Who saw BBC 2 Grammar schools - who will get in " last night?

[Foxy333]

Watched this last night with interest. We're not in Grammar school area and generally I think it was / is a bad system that works for the top abilities but not for the middle and lower ones. However I've seen my daughter suffer in years 7 to 9 or a comprehensive from not being stretched and teachers concentrating on the most demanding pupils who need lots of help and ignoring the quiet well- behaved pupils who going to pass GCSE's anyway. Often some pupils disrupt the class and the whole class gets punished.

They only set them for 2 subjects and I've heard that's changing in future to one. so I see why a Grammar would suit some. But why cant all schools be good. Is it stricter discipline that's needed?

Felt for the children in the program, so young to face this divisive test.

BertrandRussell - None of them have any other stated criteria.

The Grammar Damian Hinds went to also has faith criteria.

Houses worth half that will be beyond the mortgage possibility of many.

Can you name an area in this Country that has no PP families living in it?

And seriously quoting Pisa is ridiculous. It's such a flawed system. Many that score high have a system with highly tutored kids who work long school hours or in the case of Hong Kong, China etc the data is re areas with their richer children.

Grammar schools are not "trying to change". Some grammar schools are changing a bit to admit a few more PP children.

I would reform school admissions across the board if I was in charge. Then watch the grammar supporters who try to deflect the debate onto a few "leafy comps" squeal!

CowParsley2 - grammar schools, however hard they try, are really shutting their doors to most children at the age of 11. Non-grammars can claim to be making a difference with pupil premium funding - some genuinely successfully, others not. Grammars are complaining they aren't getting much of this funding because, of course, they don't have many children they need to make a big difference to in the first place. If really interested in helping the less well off, grammar school is not really the place to find them. Still, it is cheaper helping a minuscule proportion of them and writing off the rest.

cowparsley - I agree that PISA has flaws but what about Finland? Very successful with a comprehensive model. Also what do you think about the data in that article suggesting poorer Kent students are being disadvantaged compared by the grammar system?

Yes, grammar schools whinging about not getting any PP money is deeply unedifying. The Head of our local one does it all the time.

CowParsley2 - It's such a flawed system. Many that score high have a system with highly tutored kids who work long school hours

So Pisa results should be ignored but Grammar results shouldn't?

There are counties without the grammar system who have grammars. It isn't all about Kent or the South East. Those kids not in Kent grammars are still better off than many others further up North

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/north-south-education-divide-school-secretary-disadvantaged-a8187891.html

There is also the interesting point that overall, kids in Kent do no better than kids in similar comprehensive authorities.

The take home really is that top set kids get good exam results.

What’s that got to do with grammar schools, CowParsley?

I have always believed the phrase 'different strokes for different folks' is true to life in so many ways. This is Certainly true when analysing which schools children should attend or which are the right fit for a child.

I have experience as both a child/parent of Boarding, Grammar, Special , Comprehensive and Secondary Modern education. I have seen/witnessed the full range of schooling across the system. The worst being the Modern I attended for a year . The best being my DDs girls grammar and my sons special school !

The folly of Comprehensive education brought home to me , with both the bullying and lack of attainment my son achieved through 4 years of it !

This being evidenced by the 'outstanding' comprehensive schools belief my son could not possibly attain higher than grade '1' at GCSE level!
The comprehensive school assessing my sons IQ as '73', 18 months at his 'special' school has shown the incompetence and inaccuracies of those predictions.

He is currently taken 5 GCSEs and we are expecting grades 5/6 in English/Maths Science this August .

I say this because children should be in a suitable environment for their ability, thus not be in a school designed solely for social cohesion ! (no losers or a belief in natural equality indoctrinated in socialist philosophy )

Finally because a child is not of a 'selective' ability at 11. This does not mean they are going to be a 'failure' in life based on their academic ability at 11!

Non believers in selective education like to peddle this notion out to children This being because it furthers their claims that your pathway in life is decided at 11 !

What left wing 'Bollocks'..

Grammar schools are for children that are at a certain academic level at 11 years of age . They should be freely able to fulfil the role of educating above 'average' children between 11-18 years of age .

Letstalk- I know a child who was relentlessly bullied in a well known prep school and then on to public school. That’s no reason to condemn the private sector. You hit a crap school, and that’s awful. There are crap schools in all sectors.

The folly of Comprehensive education brought home to me , with both the bullying and lack of attainment my son achieved through 4 years of it !

Then why didn't you send your DC to a Grammar School or secondary modern?

