Should state grammars positively discriminate in favour of state primary/ non tutored DCs?

[miljee]

Perhaps a 'cat amongst the pigeons' question, I know, but in view of the fact several top universities have been requested to lower their entry requirements for state comp. kids versus private/public schooled kids, shouldn't state grammars be requested to do the same? Would that 'level the playing field'?

Absolutely disagree that setting/streaming offers all the same opportunities regardless of ability, the education isn't comprehensive if that is happening (imho) I'm sure those in the 'top' groups get different teachers teaching them different things in different ways, those in the 'top' groups will get disproportionally more hard working, bright, interested peers and therefore be able to get more from their lessons than those in lower sets. I don't follow your meaning by left and right sides but it sounds like the school is setting for all the 'important/academic' subjects. I really don't see why it is OK to set in a comprehensive school but not have grammer schools. I also seem to have a vague memory that setting/streaming/grammer/selection whatever method is used improves results and truely comprehensive lessone improve the performance of the academically less able at the expense of the performance of the more able but can't quote a reference!

1dilemma, have you ever taught a large group of children (30 or so)?

Differentiation is possible, but in a mixed ability group there will always be lower ability children who struggle and therefore switch off and higher ability children who are not stretched.

Setting allows the teacher to make the work appropriate for the level of the children they are teaching.

islandofsodor not children just uni students terrified me they asked 'difficult' qustions!! I agree that setting is better for the education of the children involved just
a) don't think it's compatable with a truely comprehensive education and what I've gathered was the ideology behind the change
b)think that to say that is OK but grammer schools aren't is splitting hairs
but I could be wrong this is just my humble opinion as I've said I'm not an educationalist!

1dilemma, don't take this the wrong way but it was pretty obvious by your posting that you are not an educationalist.

The idealology behind comprehensive education is to provide all students with the same standard of education and the same facilities. This doesn't mean they have to all be taught to the same level. Even the most socialist of teachers would agree that differentiation is needed in order to meet the requirements of each child.

People who are against grammer schools are generally against them because it takes a child at 11 on the basis of a test they may or may not have been prepped for and doesn;t allow for late blossomers, it just being a bad day on the day of the test etc etc etc.

Setting is totally different.

To use an example I am more familiar with it would be like trying to teach a beginner pianist and a pianist who has been learning for 5 years or more to pass the same exam at the same level.

aintnomountain: An example.
Child A has a raw IQ of say 120. Child B's is 110 (these are random figures!).

Child A goes to the local state primary. This may be a normal, straight forward village school, it may be super-academic, it may be super 'socialist' where competition or selection of any kind is discouraged. He sits his 11+ having never clamped eyes on a NVR test in his life.

Child B goes to a prep school that specifically offers 11+ prep as it is in a grammar school catchment thus is a popular option with parents. From year 5, child B is relentlessly tutored, tested, challeneged in the ways and means of 11+ exams. He does past paper after past paper.

They both sit the 11+. Child A has never seen an 11+ paper before. He hasn't been tutored in pattern recognition; 30 ways of number or letter sequencing; the finite different ways the same pattern can be turned but still remain the same pattern, etc. He knows no 'tricks of the trade'- he's never actually had to sit down and do a 2 hour exam before! Child B, on the other hand, being reasonably bright and having been 'well-schooled', instantly spots the tricks and can work his way through many different scenarios to solve that sequence.

The grammar has 100 places. A line has to be drawn somewhere. If that line is drawn between child A and child B, B may get in whereas A doesn't. Child B's parents have effectively bought B's place AND deprived A of his. THAT'S why it isn't fair, tax paying or otherwise.

One MIGHT try and say you can't tutor for 11+; it only measures raw talent. Those who have been through 'the system' know differently which is why they (we?!) are prepared to pay out 8K a year for 2 years to get our child into a grammar.

