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?

Comprehensive schools are only popular with parents who happen to have great comprehensives next to them.

Not necessarily. I've lived in several areas, with good comps and with bad comps. Mostly there's a mixture. If I were stuck in an area with only bad comps I would want those schools to be improved, I wouldn't want grammar schools.

I do suspect that some of the differences don't translate to the UK, with working class Catholic boys being the anomaly. The area of England with the closest system to NI is Kent, and their results don't follow the NI pattern.

But what is a "grammar school" that accepts nearly 50% of the school population? That's an extremely large ability range, with those at the bottom of the spectrum more than capable of holding back the significantly more able minority, so it must include setting in different subjects, etc, just as in a comprehensive. So what is different between NI grammar schools and their non-grammar alternatives? Are they teaching a different curriculum?

I don't agree with selective schools.

I'd get rid of grammars and private schools. State Comprehensives all round and everyone goes to their nearest school.

(I am aware my views on this are very extreme)

Kent, which is fully selective, gets around 60% with 5 or more GCSEs at C or above.

I went to grammar school in N Ireland and I had never heard of 'setting' in school until I read it on this thread about two hours ago. It didn't exist in my school, which was one of the up its own arse 'exclusive' type schools. . We were just put in classes alphabetically, roughly equal numbers of boys and girls. I don't remember there being a massive difference in abilities though, you were pushed hard and low marks were not accepted. If people couldn't keep up, they left the school.

We were all mixed in the first year and then streamed in forms by ability but set for maths and English. One of the maths teachers was so bad that one year the top two sets swapped around entirely and then back to their original order after a year with a different teacher. The maths teacher must have been unsackable for some reason because after that he seemed to become a sort of caretaker/assistant to the PE teacher.

I don't know why to separate the children. I am myself from other country and I am highly educated as well as I am a good singer, I was a very good Badminton player. So I was getting this under one roof.
My school not very expensive and not taking children by any entrance exams. Only we were having separate divisions according to academic abilities. School was offering excellent academics , music , sports .

At a very young age child can get negative impact because of grammar school tests. I have so many friends left the country because of failing their children in Grammar school test.

The child can be good in academics as well as in other things.

HPFA

Just looked up the school I was thinking of. Latest results , ( last cycle) 68% A - C GCSE, English Grade C or above 79% , Maths Grade C or above 80% .

They have pupils going to LSE , Leeds, QMU , Middlesex , and Kings inter alia post A level.

It looks to me (and do someone tell me if those stats don't look that good) that that school has got a whole lot better over the last some years. It used t o be the school to avoid (and I'll be honest , we did with DS) but I think they have done a good job. (or am I wrong?)

May I just say - "school to avoid " should be in quotation marks.

That sounds very much not like a "school to avoid" to me. Unless there are other, non-academic problems with the school.

The debate seems still to be going round in circles over practical access to good schools.

The Government's job is to provide an education system that provides the best overall outcomes for the whole society, economically and socially.

There is no evidence at all, apart from anecdotal, that grammar system benefits the 80% who don't pass. Every study carried out (by really clever academic people) has shown that they do significantly worse while the 20% do do better.

So the question should be:
Do you believe every child should be given the best chance to get the education they are capable of

Or

Do you think 20% of 10 year olds should be given a better chance on the off chance they do something brilliant.

Economically, we face a massive skills shortage in this country. The grammar system was designed for a time when we still needed people to work in factories, learn trades, do manual or low skilled labour

Now we need them for zero hours contracts. We even outsource call centres.

This is the one decision that actually individuals shouldn't be allowed to make, in terms of public policy.

It's not about your child. It's about what will benefit the greatest number of children.

That is not grammar.

So, I think I am becoming persuaded that good comprehensive schools are probably the ideal.

Can I ask a question about catchment areas? They don't really exist where I am so I'm totally clueless. If you have schools and they all have a catchment area of Eg a mile from the school or something, because that's a school that everyone wants, what happens to kids who live somewhere rural and don't live anywhere near any school? How do they get allocated a place? Are they just automatically left with the schools that no one else wanted?

OP

The child who is "excelling academically" has usually up to that point been taught in a mixed ability primary school.

Ergo, a mixed ability learning environment has not stopped them achieving.

And you know - plenty of extremely clever kids do fantastically well at comprehensives. It does happen. :-)

"while the 20% do do better"

But actually not MASSIVELY better than similar kids in non-selective schools.

