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.

Walkingdead- the vote should go to parents with DC in Y7, and exclude those whose alternative to GS was always going to be private.

How do you think that would go?

telling them they are not good enough at 10 is cruel
How is that any different than the 'comprehensive' system where they can be told they aren't good enough to live in a wealthy part of town so they are not selected to go to the good school with their friends. Or they don't go to the right church so they are not good enough to go to the church school with their other friends.
Or in any other aspect of life, where they might be told they are not good enough to get into the 1st football team. Children pass and fail things all the time its part of life.

And who are these people saying they are not good enough?

How do you think that would go?
I am sure you could gerrymander the vote to get whatever result you wanted. How about we use a proper democratic vote in a democratic local election.

Tansie1,

I think, when I last looked at the statistics, that special schools actually take only about 3% of the pupil population - and that covers everything from a sensory impairment through emotional and behavioural difficulties to severe and multiple handicap.

14.4% of all children were identified as having SEN in July 2017. 2.8% of those had EHCPs / statements, and not all of those are in Special Schools.

I would support a huge investment in special schools, so that those who are genuinely poorly matched to a mainstream comprehensive education could get the specialist provision they need.

Walking,

No faith school is comprehensive. No school which selects AGAINST or FOR any child living in their effective admissions are is comprehensive. Different comprehensives have different catchments, with different deomgraphiocs. ofsted, and much more importantly public opinion, should recognise the impact of demographics on the 'raw' performance of a school and should be able to take this into account when reaching a judgement about a school.

You seem to believe that 'good school' = 'in wealthy part of time', which implies that you too have fallen into the commonplace public perception trap of being unable to distinguish between a school's intake and its actual educational quality.

Of the many 'Good' schools I am aware of, the one I most admire has 40-45% PP, year on year. It is the one with the poorest public perception, but to get a 'Good' rating from that starting point it is genuinely doing something special.

You cannot possibly compare being told that you have failed an exam that your friends have passed so can’t go to school with them and being told that you don’t live close enough to the school your friends are going to. That’s just silly.

Or not getting into the first XI : that's hardly going to affect your life's prospects.

Did you miss the catastrophising of the children on the actual programme about their future if they 'failed'?

I'd forgotten that other grammar supporters trope "They only feel like failures if their parents handle it badly". As if they are somehow too thick to "notice" otherwise.

KittyMcKitty - MK is 2 hours drive

So the 153 MK children in the 2018 intake (and the 191 the year before and 187 the year before that) will be doing a 4 hour round trip to school each day?

*Yes, to a school per county/city for the preternaturally clever, a super-selective, the other end of the spectrum to those who need targetted SNs provision.

Neither group necessarily get their needs met at a comp, I get that.*

I think the "single massive school", where everyone goes can hit both ends. Andwith the subjects being set, those people who have either a real passion for a subject, or such a spiky profile that they won't make it to a super selective as they won't except the failed gcses, are also in the top sets, so the standard in the individual course are beyond a super-selective.

Sadly we live in a super-selective area, and even then further selected by gender (they say, but I suspect it might be by sex), so it's a truly horrible environment, and despite every likelyhood of DD being able to gain selection in a few years, we will be moving to a more comprehensive area.

MumTryingHerBest I would think/ hope not! Bucks is a very funny shaped county though so it is for me. Why are you implying I’m lying?

Walkingdeadfangirl

The vast majority of PP/deprived DCs are in comps./"pretend comps."/secondary moderns. If selection by wealth is what you object to, shouldn't you be objecting to Grammars?

I'd forgotten that other grammar supporters trope "They only feel like failures if their parents handle it badly".

Ok so I said this and yes in my experience that is the case. I have said I have children in a grammar school I have not said I am a supporter of them. I did not say anything about them being “too thick to notice” and I trust you aren’t implying I am?

This is no discussion/ debate - this is an echo chamber where anyone who offers an alternative viewpoint is attacked.

Kitty,

I think it can become very polarised because the majority of those who say 'grammar is good' are those whose children are at grammars - and then from this example they may make general statements like:

• the uniform is cheaper than the comprehensive, so barriers to entry to the comprehensive are of the same scale as barriers to entry for the grammar.

• there are some children with SEN / PP so having SEN / being in receipt of PP doesn't confer any disadvantage against applying.

• Nobody I know minds if they don't get into the grammar.

• Some comprehensives also have fewer PP / SEN children than others [though vanishingly few have fewer than grammars], so the whole comprehensive system is as bad as the bipartite system

Many of us who are anti grammars are anti grammars from a 'whole of society' viewpoint. We don't see them, at a whole society level, as beneficial, in fact the reverse, and therefore the kind of evidence we deal in is statistics, rather than individual anecdote.

If grammar supporters represented the population of selective counties - so 75% of parents posting in support of grammars have children at secondary moderns, 25% have children in grammars, or in partially selective counties 5% of grammar school parents and 95% of non grammar school parents [or whatever] - posted in support of them, that would obviously be a different matter. It does seem that supporters of grammars are either those who directly benefit from tem OR those who live near very poor schools and are looking for a way out that works for their children, even if it has a negative effect on society as a whole.

There should be no poor schools, and there should be a huge effort to improve them (if they are GENUINELY poor SCHOOLS, not doing well by a disadvantaged cohort and therefore SEEN as poor). Grammars are not the answer.

cantkeepawayforever

I understand and agree with all you have said- in fact I have said much the same myself on many occasions in the past. I am anti grammar from a whole society perspective and have said that on here many times before.

The uniform is cheaper then at the comp I work at - it is ridiculously priced and poor quality.

