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?

Actually Tom the richest 20% of people do get access to better hospitals and treatment via 'private' health care!
Also the wealthiest people also tend to be the healthiest

Look at Life Expectancy Kensington 84 Central Glasgow 58 !

Discrepancy of 26 years a number of things responsible , least of all because of lack of access to better hospitals !

Also OP, imagine you had 4 children.

One was much better at violin than the rest. As a result, you chose to invest all your attention on her. The other 3 were OK at the violin but not as good. You can either carry on with all their lessons, giving a little extra tuition to the first one but allowing them all to play together, hoping that she will give the others something to aspire to whilst flourishing at the same time.

Or you can make the other 3 give up the violin because they're not good enough, take up the recorder instead and concentrate all your time and efforts into making the first one truly brilliant.

Which is best for a) your daughter and b) your family.

But the grammar is a red herring mathsmum. Demand schools like Jaspar's instead.

We'd all choose a grammar over a failing comp.

The argument is whether a grammar system is intrinsically better than an existing one.

Yes 20% have private healthcare etc and lives longer - but we don't make that state policy

Given a limited pot of money: if you had to make the decision of giving ten patients an expensive drug to extend their lives by six months or giving one hundred patients a cheaper drug to extend their lives by ten years, which would you choose? It just so happens group one are morbidly obese/alcoholic/have cancer, would that affect your decision?

Isn't that the kind of decisions the NHS have to decide every day?

Why is it ludicrous?

tomtherabbit, people have been demanding it for decades and .... nothing much changes. A few more grammar schools might work, I think its worth a try given nothing else is working here.

I wonder if there any stats on whether or not there is a correlation between these so called brilliant comps and their amount of funding?

it sounds as though as there is already a lot of segregation in the area you live in, mathsmum. And if, as you say, there are only a minuscule number of high-achievers in the failing schools, then the only difference I can see being made by a grammar is that many of the parents who pay for their children to go to an independent will pay for tutoring instead, and the parents whose religious observance is linked to the school admissions policy will spend their Sundays on practice papers instead of worship. And if it's the expensive comp that converts to a grammar, the better-off parents of less academic children will either move into a cheaper area and fork out for school fees, find religion, or send their children to the bad school.

I suppose it might mean that the "nice" comprehensive becomes the "nice" secondary modern where the well-off parents can send their less bright children without having to worry about them mixing with the wrong kind of child, and that might open up the catchment area a bit.

But if you were going to open up a new school, why not close one of the failing schools and open up an ambitious 11-18 comprehensive with good G&T provision and string vocational options with a bigger catchment covering a more mixed area?

Tom, the violin scenario doesn't work for me. I think of my own children. They don't all want to do the same things, and they tend to enjoy activities where they have some natural talent and therefore find the rewarding. In your scenario I keep picturing the other 3 whining that they would rather play football, take dance lessons, etc. All whilst complaining that the first DD was just a horrible show off.

I certainly don't imagine them grat

Oops, iPhone.

I certainly don't imagine them grateful to bask in the brilliance of DD1 being inspired and learning from her presence.

I realise, I may have unusually surly, egotistical children. But I notice a lot of other children irl who seem to behave in much the same manner.

I would forget the whole "school specialism" bit.

That was a funding stream that has long since dried up. Schools just picked their strongest subject (or the one they thought would attract some more middle class students and their richer and often more interested parents)and got loads of money for it. That stopped in 2010.

are the arguments for or against different for "super selective" than "just grammar"? (excuse my language I have no idea HOW to describe things)

Yes, they are. You could make a theoretical case for something like one or two super-selectives in a county to cater for genuine outliers. Would mean that other schools would be genuinely comprehensive as there would be more than enough high achievers to go round! A lot of the kids who went to them would have gone private anyway. Typically only one or two children from each primary goes to these sort of schools so no problem of any child feeling a failure.

Trouble is people pushing for grammars in the Tory party are basically longing to return to the 1950s and the binary model. You're probably tired of us all going on about the problems with this!!

If I thought that super-selectives wouldn't be a Trojan horse I'd be OK with them - people who want to push their kids in that way could do so and the rest of us could enjoy our comps in peace! I'm not sure I'd trust a Tory government not to keep pushing for more and more grammars once the door is wedged open unfortunately.

