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.

Under my system, the probability is that all the posters on this thread children would qualify for grammar !

Bertrand's DS would have automatically gone though to grammar via the staged appeal process !

( got to keep those 'pesky' middle class Labour supporters happy , not to worry there is only about 8 of them )!

The grammar schools could be filled with Conservative voters children .

There would also be access for those who have bright SEN children with the lowering of entrance requirements .

I Figure with probably 70% of private school voters 'Conservative' it would make sure the majority of Conservative voters children are being educated in 'tier'1 of the 3 tier education system !

The bottom 10% of parents don't bother to vote so are of no consequence to the thinking....

And what about the children of parents who aren't on this thread or Mumsnet? Write them off?

Under my system, the probability is that all the posters on this thread children would qualify for grammar !

Well, that's all right then! Of course, my DD would now be convinced that she was "thick "because she'd be struggling with the Maths and that could well damage her confidence in her best subjects. But so long as she could have that magic ingredient of saying "I went to grammar so I'm special" that's what matters.

This from the Guardian:

His comments came as the prime minister defended the plans to roll out more selective schools to cheers from Conservative backbenchers. “We have already got selection, haven’t we – it’s called ‘selection by house price’,” May told her MPs, according to people who were at the meeting of the 1922 Committee. She told her colleagues that she wanted these schools to be “inclusive” grammars.

I'm tired of this house price thing. South of Birmingham almost every comp will be a house price school because house prices are too bloody high!! And there are plenty of good comps where house prices are not an issue

www.middtech.com/

And how on earth do you have an "inclusive" grammar??? What do you think the 11+ is designed to do?

I though Sutton already had grammar schools. Maybe other schools are mediocre because of that? We're going to head into a mad world where a new grammar is set up, other schools become worse, there is then demand for another new grammar etc etc. Why not just re-name all comprehensives grammars, because that's where that goes logically?
Why not just invest the money that would be used to set up new grammars in imporoving these " mediocre" schools?

I can't get any logical grasp on this idea that the solution to "bad" schools is to remove a few children from them and then somehow they'll magically get better. Its like saying that the solution to a hospital having a bad survival rate for heart operations is to select a few patients to go to a different hospital and leave the rest where they are!

Funny, isn't it, that when I say "YesI think selection by post code is a bad thing- let's have either a lottery or some sort of fair banding, if a way can be found to do that equably" people don't like that either. i wonder why that could be........

"Inclusive grammar school" is an oxymoron.

2Stripedsocks - there are many wealthy families in London, but I don't think the educational success of good comps rests on them. my DC school has way higher FSM than most regional schools - inner London has massive swathes of high density social housing and London has many many areas at the top of the poverty and disadvantage league tables.

Many ordinary families doing ordinary jobs live in London and the high house prices merely serve to push more families into poverty or lower living standards, than actually attracting a higher paid demographic.

I am pretty confident that if we held a public 'referendum' on selective education, a significant mandate would be achieved in favor of selective education.

Five questions that could be asked.

1. Are you in favor of selective education yes/no

1. Would you be opposed to a school selecting your child on the basis of their aptitude in Maths/English or Science and placing them with children with similar aptitudes. yes/no

1. If you are in favor of a form of selection please indicate which statements below align with your opinions

A. . A selective system that chooses via an exam.

B. A selective system that chooses partly by an exam but allows for children to enter deemed suitable via other ways and also opportunities to join at 14 and sixth form level.

1. Do you think children who are disciplined hardworking and industrious should be 'forced' to go to schools filled with children , that are more interested in being disruptive via 'uniform' infractions or small/large scale disruption in a classroom.

1. Do you think its right that members of Parliament on both the political right and left, who have benefited themselves from going through selective educations try to deny the same education to your children.

I live in an area which is right on the boundary between two outstanding comprehensive schools. One of them is the sort of school that attracts people from all over the region.

My house is ex-LA and is very cheap for the city. The children on my street have parents with a variety of incomes - there are some people in professional/very middle class jobs, some people in good non-professional jobs, some people in minimum wage jobs, and some who don't work and are living entirely on benefits. All of the kids get to go to excellent schools.

