Secondary moderns

[CookieDoughKid]

There's a lot of talk about new grammar schools 'destroying' the existing comp schools or creating terrible secondary moderns.

I would like some help to understand this better. I would also prefer that people didn't relay their experiences on what happened 50 years ago as the education systems have changed a whole lot since then.

Remove the friendship issues of kids being separated at 11.

How is it we have to rely on the top 25% of students to think we are creating terrible non-grammar schools? And if the wealthier students are getting in to grammar per se, surely that means better funding for the non-grammar schools?

I think I'm missing something entirely. If we have dedicated resourcing and teaching for the non-grammar kids -how is that a bad thing? I believe in selective education not necessarily in different buildings. However if comprehensive schools insist on whole ability classes for all their subjects then I'm against that. Not all comps are the same. I just don't understand this issue about bad schools being created if we remove top 25% of kids.

Yeolde Sandy Holme wants to divide socially any pupil who she deems does not fit her mold for the nice state private school she dreams of.

In her world it makes sense because I bet she believes every person she knows will get their children in to the grammars.
She will not have to face the children or parents who fail..

Sandy ^Grammar School curriculum :
Triple Science, Latin, two MFLs , Further Maths, Economics, Music E.TC^

BUT YOU CAN DO THAT AT COMPS

Sorry for shouting. But my DD's comp offers that. It is just not true that you need an 11+ / grammar to offer that range to more able kids.

But furthermore, my DD who wasn't capable of all that, still was able to do the 2 MFL bit. She has proved herself to be very able at speaking MFLs. under your system she wouldn't have got the chance.
Further furthermore, she very nearly got an A for her maths GCSE, despite having only just scraped 4b in her y6 SATs (so only expected to get a C). Under your system she wouldn't have been taught the A grade stuff.

titchy
the current system is failing either the top or the bottom or both.
Agree
But there is no evidence that is happening at all
I disagree, there is massive evidence. Grade inflation camouflages the real results of comprehensives, kids are still traveling two hours each day to avoid comprehensives, I hear you shout about these late bloomers but where is the evidence that there is so many of them that the whole system should be arranged around them? Comprehensives are fighting among themselves to get rid of the bottom 10% because they are unteachable in a normal setting and parents are paying a massive premium to get into a selective comprehensive.

THE SYSTEM MIGHT NOT BE BROKE BUT IT IS NOT BRILLIANT

portico
No one wants their children in a 'special' school but their are a lot of parents who dont give a shit. It is not good for society to keep them in comprehensive schools, where they disrupt others education.

"Grade inflation camouflages the real results of comprehensives"
What does that even mean?

For some people comp just equals crap. They couldn't even imagine putting their kid in a comp and they go private or bus their kid miles to avoid perfectly good schools.

mathsmum We don't need late bloomers to avoid arranging the education system around the 11+. We already know that the test would put 1 in 5 students in the wrong school if selecting the top 25%. To me, that's a bloody good reason not to allocate children to schools based on it.

"Comprehensives are fighting among themselves to get rid of the bottom 10% because they are unteachable in a normal setting"

You just make things up as you go along.

You really have no idea.

Grade inflation camouflages the real results of comprehensives"

Maybe mathsmum thinks the GCSEs that grammars and private school kids are different to those taken by comprehensive kids.

"the current system is failing either the top or the bottom or both."

Eh?

"System"?

My dc's big comprehensive, which selects by lottery and has double the national average rate of kids on FSM, sends pupils off to Oxbridge every year, and has 40% A and A* at GCSE. It also caters very well for low achievers.

There are enough comprehensives which can do this to prove categorically that with motivated teachers, good resources and good management, comprehensive schools CAN cater for the full range of ability and just saying 'they can't' doesn't make it so. If even a tiny handful of children at comprehensives succeed at the very highest level it is evidence that having children of different abilities in the same school is not a fundamental barrier to achievement.

That was my quote minifingerz - i said some people think that - I categorically disagree!

"Maybe mathsmum thinks the GCSEs that grammars and private school kids are different to those taken by comprehensive kids"

There are actually people who genuinely think this.

They were different when the term 'Secondary Modern' was relevant .
Indeed my school did not know what to do when GCSEs came in since over 85% took CSEs previously ! Except they knew i should take any

I had the secondary modern experience after failing 12+
Had I passed, I am sure I might have been more confident, as all girl grammar school girls seemed to be, the grammar schools attracted better teachers, greater opportunities for them on the whole.
It creates a 'them and us'
An under class, feeling of inferiority which has never left me.
Opportunities should be for everyone

should not take any.

Blimey sandy are you suggesting that we should also go back to the pre-1987 days and have O levels for the grammars and CSEs for everyone else

Well it would 'Separate the wheat from the chaff' .

Another idea could be to re introduce Boater hats and Caps, with their Latin school crests embroidered in for grammar school pupils.
They would certainly stand a cut above the other school pupils.

titchy said "Blimey sandy are you suggesting that we should also go back to the pre-1987 days and have O levels for the grammars and CSEs for everyone else shock"

Thought we did. They're called Higher and Lower Tiers.

Portico -

a) different tiers currently but crucially leading to the same qualification. No one knows whether the C grade was obtained through sitting H or F. CSE grade 1 may have been equivalent to O level C but everyone know what CSE meant....

b) tiers are going in the new GCSEs, with the exception of Maths. In fact they don't exist for lots of subjects now.

The good thing about tiers was that a decision could be made for some children as late as March y11 which tier they were to take - a whole 5 years after 11+ would have differentiated.

I think it is a shame tiers are going.

You don't get F/G grade GCSE kids being taught with A/A kids.*

Yes you do if there are less than 30 kids taking that subject in that option block. It certainly happened to me at my comp. For History, German and RE, there was only one class in the subject block so there was no option of being moved up/down - the classes were for all abilities, from the highest to the lowest.

(This was a school with a roll of 1,300 so hardly a tiny one!).

I wish we could somehow ban anyone from extrapolating from their own school experience to today.

titchy said "Blimey sandy are you suggesting that we should also go back to the pre-1987 days and have O levels for the grammars and CSEs for everyone else shock"

Strange memory. I went to a comp and O levels were available in all subjects. My elder brother went to a sec mod and has a string of O levels. All this "sec mods didn't do O levels" is a load of crap. Just because some sec mods didn't doesn't mean none did. It's another point to highlight just how different schools are, and how different they've always been. Some comps do Latin, others don't, some grammars do tech, others don't. Some grammars are super-selective, others aren't. As seen on these threads, we all have different experiences because the education system is very different in different areas.

Despite being a very happy grammar school 20 years ago I'm not a supporter of the new proposals. However we should not be kidding ourselves that all comprehensives cater to academically able pupils. My friend teaches in a comprehensive rated good by Ofsted. 10 years ago they taught 3 languages to a level and had kids going to top UK universities to do languages. Now they teach one language only, to GCSE. No A Level language is offered. The profile of the kids coming into the school hasn't changed, but the headteacher doesn't see languages as a priority. The academic kids in that school are being failed and I'm sure the story is repeated around the country. Which is not an argument for grammar schools but rather saying we must acknowledge the issues in the comprehensive system.

sigh... *happy grammar school STUDENT. I'm not an inanimate object. Even on a Monday morning.

Ten years ago (or thereabouts) labour stopped languages being compulsory to GCSE. Loads of mfl teachers lost their jobs and departments never really recovered. Now it's compulsory again there's a shortage of mfl teachers!

I agree Noble, but in this particular school they've made 2 mfl teachers redundant last academic year!