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.

If you question my 'fondness' for grammar schools, thus going against mainstream academic opinion you need to understand why !

Every single member of my family including 'extended' (excluding me) went to grammar school and all of them thrived or are thriving. Dear sister ended up getting a PHD in Chemistry at Bath University , aided in no small part by the grounding that her Essex grammar school education gave her.

Similarly all four of my cousins went to grammar school in Trafford and two of them went of to Cambridge , the other two to Bristol and 'Leicester' (exclamation marks due to wrongly perceived ideas) .The Forensic Science Degree he undertook there led him to becoming a national authority in use of forensic science .

By contrast the only one of my family (parents, children uncles nephews nieces who was not /is being educated via a grammar school is me)

The contrast is the school i went to facilitated my learning to 'relapse' from primary school !

It is therefore obvious why i am a huge supporter of grammar schools when you look at how empowering they have been for my family.

Do you know how many results come up if you put 'Grammar Schools' in to the Mumsnet search engine ? 14,700

Clearly shows it must be the single most debated subject and far more 'important' than it is in reality!

But Sandy, from what you've said about your own educational background, surely it's likely that you would have gone to a secondary modern rather than a grammar. Pupils who are capable of doing very well with specialist dyslexia and ASD support are not the pupils that grammar schools are designed for, and although SEN provision is grammar schools has improved significantly, it was pretty much non-existent in my day. And the selection tests weeded out anyone with anything other than very mild dyslexia.

Sandy: in my kids comp today you would get specialist support via the Inclusion unit. They taught the severely dyslexic DC of a friend to read where primary and an outside tutor had failed. And because they are in a comp they are in top sets where ability is high and lower sets where they need more supported / slower learning . A very bright child: in a selective system that child would not have made Grammar.

It is great that so many of your family did well in grammars. I see the same thing in the top sets of our local comps : the high ratio of FSM kids doing very well, special days to visit Unis, confidence programmes, growth mindset approach, all designed to make sure that the very diverse intake all succeed.

I don't want to see young people languishing in educational dead ends like you did, and I don't see a lifelboat for the minority, which is what grammars are, as the solution to fulfillment for all.

I 'dismally' failed my 11+ but the school i went to had no understanding or made no allowances for my difficulties !

When my mum removed me from the school at the start of '4th' year(1987) 'Ancient history' my learning had regressed to the level of a 7 year old!
The whole education system across the board for autistic or disabled was 'appalling'. In a just world the 'education' authorities and the government should now be in a 'courtroom' agreeing to pay huge damages to the families and the children they 'royally' screwed over !

However, the grammar school debate was not about me or my education!

"However, the grammar school debate was not about me or my education!"

So why do you always make about exactly that, then?

I 'dismally' failed my 11+ but the school i went to had no understanding or made no allowances for my difficulties !

You have just made a case against Sec Mods - you obviously weren't 'selected' for the most appropriate education.

Because i believe that grammar schools have been 'brilliant' for 95% of my family including my children that is why i support them !

The barrier for me not going on to have a 'steller' carer or academic success was not failing the 11+ but the lack of any help 'whatsoever ' regardless of type of school.

No i make the case against 'most' if not all schools with the regard to understanding 'High Functioning Autism' and how to educate a child with it.

There is also a 'view' that many High Functioning Autistic children would be better served in a traditional academic and strict environment .

IMO you haven't made a case at all sandyholme. I could give you numerous examples from my own family where the grammar school educated didn't do especially well, - no Oxbridge graduates for a starter. I can give you examples of Oxbridge graduates who got there via comprehensives. Individual examples aren't a good basis on which to base national policies.

I agree individual examples are not a good basis to base national politics!

However, when expressing an opinion, it is very difficult not to use you own experience as the basis of your opinion!

On the whole though it is clear that grammar school pupils have gone on to be proportionality high achievers when they left school!

Comprehensive school supporters their successes are soley down to them and have nothing to do with the type of school attended !

They therefore by doing so do not address the point that the highest achieving Comprehensive schools are 'operating' as grammar schools, albeit with a few low ability children thrown in.

We will have to agree to differ. I can think of a couple of high achievers from my school in its grammar school days but I can think of more high achievers in various fields from the Comprehensive which succeeded it.

I've heard everything now "The highest achieving Comprehensive schools are 'operating' as grammar schools, albeit with a few low ability children thrown in."

So a good comprehensive isn't really a comprehensive, it's just a grammar school with a few low ability kids who also attend?

I'm so glad I live in Scotland where we've had a universal comprehensive system for c40 years.

While there are some schools that perform well purely because of the demographic of their catchment (although that's an unfair way of categorising the efforts of the pupils at those schools having gone to one of them myself and got excellent results due to my own hard work and no tutoring ), others, like ds' school, take great pride in their very mixed demographic and the fact that they develop rounded individuals, with good exam results. It gets results above the average "expected" for its SIMD (the Scottish Index for Multiple Deprivation), despite having to deal with 54 languages spoken by pupils, and a high number of asylum seekers.

It streams for English and Maths from shortly after the start of S1 but not for anything else.

The other difference with Scottish schools is that with a few (remote rural?) exceptions, all schools continue the full 6 years of secondary, so there is no moving schools/reapplying after the equivalent of GCSEs.

