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

[BertrandRussell]

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

So, alwayssurprised, do you think that poor teaching and management wouldn't also let down the not-so-bright children? Or does that not matter because they are not bright?

I am saying

Comp is a good system only with a large amount of resources throwing at it because you are catering for a wide range ability and needs. Think wide GCSE options with low uptake in each etc.

It is a system that has not worked for a lot of able children for very long and it's time to try something else.

I believe if you can make a comp good you can make a secondary modern good, but not in the way as making a grammar good because the needs are different. The ability range of both types of school will be narrower and easier to cater for. So less money more results.

I care about top middle bottom children I just don't think this theoretically fabulous Comp system will ever work.

There are people who willingly play the game and have children in grammar or had benefited from being in a grammar. They have a right to voice their opposition to the system too although personally I think it is a bit rich. Then accusing those of us who have young children who would like a chance of cold blooded selfishness ad infinitum.

I don't fancy repeating myself again really.

alwayssurprised, well said

"It is a system that has not worked for a lot of able children for very long and it's time to try something else"

Kent has grammar schools and secondary moderns.

Overall children in Kent perform more poorly than children in areas where most children are in comprehensives, despite EPIC levels of private tutoring in the county.

Don't just keep wheeling out ignorant assertions which aren't supported by the evidence.

"Overall children in Kent perform more poorly than children in areas where most children are in comprehensives, despite EPIC levels of private tutoring in the county"

Be fair- if I remember correctLy, high ability kids do very marginally better.

Which is, of course, the most important thing.........

Kent has grammar schools which dominates the top of the GCSE tables, parents moved there for a chance to access these schools. They produce lots of successful applicants to the best university in the country.

What doesn't work are the secondary moderns. So change the secondary moderns. Improve their teaching and look at ways to pull them up. You have less number of schools and less number of children to deal with because you can ignore the grammars. If you insist a Comp can be made good then so can a secondary modern. Get Wilshaw to do it. What is so difficult to understand?

"Be fair- if I remember correctLy, high ability kids do very marginally better."

I think the figure was 1/5 of a GCSE grade better. And lower achieving children at non selective schools in selective areas do worse than similar children in comprehensives.

Thus widening inequality.

Which let's face it, is what some people who see their kids as 'winners' actually want.

The example of grammars and other schools in Kent is irrelevant, the sample is so small, that the results are unreliable.

"Kent has grammar schools which dominates the top of the GCSE tables, parents moved there for a chance to access these schools. They produce lots of successful applicants to the best university in the country"

Can you think of a reason why the grammar schools in a wholly selective county might dominate the top of the GCSE tables?

"I think the figure was 1/5 of a GCSE grade better."

Yep. But if they don't get that 1/5 of a grade they are being let down

I am stopping now until more interesting viewpoints are raised. Time is a precious commodity and spending my Sat night going round and round in this discussion is a tad wasteful, and I hate wasting resources.

"The example of grammars and other schools in Kent is irrelevant, the sample is so small, that the results are unreliable."

Course it is.

"Kent has grammar schools which dominates the top of the GCSE tables, parents moved there for a chance to access these schools. They produce lots of successful applicants to the best university in the country."

And you don't think these results may be a reflection of the intake...? (A large proportion of which arrives at grammar school from private prep schools - 50% of the intake in some grammars).

What about an experiment: find a matching comprehensive 'control' for each child in grammar school, and compare outcomes. So find a family who is do committed to their child's education that they would move house, pay for years of tutoring and private prep school. Find children with identical scores at KS2, and similar support at home, and compare to see how they do in a properly resourced comprehensive compared to a grammar. Then we can all see properly how much difference selection ACTUALLY makes to high achieving children. Until then - until you have proper research it's probably best not to go around insisting that grammars are the only decent s hooks for high achieving children, because let's face it, you have no proof!

It's not that the sample is so small that makes it unreliable , it's because the grammars in Kent have kids in them from Bexley, Bromley, Lewisham, Greenwich and Essex, so they don't really represent the locality.

Ok I'm done. What a load of gibberish. I went to a grammar school and have over 20 years' teaching experience in comprehensive, independent and grammar, but what do teachers know about education eh?

Finland

Once again you only choose to talk about Kent's problems not about the three selective areas that outperform their next door neighbours .

Sandyholme - can you link us to the evidence that you are looking at which shows that children at grammar schools hugely outperform children with similar KS2 scores at non-selective schools?

Because you know comparisons are meaningless if you're not comparing like with like.

No point comparing raw, unadjusted data is there?

I don't have the 'KS2 ' figures but i have compared average GCSE results from fully selective areas with Comprehensive areas .

The three areas when compared with their socio economically similar neighbouring area have on average a 5.4% average greater pass rate for 5 A*-C Maths/English.

Southend 64.7% Essex 58.9 % Southend +6.3%
Trafford 70.7% Cheshire East 63.3% Trafford + 7.4%
Wirral 61.9% Cheshire West 58.3% Wirral + 3.6%

Overall 65.7% 60.16% Selective +5.54%

Overall children in Northern Ireland, where 45% attend grammars, perform significantly better than children in England at GCSE.

Maybe a lot more grammars will improve education for all children in England.

"don't have the 'KS2 ' figures but i have compared average GCSE results from fully selective areas with Comprehensive areas "

Well it's a completely useless comparison then!

"Well it's a completely useless comparison then!"

Quite!

The Institute of Fiscal Studies report on this shows that in London 95% of children admitted to grammars have obtained a level 5 or above in both English and maths at KS2. The figures for comprehensives is 32%.

Just picking up a point TalkinPeace made earlier which is that travel is an essential part of access programmes for grammars, particularly those in rural areas. TalkinPeace clearly doesn't know that funds are already made available to help with travel to grammars for the least well off DC and the extension of that funding would be central to any new programme of expansion. It doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to work that one out.

It always amazes me on these threads that the vocal anti grammar supporters don't actually have a clue about what is going on in grammars or about the drive to improve access. This new proposal by the government, with the associated measures to radically improve access (for which funding is required, precisely for things such as travel), is merely the natural corollary of this movement which has been going on for years. The CEM tests were the first most tangible measure of progress but it is absolutely not the case that anti grammar school supporters have a monopoly of social conscience - the vast majority of good grammar school heads are passionately behind promoting social mobility too and work very closely with the Sutton Trust, who support them.

Extrapolating from the Kent model isn't particularly useful.

Nor does being in favour of an expanded grammar school model mean that someone doesn't care about the least able. If I were working with the least able or even the less able I'd be looking at a completely different model tot he one which insists on all kids taking the new reformed exams, because these are going to stymie those kids whatever setting they're in. They need a new model, and fast.

Goodbyestranger- most, if not all LEAs offer free travel to anyone who is more than 3 miles away from the "nearest suitable school" I am not aware of any assistance specifically for grammar schools.

Could you provide a link to data about the outcome of the widening access efforts of grammar school heads and others? I am aware that some progress has been made in the King Edward Consortium- I'd be interested to see the progress made in other places.