Re streaming- I'm all for it! Surely the ideal is a large, mixed school taking all comers which then after a suitable time, rigorously streams and restreams the students in the core areas. The students come together in their class times, for assemblies and for general studies/'compulsory' RE/PHSE (is that right?)/general PE/citizenship, that sort of thing; then they split into ability groups for their 'exam' subjects so each group can be taught appropriate to its stage of learning. Movement between the groups should be constant according to improvement. This ideal school would also offer a swathe of non-academic subjects to apprenticeship level.

We must get away from this 'watered down' academia that so many of our less academically gifted children get offered for fear of 'pigeon-holing them' too young. By all means go on insisting on functional literacy and maths throughout but treat trade and craft subjects as equal but different to physics and maths.

Such schools exist. I saw one in action in rural Australia. It got kids into university to do maths; it won prizes at acricultural shows for the quality of the animal husbandry taught at its working farm. The woodwork sheds weren't a couple of wobbly hacksaws and a tin of nails, they had serious gantry mounted bandsaws and a serious teacher who could turns kids out straight into proper apprenticeships. I don't think these latter kids were 'failed' anything as much as OUR non academic teenagers are.

BUT in the general lessons, all these kids sat in the same classrooms and partook in the same discussions. Truly comprehensive.

Sorry this is off-thread, but I can do that can't I, as I'm the original poster! tee hee!

But the state school parents and many mumsnetters will buy papers and help their chidlren. It's hardly fair that those who do that but stay in the state system aren't marked down for parental help at home whereas parents who pay fees are.

Anyway you should all be fighting to get your children into the worst school at 11 to ensure their best chance of a unversity place in the Alice in Wonderland World of Blair and Education.

My ex husband's prep school at 11+ lost some children to local state schools like Watford Grammar, QE boys and the Bucks grammars but the school was fiercely against boys leaving at 11 and children were taught and prepared for exams at 13 when the school ends. I stll think they probably learned more in the selective prep school though because of the selection at 5. Those who think comps should have streamed classes presumably believe state schools that in effect stream by entrance and only let the brightest in are fine too - same principle.

but there is a difference between comps that stream and grammar schools in that in a comp it is possible to move streams and thus those that had a bad 11+, or are late developers are not penalised for the next 7 years but will end up in the right stream for them.

But in the private system plenty of parents whose children failed at 5 try again at 7 and get in so they get a chance to move in effect into a more academic school/stream.

The trouble with picking one issue like tutoring or private schooling or whether parents have a university degree is it is unfair. Children aren't the same genetically - some are born very thick and some very clever. This is why most of the country doesn't have grammar schools. They didn't even exist in the 1970s when I was at school in Newvcastle. 5% of children go to state grammars. Most of the country doesn't have them. if it is 5% then that's fewer than the 6% at private schools. Some children will have helpful parents. Others will be in homes where the parents hate children, shout at them all the time or parents are beating each other up. Which disadvantage do you pick on and give bias to?

Please reread my post carefully. My very point is that schools should be truly comprehensive in that they accept all-comers. The bright child will set next to the less academically able (I won't call them 'thick') in 'the social subjects'- you know, the ones where one discovers that one's parents' more fortunate financial position doesn't actually make one better than anyone else; the ones where you might learn to see the world through someone else's eyes for a change; the ones where you learn that there are other opinions, many as valid as one's own in this world, THEN go to one's academic core subject classes to be taught with similarly able children, which should allow the possibility of termly adjustment where necessary.

Thus, I'm not sure I can see the argument that advocating streaming within a comprehensive school is the same as 'streaming by entrance' ie the 11+ and grammar schooling.

Grammar schools disappeared at the behest of a Conservative government who indulged in a misguided attempt to 'level the playing field' (note many of the keenest abolishionists' own kids were in public schools at the time...). I'm not sure it has anything to do with the fact 'some children are born thick and some clever'. The demise of the grammar school now stands in stark relief because of the relative failure of many comprehensives- many failed because of the 'anything goes/ free expression/ don't hassle the kids' attitudes of the generation that grew up in the 60s. That didn't only occur within education, either.

