to myself, " Right, I'll show you", did get to University, didn't fail any exams, and came out with a respectable honours degree.

Of course, when it came to speech day, it was xxx have got into university - with no mention, that she did b*gger all to help all bar one or two favourites get there.

Aargh.
I passed the 11+ and went to a direct grant school.it was a good school and suited me down to the ground,I in no way resent my education, I enjoyed it and I'm grateful for it.
My best friend at primary school didn't pass,and it made a rift between us,I can still remember how divisive it all felt,we had all been together at primary school and suddenly some of us had failed.At 11. ( In theory it wasn't the 11+ ,it was the Kent Test. In theory no-one had failed,simply been allocated to the most suitable school.That wasn't quite how it felt - and when I was young it was all a lot more low key than it is now). And I didn't think it was fair,though it was quite nice knowing I was in the creme de la creme - with hindsight I'm not sure that was a good thing either!( I read my teacher mother's professional journals and thought comprehensive schools sounded like a pretty neat idea,and hey,people seemed to do fine at them).
Arguably those of us who 'benefited ' from selective education are in a better position to appreciate its flaws.You can solve the problem of bad comprehensives by working to improve all schools,I don't know how you deal with the divisive effects of selection.

I went to a selective secondary and am now not in favour of re-building the grammar system.
Our teachers were not, for the most part, amazing. They seemed old, old fashioned and complacent. One, who was inspirational, wrote an article in the Guardian years later about teaching someone who went on to become a notable novelist. This teacher wrote about how she hated her time in our cloistered , protected hothouse, and how she preferred the sparky questioning, greater resistance to authoritarianism she found in comprehensive schools.
I felt that I was being fed 'a good education' rather than achieving on my merits. This undermined my confidence.
I hated the class divide, and finding myself on one side of it.
I knew the 11+ had left people stranded: people cleverer than me who didn't 'make it', and I could see it was wrong.

So my opposition to selection now is because I want a fair, good quality schooling that does not cast people aside on one day's test. I want a school that can support those with different abilities in each different subject.

I think it important as a nation that we do not favour or discriminate any one group, as grammars always did and still would.

People who had a terrible education want better for their kids. And deserve better. But I don't think tnat spells 'grammar'

Well, I thought I'd finished on the thread but now I know what addiction fells like....

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/08/30/why-grammar-schools-are-not-the-answer-to-our-economic-and-socia/

Great and very rational argument and significantly, from that bastion of left-wing thought, the Telegraph.

A very good article from the Telegraph HPFA.

IMO, outside its Leader columns and Letters page, the Telegraph often does have good quality articles which examine issues in an unbiased fashion.

I'd want to add to this debate that any return to widespread selection at 11 now will be affected by the HUGE growth in the tutoring industry that we've seen in the UK in the past decade. In London 1 in 4 children now receives tutoring paid for by parents. I'm one of a vanishingly tiny group of m/c parents in my social circle whose children have never received any private tutoring. It's such a big industry in the deprived part of London in which I live. Within 1 mile of where I live there are 10 private 'supplementary schools', not to count individual private tutors.

It really does impact on children's chances of competing fairly in the 11+.

Could I ask BertrandRussell, or any poster in a wholly Grammar area, whether tutoring is as prevalent as it appears to be in London?

Yep.

I don't know of any child who passed who didn't have some sort of coaching/tutoring. I include any sort of significant work over the previous summer with parents in this- because having parents with the ability/time/money/awareness/inclination to do this is a massive advantage.

Just read an article which says tutoring in London is more than 1 in 3 now.

IMO, outside its Leader columns and Letters page, the Telegraph often does have good quality articles which examine issues in an unbiased fashion.

I quite agree. Its Referendum coverage was very good, informed opinion from both sides.
Luckily for my blood pressure, my computer doesn't seem able to access the comments.

It is like they suffer from a form of 'guilt' that their education was built on the backs of the poor 'illiterate' classes .

No guilt at all, why would anyone feel guilty about decisions made for them by their parents? They did what they thought was right at the time.

It doesn't really matter whether I "like" comprehensives or someone else "likes" grammars, politicians should be making their decisions on the evidence. And that evidence is very much in favour of non-selective schooling. If it was in favour of selective schooling then I might personally regret that but my feelings would be irrelevant. I don't know whether the Telegraph article is correct but it says that the only reason behind this policy is that a few politicians liked their own schools. That is not a very bad reason to make important decisions.

Please remove "not" from last sentence, obviously.

Just read an article which says tutoring in London is more than 1 in 3 now.

London schools outperform the rest of the country. I wonder how much is down to greater funding and how much is down to the DC "putting in an extra shift" so to speak.