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?

Yes, sadly that is true. A big comprehensive near us has improved its exam results but is run like a military academy- my DDs friend was straight into detention in the first week for having a black hair-tie round her wrist (uniform infringement apparently), which was really upsetting for her.

I can't emphasise enough how much I would hate this punitive environment for my well behaved child (it's almost as bad as the bad behaviour as it's so utterly repressive), so was another point in favour of of the grammar where such discipline is not needed.

People who are happy to say "bring back grammar schools" always seem curiously reticent about saying "bring back secondary moderns". But every time you create a grammar, you create three secondary moderns in the surrounding area, whether they're called that or not. The former Chief inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, used to refer to "comprehensive minuses": schools which were comprehensive in name, but actually had few kids in the top quartile of ability because they were all hoovered up by nearby grammar or private schools. "Comprehensive minuses" are to all intents and purposes secondary moderns: there aren't enough kids to form a "top set" working at the level and pace that should be expected of kids in the top quartile of ability and therefore the capacity of the school to provide for able learners evaporates. The legacy of opening more grammar schools would therefore be to create more secondary moderns and more comprehensive minuses and for every "winner" in this system there are three losers.

The 11 plus was engineered primarily by Cyril Burt, whose educational research was later found to be fraudulent. It is predicated on the idea that you can select with good accuracy at the age of 10/11, which is simply false. Parents with money to tutor can game the system, and always have done. There is no tutor-proof test. As a heavily timed test, the 11 plus has always been a disaster for twice-exceptional children, who may be deep thinkers but not fast processors.

A system which writes off three quarters of kids by the age of 11 and consigns them to a second-tier education with limited academic options might have had a place in the 1950's when only 10% of kids did A levels or went to uni, but it has no place in the 21st century.

Why should a sec mod be second rate? We’re told that comps are as good as grammars (which seems unlikely to me, but hey ho).

Is it just the cleverer kids raising everyone else up? If so, what are the teachers doing?

Or is that children with less interest in learning, or who are actively inclined to disrupt it, tend to make a school worse?

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps "We’re told that comps are as good as grammars (which seems unlikely to me, but hey ho)."

Why do you think it's unlikely?"

As a grammar supporter, would you be equally happy for your child to attend either part of a selective system? So would you celebrate failing as well as passing the 11+? If not, you have your answer as to why a secondary modern is less good than a comprehensive, and less good than a grammar - principally because it is perceived to be a failure to be allocated there, less prestigious to teach there, and because due to the social selectivity and much smaller % of SEN at the grammar, secondary moderns have an unfairly disproportionate burden of educational snd social problems to solve, without the much much higher budget and external support they deserve.

Because I have very little faith in the educationalists’ research, and so far as what are perceived to be very good comps - academically, behaviourally or some combination - they’re captured and maintained by wealthy MC parents moving in (or sometimes, but more rarely, the product of religious ethos that’s sought and backed by parents, which tend to have a wider catchment).

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps I didn't say second rate. I said second-tier. The basis of the 11 plus selection system is tiering according to the results of the 11 plus exam. Describing secondary moderns as second-tier in that context is accurate. "Second rate" - which I didn't use - would have different implications.

It seems worth pointing out that

1. with poor leadership, grammars are just as crap as anywhere else.
   https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/failing-ulster-grammar-school-to-appoint-new-principal/28688400.html

2. the "stellar" results of some grammars are often achieved not just by selection on the way in, but by unethical/illegal off-rolling and exclusions on the way through
   https://schoolsweek.co.uk/grammar-school-head-guilty-of-misconduct-over-illegal-exclusions/

Part of the difficulty in this debate is that what parents may perceive as ‘good’ - high raw results, compliant pupils, few behavioural or learning difficulties - are highly correlated with intake, rather than with ‘the quality of education leading to excellent progress for each individual pupil’.

In this context, a school in a very privileged area (or which selects its pupils) will ‘be perceived as good’ and be seen as ‘captured by the mc’ whereas actually it simply reflects its catchment or selection procedure.

This then makes life much more difficult both for parents and teachers in schools in other catchments or whose brightest and most mc have been selected away - they have to work much harder due to the higher needs if their pupils and they are regarded as ‘less good schools’ in public perception before they teach a single lesson. It takes a really exceptional leadership team and teaching tram to overturn that - whereas an adequate team working ‘with the flow’ in a nice catchment may achieve that ‘good school’ accolade from parents much more easily.

@cantkeepawayforever I imagine many schools have very mixed catchments. But good/bad behaviour, high/low ability isn't (or shouldn't be) a given result of a child's background.

Not at an individual level, no, but at a statistical level, high deprivation brings with it a number of associated problems that affect learning / education (housing and space; health; nutrition; experience and equipment, both books at IT; time; parental education level and thus ability to support learning) that then bring additional workload to schools if a child is to fulfil their potential.

See above comments about schools in leafy areas vs an estate to see a clear example of how people judge a school simply by its catchment and location - seeing the leafy school as inherently ‘better’ than the estate one - knowing absolutely nothing about the education going on inside, to see a perfect example of thus type of perception in action

Yes, agree with all that, but the question is, how does a school system in a locality best serve children from all backgrounds and abilities. Is it "one size fits all" or is there a case for specialist provision for very academic / sporty / arty / [insert talent here] children?

I think that question is best asked the other way round - which children have educational, social or behavioural needs so significant that they need to be met in a specialist environments (a special school)?

