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.

Cookie:

To answer your first question - there are several reasons why the 'other' schools in selective areas are not often Ofsted Outstanding.

One is the Ofsted process itself. Ofsted grade is not 'intake blind', and it if you sort all schools in England by %PP, almost all the schools with the lowest %PP are Outstanding, whereas almost all those with the highest PP are in SM or RI. So simply by virtue of their poorwer socio-economic mix, secondary moderns will tend not to obain Outstanding grades.

This is exacerbated by the fact that Outstanding schools are not reinspected. Many currently outstanding schools were inspected under frameworks that focused almost entirely on results not progress. While this focus is now changing, with Progress8 etc, schools that benefited from the old regime are not re-inspected.

A second reason is that high %PP and high %SEN obviously bring challenges for schools that may be nothing to do with education but which take time and energy to sort out - the 'social work' side of teaching, if you like. Schools with low %PP and %SEN can devote more time and resources to teaching.

A third reason is about recruiting and retaining the best teachers. many teachers want to teach their subjects right up to A-level, and some SMs o not have 6th forms. Also, teaching in a school free from Ofsted inspections, purely occupied by bright children from supportive home backgrounds will, quite simply, be an easier place to work, and thus many teachers will tend to apply to and remain with such schools if they have the choice.

On your second point, do you mean setting (as in flexible arrangements for every subject, so you can be top Maths set and bottom English set) or streaming (rigid unform banding across the whole curriculum)? IME, assuming you mean setting, setting increases from Y7 - Y9, but reduces for GCSE - it remains in place for subjects every child takes, such as English, Maths and Science, but not for option subjects. This is simply a numbers game - if 25 pupils of all ability choose textiles, or a particular language, then creating ability-based sets is impracticable. Creating sets for more popular subjects might be possible but would create a very rigid 'options' structure in which everyone would have to study e.g. History, Art at the same time, so most schools IME tend to prefer the timetabling flexibility of more mixed groupings. Does that make sense?

“ I can’t imagine what would have happened to her in a secondary modern.”

What do you think might have happened to her?

can'tkeepawayforever I found the statistical spread you give for Cheltenham surprising as it must be quite a small town. Are the two extreme end comprehensives reflected by major differences in the type of houses in their immediate area i.e. affluent large houses versus poorer quality or council properties? If so how could their intakes be adjusted so that socioeconomic-like did n't cluster with like?
The faith school there is the most socially inclusive, does it have faith admission criteria?

FSM is used as a marker of social inclusiveness . It would be more accurate to know the relative frequencies of all disposable income quintiles if comparing different types of schools with below 10-20% FSM. Pity that sort of data is not available.

this interactive tool is quite useful. Essentially, as far as I can work out, the lowest %PP school is located in the south east of the town, which is all green. The high ones are located in the north west and north, both a mixture of different shades including red.

Bertrand : no ,the only school In Luton with faith 'requirements' is the RC school. It's also the only one with a sixth form. But, again, Luton has a very diverse population so, whilst the RC school has a good reputation its PP and SEN rate are very high.

snookie, not a summer baby is she?

Setting, streaming and dividing children by ability all under extreme levels of questioning in recent educational research!

That's really good can'tkeepawayforever. I couldn't get the app to work but ended up on this page inform.gloucestershire.gov.uk/get/ShowResourceFile.aspx?ResourceID=120
I wonder whether there are any differences in teacher quality between southeast comprehensive and north & northwest. Teachers must fairly easily be able to commute anywhere in that town so I guess they would gravitate to the school they prefer.

Haven’t finished reading the thread yet but just wanted to address some points raised in your post @cantkeepawayforever with some background about Cheltenham.
Gloucestershire has grammars but is super selective ie there is no catchment and children can apply from anywhere in the UK.
Balcarras is an example of a ‘good’ secondary modern but house prices within the catchment are prohibitive for most. Other secondary moderns in the area do not have as good a reputation.

Gloucestershire has grammars but is super selective ie there is no catchment and children can apply from anywhere in the UK.

So without the need to buy overpriced properties that only the wealthy can afford Pates has 1.7% FSM.

Balacarras requires families to buy overpriced properties that only the wealthy can afford yet has 8.3% FSM.

To be fair, Balcarras isn't a secondary modern. The only grammar school in Cheltenham is a super selective and takes DC from as far as Swindon and Bristol. It has very little impact on the comprehensive nature of the schools in Cheltenham, maybe creaming off the top 1 - 2% many of whom would have gone private otherwise. Cheltenham does have a mix of higher and lower performing schools, mainly due to location in leafy suburbs, Balcarras, or in the middle of council/housing association areas, All Saints and to a lesser extent Pittville.

Gloucester city however, had 4 grammar schools, a fairly good catholic school and some properly affected secondary moderns.