Where I live, the whole area covered by the local education authority is divided into a sort of jigsaw of catchment areas, with everywhere in the area falling into the catchment area of a school. If you live in a particular jigsaw piece, you are in the catchment area for X school. If there are fewer children than places in the catchment school, children outside the catchment can be admitted. If there are more children than places in the catchment school, then in theory the child might have to go to a different school with free spaces, but in practice this is fairly rare at secondary level on my area because schools know in advance roughly how many pupils are likely to apply. In densely populated areas with not enough schools this is more of a problem, with some streets falling into catchment black spots.

There are also faith schools which don't have catchment areas. They accept pupils from anywhere within the city who meet the faith requirements (which in case of the Catholic school also prioritises non-Catholic children who have attended a Catholic primary school) and then fill any remaining spaces based on various other criteria, eg whether the applicant has a sibling at the school and how close the child lives to the school.

"Looked after children" generally get priority admission at any school they apply to, so can go to a school out of catchment, but some faith schools don't do this.

The catchments don't necessarily reflect the closest school, with some children travelling past one school to get to their catchment school. But children will generally go to the same school as the other children from their street (or primary school).

"Comprehensive schools are only popular with parents who happen to have great comprehensives next to them."

So the problem isn't comprehensive schooling per se, but bad schools?

Why is it ok to create a system that allows the selecting out of 20% of children from these bad schools, and leaves the bottom 80% in situ?

Why is it that it has not been possible yet to set a system that benefits all children rather than just the average?

A usual answer is that statistically there is just a difference between the average child and the top 10% that schools can't cope with it in the same classroom. And the fact that, in a small school, the top 10% (like the one my dcs are at btw) is a very small group that needs to be catered (on the top of normal and SN provision) on a restricted budget.
So you can do two things. Stream and Regroup the very able together in that comprehensive, give them work appropriate to their level, keep their curiosity going etc etc (and replicate grammars isn't it?). Or regroup these children in a school together so you can cater for them at a lower cost per child.

Ime a lot of the comprehensive are too small to have a number of children that are able (aka the so called 20% of the population -not the top 20% of that school) to be able to afford the adjustments needed.

A usual answer is that statistically there is just a difference between the average child and the top 10% that schools can't cope with it in the same classroom.

A usual answer by whom? Is that answer correct? And if so, what makes it difficult to cope with that 10% difference?

There are lots of things that are difficult for teachers to cope with (mostly poor behaviour, which government/senior leadership do not give them the support to deal with, and unreasonable amounts of paperwork) . A few very bright kids in a set with average ability are not high on that list of difficult things to cope with. Why not work harder to remove the real difficulties in the system, rather than giving up on improving the schools and instead removing the specific group of kids people think need to be protected from these problems.

Or regroup these children in a school together so you can cater for them at a lower cost per child.

Why on earth would building a new school and sticking the top set in it work out cheaper? This grammar school initiative is going to be hugely expensive.

That's what I thought, noblegiraffe. Admittedly I am financially clueless, but it doesn't make sense to me.

And presumably setting up the selection system and administering the tests would be expensive in itself.

I work a lot with people who deal with business, leadership etc from a psychological perspective.

For years, people have been talking about the Growth Mindset as being essential to success in life and a career.

A growth mindset is one where guy believe achievement comes from hard work and persistence, not raw talent. It's the same idea that everyone can become an expert in anything with 10,000 of practice. It fundamentally believes and rewards effort.

The opposite view is that talents and strengths are fixed and cannot be improved - the 'it's no use, I'm just no good at maths' attitude which is prevalent in millions of adults because it was drilled in them at school.

The grammar system is the practical application of this - that your potential is fixed according to whether you are 'academic' or 'non-academic' at the age of 10. There is no fluidity or motivation to change. You are stamping children with 'not up to it' from a ridiculously early age.

My son took his 11+ yesterday and may or may not pass. He's a very bright bit but lazy when it comes to schoolwork. That's because he is 10. You may say he doesn't deserve a grammar place or won't suit a grammar school but that will be down to attitude not ability. That attitude can change in a heartbeat. Who knows how inspired he will be when he starts doing chemistry at senior school, or history, or economics.

How do we know he isn't the future Nobel Prize winner who just hasn't got his arse into gear quick enough.

It's madness to actively want to impose an education system which is at odds with everything the business world needs or tries to reinforce.

You not 'guy'

Also, the 11+ does not test creativity, curiosity, analytical skills, ability to dissect and counter an argument, leadership skills,

All of these are vital to succeed in secondary school and life.

Universities are constantly complaining about the standard of students in these areas, despite heir academic achievements.