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.

Oh no! Why did you have to mention Colin Firth? I already knew this and can't resist posting again ... "He was an outsider (at his comp) and was the target of bullying. To counter this he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent, and affected a lack of interest in schoolwork."
Just an amusing diversion FreshHorizons.
I wasn't going to post this - but as I'm here this is quite funny too - Katherine Grainger only just missed a 32 year-old-man who had been attending her Scottish academy school for a year by impersonating a 17-year-old boy. "He shaved his eyebrows to look younger and permed his hair. He had starred in a school production of South Pacific and gained 6 highers....Teachers had remarked on his mature appearance."

I really don't see how you can claim comprehensive schools have produced these results. Olympians in the main have pursued their sport from young ages, before they even get to secondary school.
All the under 18s I know that are very good at sport began in infant or junior school.
Rowing aside, as small children cannot, and should not, row.

Here's a comp worth celebrating

www.oxfordspiresacademy.org/news/plenty-of-as-and-99-passes-for-osa-students-2/

Serves a deprived area of Oxford (yes, they do exist) and used to be seen as one to avoid. Got its first students into Oxbridge this year. Opted into Progress 8 a year early and scored a "well above average". I have no personal connection to the school but think it is a cheering success story.

I don't think that anyone is claiming that comprehensive schools have produced the results! State schools do not coach to Olympic standards- it is not their job. Anyone who wants to compete had to put in hours and hours of hard work. The girl from my form at school had it as her life, she practised before school and in the evenings and had a coach. She didn't fit it into school PE lessons or expect the PE teacher to be doing all those extra hours for her! If you are at a boarding school with fantastic facilities then I expect you are able to make use of them.
It is nice that sport is becoming less elitist and great that children can see that it is possible to be a champion from any walk of life.
The girl from my grammar school was in the Olympics 40 yrs ago and the school was very proud of her and she will still be mentioned as a famous old girl, despite the school having nothing to do with her success.

It is the reason that I started this thread - on the other one there were people who had not one good word for any comprehensive and now that we have the Sutton Trust ( loved by grammar school supporters when they say things they like) having a huge headline - which they tweeted- saying that 60% of medalists were from comprehensives we get people who can't just be pleased- they have to quibble and nit pick.
The main message to the young children at infant or junior schools is that anyone can be an Olympic champion- you not have to go to an elitist school with all the necessary facilities.

I do hope we can stop this getting into an argument about school systems.

Thank you the people who have entered into the spirit of the thread and celebrated the good.

A lovely article HPFA .
I will look forward to getting my local paper tomorrow because I know that it will have pictures and stories about the A level successes- and contrary to some people's opinions they do not get bullied, or called names, for doing well academically!

It also a huge improvement from 2012 when 80% of gold medals came from privately educated athletes .

I don't think that's true. I was an anorak & kept track. More like 40% were privately educated. Still high, but not 80%.

Aiming for elite athletic potential tends to require lots of money & people with money tend to send their kids private. It's hard to separate the lots of money part out.

I think that is why it is so great to have the lottery money so that you don't have to be able to afford school fees.
Urged on by the success I would expect to have even more state pupils in 2020.

In praise of our comprehensive (non leafy):
My summer born boy who was insecure and competition averse at primary would never have engaged in a year 5 push for selective entrance . By the time he entered Yr 7 though, he was excited and up for new opportunities, was quickly identified as gifted and talented in two areas, placed in top sets to do further maths, additional MFL and STEM opportunities .

This is a comp that has an active inclusion department that rang me every week for the first year for a check in over DC with physical difficulties.

The comp that last year taught my friend's severely dyslexic DS to read (not managed in primary) and sent my other friend's DD to Cambridge with an unconditional offer.

Ok: the sport is rubbish: like most state schools in our London zone it has no playing fields, no football pitch, no athletics track.
But it does have a brilliant music , dance and drama department. The music tuition is very cheap , the orchestra is excellent, and representative of our high FSM, highly diverse London demography .

It functions as a good comp should : able to give good opportunity to all kids and be flexible and responsive as they develop.

My academic top set boy has never been the focus of comments about that, there is no culture of bullying , no culture of pretending to be non-brainy .

My sensitive, musical kid with a disabililty has never been bullied or felt vulnerable. There is a child in his class with a very noticeable difference . The family moved out to a very leafy commuter town in Surrey, this child chose to make the train journey in to school where 'everyone is different' and where diversity is accepted rather than make a new start in a local school.

Our comp is not unusual, I know parents from 3 neighbouring comps who are equally happy, and others from a little further away.

Not all roses: there is much 'teaching to the league table target' , that is the bad thing embedded in the system now, I think.

My old school can claim success for enabling the Olympian to succeed - she is/was a rower, who took up the sport at Cambridge. Now she might have got to Cambridge in its grammar school days, but it is unlikely - no one did in the seven years I was there. I think the previous (only) Cambridge success had been about 5 years before I went to the school.

clavinova
If you are going to play the Colin Firth Card, chew on this
www.fenews.co.uk/fe-news/college-saved-me-reveals-actor-colin-firth
A nice NON SELECTIVE comprehensive 6th form - in Hampshire .....
he was so happy at Barton Peverill that he still turns up regularly for prize givings etc
cos the non selective state system is just crap isn't it

TalkinPeace
I knew that too - it's on Wiki which is where I copied the quote from - I posted the same quote once before on a different thread a year or two ago. I'm pretty sure that you regularly post that all sixth forms are selective.

Your dd had a good education at a comp, in many areas there are no good comprehensive schools at all.

Clavinova
I'm pretty sure that you regularly post that all sixth forms are selective.
Yup.
City College only take those with an aptitude for marine and catering subjects
Spartsholt only take those with an aptitude for rural studies
Eastleigh take health and beauty
Totton take mechanics and engineering
Barton Peverill get what's left

andnow
in many areas there are no good comprehensive schools at all.
please detail - I'm sure its findable on the DFE tables but you have clearly already checked ....

2striped
the fact that team GB were privileged and had supportive parents paying for hours of coaching and facilities
I think the Lottery funding has rather a lot to do with it as well
Private schools dominate in things like hockey which are not generally played in state schools

comps that don't select by postcode
now I'm confused.
Comps have catchments - how would they select if NOT by distance from the gate
but as the form ONLY has the postcode on it - no other information about the child - then they are Comps.

I explained how and why it was a comp success story at 06:08 this morning. Of course it is a comp success story - it gives children the message that anyone has the possibility of being an Olympic champion i.e the 90% of the population that go to comprehensive schools.

I think it most unfair that some people are determined to suck the joy out of anything and can only be negative.
I started a thread about it , it is so draining. Why do people feel the need to do it? Why bother to come on if you have nothing to praise?

The purpose of this thread is celebration- it was clear from the OP.

TalkinPeace
Maybe Barton Peverill just get the better looking ones.

I mean that I started a different thread on AIBU about negative people.

And now that lottery funding, and comprehensive pupils, have had such success we can expect even more in 2020.
Any Olympic champion needs intensive coaching- far more than you get in a PE lesson.

2stripedSocks it is not a thread about that. Start another one if you wish.
It is about people praising the comprehensives they have experienced as pupils or parents.