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.

Baylisbaylis, it seems logical to me that if the top

baylisbaylis - I'm not seeing what is bizarre about not calling schools comprehensive in an area in which 25% of children who pass a test go to 1 school which focuses on academic subjects and 75% of children who do not pass a test go to a school which offers more practical qualifications and performs less well in academic subjects. Or do you think state schools are so well funded that the grammars and secondary moderns are all offering exactly the same thing? In which case, why waste money separating the kids in the first place?

A comprehensive school is one that has all abilities in the catchement. This, by definition, does not happen in a wholly selective area. In a super selective area the non grammar schools are nearer to comprehensive, but still suffer from "second class citizen" syndrome.

Because I don't think there is much difference between a comprehensive and a secondary modern.
Are secondary moderns really funded and structured to provide for children who are 'assumed' and deemed less able academically than those at a comprehensive? I just don't understand why the need for the distinction. It just creates another 'tier' by which to classify children.

"Because I don't think there is much difference between a comprehensive and a secondary modern"
I think that might be because you don't understand the words. A school can't be comprehensive if its cohort does not represent its catchment.

I understand what you're saying Bertrand, I just wasn't aware that Secondary Moderns existed and I'm shocked that the system classifies children even more.
As if it wasn't bad enough to tell kids they have 'failed' to get into the grammars (in those specific areas) but we're going to make up an new name just for your state schools, to distinguish them from other state schools around the country that we deem to have a 'better' catchment than yours.

They aren’t actually called secondary moderns- in Kent they are called High schools. They can’t be called comprehensive- because they aren’t.

I get it, I'm just surprised that's all. I thought having indys and grammars was enough of a tier system.

baylis, with respect, the entire basis of this discussion is about the often second rate education children in grammar school areas receive because they failed the 11+ thus go to a Secondary Modern, which is what you call a school when it's had its most able/academic/children of pushy, sharp elbowed parents creamed off to a different school. If it's super-selective, yes, only a potential 2% aren't there, but in the case of this programme, it was 25%.

I can only assume you don't live in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland?

Sorry, baylis- what are you surprised by?

I'm surprised that non-selective state schools have to be distinguished in anyway. How does that benefit anyone?
I didn't grow up here but I live in England, in an area of super-selective grammars, where 1 in 18 kids get in. It had just never occurred to me that if a state secondary school has 'high' or doesn't or whatever in its name, then it is deemed to be a 'different' type of school to other state secondaries.
I get that the word 'comprehensive' has a specific meaning, but it just seems really unfair on children who have no choice but to attend their local state school in an area where their school is being 'singled out' by how it's named, based on the 'academic quality' of children who attend.

Are you saying non comprehensives should be called comprehensives so pupil’s feelings won’t be hurt? I am very confused!

Why not call grammar schools comprehensives too?

I thought the form teacher was very impressive at the Erith School . The form teacher at the grammar hardly seemed inspiring tbh.

And I found the head of the grammar smug and smarmy beyond belief.

Just to go back a page, Joanita lived by any definition in very challenging circumstances and was as far from being a chair chucker as you can find.

I think it's just semantics too Haribo, hence why I don't get the need for the distinction.
I don't believe children at SM schools are 'second tier kids' compared to kids at comprehensive schools.
If the name comprehensive doesn't fit for all, then name them something else, call them all state secondaries or whatever, that's not really important. I just think it's bizarre and unfair that non-selective schools are somehow tiered by name.

I didn't find either secondary head at all inspiring (the primary head was clearly very passionate and impressive) and the head of the grammar came across and incomprehensibly smug and self assured.

I liked the other teachers in the main, and found their preoccupation with children's emotional wellbeing and disquiet aboit the entrenched inequalities both telling & reassuring

But a grammar is a state secondary!!

In the actual programme , Erith was called 'the secondary modern' twice.

It is a highly loaded term.

In Bucks, they used to call the sec mods Upper Schools which got a bit confusing over the border in Beds where the genuine comps are also called Upper Schools.

“If the name comprehensive doesn't fit for all, then name them something else, call them all state secondaries or whatever, that's not really important. I just think it's bizarre and unfair that non-selective schools are somehow tiered by name.”

Including grammar schools?

ha! Haribo you haven't met too many teachers if you think she was inarticulate.

She was their form tutor. we did not see her teaching her subject at all. I thought her focus on their diet and conduct in the corridors was brilliant and just what many kids need.

I thought when talking to camera she was articulate (even though all the teacher, bar one at the primary, seemed pretty brainwashed by the whole grammar thing : or were saying what they thought they 'ought to say')

What do you imagine recruitment is like for these secondary modern schools? Erith's Ofsted mentions huge recruitment issues in science.

Do you know, I always find these MN threads on grammar schools like time travelling to the 1950s!

I had never even heard the phrase 'super selective' before MN. There are huuuuuuge swathes of the UK without grammar schools. Happily.

The problem is that selective education is a political “hot potato”

And they do have very significant in some of the biggest education aothorities in the country.

Plenty of kids are bussed in from London boroughs

I suspect they are being bussed in because the parents prefer to have a comp. as a back up rather than a SM.

Bertrand as I keep saying, I'm specifically talking about non-selectives. Do you think it's correct that there are distinctions between the non-selective schools?