So a good comprehensive isn't really a comprehensive, it's just a grammar school with a few low ability kids who also attend? confusedhmm

Ah, prettybird you are clearly new to the thread! You will soon learn that there's always a reason why a comprehensive is "wrong". It will always be too leafy or have too many aspirational immigrant families or something. Its pupils never succeed because of good teaching or anything to do with the school. Meanwhile grammars take in exclusively children of high ability and mostly from advantaged backgrounds then claim full credit for their achievements.

What does operating as a grammar school with a few low-ability kids thrown in mean? Grammar schools don't even have middle ability kids.

"On the whole though it is clear that grammar school pupils have gone on to be proportionality high achievers when they left school!"

Yes - because they are uniformly high achieving when they start.

""On the whole though it is clear that grammar school pupils have gone on to be proportionality high achievers when they left school!"

No shit, Sherlock!

"There is also a 'view' that many High Functioning Autistic children would be better served in a traditional academic and strict environment ."

I have a child with HFA.

I'd love to know how being in an academically pressured environment would benefit him emotionally and developmentally.

You're right HPFA - I was showing my ignorance Forgive my naïveté

I'm not saying all comprehensives schools in Scotland are perfect. As in any school (comprehensive or in England otherwise), the role of the headteacher is critical in getting the best out of the school, its teachers and - most important of all - its pupils.

I often argued that my (leafy) secondary school was actually a worse school than the one that my mum taught at; mine concentrated its efforts on the "clever" kids (when my taught there briefly as a NQT, she was given the class of ROSLAs Raising of the School Leaving Age kids, despite them not knowing if she was capable of coping with disgruntled kids), while my mum's school worked hard to get the best out of all its pupils.

Mini For one moment I thought we'd had a child together! It would have been a genius of course.

So, Sandy, are you saying that the majority of children should have a secondary modern education such as the one you received because the benefits to children such as your cousins are more important than the problems you experienced?

This is from a ASD forum under the subject of why a grammar school is the right school for my Autistic son. My son is in yr 5 has AS, doesn't cope well with noise in classroom/shouting etc. very academic and gets very frustrated if work 'too easy'. our dilemma is this - the nearest school to us is very well thought of, and nearly all children from current juniors go there. it has a speech and language base attached to it. son was going to this secondary school once a week on a 'gifted' maths programme, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Its close to home (so if he has tantrum in morning I can still drop him off/ if he panics and runs away, he can still get home safely!) However its enormous and I don't think he will cope without a great deal of support. But he would know many of the children there already, and they have grown up with his rather odd behaviour!(even though he doesn't really interact with them).
However, in the next town (about 20mins by bus) there is a boys grammar school. son and I went to have a look around at last open evening and were both really impressed. Buildings etc a bit old and worn out, but classes max of 25 children and community paed said the grammar is more 'geared up' for kids with ASDs. the AS boys have a special chill out room for break times, or the librarian said they come to her and read quietly. This seems like best place if he can cope with potental added pressure/homework. Unfortunately if he cocks up on 11+ exam day and does not get in, He will have lost his chance at local school (massively over subscribed, and only take kids that have named their school as first choice). The next 2 closest schools are not really suitable at all, 1 'sports orientated', the other miles away.
The Grammar do not allow extra time etc for exam unless child has statement, which he does not. He is more than capable of passing the 11+ , but could quite easily freak out about being in 'new environment' and with the stress of doing the test (although generally he likes sitting tests because its quiet and he has very competitive nature). Also he struggles with hand writing and uses a laptop at school at the moment, but would have to write for entrance exam.
Not sure where to go for advice - any thoughts appreciated.

The biggest hurdle for a bright Autistic boy/girl is the 11+ . Therefore an allowance should be made for such problems or for a result that was not representative of ability.

Consequently if grammar schools took 40% of pupils 25% though the 11+ and the remaining percentages came via other means such as proof that the child did not perform on the day .

Everybody who should have or is capable of 'academic ' education would be catered for by a 40% model!

The problem with a 25% grammar model is the boundaries are to shallow leaving some children 'failing' due to a bad day or other issues such as ASD.

I think a 40% model with 'safety ' valve allowing 15% of pupils access via appeals recommendation etc would negate the numbers of children failing or should not have !

Noble. If you look at the 'Dept of Education Performance tables' you will notice that the highest performing Comprehensives typically have over 60% high ability students and usually less than 4% low ability students !

Many grammar schools do have 'middle' ability pupils , for instance Chatham and Clarendon Grammar in Ramsgate have 30% middle ability students in their cohort ! They also take a relatively high 2% with SEN or additional needs!

Noble Earlier on in the thread i asked you if you would be able to 'diagnose' a bright pupil (who previously had struggled to present themselves through classwork) via a 'spark' not connected to the classroom lesson.

You did not answer that question , preferring to state how difficult it is with 30 children in a class to notice a 'different' child. This clearly means you do not believe you would have been able to notice a 'child' like me who was withdrawn from the class , hence the reason for them showing no ability!.

Jasper. My education had nothing to do with being a 'Secondary Modern' or any type of school and everything to do with a total lack of understanding of AUTISM though the educational environment !. There was a 'Mainstream' school near where i moved to in Cheshire that just threw in all the Autistics , mentally and physically disabled together in one Unit believing they were all the same!.

Since the Hartsdown Academy was mentioned up thread

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3775968/Police-called-school-sends-FIFTY-children-home-day-term-weren-t-wearing-right-uniform.html

Its never a grammar school is it .....

Sandy I don't think it was me you asked about noticing a 'different' child - I'm a maths teacher so we work in ability sets and our lowest achieving students are in the smallest groups, with a TA, making it much harder for 'different' children to hide.