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.

The pro-grammar lobby take two approaches to the provision of the "other schools". There are those who try to argue that the comprehensives will remain as they are which is obviously nonsense but they hope we won't notice. There is often reference to a few top-performing secondary moderns in wealthy areas, which is strange as the same people accuse us of cherry picking good comprehensives!
Then you get those arguing that the "other" schools will be different to existing comps providing a technical or vocational education. Whilst this is in a way more honest the actual plans for these schools are somewhat sketchy, they don't explain why failing the 11+ proves you have talent in technical subjects, they vastly underrate the qualifications needed to access the most desirable "vocational" careers and never explain what happens to those who have only just missed out on the grammars. Except sometimes to say "well, they'll enjoy being top and will be motivated by that." Which would be fine if the same people hadn't been telling us that being top at a comp means being "dragged down" and bullied by the lower orders.

And just so that Fresh doesn't completely tear her hair out here's another great comp
www.theoxfordacademy.org.uk/

52% of students get 5 A-C (E& M) GCSEs despite the fact that they have a high % of Low Achievers and very few High Achievers. They are estimating their Progress 8 score at 1.08, if confirmed this will be the highest in Oxfordshire. If grammars do ever return to Oxfordshire this is probably where one would be built. No doubt the pupils will enjoy watching the pupils arrive in armoured cars from Jericho and Summertown every morning.

The last sentence went a bit wonky!

Very true HPFA

I simply haven't time to trawl around local papers all over the country- From my Googling I find that there are far too many to link to.

Children may fail the 11+ but they are not fooled by terminology and know that they are sec mods by another name and they are certainly not mixed ability schools!

haybott - City of London £8587.04 per pupil Wokingham £4166.51

Individual examples can be more than twice as much but the London average is not more than twice the national average.

I read somewhere that Wokingham was near the bottom in funding- it surprised me at the time.

InfiniteCurve might like to know that we keep calling them secondary moderns because that is what they call themselves. The National Association for Secondary Moderns was founded by a Head Teacher of a Sec Mod in Lincolnshire (fairly recently) and the schools in Kent belong.
news here

I knew that I had read it somewhere [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11473308/School-funding-is-a-postcode-lottery-head-teachers-warn.html Wokingham bottom for funding.

Sorry link here

I wonder if my like of 'selective' education comes from 'stockholm' syndrome !.

Up thread i uploaded a link about 'Joey Essex' and was rebuked by Talkinpeace and Bertrand in my suggestion that 75% GCSE schools should be able to educate high ability pupils away from struggling pupils !

Talkinpeace's answer was to put such students in set '5', this is a 'great' solution for pro Comprehensive supporters. This is because it play's in to two socialist beliefs the first being because you are not academically bright , you are still equal to the brightest . The second one and perhaps the most important embodies the belief that society is a 'melting' pot and that somebodies abilities are less important than being alive.

Talkinpeace's answer to my education would have thrown me straight in to set '5' 'Sandy is a pleasant child who struggles with English and all subjects . However, because we are a encompassing 'community' school we value Sandy's achievement in writing a sentence, as equal to the three children we sent to Cambridge achievements.

To be fair to Talkinpeace being allowed to sit in set '5' would have been an improvement for me as opposed to just been giving 'crayons' and told to color in !

The only teachers who saw that perhaps there was a 'spark' of life in me were the 'grammar' school teachers.

Secondly i am grateful for the education my three children are getting in their respective grammar schools .

Conventional thinking would assume i would be pro 'Comprehensive' schooling as i was 'bottom' of the educational pyramid .

The reason why i like grammar schools might be down to 'Stockholm' Syndrome but i doubt it !.

The only teachers who saw that perhaps there was a 'spark' of life in me were the 'grammar' school teachers.

Didn't you say on another thread that these teachers were friends of the family who worked with you on an individual basis? That's nothing to do with grammar schools - it's much easier to see a kid's potential if you don't have 30 other kids to deal with.

Yes there were friends and colleagues of my mother .

Noble. Would you be able to spot a 'spark' from an 'Autistic' pupil who previously might have been unable to write a sentence.

This is what many teachers are unable to do, the spark might be a pupil talking/waffling about a non related subject area at A level or Degree level !
The pupil might have previously shown themselves unable to 'grasp' year 7 rudiments despite being in year 9 that is how 'High Functioning Autism' 'can present itself .

However, it is a skill set ' few' teachers have and many teachers are likely to tell the boy/girl to shut up or ignore them A teachers ignorance in understanding still enables the believe that the pupil is bottom of the pyramid educationally.

suggestion that 75% GCSE schools should be able to educate high ability pupils away from struggling pupils !

You have not given us any reason at all why anyone in this 75% school should need to be educated in a separate school. Have you looked at this school's results for High Achievers. Or perhaps you could name this school so someone else could do that. Why are you so obsessed with this idea that encountering some "Low Ability child" in the corridors or the lunch queue has such a devastating effect on one's intelligence?

Sorry Fresh I'll find some more great comps after lunch.

I am constantly amazed at how fragile a flower some people think cleverness is.....

