If Labour make private schools charge VAT then they should allow new grammar schools to be created

[iPaddy]

I live in an area with zero grammars, no real choice in secondaries other than (often failing) local comprehensives or private.

I appreciate the arguments against private schools (creates unfair advantage) but what about areas with grammars? That's also an advantage. I'd love the option of a grammar school for the kids locally. The bright ones are being let down by the current situation. Has Labour said how they will address that?

No way!

I went to a grammar as a 'poor kid'. It was crap. Even if you're academically clever there is a world of social and cultural differences that is very hard to bridge.

It was chock full of the children of wealthy parents who had decided that grammar would give a selective education whilst they could still afford the skiing holidays and second home abroad.

Lots of sneering about what you wore (shoes/bags/pencil cases) where you went on holiday and generally just looking down on you.

I believe comprehensives serve all children better.

If you make the main goal of your education system fairness, even if that is achieved by trying to reduce the quality of education at the highest performing schools or banning them altogether, you might achieve “fairness” but you aren’t going to improve the overall standard of education (there’s no mechanism by which you would except a vague idea of middle class parents improving failing state schools).

Advocates of comprehensive education seem to require that everyone be forcibly subjected to their views about education (perhaps unavoidably due to the nature of the belief). Removing choice in a system almost always decreases standards.

‘The way to improve education in areas with comprehensive schools that are perceived not to be good is to ensure that the vast majority of children in those areas are relegated to a secondary modern.’

you might achieve “fairness” but you aren’t going to improve the overall standard of education

The problem with that argument is that research shows that, in areas matched for socio-economic factors, the grammar school system produces results no better than a comprehensive system.

The underlying issue us the huge disparity between schools in areas with different socioeconomic profiles. Grammars do nothing to help here - intelligent and targeted investment in all services to address the root causes and meet the very different needs (mostly not educational in nature) is the only solution.

So no more takers for the lottery system then? Maybe it could be agreed that a child would travel no further than an hour on a bus each way to unsure that it wasn't unreasonable. Surely, this would be a small price to pay for inclusive / completely classless education?

There are a number of problems with that article:

• It uses Ofsted ‘Good’ as a synonym for ‘providing a good education’
• It uses data up to 2019, so the vast majority of Ofsted grades will be from a period where the framework very much focused on ‘raw results’
• In that period, there was a very tight statistical and causal relationship between ‘low %FSM and SEN’ and ‘high Ofsted grade’

As a result, what it is actually saying is ‘pupils from more deprived areas of the country have less access to schools where there are very few students from deprived backgrounds’ ….. nothing at all to do with the quality of education, except for the obvious difficulty of schools being expected to single-handedly overcome all the disadvantages of socio-economic background.

I’d go for fair banding with sibling arrangements for preference? Or at the very least, every school in an area being required to take exactly the same % of pupils with FSM and SEN, including at non-standard points of entry.

How about fair banding by parental income, based on local data, with distance being used as a decider within each band...

Don't think it would work, will become best by issues like sibling rules, school transport complexities (esp in rural areas), statemented pupils' needs etc. etc.

What parents want is genuine choice - that is, a range of good options that they can assess against their children's needs and aspirations. At the moment that seems to be lacking in many parts of the country. The potential increase in private education costs will reduce choice for another slug of children and their parents.

But you would presumably still want a choice over where your child attended school? That means that some children would still be attending school in leafy affluent areas (with all the obvious advantages this brings) and others in the middle of deprived estates- doesn't sound too fair to me by your own criteria.

Truth is that life isn't fair, or we'd all be gifted with the same level of brains, sporting talent, musical ability etc and we'd all come from perfect homes. Not popular on here I know. Bowing out now as I've got work to do!!

I have taught in an exceptional school in a very deprived area, and a frankly mediocre one in a leafy area. Ofsted and parents much preferred the leafy one, but the quality of education in the very deprived area was SO much better. However, overcoming thst deprivation becones harder and harder as SEN services are cut, PRU and Special School places are unavailable, social and health services are overwhelmed and CAMHS is closed to new applicants.

