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?

I dont understand why someone would shudder at a failing comp in a deprived area but not shudder at a failing secondary modern in a deprived area.

Nonsense, mine are on FSM and attend grammar... you don't need tutors- just some cgp books and time. Also our grammar gives priority to kids in foster care.
Extra time on the test if they have SEN etc.

I said disproportionately don’t get in, which is true.

The existence of a tiny number of FSM kids in grammar schools doesn’t change the overwhelming evidence.

Doesn't matter when the comprehensive system is completely rigged by privileged postcode holders anyway - I'd like to see this changed before coming after the small number of grammars left. Maybe then people living in more disadvantaged areas might actually believe it's about working for the good of all because it certainly isn't at the moment.

I thought we settled this debate last night? No one is going to take the sacred grammar away, even though that would be a good thing. There is no political will to do it within the Labour Party. So chill out and crack on with overpriced 11+ test training 👍👍👍

@quantumbutterfly did me n'Dave do a good enough job on yer bins? We saw some 11+ training materials in the general waste. Now then; I'll let it go this time; but next week, put it in the paper bin please!!!

How very dare you! I shredded them and used them for compost on my allotment.

Those studies are so flawed you can’t actually use them. You’re better off listening to teachers who’ve actually taught in both and who can tell you with absolute certainty that very academically able children are better off in grammars.

As I know a number of teachers at comprehensive schools who demonstrate daily that their very able pupils are at least as well off as those at grammars (and have the data to prove it), I have to rely on studies rather than anecdote, as I have opposite anecdote to you.

If the published studies are unreliable, as you say, can you point me towards reliable recent peer-reviewed academic studies instead?

I think that very much depends on your area. I wouldn't say it's 'comprehensively rigged' in my area. In fact one of the local schools which a few years ago was studiously avoided has been turned around and now the local parents are happy to send their kids there. I don't think it's done anything for house prices, but clearly improving bad schools is an aim that will improve things for more children than some sort of golden ticket system.

It does also depend on what you mean by ‘very able’. I would agree that those who are so exceptionally able that they cannot efficiently be educated in mainstream schooling may benefit from specialist schooling in their particular areas of strength - like those with SEN that lowers their academic attainment to an extent that means they need special schools. However, that is statistically a very tiny percentage, given the shape of the bell curve. The few specialist music schools - Chetham’s, YM - or dance schools - White Lodge - would be examples of specialist schooling for the few tens or hundreds involved.

Do children at the 75th centile in Kent need a different education in a separate school from those at the 74th, especially as say in Gloucestershire they would be regarded as well below the threshold for grammar schools? I would doubt it.

I’m not sure I understand this.

As things stand there are no sec mods. Only grammars and comps. So the ‘right-thinking’, anti-grammar middle classes can colonise a comp anywhere.

If you mean this might happen if grammar provision was massively expanded and sec mods brought back (the return of sec mods seems vanishingly unlikely), the well-off would cluster around good sec mods so they would fall back on those if their children didn’t make it into the grammar.

As things stand there are no sec mods. Only grammars and comps

They're not comps, because the top 25% of kids have been creamed off to the grammar. Not calling them secondary moderns doesn't change that.

As for 'grammars do amazingly for the brightest' I've just found a Kent grammar with a negative progress 8 for the highest attainers.

It's hard to see how grammar schools would not confer an advantage, given what I have seen in the schools I've taught in, especially with the current problems caused by poor behaviour and disastrous rates of recruitment and retention of teachers. The difference in behaviour, general learning environment and teacher attendance and recruitment is massive.

I need to scroll back and find the studies upthread, but the ones I've previously seen only gave a comparison of across-the-board attainment in schools in selective vs non-selective areas, they did not separate out the achievement of those who went to grammars from those who went to secondary moderns. So they weren't very helpful in showing if grammar schools improved the attainment of bright students, only that the selective system didn't confer an advantage overall.

They're not comps, because the top 25% of kids have been creamed off to the grammar. Not calling them secondary moderns doesn't change that.

There's a bit of a grey area there though. In large counties/areas where there are only a couple of grammar schools, all the other schools are pretty much comprehensives because of the small number of students per catchment area who are creamed off.

I think this is where confusion arises. People in selective areas perceive comprehensives elsewhere to be like the ‘other’ schools - secondary moderns - in their own area, rather than schools whose intake reflects the full spectrum of abilities in the normal proportions found within their local area.

I would agree that the ‘secondary midern-ness’ varies. As in the example of Gloucestershire upthread, other schools in Gloucester (4 grammars) and Stroud (2) are very much more affected than say Cheltenham (1, with an unusually wide catchment). But in Kent, say, there are virtually no schools that truly have the ability and socioeconomic mix of their immediate area and are thus comprehensive as fully comprehensive areas would understand it.

Yes the op was about creating new grammar schools. So if my fully comprehensive county introduced grammar schools to serve the 'brightest' 25% of my county, the remaining schools become de facto secondary mods.

I cant see that the secondary mod in the deprived area is going to be more desirable than the comp that was previously there. You might make a school in a deprived area into a grammar and make it be desirable, but i'd wager that the deprived population that previously went to that school will mainly be getting the bus to the 'comp' further away (which is a de facto secondary mod)

But posters have said several times on this thread, rightly, that there are few grammars. So nationally the comprehensive system is just that, comprehensive.

It hasn’t stopped the postcode selection exploited by the well-off bien pensant MC though, has it?

Meanwhile bright and motivated poorer children (albeit a minority if I accept your assertions about grammars favouring wealthier families) have next to no chance of schooling selected by ability.

But posters have said several times on this thread, rightly, that there are few grammars. So nationally the comprehensive system is just that, comprehensive.

But the point is, in a grammar system, e.g. Kent, there are no comps. It's grammars and secondary moderns.

It hasn’t stopped the postcode selection exploited by the well-off bien pensant MC though, has it?

I do wonder how some of those people who paid well over the odds for a house in the catchment area of an 'outstanding' secondary are feeling now that so many of them have been downgraded. I also wonder if that is impacting house prices.

I wonder how much of this angst would be removed if Ofsted removed the single grades.

You and I both know that catchment chasing isn’t just or even mainly an analysis of occasional reports. It’s more to do with expectation (if it applies) of likely improvement and of shoring up a child at a good but declining school (if it applies) with tutoring. All the while ensuring that the children go to school with other children ‘more like them’.

Not that the comp proselytisers would ever admit it.

You and I both know that catchment chasing isn’t just or even mainly an analysis of occasional reports.

I don't know what it involves. It's not really a thing where I live. Most of the parents at DD's primary will send them to the secondary school down the road, which is good. If they wanted to, they could also send them to the school I work at which is a few miles away, which is also good.

But do you accept it happens, and that it’s very widespread indeed?

That’s not a snarky question. If you genuinely don’t believe in either the existence of or general prevalence of postcode ‘comprehensive’ schooling we can just differ.