I am 'picking an issue like tutoring or private schooling' regarding unfairness in grammar school entry. I am not picking the issue of parental degrees. They are 2 completely separate notions. Hopefully one can readily see how the former apertains to how THE CHILD performs, the latter to how THE PARENT performed. I have no doubt that degree educated parents are more likely to produce children with higher IQs but that has little to do with my assertion that a privately prepped child is buying an unfair advantage over a non tutored state school child for that grammar school place.

And finally, I do feel true, raw and untutored academic ability should be the basis for academic selection to a school as opposed to whether a child is shouted at at home or not. It makes sense, doesn't it?

The Government thinks if the parents have a degree that gives the children an unfair advantage not because of inheriting IQ but because you're from "that" sort of family that values education, makes children do their homework etc. I am not sure how different that is from the advantage of tutoring or a private school or the fact your parents are good with children, talk to them and help them and other parents might be completely useless as parents.

On comprehensives if you're in favour then I can't see how anyone can jstify most of the country just having comps and a very few areas keeping state grammars. It should be all or nothing or else you're advantaged if you live in Kent / bucks but not if you're in Newcastle.

Private preps in many areas except competitve bits of London a few feeders, are actually comprehensive and as the child gets older they set and then by the end have a scholarhips class for the brightest and parents are advised well in advance whether little Johnny will be lucky to get into Aldennham or a scholarship to St Paul's is likely.

miljee your second para sort of sums up what I'm trying to say except that I seem to think the other way round. Personally I'm all in favour of setting, I just thought it was not in line with how a 'pure' comp. was supposed to work. I thought the whole point if one was being 'pure' about it was to have everyone in together.
People will move around within sets in grammar schools from term to term too. I thought way back that if you did not do well in grammars you were put forward for the old style more vocational exams anyway.
Isn't a significant part of the problem the fact that there are not enough places for those who wold benefit from a grammar school education to go round?
Also I caution about equating grammars with money it may be the case now in which case if the system is broken it should be fixed not nec. thrown away to deny some an opportunity but there will have been plenty of sons and daughters of miners and dustmen who benefitted from a grammar school education when they were more widespread.

The grammar schools did take children out of poverty, loads of them. Many of our current leaders (not Blair) got where they did because of grammar schools. I thnk in the old days some grammar schools had fee paying pupils and if you didn't pass the 11+ but your parents could pay you could still go in some areas of the country which defeats the purpose of it in a sense.

The pure comprehensive system had different abilities taught in the same class. At state but not most private school, level children of very different abilities are taught together. I think that's a mistake and one of the things I paid to avoid in academic private prep schools but many private primary schools also let anyone in too so it depends on the school.

Blimey Xena I agree with you and I think you get my point about 'pure' comprehensive education.

Yes but I don't think it works because all that happens is that teachers ignore clever chidlren because they don't have problems or clever children end up helping those at the bottom. At my very small private school with mixed ability classes teachers would read out my essays and I'd help people with homework. Although I suppose it helped me learn how to explain complex things to other people simply which I enjoy and is a useful skill I would have rather had someone else in the class we might have debated ideas with or been stretched. Obviously that was a much better school than a sink comprehensive in inner London (I got to wear a boater, small classes lots of attention) but it wasn't really the best school for me although I know why my parents chose it. The mixed abilities just drags the class down. I think my daughters have had a better more stretching education.

Although the other interesting issue is whether it's better to be best of not such a good lot or mediocre amongst others who are good.

for ego reasons best of mediocre lot for learning mediocre oftop notch lot but it can be nice to be top with little effort occasionally

The one group who would be greatly disadvantaged by this early selection would be the late developers. DD was in this situation being well below average at primary school so would have had no chance of getting anywhere near a grammar or selective private school. She went to a comprehensive where there were mixed ability classes all the way through and had the opportunity to develop at a later stage (it was even suggested she had a good chance for Oxford etc but chose elsewhere) She would have had much more of an uphill struggle otherwise.

Her comprehensive was an exception - headteacher had been an eleven plus failure in the fifties but went to oxford so has high hopes for all his students whatever they wish to do

Miljee, I agree 100% with your last couple of posts. This is how it is working, to a greater or lesser degree, in many comprehensives, but much more needs to be done.

