If you're anti grammar schools, then please answer me this:

[Proseccocino]

If your child had a gift for music, then you might send her to a school which excels musically.

If your child had a talent for sport, you might send him to an academy which excels at sport, one where he can really focus and develop in the area in which he is better than his peers.

And so on....!

So, if your child is intelligent, academically gifted... Why is it bad to say you would send her to a selective school where she can study along with other bright students?

If it's OK to separate children according to ability in sport or music or drama or technology, and send them to specialist schools which excel in these areas - why is it a different story if their talent with their academic ability?

AFAIK there are no schools nowadays which are called secondary moderns, are there? Non-selective schools are all nominally comprehensive, surely? However, the net result is that, where there is a Grammar school, the Comprehensive down the road is inevitably cast in the same mould as the old Secondary Moderns.

No formal 13+ any more. Schools do take in pupils in other years- but usually they have their own tests for admittance.
And sorry- but it was you talking about a "sort of 16 plus" that made me think you were talking about a 16+!

But how can the comprehensive in a grammar school area be comprehensive confused??
It can't. That's why I said "no comprehensives at all

Bert are you now suggesting that this school is a secondarty modern??????????? www.williamfarr.lincs.sch.uk/

or can outstanding comps (if it can be called that) still exist in grammar areas. I'd need to check but I'd hazard a guess that GCSE results at William Farr are going to better than those for the grammars in Skegness or Boston.

Letitia Some schools on the D of E data describe their admissions policy as "modern" some as "comprehensive" in the selective counties they're the same thing. Of course, a comprehensive near the Tiffin schools will most likely be a genuine comprehensive.

The terminology is confusing, there are schools like Ilkley Grammar which are actually comprehensive. Its the only school in town so its intake will be totally representative of its surroundings. Schools like this seem to be getting condemned as "house-price schools" which I think is unfair unless you're proposing to start bussing kids from Leeds.

Surely the experience counts for something

No. I thought that when posters were talking about bad schools they meant the sort of 20% GCSE school that might well make most of us a bit worried. I didn't realise it meant perfectly decent schools that just don't have quite that special something.

From reading this thread, there seem to be areas where GS and Comps. co-exist fairly successfully?

I've only ever been able to comment with regard to my area, where there is extreme polarisation in the system, especially for boys. The local non-selective boys' school is shunned by a significant number of parents whose dc don't pass, or don't take the 11+, in favour of bussing them to the edge of, or even out of, county to more favourably regarded Comprehensives.

Boys3- if it is in a wholly selective area and you do mot need to pass the 11+ to get a place, then it is not a comprehensive.

Secondary modern is not a synonym for "crap"

I'd need to check but I'd hazard a guess that GCSE results at William Farr are going to better than those for the grammars in Skegness or Boston

and having now done so I stand corrected for GCSE results, but not for A levels.

zzzzz Sat 10-Sep-16 13:26:09 We have both comprehensives and grammar schools (still baffling) but neither are substandard.

So what's to suggest that more Grammar schools are needed rather than just more comps?

Secondary modern is not a synonym for "crap"

Not suggesting that as you well know bert

I went to a grammar. I don't support them. They don't improve social mobility.

HPFA there are so many grammar threads so apols if this was on another. Did you not do some digging on relative performance for schools in Lincolnshire? Given the geographic size of Lincolnshire (eg a lot bigger than Kent in sq miles terms but with may only around 1/2 the population) did this come out in the data you looked at? - eg was the attainment gap within Lincolnshire the similar irrespective of whethe truly deprived coastal communities as opposed to relatively (for Lincs :) ) affluent parts of the county

I live in a comprehensive area and unless you are rich or religious (neither of which you can control) you get virtually ZERO choice of which school you are sent to.

All comprehensives DO NOT stretch and challenge gifted academic children. Mainly because the top set is really just a slightly above average set, if your lucky.

I agree no one should be labeled a failure but that does not mean we should stop anyone from 'winning'. Remember the ridiculous sports days at primary where no child won anything and everyone was given a medal for 'participating'. Nonsense. Look what happened in the Olympics when we started prioritising talent.

We need more grammar schools because in a post Brexit world we need to push our brightest children to achieve as much as possible. So that our country succeeds in a global system and benefits everyone who lives in it.

Until someone has a zero cost option of how to take better advantage of one of our countries best assets then I will support Grammar schools and support making every school good, so no one is labeled a failure.

Here's an idea: Scrap the 11+ and use SATS results instead. Warn parents that the grammar will ONLY be teaching material that gifted academics can cope with. And all though KS3 anyone who's grade average falls below an A has to leave and go to a comprehensive, That will create room for other children who are late developers to move into the grammar. And make sure parents only send their DC there if they are genuinely academic.

so Jemima can be in the top set for English and the 4th set for maths.

A surprising number of comprehensives now have "bands" or "pathways" rather than sets. This has been growing a lot in recent years, in order to firstly adapt the curriculum provision (so bottom band children may not do a foreign language but instead have additional maths and English lessons) and secondly because it is far cheaper. You don't have to timetable the whole year group in a subject at one time. So for example if there are 8 classes in the year group, to set properly you would need 8 maths teachers free at the same time. Whereas if you only had 3 classes on at any one time it is cheaper.

Therefore, Jemima may well end up in a middle band as a best fit. Meaning she would neither have the small class or additional hours low ability students would have, nor the stretch and challenge she would need for English.

It's also fair to say that those saying that sets are swapped around regularly at a comprehensive are not always correct.

If you have Lazy Larry who is targeted an A but he is utterly bone idle and is not on course for that A, some would say that moving Larry down to set 2 or 3, and allowing a keen bean to move into his place would not be a good idea. In the set below Larry's teacher still is accountable for him getting that A, but Larry is possibly even more lazy and demotivated because the work isn't challenging enough.
The only way round this is having spaces in the top set so that children only move up and not down. But that has issues all on its own. Why should Mrs Set 3 have 32 kids, while Mrs Set 2 has 32 and Mrs Set 1 have 28, just to enable flexibility.

Sets are not always the answer.

"Not suggesting that as you well know bert"

So why were you so amazed that William Farr could possibly be a secondary modern?

Extra points added to the 11+ for summer born kids are not enough to make up for lack of maturity. They may just not understand the need to work hard and do their best in a test which they might be taking a week after their 10th birthday.

Here's an idea: Scrap the 11+ and use SATS results instead.

Then you'll get people having their children tutored towards SATs. Will please the primaries no end, though, as their results suddenly go through the roof!

zzzzz Sat 10-Sep-16 14:16:28 In theory it has a sort of merit math but can you imagine living with a child who has to maintain her A to stay in their school. It sounds desperately stressful.

QE Barnet already does this. They have what some parents are referring to as a 6th form "cull". The school will refuse entry into 6th Form if the school doesn't feel they will get a high enough score in their A levels. Parents have claimed their DC has been refused a place even though they have an A* in their chosen subjects. The school doesn't take external candidates either. It's not surprise they sit at the top of the league tables.

LetitiaCropleysCookbook Sat 10-Sep-16 14:23:00 Then you'll get people having their children tutored towards SATs. Will please the primaries no end, though, as their results suddenly go through the roof!

This already happens. SATs results are often used to support appeals in Bucks.

But maths mum, if the top set at a comprehensive in your area is a "slightly above average" set, then surely a grammar school consisting of the top 25% of pupils in your area would also be lacking in brilliant pupils? And if the grammar school were to take pupils from a wider area, then it wouldn't help the kids from the area anyway as they wouldn't get in.