It does not have to be true that ‘leafy’ is better than ‘estate’ IF both schools have all the support and budget they need for the needs they have.

I think the majority of parents want the same choice actually. That their closest school is a good school that is safe and calm and helps their child achieve its full potential academically, socially and emotionally.

I think most people only pay, move or tutor into grammars because they think the school next door doesnt offer that. I dont think they actually want the school next door to be rubbish even though they individually have an escape route?

Brighton allocated schools by lottery but the latest I can find out it is this article https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/14/school-admissions-lottery-system-brighton which discusses some major issues with it.

I looked up Brighton admissions for this year and can't see anything about a lottery. Has it been abandoned?

I think that is absolutely true. I also think that parents can be swayed by ‘word on the street’ about a school - both positive and negative - and that much of that word on the street can be outdated, a minority experience or inaccurate.

My dc’s primary school was on the ‘you can’t possibly send them there’ list - due to the building having been a secondary modern until the end of the 1970s, 30 years before, so long is public memory.

Yes.

So many posts on this thread, and arguments for Grammars, are based on parents wanting to reserve a place for 'people like us' and rescue clever children from stable backgrounds from The Others.

Surely it is better to invest in the under-resourced SEN provision, invest in more targeted support for disengaged young people?

I live in an area of S London that really is not leafy. Streets of more middle class housing are mixed in with high density estates - as in much of London. Most people in the area have 3 or 4 schools they could reasonably get a place in (high density housing with schools close together - again not uncommon in London) and we were able to put three great comprehensives on our list, and could have had access to others had we preferred religious or selective a bit further away etc.

My Dc were top set kids from the off - but being in a good comp meant that friends who were in middle sets to begin with were able to move to top sets when they matured. Young people from very chaotic neglectful households who would never have been coached for Grammar or put in for the exam were identified as having potential and supported to get places in top Unis.

We do not need to instigate separate schools to ensure that bright kids do well and slower learners get the right support - and it seems immoral to do this just to satisfy middle class parents that their children will not be exposed to People Not Like Us.

What is needed is proper funding of state comprehensive schools - including to keep talented teachers in the system instead of driving them to exhaustion and despair - with the right resources for those who need extra help.

@cantkeepawayforever "
The problem with that argument is that research shows that, in areas matched for socio-economic factors, the grammar school system produces results no better than a comprehensive system."

I can provide a micro-study of this in my own family. My grammar and my secondary modern child got virtually identical GCSE results. There were a few minor differences in the subjects available-the SM did not offer music and drama. The grammar did not offer Media Studies (which, Mumsnetters notwithstanding, is an interesting, useful and rigorous subject) or PE.(ditto)

Why did you send your one of your children to a grammar when you are so ideologically opposed? Surely that's the worst form of hypocrisy and shows complete inability to live by your principles. If the secondary modern was so good why did you choose the grammar for one of your children? Please don't say it was your child's choice - we all know that parents make the decisions! 🙄

Madrescue, that’s a disingenuous argument.

You can equally ask ‘why dud she send a child to the secondary modern?’, because those opposed to selective education are opposed to both parts of the system, not just the grammars.

If you live in an area with no comprehensive schools, you have to send your child to one or other part of the selective system. Why is it in any way more ‘virtuous’ to send them to the secondary modern?

Surely that's the worst form of hypocrisy

Batshit.

You can only work within the system as it exists, not as you'd like it to exist. If "comprehensive" is the preferred option but not available, should people not send their kids to school at all?

I thought bright kids do amazingly everywhere though so why would you put your child through a test / system that you so profoundly disagree with? Just like some people choose not to send their child to a religious school.

The 'secondary moderns' as you call them have too stream sets for those who choose not to sit the test. The ones near us claim to cater for the full ability range. Why should we disbelieve this? Sounds to me like principles were fast dumped when the prospect of a grammar education loomed.

Sorry should have said top stream!

Nobody said bright kids do amazingly everywhere. They said that, statistically, they did as well in comprehensive schools as in grammar schools, which is not the same thing. Secondary moderns - the other part of a bipartite selective system - are not comprehensive.

This old thing.