Grammar schools are for children that are at a certain academic level at 11 years of age.

Erm, no. Grammar schools are for children who do well on a single test, on a single day at the age of 10/11.

If the 11 plus is an accurate measure of ability why do some Grammar schools have less than 80% GCSE pass rate including Maths and English (both subjects tested in the 11 plus)?

Walkingdead

I work (in education) near to a 'honeypot' comprehensive school of the type you seem to believe 'pretends' to be comprehensive.

I know that the things you say are said of it from those who live outside its effective catchment.

I also know them to be untrue.

Its effective catchment (geographically sensible, brokered by the LA based on population data for all secondaries in the area) includes council houses, rented houses and flats of all sizes (the renting of these for admissions fraud is very strongly policed). Homes above shops. Homes local families have lived in for many, many years, who have seen the school rise from being very poor to being very desirable, and have sent their families there throughout. Owner-occupied houses of all shapes, sizes and values.

Yes, the value of houses local to the school has risen due to the school. Yes, attempted admissions fraud is higher than for other schools (but really quite effectively policed, not least by genuine locals). However, local children of any ability and any faith and any family background who have always lived in the area (and, like many non-urban areas this is a high proportion of the intake) continue to get into the school from every type of housing. The levels of PP and SEN within the secondary school is roughly the average for the surrounding primaries, as you would expect from a non-selective school.

I do believe that
a) The nature of intake should be taken more strongly into account in the grading of schools, not only by Ofsted, but also by the general public, who still seem to insist that 'better raw GCSE results = better school'
b) All areas should police admissions fraud rigorously, and should extend the period before and after admission that a family must genuinely live in the area.
c) Exclusions / 'moves to home education' / managed moves for SEN children and those from deprived backgrounds should always trigger investigation of the school.
d) Consideration should be given to offer preferential access to all schools for children with pupil premium, with all schools expected to admit the average % of PP children from the area as a whole.

However, I believe the way forward is through such measure which improve the comprehensive system, not by introducing the grammar system, which is MORE exclusive in socio-economic as well as ability terms than any comprehensive.

My son obviously would not have passed the 11+ if entered ! We sent him to a school 20 miles away (which was supposedly excellent with children with his disabilities ) .

Whether this school was a Comprehensive or Modern had nothing to do with it.

For the record the school concerned gets 3/4 to Oxbridge each year !
The school is a 'hybrid' creature, you have the 'academic' lefty types as mentioned above. This group get all the awards,become prefects head boy/girl etc.

They are largely from families of 'conscientious' objectors to selective education!

The selectivity and attitudes of this group/families are far in excess of anything I have seen in private schools, never mind my DDs grammar !

My son obviously would not have passed the 11+ if entered

So how does your DCs experinece in a comp. support the need for Grammars? Surely your DCs experience does nothing more than support the need for better SEN support/provisions (which is a hot topic at the moment).

Whether this school was a Comprehensive or Modern had nothing to do with it.

But you condemned the comp. system off the back of your DCs experience so evidently you do think the fact the school was a comp. had something to do with it.

You support Grammars. The alternative to a Grammar in a fully selective area is a secondary modern. You've experience of secondary modern education. Would your DC have performed better in a secondary modern?

They are largely from families of 'conscientious' objectors to selective education!

I know a fair few 'conscientious' objectors with DCs in Grammar Schools. Most of them object to secondary moderns.

We live in a fully comprehensive area and I love it. There are three schools within 4 miles of my house and my children could have gone to any of them. They go to our nearest one, a 10 minute walk down the road, which was the one we liked the best when we looked around.

My eldest has ASD and has been supported brilliantly through some difficult years where he has been struggling with mental health difficulties. It is a very inclusive school which has helped so much. He plays on the rugby team and the philosophy is that everyone gets to play at least part of every match regardless of ability as they are a team and that is the most important thing. Effort is rewarded at all levels, rather than results.

The school sets for most subjects and at the top there are sometimes small sets for the very brightest. You can move between sets at any time as needed. There is no stigma attached to the lower sets as they are not labelled as such. In fact dd thinks she is in top set English but is not 100% sure.

Both my kids are bright and are being given plenty of opportunities. Dd wants to do a science career and will be taking triple science. Ds loves maths and does past GCSE papers for fun. His maths teacher then does the extra marking which is nice.

I think it's probably as close to a comprehensive school as you can get. It's in an urban area surrounded by a big rural area so catchment areas are big. There are no faith schools in this area. There are a couple of private schools but they serve a different area and I don't know anyone from my children's primary who went there.

