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.

“comprehensive schools are in affect more socially selective than grammar schools”

Can the people who support this statement please provide some evidence to back it up? Thank you.

Does anyone know if there faith schools in Bucks & Kent?

Primary yes there are various.

Secondary there are no faith grammar schools.

Non grammar there is St Michaels:

www.stmichaels.bucks.sch.uk

Khalsa Free School

www.khalsaacademiestrust.com/289/welcome-to-khalsa-secondary-academy

Waddesdon

waddesdonschool.com

This is Bucks^

Oh sorry, did you mean faith grammar schools? There aren't any of those in Kent.

Oh sorry, did you mean faith grammar schools?

I meant faith non-grammar schools

The 'faith schools' in Beds (which has not had grammars for donkeys years) are mainly Cof E and some RC schools. Some are in leafy villages but many aren't. They definitely have high to average levels of PP and SEN but are just basically catchment schools . there are no C of E secondaries but a few middle schools.

My answer would be to have genuinely proper catchment areas like in Scotland. I didn't get into a school when we moved to Glasgow because we literally lived one house outside of the catchment area. It definitely makes some roads more pricy than others and pushes up house prices in some parts of Glasgow but it does create less of a bunfight for places and means - unless parents choose private - children really do attend a local school : you don't even apply , you just automatically transfer in most cases. Scotland has no grammar schools.

*comprehensive schools are in affect more socially selective than grammar schools

I would expect this is the same in most of (England)*

Cheltenham in Gloucestershire is an example of a town with a grammar and (near) comprehensives (the grammar serves a large area, as its website gives details of buses from e.g. Bristol).

%PP
Grammar: 1.7%
Comprehensives: 8.3%, 15.8%, 40.8%, 44.5%
(the only faith school is the comprehensive with the highest percentage of PP children)

SEN pupils with statements / EHCPs (obviously only a small proportion of SEN pupils have these)
Grammar: 0.2%
Comprehensives: 1.7%, 1.7%, 3%, 1.8%

Are you sure that the comprehensives are more socially selective than the grammar school?

Some useful broader context in this recent HoC research briefing

researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN07070#fullreport

It did not affect me at the time, or perhaps just not something that I was actively forward thinking about, but I sometimes wonder why Sections 104 to 109 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 which made provision for parental ballots to determine whether particular grammar schools or groups of grammar schools should retain their selective admission arrangements did not gain more, or in truth, any traction.

It depends on what 'eligible parents' means, doesn't it? Current parents of the children in the grammar school are unlikely to vote for change. Perhaps balloting all parents in primary schools would be different - though as parents in selective areas, probably due to the ambiguity around nomenclature frequently encountered here and elsewhere, frequently believe that the resulting comprehensives would look exactly like their existing secondary moderns (rather than like true comprehensives elsewhere) it might be difficult to get a fully informed opinion.

The faith schools round our way are interesting. Some parents whose children fail the 11+ are desperate to get places and so skew the PP and SEN numbers. The results are no better and sometimes worse than the better secondary moderns. But the uniforms are smarter and for some parents it's less mortifying to say that your child is at St Murgatroyd's than at Bash Street.

Bertram I’m guessing because you are in a grammar LA (presumably taking top 25-30%?) there are less sharp elbows scrambling for faith schools. Round where I live (no grammars) the sharp elbows go to church. The two CofE and Catholic schools have 12% and 7% FSM (comps in area av 27%) and perform much better (double or triple the numbers getting good GCSEs), offer ebacc, outstanding Ofsted. There are no catchments and parents are required to attend church weekly for 7 years to have a chance of entry. That alone excludes anyone from a chaotic background. At our primary 10/75 pupils went on to private schools. So the remaining comprehensives are becoming very much like secondary moderns, and struggle with attracting bright pupils, the middle classes, recruiting and retaining teachers.

Pressed too soon but in fairness to sharp elbowed parents around our way, the non faith comps had no sixth forms for more than 3 decades and were notorious for low aspiration and poor behaviour. Who can blame people for taking up other options.

But again, That faith school issue seems , as an outsider from a non GS area, to be being CAUSED by grammar schools?

Faith schools in my area are - more or less- as comprehensive in intake as any other nearby state school.

I think the only way to persuade parents to not support selective education is to segregate children with poor behaviour in separate units. This by x1000000 I credit the poster previously who said this. Sorry if this sounds harsh but this is the no.1 cited reason in my middle class enclave.

"Faith schools in my area are - more or less- as comprehensive in intake as any other nearby state school"

Yes, they are if they are not oversubscribed. The faith "hoops" don't start kicking in until then....

"I think the only way to persuade parents to not support selective education is to segregate children with poor behaviour in separate units. "

I disageee. I think educating parents about the nature of comprehensive schools is the answer. But their prejudice is practically impenetrable.

They are oversubscribed as it goes, or at least some of them but as two of them are RC schools , they have no actual catchments and take from a population that has a hefty Irish, Polish and Italian mix. Who are not necessarily the 'sharp elbowed' middle classes described above. Most non RCs steer clear of RC schools, I have found. I am a governor at a C of E school which basically takes children from catchment. There are no entry requirements pertaining to faith at all.

I don't think faith school in all areas are the baddies. And I say this as an atheist!

There are two schools in Luton that are 98% Muslim. They aren't faith schools but are viewed more or less as such. They have huge FSM numbers.

Dd and I have been looking at the statistics bertrand linked to earlier with regard to pupils with SEND.
The national rate of (identified SEND is around 15%. If you take out pupils with global learning disabilites for whom a grammar school education is very unlikely to be appropriate you get a rate of around 10%.
There are 163 grammar schools on that list. Only 5 of them have 10% or more pupils with SEND. 16 have less than 1% of pupils with SEND.
We don't live in a grammar school area so I have no personal experience but those figures suggest that grammar schools cannot possibly be fair for pupils with SEND.

“There are two schools in Luton that are 98% Muslim. They aren't faith schools but are viewed more or less as such”

Do they have a faith admissions criterion?

Why do you need the top 20% ability band to make a secondary upper school good? Isn't it an over reliance and perhaps what we have in place for the lower ability children isn't working? I am not a teacher but it strikes me pretty poor that we can't have proper measures in place to get poorer performing schools to outstanding. Do we have to blame the absence and bundle in the top set to improve a school?

If we streamed for every subject at a comp school you will have the grammar supporters supporting it. So why can't we do that? Please educate us as to why that couldn't work. Is it a funding issue?

“If we streamed for every subject at a comp school you will have the grammar supporters supporting it. So why can't we do that? Please educate us as to why that couldn't work. Is it a funding issue?” Many comprehensives do- at least for academic subjects.

I’m assuming you mean “set” not “stream”?

If you are going to use SEN numbers as the reason why grammars are socially selective then you will need to provide data for how many pupils with SEN are actually taking and failing the 11+ test.

It might be that families with SEN pupils are choosing not to take the test. Which is different from the school deliberately not selecting them because their parents don't go to the right church or can afford an expensive enough home in the right area.

I live in area with grammars and comprehensives. DD1 failed 11 plus in two different counties. We didn’t employ a tutor but we she did go to a 11 plus class at school for several months and we did spent an entire year practicing questions at home.

And when I say failed, I do mean that she was way off the pass mark.

Now, she is in y11 at a comprehensive taking 10 GCSEs at once. She is predicted 8 or 9 in every subject. She wants to go to Oxbridge. Thank goodness there are comprehensives. I can’t imagine what would have happened to her in a secondary modern.

The question is why she didn’t pass the 11+ in the first place. One of the grammar schools wants her for 6th form!