As I said up thread providing all children with the best possible education is not simply a matter of shutting down Grammars - schools need to look at Grammars and see what is good about them and what is not - the same with Comprehensives, the same with Upper Schools. As an aside I would have sent my children to our local upper school way before I would choose the 2 closest comps (I live near 2 county boundaries) - tge Upper is way more inspirational. My children have friends who have siblings in both the Upper and Grammar and indeed they have friends in both schools. The picture painted on MN is not representative of what happens in my town with 2 secondary schools. That isn’t to say that it isn’t like this elsewhere- I fully accept that our situation is unusual.

As someone who works in education with disadvantaged children I feel I do understand what I’m talking about (I’m not saying I’m always right) and no solution is as simplistic as “shut tge Grammars”. I am very concerned about the narrowing of the curriculum because of the effect of league tables and I do feel that some of our most vulnerable young people are being failed because of schools desire to be highly placed on league tables. The existence of Grammars is very sadly the bottom of the problems these young people face.

I do feel posters on here behaved shockingly rounding on the poster who spoke about how grammar schools had been a positive thing for her children after they escaped from terrible DV. To see people say the things to her they did was awful and showed no compassion or understanding on their behalf telling her “you look after yourself then and don’t care about anyone else”.

Anyway what do I know - I’ve just got pointy elbows and over tutored children

"I do feel posters on here behaved shockingly rounding on the poster who spoke about how grammar schools had been a positive thing for her children after they escaped from terrible DV."
I had no problem with her saying that the grammar school had been a positive for her children. My issue-and I said this directly to her-was that she refused to say that she was the exception that proved the rule. She also said overtly that she did not care what happened to other children.

The trailer to next weeks programme shows Townley grammar school as a calm methodical and aspirational place ! In contrast to representing the other Bexley schools as chair throwing establishments.

You need only see the difference in standards of classroom behaviour in the first episode, to realise why grammar schools are so sought after by parents.
In the grammar school a 'slight ' raising of children's voices was enough for the children to be told they were too loud and to calm down . The year 7 girls responded to this request promptly and without any moaning or further disruption.

The high school by contrast saw the teacher battling a noisy cabal of children. The programme picked out a boy that had brought in an 'energy' drink to the form room.

The teacher tried to enthuse the boy. This by setting him an exercise to understand why 11 year old boys should not bring the likes of Red Bull to school.

The fact an 11 year child has an energy drink or numerous in a school day, tells all you need to know about his families priorities.
Education not being one of them...

"The existence of Grammars is very sadly the bottom of the problems these young people face"
But this is a thread about grammar schools. I will happily join in other threads about how we need to improve comprehensives or reform school admissions generally (don't get me started on that one) but this thread is about grammar schools

The existence of Grammars is very sadly the bottom of the problems these young people face.

Unfortunately, the recent siphoning of money into grammars by the government increases the problems that all young people not at grammars face, by further depriving non-grammars of critically depleted funds.

If the government was pouring money into non-grammars and special schools - as to an extent happened to turn around London schools years ago - then the anti-grammar campaign would be largely irrelevant (except in fully selective counties). The fact that scarce resources are being poured into grammars makes it everyone's problem.

Letstalk,

Do you genuinely believe that what you see in the television trailer is typical of every non-grammar in the country, making grammars the only possible schools in which good behaviour is possible?

Yeah, well, letstalk. Let's hope they are comparing like with like. It's easy to have good behaviour if you've selected out disadvantage, special needs and troubled children generally.

All schools should be well funded and all young people are equally important.

Unfortunately we’ll funded schools is Not a solution in itself- we need to reinvest in PCHAMS, ASD support devices, early intervention for families at risk and so on and so forth.

Anyway I think I’m out of the debate for tonight my emotional resilience is exhausted from work and I am quite possibly wrongly feeling under attack here.

Jeez letstalk are you real?????

Loads of kids drink energy drinks (including clever ones and wealthy ones). I was delighted to see the teacher challenge him.

The class that was filmed did not look badly behaved . Your own bias is being applied there, I feel. cabal

And I am sure the programme made its own editing decisions...

in Kent around 23% of children attract pupil premium funding and around 4.5% have statements. Grammar schools have on average 6% Pupil premium

39% (194 schools) of the top 500 comprehensive schools have a FSM rate of less than 6%.
85% of the top 500 comprehensives with the best GCSEs are socially selective.

The top performing 500 comprehensive schools in England, based on GCSE attainment, continue to be highly socially selective, taking just 9.4% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM), just over half the rate of the average comprehensive (17.2%)

About half of this gap is due to the location of high attaining schools in catchment areas with lower numbers of disadvantaged pupils, but the rest is due to social selection in admissions occurring even within those neighbourhoods. 85% of schools in the top 500 admit fewer FSM pupils than live in their catchment area, with over a quarter having a gap of five percentage points or more.

Much work remains to be done to ensure fair access for all children to the best schools. While the schools in this study, by and large, are not using forms of overt selection, they are, in effect, exercising covert selection. There is a tension between fair admissions and setting catchment areas entirely defined by proximity to a school. This favours those that can afford houses near the school. This is why we want to see more school use of ballots - where a proportion of places is allocated randomly – or banding across the range of abilities to achieve a genuinely balanced intake. Schools should use ballots or banding alongside catchment areas.
How do you think that would go?

www.suttontrust.com/research-paper/selective-comprehensives-2017-state-school-attainment/

I think it's interesting kitty that you work in a non grammar (secondary moder/ comp./ what you will) and would genuinely like to know how you find that. Don't take comments to heart. Obviously if you live in a grammar area, you have to abide by that system!

I am sure letstalk thinks you have to deal with some cabal and that you are a second rate teacher, natch. And I am sure neither is true.