http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/13/grammar-pupils-progressing-faster-than-their-peers-in-non-select/

[sandyholme]

I am pleased that finally there is a piece of evidence highlighting that grammar schools do improve performance for middle ability pupils.

All the evidence given on these threads has been to continually state the case for Comprehensive education.

stubiff - Gov's defintion:

I think you misread my post. I didn't ask for the definition of attainment, I asked what the difference in attainment was for the two scenarios you highlighted.

Mum, ah sorry.

Pic attached.
Shows progress, not attainment, although prior attainment is directly related to future attainment.

Prior Attainment axis is for the school intake, so Secondary schools with a 'lower' intake progress less, and vice versa.
The Lo line doesn't extend to the right as those schools will be Selective.
Mid line rises to the right as dragged along by 'higher' pupils.
High line is probably lower then the Mid, because the pupils have fewer grades to progress to.
1000 is the 'average'.

stubiff I don't understand how that chart supports the claims you made. How does it show that high ability DCs perform better in selective schools than they do in comps?

I thought this thread was about the new progress 8 where the new "average" is 0.0, isn't value added the old system?

catslife, Value Add is the old system, I did the graph a while ago on 2015 results. The 2016 results are provisional so I'm not doing anything with that data until Jan.

Mum, the graph is talking about progress. A Value Add value of more than 1000 shows that pupils achieve, on average, higher grades than the average for similar pupils.

The Selective schools will be on the right of the graph, i.e. where the Lo line ends. So they achieve a Value Add of 1020+ whereas an average non selective school may achieve 1000. If the same pupil went to both schools then they would progress more at the Selective school and therefore get higher grades.

Note that the graph isn't supposed to single out Selective schools, if a non selective school had the same 'intake', i.e. the average KS2 APS score of the pupils was 30, say, then progress would be just the same.

And doing a graph based on Progress8 (as the left axis) would give the same type of lines.

stubiff - The Selective schools will be on the right of the graph, i.e. where the Lo line ends.

Is this an assumption you have made or does it actually explain this in the source from which the graph is taken? It is certainly not explained on that chart.

if a non selective school had the same 'intake'

That chart simply maps the progress made by DCs of various ability levels. There is no reference what so ever as to the ability mix of the schools those DCs attended.

I have NC due to problems on another non education related thread.

Anyway two links

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3837328/Proof-grammar-schools-boost-poorer-pupils-Youngsters-twice-likely-universities-rich-children-comprehensives.html

If all Comprehensives were like this one i would be 'converted'

sandbachhigh.co.uk/

84% at GCSE and 225 C average at A level yet has no selection.

sandbachhigh.co.uk/

www.sandbachhigh.co.uk/

holme4andy thanks for the link.

Certainly the following looks impressive:

The statistics show 71 per cent of poor sixth formers at grammar schools go on to university

I have to ask though:

What do they mean by poorer?
How many DCs are they talking about when they say 71%

I haven't RTFT but it strikes me that we may be asking the wrong questions. Putting aside the performance of our own DC, we need to ask the question about how much more/extra per capita society is willing to invest in the education of students who do not value education for its own sake. Given the posts on MN threads, there's huge demand for talented hairdressers and for willing plumbers, bricklayers and electricians who all earn well and can thrive as small local businesses. But at a national level, the system also needs to throw up and educate the people who will administer society from the widest possible talent pool (so they have seen and experienced a wide diversity). The brightest from the C2DE social groups need to be brought into the establisthment so they have a loud voice to speak for people whose voices could otherwise be ignored. Brexit was the voice of the ignored and overlooked as much as the old and the prejudiced. It spoke for many of the people who felt alienated from the fast and middle streams.

I work in bottom sets every day. There are many issues at work... SEN, low self esteem, the humiliation of being there, bravado to cover up the difficulties, inappropriate work level, class size, etc. Almost all of them can be fully engaged in one-to-one situations and underneath the bravado, most want to do well. I hear the words "I am really dumb" every day and it is often not the very very lowest ability that are the trouble makers. It's lovely to see them do well at something - you can see their confidence soar. It would be great if school was as much about them as about the top sets.... more vocational courses for example.

I rolled the dice and 'won' and 'lost'. Two equal ability twin boys. Highest in school of 90 (not my words, based on the school data showed to us at parents eve yest) Predicted 6s at SATs.

One has sailed into grammar and is over the moon.
One has made a very borderline mark - not enough - and is devastated.several mediocre kids in class got great scores and it has been a week from hell.

I've changed my mind about grammars having seen the farce of the test and having nursed one bereft 10 year old who has to watch his twin go to the school he really wanted to (DS1) cant now talk about said school as doesnt want to hurt DS2. I wish we had a fairer comp system.

