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

[BertrandRussell]

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

"there aren't very many strong arguments that the particular comp I went to see is right for her."

If lessons in a particular school are regularly disrupted by the behaviour of pupils then it's not right for any child, not just yours.

I really can't see why people with high achieving children somehow think their children need more protection from disruption than children like my dc's who are less high achieving.

Hot off the press:
schoolsweek.co.uk/epi-grammar-schools-report-the-7-key-findings/

Its worth reading the full report which has a link at the bottom of the page. Both sides will find things in it to help their cause!

Another very good article;

www.kentadvice.co.uk/peters-blog/news-a-comments/item/925-meopham-school-consultation-on-becoming-a-grammar-school.html

The author is not at all opposed to selection which makes his analysis of the practical problems involved very interesting.

HPFA Beat me to it with the summary.
The full report is here
epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Grammar-schools-and-social-mobility_.pdf
Grammar schools are a waste of scarce resources

The EPI is well worth a read in full. Has some really interesting stats and graphs - would be interesting to identify the LAs on Fig 4.8 on page 37 of the full report. In the grammar "debate" it also brings a welcome balance in contrast to much of the dogma driven noise - from both sides; and highlights that more work needs to be done. to understand the impacts at ks5

Any with a genuine interest really do spend a bit of time reading it.

and thanks to TP for posting the link.

Yes thanks for the link. It is a really good read and obviously the government needs to do what's best by the all the kids at the end of the day.

My kids are both very bright ...
both would have sailed into Grammar school without tutoring
I can list the grades if you like
BUT
I have never for an instant thought that they were worse off in a state comp than I was at a selective private

they have had the academic challenge I had
mixed with the social knowledge that I UTTERLY missed out on

segregated education has produced shit heads like Cameron, Osborne and Corbyn,
nuff saisd

Most people are offering anecdotal evidence. Governments, one would hope, rise above that, and try to do what is best for the whole country.

"Great that is your anecdotal experience,others differ."

Why is "others" anecdotal evidence any more valid?

I think it's pretty clear that this policy is based on anecdote and personal experience (Theresa May and Nick Timothy) because the slightest glance at the evidence blows it out of the water.

I saw Nick Gibb (Tory MP and Schools Minister) make a speech at the ResearchEd conference the day after Theresa May made her meritocracy speech and 2 days before the Green Paper came out. The ResearchEd conference is all about using evidence to inform best classroom practice, assessment methods, teacher training and so on. Nick spoke for 20 minutes about how they had used evidence to inform various DfE policies, and not once did he mention grammars. The questions he took were mainly about grammars and he found them very difficult to address, in the context of evidence.

I saw on Twitter something depressing, basically 'even if we win the argument about selective education, don't assume that selective schools won't happen'.

My girls' grammar went co-educational and comprehensive at the same time, but the grammar school intake wasn't touched and carried on more or less undisturbed in the old building and the new comp/co-ed intake went to an adjacent new building planned as a sec mod. I wonder if this was the same at Theresa May's school? Which would explain why she hasn't got a clue about Comprehensives.

martinrobborobinson.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/theresa-may-went-to-my-school/

So rather as I suspected HPFA. The first few paragraphs could have been describing my own school. Also the inital attempts to turn my school comprehensive could be described in the same way, but then they had a further reorganisation, with a good senior management team and it became and remains a good comprehensive.

The Sec Mods had too many teachers with the attitude 'what can you expect with children like these'. Girls grammars had too many female teachers who hadn't really got many career choices so ended up teaching, which sounds like Theresa May's school. Open your books, turn to page xx, exercise yy. Or teachers who were happily rehashing the notes they had made 20 years earlier at university.

I do think that teaching has improved substantially since then.

BTW I visited Wheatley Park, it must be 20 years ago now. The fierce deputy was still there - someone with (dyed) Jet black hair who stood no nonsense whatever. But I think it had become a good comprehensive by that time.

I thought the emergence of the ‘grass-roots’ stuff was very positive and in many ways it still is, but I watched and thought much of the response around grammars from the usual suspects camped around ResearchEd was disappointing, specifically because they set a much lower standard for their anti-grammar evidence than they demand from their typical targets. Overall it reminded me of one of my 13-year-old’s volatile responses when you criticise her for something relatively trivial at the wrong time i.e. reason takes a holiday and you get whatever mud comes to hand thrown at you. Our grass-roots reformers were clearly a bit hurt like that and also looked arrogant. Too much “We [experts] know what’s good for you”, not enough carefully reasoned debate. I don’t think scatter-graphs for a super-select %2 or yesterday’s 5A*-C rates are a credible argument for or against anything in this debate, but they do support my view of the poor-quality from both sides.