So without the need to buy overpriced properties that only the wealthy can afford Pates has 1.7% FSM. Balacarras requires families to buy overpriced properties that only the wealthy can afford yet has 8.3% FSM.

This was really the point I was trying to make - in a town with both a grammar school and a near-comprehensive in what appears from demographic data to be a very 'leafy' area, the grammar is FAR more socially selective, in contrast to what a previous poster claimed.

Children are bussed in from miles around to Pate’s - and obviously, although it’s in a ‘deprived’ area of Cheltenham I would bet most pupils aren’t from that locality. There’s plenty of money in and around the town for sure.

Gloucester city is a nightmare, secondary wise (I live in a ‘deprived’ area: nearest secondary is in special measures, next nearest is Catholic so my unfortunate atheist child isn’t likely to get in even if I wanted them to go. Third nearest is an arts academy. Basically we’re looking at a choice of grammar or hoping to get in to a school on the other side of the city that’s miles out of catchment, for a chance at a half decent education - for context, my child is academic and according to his teacher has a good chance of passing the 11+. We can’t afford to tutor though so who knows.)

Let’s just say I’m not a fan of the GS.

Forgot to add: Pate’s is the most selective of the grammars in Glos. Last year around 2000 children sat the test: there are seven grammars over Gloucester, Cheltenham and Stroud so about 1000 places, the top half (approximately) are given ranks. From the few stats I can find, Pates offered places up to rank 176.
So yeah, that’s not going to correlate with a significant percentage of FSM.

The situation in Gloucester city is everything that is wrong with grammar schools. Even if you disagree with them fundamentally, you still hope your own child gets into one as the alternatives are truly poorly funded secondary moderns.

Thank you Can'tkeep all valid points. Ofsted should definitely have criteria. I do mean setting. I think there needs to be a distinction taken into account that parents want Grammar schools for its learning environment and aspirational ethos far more than academic achievement. I still believe there is an argument for Grammar schools in the absence of an unworkable solution that we currently have which is good comps by wealth or religion.

Can we not assess kids based on attributes such as learning potential, character, team work attributes, as well good behaviour? More of a 360 degree view rather than marks alone.

And have specific funding and strategies for the classes or schools with the kids that aren't into learning?

Forgot to add: Pate’s is the most selective of the grammars in Glos.

Marling School - FSM 3.3%
High School for Girls Gloucester - FSM 4.6%
Sir Thomas Rich's School - FSM 4.7%
Stroud High School - FSM 5.2%
The Crypt School - FSM 5.9%
Ribston Hall High School - FSM 6.7%

Yet the school that only the wealthy can afford to buy in catchment still has a higher FSM than any of these Grammars.

I mean Ofsted should definitely have criteria beyond just academics like behaviour and school attendance. I think they do right? So Ofsted at least the more recent inspections do try to give more rounded view??

"Balacarras requires families to buy overpriced properties that only the wealthy can afford yet has 8.3% FSM."

Well, Balcarres requires families to live in its catchment. Is that quite the same thing?

Bert,

i think that was a point that i made upthread - that the price of houses in a catchment is ONLY an issue for families moving in. Families who have always lived in the area, perhaps from before the school was so well-regarded, just get to stay in their house and get into the school.

So house price is an issue for people who wish to manipulate school admissions to their favour - ie move to the catchment of a well-regarded school - but not for those who simply stay put for years / generations and apply to the local school.

Bertrand, that’s my thinking. Balcarrass is in a ‘naice’ area but there’ll always be some families who scrape up ridiculous rents, some HA and council properties to bring that percentage up.

Ellen, I agree. I would so much rather send him to the nearest school knowing it’s fully comprehensive. His primary has lots of able children and it saddens me that at age 10, most of those children will be destined for useless schools because of the system here.

Cookie I wonder if a better system would be teachers recommending which children might be suited to the system rather than testing. How that would work with private schools in the mix though is... debateable.

But does the higher percentage of FSM and deprivation in the other non selective schools in Cheltenham actually make them worse schools than Balcarass? They may have more social work type problems to deal with but does that mean that less good teachers are attracted?
P

I mean less good teachers are attracted to work at them

I'm glad there's fellow Glos parents here with the same worry as me. Where I am, there's a terrible SM or the next suburb over has a decent secondary that everyone who lives in my suburb tries to get in to. I'm on the far side so it's unlikely to be possible for us.

It's 7 years until we need to really panic, but I can't help wondering if we're going to have to spend a fortune on tutors or save like crazy for somewhere like Hopelands in Stonehouse who advertise their grammar success rate.

I am not from this area and I fucking hate this system.

I ama secondary teacher and I've worked in a special measures school. It turned around and is now one of the top performing in the county. The issue for me with the SMs in Glos is that they are bad now, they were bad several years ago too, and they probably always will be, because of the bloody grammars.