One will go to grammar. One to a special measures comp.

"Middle" That sounds awful... poor you. It's a ridiculous and cruel system. There are going to be many others who just missed by a couple of marks and others who scraped in by a couple of marks. Wrong.

It is awful. And also goes to show that parent who want grammars in their area because they're convinced that their DC would get in should be more cautious. The test routinely puts DC in the wrong school.

I submitted my comments to the consultation this morning. More than a bit of hassle using the online registration system, so I finally resorted to emailing my comments. I had them composed in a coherent letter, I didn't want to risk dealing with very restrictive form filling.

I didn't try to address which type of schooling means better academic results: it seemed to me like that evidence is too contentious. I focused on the things that are definitive in the evidence & much less disputed: selective education is socially divisive, it creates resentment between social groups, it overwhelmingly benefits kids who are already advantaged, it is hard to deliver in rural areas. Plus I stated my own preferences in how my kids are educated, eg: I don't want them socially segregated.

The original article is factually correct in saying 'Today’s figures show that the average Progress 8 score for all grammar school pupils is 0.33, compared with -0.01 for comprehensive schools.'

The inference that the difference in progress is because the schools are Grammar schools is the part I would contest.

Unfortunately, the 2016 Provisional data available to download from the Gov site only contains a few data items, and doesn't include a Selective/Non-Selective indicator.
I will endeavour to create a graph which will show that the difference in progress is due to the intake of the school(s) (KS2 prior attainment) not the school type.
Based on the 2015 Full data there are only 11 non-selective schools which have a similar intake to any selective schools, which is too few to produce a meaningful direct comparison.

stubiff The original article is factually correct I'm not sure how it could be tbh. There are 164 Grammar Schools but significanlty more Comps. to start with. What's more there are very low numbers of DCs with SEN or FSM and, in some cases, EAL in Grammar Schools. I don't think it is possible to draw a direct comparrions between Grammars and non selective schools with regards to performance.

The inference that the difference in progress is because the schools are Grammar schools is the part I would contest.

I fully agree. Look at the progress 8 of the semi-selectives in Hertfordshire.

Mum,

'the average Progress 8 score for all grammar school pupils is 0.33, compared with -0.01 for comprehensive schools.'
is factually correct.

What you have said re not being able to directly compare is valid for looking for a reason for the difference, i.e. you can't compare apples with pears.

Attached graph is based on the 2015 results and Value-Add, due to the full 2016 data not being available.

All Selective schools fall into the right most column. For Non-selective schools the 'better/brighter' the cohort (moving from left to right) the more the progress increases.
If there were enough Non-selective schools which had the same average cohort as the Selective schools, then I would say the progress would be the same.

This graph will almost certainly look the same using P8 instead of Value Add.

Mum, in the end I think we're saying the same thing.

I submitted my comments to the consultation this morning. More than a bit of hassle using the online registration system, so I finally resorted to emailing my comments. I had them composed in a coherent letter, I didn't want to risk dealing with very restrictive form filling.

Brilliant that you responded. The format of the questions is ridiculous - I think there have been a lot of complaints about it. But it is possible to just list the reasons why you're opposed to the policy - I think an overwhelmingly negative response will help - if only to cause embarrassment to the public.

And here's a Council celebrating its great results at the same time as wanting to turn its comprehensives into secondary moderns

twitter.com/RBWM/status/788775535275016192

You couldn't make it up

Your graph seems to support your conclusions stubiff but the cohort who took GCSEs in 2015 were the same year group where a large number of schools boycotted KS2 SATs tests. This means that the KS2 values may not be accurate. I think teacher assessments were used for pupils who didn't sit the external tests.
I suspect though that the reason the grammar schools (provisional) figures give higher Progress 8 values is that the curriculum offered at KS4 at these schools better fits the Progress 8 requirements. Obviously a school with pupils of higher and average ability pupils will offer a more academic curriculum at KS4 to a larger number of pupils (possibly all pupils) which will boost the average Progress 8 score. A school that covers the whole ability range will have the average score lowered as most of these pupils won't meet the Progress 8 requirements. I suspect that separate graphs for each cohort low, middle and high may show a different picture.

catslife, agreed. P8 favours Mid/High attainers for various reasons
My original graph had lo/mid/high attainers (for Value-Add), but I'll wait until the full results are out before repeatingfor P8 - have spent enough time on it!

Relevant article here

www.andallthat.co.uk/blog/the-progress-8-fallacy-why-p8-results-dont-prove-grammars-work

I learnt my lesson the hard way and not really considering what happens to children who are not afforded equal opportunities.
It really is pittiful to see 10 year olds broken by a system. A system I thought was OK as long as it worked in our favour. Selfish and naieve.