I have already spoken about how the setting works in my children's school, almost like you said with children separated by ability for many subjects but then coming together as a whole class for other subjects and activities.

At age 14 they have 3 'routes' when it comes to options time.

The majority take route B, and end up with 9-11 GCSEs, occasionally 12. They also still do compulsory P.E. and PSRE, although P.E. and R.E. are also available as GCSE choices.

Some children take route A, where they take fewer GCSEs but also take either business studies and ICT or applied art. There are other slight differences too, I'm not 100% clued-up on this.

A smaller number take route C, which again is fewer GCSEs than route B, including only single science. They also do an ICT skills course and a 14-16 Pre-Vocational Course in conjunction with local colleges. These are almost pre-apprenticeship courses in many practical areas.

Seems to work both for the academic and those who just aren't academic and never will be.

I'm being devil's advocate here... lol
I am suggesting a completely impractical idea... so don't get too wound up. I'm not being serious.

What would happen if children were grouped according to the standard of their behaviour instead of intelligence/ ablity/ achievement?

Is possible to measure the standard of a child's behaviour? Ie. How much does the standard of behaviour depend upon the teacher? Should having a weak teacher excuse bad behaviour?

I suspect that morale of the bottom set would be attrious, but would it be worst than at the moment? I think that the bottom set would have to be tiny and the teacher would need several body guards.

Would grouping children by the standard of behaviour improve exam results for the particular cohort?

The present system indirectly selects children by social class/ housing price. Ie. your parents have to be able to afford a half million pound house to go to the best state comprehsive in the area. Its no fairer than grouping children by heaviour.

Behaviour is the key issue in many classes in secondary schools and before someone says I can't know my ex husband did teach in state schools before he switched sectors where he felt like a policeman and learning in some classes could hardly be done because of a few troublemakers. Impossible to segregate though wouldn't it be in any kind of school unless you have a lot of suspensions and exclusions and exclude children with uncontrolled ADD, those with a propensity to bring knives into school etc

Xenia, a lot of state secondary schools have quite comprehensive systems of monitoring behaviour already. Records of children's behaviour/ attendence/ achievement is recorded on a computer database.

If a school uses something like SIMS or Sleuth software it is possible to record simple misamenours like talking while the teacher is talking or even forgotting to bring the right equipment to lesson. Also many teachers have a record of which kids haven't done their home work.

The problems is inputting data into software like SIMS is time consuming. Teachers have enough to do without excessive amounts of data entry.

Just imagine the angry parents if a school was to group children according to behaviour.

I think you've hit on something there Frances - I think the reason so many of us worry about what lies ahead in the comprehensive system is about the behaviour of the children surrounding our own. We look at the league tables but for many of us a primary worry is what the discipline is going to be like and whether the school has a bad rep behaviour-wise. I have often said that if I could be guaranteed that my dd would be surrounded by equally well-behaved children then I wouldn't be so worried if they all had differing abilities.

There is no doult that the technolgy exists to monitor and measure children's behaviour. The problem is that a school would have to decide what consitutes poor behaviour.

What would happen the the school's results if a an extremely well behaved child with Down's sydrome was in the top set? (With a supporting LSA)

Would the bright children make more progress learning along side a child with Downs instead of having a gifted child with severe ADHD in their class?

Somehow I think no school would have the balls to do something as contraversial as setting by behaviour.

In my experience though, bad behaviour is sometimes (not always, but sometimes) linked to poor teaching or lack of motivation.

My daughter is pretty much a love her or hate her child with teachers. She is very bright and could be written off as a know it all, she can interrupt a lot and can be disruptive when bored.

Luckly at school she is not bored and her teacher welcomes her inquisitivness, in another school she may well be labelled as disruptive.

I have seen both scenarios (Downs child & bright ADHD child). Both are challenging for the teacher BUT in both situations the other children benefitted from having those children in their class, the Downs child taught the others a lot about acceptance, co-operation and general thoughtfulness.

The ADHD child chose the topic for the whole class becasue of something he had suggested the previous week, the teacher was able to divert from her original planning and go off an an equally as valid tangent.