I am so glad my children didn't have to worry about the 11plus. They have had enough to cope with, with my ds autism. Ds would not have coped with the pressure and dd would have been disadvantaged as her brother's behaviour was very poor at the time and she would not have had any quiet time to study and I would have struggled to help her. I already feel guilty about the impact her brother's asd has had on her childhood, I'm glad I don't have the guilt of knowing it affected her educational chances too.

After all middle class kids with home support and access to tutoring and the top sets have an unfair advantage in school entry and the UK exam system from Sats all the way up to uni entry across the board.

Just looked at the 'honeypot' comprehensive school's Progress8 stats, for disadvantaged pupils and also for those who arrive with low prior attainment.

Interestingly, the progress made by the lowest attainers is higher than the school's overall figure, and that for disadvantaged pupils is in line with that of the highest attainers - so the suggestion that it is those who are from advantaged families and in top sets who make the best progress in comprehensives doesn't always seem to be true.

[And of course that suggestion completely flies against the 'usual' anti-comprehensive / pro-grammar argument that the highest attainers don't do well in comprehensives and need grammars. You cannot have it both ways: you can either claim that it is those in the top sets who do best in comprehensives, so comprehensives are good for those pupils OR that they do worst and so grammars are best. I don't think you can reasonably claim both simultaneously. What it does suggest, as has been said previously, that it genuinely doesn't matter what school type you have - children's educational attainment currently depends primarily on family background, though the best schools of all types strive to change this so that all children achieve better]

Hillingdon:
“I did quickly skim through the documentary. I felt very sorry for the young black girl whose Mum just didn't see that paying for the tutor would make everything Ok. There were children all over the place in that house which didn't allow her to properly study and concentrate.”

Obviously her home circumstances were far from ideal. However, her mother provided a great deal of tutoring and encouragement, and Joanita did manage to do a lot of preparation, one way or another. It was the #1 focus of them both for years.

Joanita was used to having disturbed sleep, and was used to studying in this home environment: I don’t think her low score can be blamed on a bad night’s sleep. A couple of marks, perhaps, but she was way off the mark.

I felt sorry for her because of the pressure she was under. I also felt sorry for her mother who was clearly doing everything in her power to give her daughter what she felt was her only chance of success.

I thought Joanita proved that tutoring and hard work alone are not enough to get into grammar.

'Joanita was used to having disturbed sleep, and was used to studying in this home environment: I don’t think her low score can be blamed on a bad night’s sleep.'

It's not about a bad night's sleep. The long-term impact of living/studying in a crowded and noisy environment is likely to have impacted on her overall educational attainment, despite her underlying ability.

I thought Joanita proved that tutoring and hard work alone

However, you said that it was her mother, not a paid-for expert tutor, who was preparing her?

Do you think the result would have been the same for a child of the same basic ability, with regular professional tutoring supported by regular homework supervised by a highly educated parent, with consistently sufficient sleep and a reliably quiet place to work?

The cumulative effect of sleep deprivation, however 'used to it' you are, is significant -ask any parent of a small baby...

I always enjoy these threads. As a comprehensive girl whose parents left school at 15 (because they couldn't afford to stay - and dad couldn't go to grammar school as couldn't afford the uniform even though he passed the exam - go social mobility !!!). I went to Oxford. And my comprehensive kids have also done very well and are aiming for professional careers. I hate Grammar schools because I hate Secondary Moderns - can't have one without the other. True Comprehensives work - lots and lots of kids develop later on and they still have the same opportunities as their peers at comps. I found the programme so sad - kids (kids !) feeling they have failed at 10. And thinking there are certain jobs they won't be able to do - what numbskull adult passes on that pearl of wisdom.

This is classic MN : 'comprehensive schools are OK because they stream and set.'. Some research into the benefits of a mixed ability setting might do wonders for some people. The obsession with creaming off the top extends itself right out to the comprehensives, it seems.

lala I meant that the mother provided access to a tutor, not that she did the tutoring herself. I didn’t phrase it very well.

cantkeep I am well aware that home live/guidance is a much bigger influence than school. Had Joanita been adopted at birth and brought up by a highly educated parent in a home environment more conducive to learning (plus the £300 per month tutoring) she probably would have done a bit better. She might have got through.

I just thought all the way through the programme that Joanita did not seem particularly bright, from her speech, the fact that she thought the exam went really well (though it clearly hadn’t), and her astonishment in not getting in when she was way off. I expected more self-awareness from a 10-year-old.