People who are in favour of grammar schools....

[BertrandRussell]

....what is your proposal for the majority who are not selected?

I am astonished that Nicky Morgan is speaking out against selection, especially since she allowed the first new grammar school, sorry, annex to an existing one, to take place.

Still, she has been given the boot by TM so perhaps she has a score to settle.

What do grammar schools actually offer that a comprehensive school top set doesn't?

It seems to be some undefinable magic ingredient - I think it comes from a deeply ingrained historical narrative, much of which is sadly mythical.

Last year the Education Minister said there would be no change to the way GCSEs were marked in NI. However, around 25% of GCSEs taken in NI are from English boards, we have a new Minister and schools here don't always do what our Assembly say, so my answer Sandy is I don't know what will happen.

mumtryingherbest
I am not sure which side you are on? On some posts you seem to be against GSs but on others, extolling secondary moderns.You do realise that one cannot exist without the other?

If the comps are so great there should be proportionally way more OxBridge entrants from them compared to success rate from grammars and private?

What the grammars have is a combination of very bright children and some quite bright children with wealthy, pushy parents. Of course they get proportionally far more kids into Oxbridge .Not that Oxbridge is the be-all-and-end-all.

That's not because grammar schools actually DO anything much different from comprehensives, it's because of the kids they have.

Does anyone know whether wholly selective authorities as a whole send more kids to Oxbridge than comparable comprehensive authorities? Because comparing schools is obviously ridiculous...

Dionne. A case of 'Don't tell us how to mark' without caring about the chaos and upset for parents and pupils !

A case of the 'tail wagging the dog' NI what 2% of students? 'Those English are not telling us what to do'!

Which is all fine and dandy if you are not a poor student trying to explain your grades or advance to university .

Potential problems English student gets a grade 8 in Maths Northern Irish student gets an A how do you differentiate between the two grades !

Not that you should it's the same exam in the United Kingdom (noted i did not say Great Britain)..

One school uses English Exam Boards marking in numbers another school uses letters marking in letters result 'disaster' .

The Poor students are the losers from this.

English student gets a grade 8 in Maths Northern Irish student gets an A
ask for UMS?

The Sutton Trust estimates that 15% of state school entrants are from grammars and as they educate about 15 5 of HIGH ACHIEVING children that's about what you'd expect. They have some very complicated way of working that out.

In 1961 34% of Oxbridge entrants were from state schools presumably all from grammars. That % is now 60%. (85% comp, grammar 15). In the sixties non-one expected secondary moderns to make up 70% of entrants to Oxbridge. Yet somehow comps are supposed to do that from the part of their cohort which would have been in the secondary moderns.

Bert Have you seen this brilliant piece? So true

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/past-when-poor-kids-succeeded-people-thought-it-was-because-grammar

Sandy, our Education Dept is run by our Local Assembly, not Westminister. So not a case of Those English are not telling us what to do. Unless you are specifically talking about our Ex Education minister.

Thanks Bert I phrased it wrong but that's what I mean. HPFA interesting data do you have a link?

So if grammar schools educate 15% of high achieving kids and grammar
school kids make up 15% of state educated Oxbridge undergraduates............ Can someone explain to me how this means comprehensive schools
are not sending people to Oxbridge?

"Why do they need to actually be in a whole separate establishment? What do grammar schools actually offer that a comprehensive school top set doesn't"

Because people genuinely think that they need protection from the 'contamination' by disruptive children in comprehensives. They don't believe that protection should be extended to lower achieving, non disruptive, hardworking children.

People who support grammars genuinely believe that higher achieving children should be singled out for special treatment. They genuinely don't give a flying fuck about other children or about fairness. And usually it's because they think their own kids are grammar school material.

always
I got it from the Local Schools Network

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/03/eleven-grammar-school-myths-and-the-actual-facts.

It's listed in Myth 8.