Good thread Fresh.
Both my DDs went to the nearest comp to us (now an academy but from a a parents point of view, the change has been transparent). DD2 has just left the 6th form. Both girls have very much enjoyed school and had opportunities to join in lots of extracurricular. DD2 has some health issues that school have been great with without making a fuss. The headteacher knows their names although it is 200+ entry and the majority of teachers go the extra mile.
This is a post I recently put on the thread about Theresa May possibly allowing more grammar schools:
Living in an area that has good comps and no grammar schools, I would hate this. DD1 would probably have failed 11+ as her maths wasn't brilliant at that age but she has now got an A at A level in maths. DD2 would probably have passed with flying colours but would have lost the massive benefit that her comp has given her socially - I think she would have been a 'geek' for life. Her social skills at 11 were terrible but a large comp has helped immensely - she still has the same best friend that she met on her high school induction day and that friend would not have passed the 11+.
What is needed is making sure all schools are a good standard and that all schools use setting so all levels benefit

Quite the opposite actually !

The self esteem issues of low achieves is impacted massively by being surrounded by those with high academic ability .

You must think some young people are stupid if you believe they think winning the 'cup' for hardest trier or sporting prowess is equal to 5 A grades !.

This one of the 'benefits' of Comprehensive education , it values the hardest trier trophy the same as the 9 A* student.

The pupil who won the 'hardest' trier award does not need patronizing . The child knows it is not equal to the 9 A* academic trophy , yet the proponents of Comprehensive education seek to equalize the awards.

This is one of the benefits..

I went to an Essex comp as did my brother (Oxbridge for both of us). Pants area but fab teachers. My husband and his brother went to a SW London comp and both went to great Unis. All of us the first generation in our families to stay on after 15 let alone go to University. My kids have all gone to the local comp. 3 at Uni with nothing less than an A between them, one just got her GCSEs and all A & A*. They have had opportunities to do loads of stuff, visit amazing places and try their hand at different sports, arty stuff and educational things. They have friends who struggle a bit academically but are awesome sportspeople, amazing artists or incredible actors. Exam results do not a great person make !! They know they have to work hard and also manage to deal with others who may not want to be at school. I think comprehensives are great. Three of mine are my sisters, who was killed when one was 10 and he would have failed the 11+ as he had an awful time. He is now at Cambridge studying maths. And I am very proud of all of them.

Getting 9 A* does not mean that person is the best person in life!
What is wrong with recognising the ones that won the county cup for netball for example?
What is wrong with recognising the one that is an excellent role model for schoo doing voluntary work in the community?
What is wrong for recognising the musicians, drama clubs, artists etc etc.
What is wrong with recognising those that help others?
Life is not all about academic achievement.
Life is about being happy, being part of your community and doing the best an individual can.
That is what our school is about and that is what I agree with.

x-post!

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/anthony-got-two-fs-his-gcses-may-not-seem-earth-shattering-you-him

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be researching Joey Essex who I've never heard of anyway.

However, he apparently sat his GCSE at Moulsham High School in Chelmsford, Essex. The average High achieving child in this school scores a 381 average in their GCSEs - 5 of the Kent grammars get scores in the 380s so no evidence of these children suffering at all. Looking at the middle attainers they score 331 points - a staggering 1 and a half grades higher than the average Kent secondary modern. I thought given this that there score for High Achievers was probably a little low given this but read on......

The rather odd thing is that this school is in Chelmsford which ALREADY HAS TWO GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. So now Sandy you can stop pitying these poor children in Moulsham being dragged down by Joey Essex because they are exactly the ones that in another thread you thought should be learning how to sew on buttons and dress properly for job interviews. Far more useful to their future life prospects than having decent GCSEs.

Nothing could better illustrate the blatant double standards and peculiar logic of the pro-grammar lobby.

Oh right! So now we need to educate high ability kids separately for the benefit of the low achievers! I think I might have heard it all now!

So agree hellsbells ! Some people are so fixated on results they forget about the rest of life. The idea of having kids is surely to see them as happy grown ups, and for very many people education is not fun. Grammar schools used to help social mobility - in about 1950. Because now they are full of kids who have been tutored or have parents who paid for prep school. Not all but most. So not much social mobility. A good comp (& there are thousands of them) can cater for all kids, ensure they have the chance to feel good at something and also teach all the kids that people are different and have different skills. They can have kids in top set maths but bottom set English. They can be an amazing linguist and be with others who love languages, but rubbish at maths and need some extra help. Some don't develop until about 14 and come in with low grades and end up leaving with a shed load of As. Let's celebrate every kids talents and not make them feel rejects at 11. I never ever hear anyone campaigning to bring back secondary moderns !!!

hells bells Thanks for this beautiful post. However I've long been convinced that Sandy is a plant from Comprehensive Future for the purpose of discrediting the pro-grammar argument.

I was thinking the same HPFA- if you want an argument that is pro comprehensives then look no further that sandy!

What comes across, loud and clear, with the people who are actually praising comprehensives is that they are educating the whole chld and producing the sort of future citizen that can recognise effort and achievements other than the academic. It is also lovely that they choose their friends for their personalities and interests and not who happens to be in the same set for maths.