I think anti-grammar Becky Allen kind of got it (but she also keeps going off the rails) by writing her what-to-do-about-comps article in TES. The trick isn’t to slag off grammars/selection and venomously imply anyone who support grammars is some kind of child abuser, it’s to calmly convince a parent just like me that my child, or pragmatically her ilk further down the line, will not be at a significant disadvantage in a comp. I’m watching spaces like M. Fordham and, sadly, too few others for that.

I watched and thought much of the response around grammars from the usual suspects camped around ResearchEd was disappointing

Out of interest, what did you watch?

I think it's interesting that you think there isn't enough carefully reasoned debate, and that Becky Allen is close to what you are looking for. Becky Allen works for Education Datalab and so number-crunching and data analysis are her thing. If you're looking for number-crunching and data analysis, then I'm pleased that you have found someone from the anti-grammar side who can provide that for you. The evidence really doesn't support the proposals.

However, as we painfully learned from Brexit, number-crunching and careful data analysis doesn't appeal to a lot of people, and so to change their minds, other approaches are needed. Those are the approaches that appeal to you less, but they aren't there to appeal to you.

@noblegiraffe, Out of interest, what did you watch?

[First, thanks for responding with good grace].

What I can see e.g. what the more obvious names in the alternative educational establishment said to each other on twitter, what they wrote in blogs or approved of in other folk's etc. I wouldn't normally pay them that much attention, but it is an exceptional issue.

I don't think the evidence supports the proposals, but I don't think it nukes them either so we'll likely have to agree to disagree on that. But in the mean-time I think there’s plenty of evidence of problems with high-attainers in lots of comps (not so many MN ones obviously), including my DD’s comp which has those A*/A rate problems. FWIW I’d much prefer this to be sorted out in-situ but it’s a win for me regardless: now that this on the table I can't see it being laid to rest by settling back down to a status quo where too many bright children are failed.

I really think the grammar school debate is totally jumping the gun. There may well be issues with A/A rates in some schools but there are things starting to come in which need to be given time to have an effect. The progress/attainment 8 measures will highlight schools which are only making the effort with middle attainers. The DfE have just (at the request of schools) got rid of % based floor targets for maths and English which completely distorted effort around the D/C borderline. The new floor target will be -0.5 of a grade below the average progress of other students nationally with the same expected progress. That B to an A/A will count as much towards a school avoiding failure as a D grade student getting a C, where they used to not count at all.
In addition, the Free Schools programme is just starting to get going. The first Free Schools results will be in the league tables in January. Some of these schools have been set up with exactly the sort of 'traditional' values that people who are in favour of grammar schools favour, but with the added benefit that they are not selective by ability so don't automatically exclude 80% of the population. Given more time, people could well be convinced that they would prefer a non-selective Free School be opened in their area than a grammar.
Then you have other educational bodies such as the Ark academy chain who are working to close the achievement gap between the disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged. They have achieved some remarkable results, such as with the King Solomon Academy in London who got 95% A*-C inc maths and English with 60% of kids on FSM.

That's how we should be looking to improve social mobility, not set up grammar schools which we know exclude children from disadvantaged backgrounds, then try to patch that up with outreach programmes.
And wait to see if A-A* grades improve once schools are held accountable for them.

Oh, and they should bloody do something about the critical teacher shortage. That might help instead of funnelling all the best teachers off to a handful of schools.

I really think the grammar school debate is totally jumping the gun.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. It's impossible to have formulated a coherent policy given the short amount of time that May and Greening have been in their respective offices, and given that neither have had any sort of Education brief before.

Our children deserve better; something properly considered and thought through, not this dogs dinner just rushed out.

noble did you write the Times editorial by any chance?

I can't even read the Times editorial (paywall)! What did it say? Something similar I assume

It was basically saying what you said about giving the reforms a chance to work - many have seen the hand of Gove in it. It was surpisingly strong stuff (called the proposal "destructive") and I'm hoping will have influenced a few Tory MPs.

I beleive Gove is on the Times payroll again.

I’m unashamedly for the traditional approach, against the excesses of progressive dogma that are in opposition to the 'grammars for all' that was originally promised. I wish that handful of new schools well, but they’re a handful dependent on a handful of people and not obviously scalable.