I think part of the problem with schools is that they are expected to somehow solve all of the problems of social inequality as well as providing an education. And I don't think that that's really possible. I would like a government to have a separate plan to tackle social inequality, with schools taking a role in this but as part of a wider overall strategy.

1. Are you in favor of selective education yes/no

Q: Are you in favour of selective education if your child is guaranteed to pass?
A: Yes
Q: Are you in favour of selective education if your child is guaranteed to fail?
A: No

[grin]@peregrina

Are you in favour old secondary modern schools? Y/N

Sandy, your q.4?!

Or are you in favour of secondary modern schools like Wellington School and Ashton on Mersey School in Trafford? Yes please!

I'd love to see a socio economic analysis of post codes WA14 and WA15..............

The Hartsdown school problem with uniforms is still ongoing after three days !

The small no of parents still arguing and making 'twats' of themselves include 'ex' Policeman Dave Hopper who for the last three days has sought to confront the head teacher in front of the local media !.

Instead of buying a new pair of shoes, he prefers to remonstrate about the unfairness of a rule/law just like a junkie being picked up for Heroin use might !

Thank 'Fuck' he is no longer a Policeman!

Dave if you were not such an 'fuckwit' and taught your daughter that rules and regulations are not to be bent or ignored .

Dave if you concentrated on more on your daughter doing her homework your daughter might have passed the 11+

This proves the point of question (4) despite being ever so slightly 'Politically In Correct'.

The funny thing about Sandyholme's proposed questions is that they are so loaded as to be meaningless. Any educated person decent market researcher would see that

I don't think even the most rabid of grammar-school-supporting survey companies would even consider issuing such questions (although a stupid political party apparatchik might ) as their professional credibility would be so damaged and they would be a laughing stock.

I don't recognise any of the loaded scenarios in my experience of comprehensive education. Nor ds' experience nor any of my friends/family and their kids, across a range of different schools. Maybe that's because all of Scotland is comprehensive

And as Peregrina says, she's missing the most crucial question,

^Q: Are you in favour of selective education if your child is guaranteed to fail?
A: No"^

It doesn't even need to be as blunt as that - it could even say "...if your child might not get into a grammar school"

Alternatively, you could extend the former Education Secretary's attitude to averages to grammar schools. Gove wanted all schools to be "above average" . By the same logic, why not make all schools grammar schools?

Yes but those two schools are equal or better than the Comprehensive school in Osborne's Constituency town or WA16 Postcode , which is overall more affluent !

A funny article i remember reading in the local paper was the then head of the Comprehensive school in WA 16 moaning that he faced a triple whammy of losing children to the grammar independents and to the fore mentioned 'Modern ' schools.

I know about how 'loaded' WA16 is having lived there from the ages of 18-33 ! I was shocked at the number of 'have not's ' when i came back to Essex !

I very much agree Jasper.

Pretty. My questionnaire was a crude ( semi jokingly) thing done in 5 minutes!

However, the questions do not attempt to 'bamboozle' people, they are to the point!

To the point and offensive I'd say, Sandy.

Exactly. If there was a referendum, the people who would take part would assume their child would get in. They might also be tutoring their child from the age of 7. The conversation shouldn't be concentrated on grammars but on the 90% of children who don't go to grammars. Not all of them are disruptive or don't value education. My incredibly quiet, non sporty DS would not get into a grammar school because I didn't feel he would mentally be able to cope with being constantly tutored. We moved out of a grammar school area. The few children who were naturally bright were not tutored. The children who were average were being tutored to death, going to music/ sports clubs every night and at weekends. I wouldn't have bothered even putting him into the exam because he would have been beaten by children less intelligent than him but whose parents had gone down a route I didn't want to go down.

'Harold Wilson ' said just that in 1964 !

'A Comprehensive is a Grammar school for everybody'

Now that is an 'Oxymoron' Bertrand...

If you can't see how loaded and unsuitable they are, then I really despair of the education and political awareness in England (I nearly said "in this country" but of course in my country we don't have any grammar schools and we have a better education system ). So they do "bamboozle" people because they are loaded and not neutral.

It's like asking someone, "would you like me to give you £100, no strings attached?" Of course the answer would be Yes.