I don't object strongly to superselectives, although with the remaining comprehensives losing around half of their top set, it might be a bit harder for them to push their remaining very bright pupils, and to keep setting the very high expectations. I just don't think they provide much benefit, and tend to be seen as a cheap alternative to independent schools for families who can cope with the tutoring.

"I just dont believe in pretending everyone will be 'equal' in the middle, is the way forward for our country."

Why do people keep saying things like this as if they are controversial when everyone agrees with them?

Jasper, your scenario is very plausible, two thoughts. I have friends that were all against 'wealth selection' in schools and then they adopted... They only moved to millionaires row because they wanted a, smaller garden, and it was nothing to do with the school beside it. At least people would have to be honest that they were tutoring for the 11+. Also I would rather 'rich' children actually had to study and pass a test to get into the 'academic' school rather than just literally buying it, because the possibility would still be open to poorer kids with motivated parents.

why not close one of the failing schools and open up an ambitious 11-18 comprehensive with good G&T provision and string vocational options with a bigger catchment covering a more mixed area?

Was tried in past, its still under-subscribed, different year groups are still segregated behind fences to prevent bullying, six form has been mothballed because no one ever went to it. Middle class parents just weren't ever willing to take the risk. New name, same old school?

They can't try that again because Gordon Browns PFI funding shenanigans means the council can't afford to buy back the loan which is way more than the school is worth. So council has to keep forcing children into the school to pay for it, and middle class parents do not like being forced.

Another local 'requires improvement' school was also knocked down and reopened as all singing all dancing comprehensive but they kept the same well know awful head. Council can't or wont get rid of them, so school stagnates and middle class parents run a mile.

So reality is its not easy to improve a failing comp when you can't sack the head and good parents just say NO.

I fail to comprehend why in this country so many people seem to think it is not possible to educate academic children effectively unless you remove them to an entirely different school from that of their more practical/less academic peers. It's not as if you need special facilities to teach high level English, maths, science, etc, that 75% of the age 11-18 population are too stupid to need access to.
Would the notion of grammar schools be so appealing to their proponents if grammar schools received considerably less funding than other schools and were strictly limited to teaching only strictly "academic" subjects, without any practical component?...

Would the notion of grammar schools be so appealing to their proponents if grammar schools received considerably less funding than other schools

They do, in my area, anyway, because the FSM take-up is so low that the amount of PP the Grammar School receives is negligible. I did contact the headmaster to point out why!

and were strictly limited to teaching only strictly "academic" subjects, without any practical component?...

Increasingly, the range of subjects is becoming narrower. No Drama, for example, at GCSE or A Level now.

Less FSM money, but higher parental donations... Some schools are really quite well off as a result of the wealth of their parent population...

I went to a grammar school and a substantial proportion of my friends felt let down by the lack of practical and more vocational subjects on offer.

I think the specialist schools are the way forward, but don't see how it would work in the state sector, there would have to be a school for every subject and this would cost too much.
Also, would parents be happy for a reduced timetable to incorporate the specialist subject.
At my dd school she has 15.5 hours a week on academic study, this covers the whole lot. I think all other schools have 25 hours.
So to gain the expected results of these brilliant mathematicians or poets etc, they would be doing approx 10 hours a week on their chosen subject, plus activities, maybe competitions etc on top of this.
E.g my dd school has the minimum requirements for each subject, and Drama is incorporated in English. P.E is just one hour per week, and there are no extra curricular activities and classes as there isn't the time.
The specialist subject is of course compulsory at GCSE and A level and other choices are restricted too, as you are there to further your career in your specialist subject.
So really the only way it would be worth it would be a charitable/ private school that attracted donations from renowned organisations and individuals in the subject and state schemes for lower income to access.

presumably not that much pushing involved if you are a natural SS candidate.

I've heard of people living in Wallingford tutoring kids from Year 4 to get into Kendrick - this is despite the fact that Wallingford is a fabulous school which gets the top GCSE results in Oxfordshire (and results for High Achievers equal those at non SS grammars). I think its completely mental - if your kid needs that much tutoring to get in then they don't need that sort of special provision.

However it does mean that Wallingford can continue to be a great school so I'm happy to let the parents do what they like. Its very different from someone setting up a normal grammar in Wallingford and turning the comp into a secondary modern. The idea would seem crazy to any rational person - sadly the nostalgia fetishists in the Tory part are not rational.

I'm currently working for a non selective university

What do you mean by 'non-selective university'?