LSN is anti-grammar but Henry Stewart is a well-respected commentator and I don't doubt his accuracy. Ther is a link to the original report in there but I found that completely incomprehensible so have relied on Henry's interpretation of the data. Not being goady by linking in this way but the original report is way beyond the capabilities of my C at Maths O-Level.

Indeed. When I worked in a private school the parents sometimes admitted that the reason they sent their kids there was not the amazing facilities or huge range of extra-curricular opportunities but 'the type of children they'd mix with'.

For those children who find getting top marks easy, I imagine they will still get the grade 8s and 9s. So how will more grammars help

Its not about the grades, its about providing material that challenge and stretch them.

How are all these people getting into Oxbridge from comps if they've been failed? I dont think anyone is saying ALL comps have failed them, we are saying some comps are failing them because of house price selection.

One problem with looking at University entrance is I cannot find a figure for how many sixth-formers are in grammar school. 5% of pupils are in grammars but I would guess at sixth-form that % is higher - but can't find confirmation or denial of this anywhere.

Likewise I read on a comments forum that 20% of sixth form students are in private schools but could not find that figure confirmed anywhere.

Or maybe they looked at the figures from NI Minifingerz and have concluded that more grammars lead to better results all round.

I worked hard at my junior school - admittedly with supportive parents - and got into our local grammar school. I also passed an entrance exam to our local private school but my parents chose the grammar school because it was academically selective.

However this myth that grammar schools somehow protect children from rough and tumble was completely inaccurate in my case. The majority of the kids, although bright, were quite rough and I was bullied throughout my time at the school. Maybe it would have been worse if I'd failed to pass my 11+ but I doubt it.

There was definitely an ethos that they could push us harder than I expect was the norm for our age and it was very strictly streamed both in each year and in each subject so even within the school it was very selective.

I ended up getting 10 O Levels and a couple of A levels but didn't go on to further education because nobody suggested it - being one of the lesser academics at the school.

I'm in favour of Grammar schools in that it does allow the brighter children a chance to be stretched but don't agree with some people on here who seem to think they are social utopia.

maths you rather seem to be suggesting that all good comps have house price selection. There are very few comps in Oxfordshire where houses are priced higher because of a secondary school, although house prices are high in the whole of Oxfordshire of course.

And why is the "able" child more deserving of a good school than one who just happens to live near one? It feels sometimes there's an undercurrent of resentment that people should access a good school just by living near it.

I have read quite a bit on this thread and others about the feelings of children who don't pass the 11+. If the adults around them are talking in such hyperbolic terms as "contamination", "oiks" and
"condemned to failure" is it any wonder they feel bad.

According to this www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/09/who-will-open-new-grammar-schools-social-mobility

struggling academy chains will be wanting to open new grammars. So in other words academy chains that have failed to provide a good education for all children will be allowed to keep all the easiest children, put their feet up and let other schools deal with the rest.

I feel ill....

I am astonished that Nicky Morgan is speaking out against selection, especially since she allowed the first new grammar school, sorry, annex to an existing one, to take place.

I think she was pushed into it. Why this is great news is that I don't think she would have done this without making sure she wouldn't be alone.

I am not in favour of selection. If we cream off layers and then school all those layers separately, then how are our children ever supposed to learn that there are many, many options and paths in life - not just the one that they've been streamed into? If everyone is educated together - academic, non-academic, good at maths, not good at maths, good at hand-writing, not good at hand-writing, interested in rugby, interested in food tech, parents who earn lots of money, parents who earn very little, parents with lots of inherited money, parents with nothing - then everyone has a chance of seeing all the options open to them so that if, in the future, God forbid but the Oxbridge candidate finds he/she can't cope at Oxford/Cambridge, at least he or she will know that there are other paths, other just as valuable paths, that he or she can follow and the chances of her or him throwing themselves under a tube train (which I'm afraid is what a friend of mine did) might be lowered.

I feel really strongly about this. Selection is a narrowing of outlook, and that leads to a narrowing of options for everyone including the more gifted.