I am not averse to a special school environment for those who truly cannot be educated in a mainstream school because of their extreme ability, and who need a wholly different curriculum in a wholly different setting - such children could be, at the request of their current schools, be assessed by Ed Psychs and receive EHCPs for this purpose, and be taught in a very small number of special schools attached either to mainstream schools or to universities, following the curriculum they need (university Maths at 10 or whatever). However, that is not the same as a current grammar school, which housed children of mainstream ability following a standard national curriculum towards standard exams at standard ages.

I am largely in agreement with @cantkeepawayforever .
The proportion of children that truly need special provision on account of high ability is nearer 2% than 25%. The current system fails the top 2%, and especially the top 0.5%, particularly if they live in a rural/coastal/isolated non-selective region. But a return to a 1950's 2-tier grammar/secondary modern system is not the answer. My own view is that the government should be setting up online schooling for outliers. Nationally there are thousands (in a school population of roughly 8 million). But they are too spread out to be served by bricks-and-mortar conventional schools.
It's also worth saying: grammar schools don't (or can't?) deal with outliers either. I recently asked a couple of grammar school maths teachers what they would do with a child who was already past GCSE and capable of A level work on entry to the school. Their response was that they would give them the same work as everyone else in the top set of year 7. That is also the official policy of the grammar school closest to me: if a child has taken GCSE in a subject before entering the school, they will still be required to follow the key stage 3 curriculum with their age cohort. Thus they deal with outliers in attainment by pretending it's not happening.
As far as I've seen, getting to cherry-pick the kids that are already ahead and easy to teach leads to complacency among teachers in selective schools.

I was very sceptical when pupil premium was introduced, thinking it was a broad brush targeting the wrong pupils.

However, when you look at the data, PP students as a group underperform compared to their peers.

We know from the data, for example, that the school absence rates for disadvantaged kids are far higher than non-disadvantaged kids, for various reasons. This will affect attainment (note: not ability).

It’s all very well saying background shouldn’t affect outcomes, but the data shows that gap is there. Schools in disadvantaged areas have to work hard to address the issues affecting e.g. attendance before they can even start to teach them.

Ofsted are finally starting to take some of this context into account when grading schools. Now they are less likely to go ‘your attendance is crap, your results are bad, you are RI’ and instead look at what the school is doing to tackle those areas. They’re also less likely to say ‘your attendance is great and your results are great, you are outstanding’ because that’s also not down to the school.

Another question is whether such provision should be in the form of a separate school, or access to high quality extracurricular provision? The vast majority of sporty children - swimmers, footballers, athletes, dancers - access the high quality training they need through clubs, county provision, associate schemes, not through full time alternative schooling. Ditto for music or theatre. Yes, a tiny minority - a few hundred at most - do attend music or dance boarding schools, but even then their education in all other subjects follows the mainstream curriculum and qualifications.

Many, many moons ago, NAGC (national association for gifted children) ran weekend activities in each area for families within their remit who otherwise attended all-ability mainstream schooling.

Very, very few children are so able in every single area that not a single one of their subjects can be taught within a mainstream setting. Online provision in their areas of truly outlier ability, combined with attending a mainstream comprehensive for everything else, might well be an efficient solution without compromising social contact.

Comprehensives all the way.

All children are catered for, and late academic bloomers are catered for as well. Sets are flexible - children can move between them right up to GCSE. Your ability at 11 does not dictate your future. And if you shine in maths but not English, computer science but not geography, you can be in a top set for that subject, surrounded by motivated students on a university track.

If your local comp is failing, it needs investment and good management. Not a grammar/secondary modern divide.

@cantkeepawayforever "
Because I have very little faith in the educationalists’ research,"
Ah, right. Doesn't back up your prejudices? Research must be wrong.

Whats wrong with the top 25-30% of the ability range having a school life where they can acquire 'soft skills' that are not available in take anybody Comprehensive schools.

Curlew, I think you might be mistaking who asked the question?

I referred to research posted about grammar areas and both overall and more able student performance. I made that reference as it supported a point I was making that selective areas did not outperform comprehensive areas.

Another poster stated that the research was unreliable, and I asked why, and for links to more reliable research (if it existed) that supported their contention that grammars were better.

Your reply looks as if you thought that I disagreed with currently published research, which is not the case. Apologies if I have misunderstood.

What skills would those be? What skills are those on the 75th centile in Kent dramatically benefitting from that those of the same ability across the majority of the country are missing out on?

@Vriddle very well said.

No. I take a dim view of a great deal of social research. It’s subject to all sorts of pressures, prejudices, assumptions and underlying data uncertainty.

I’m not going to address the whole massive subject of whether the social ‘sciences’ are valid or reliable or not, or if they are at all worthwhile, how reliable such research might be.

No doubt you dismiss such research when it doesn’t support your pre-conceptions too. The difference is that I am sceptical of all of it.

Probably just being in school with people like themselves, thus able to not have to adjust their ideas and behavior down to that of the the bottom class.

The only good Comprehensives are the ones that are only Comps under duress through legalities and really if given a choice would become a Grammar School overnight.

These few Comprehensives such as Parmiters and the correctly named Watford Grammar Schools operate as grammar schools.

These such schools have cleverly ensured that GCSE pass rates at grade 5 with English/Maths are often hover around 85%% any higher would be obvious what type of schools they really are !

The only good Comprehensives are the ones that are only Comps under duress through legalities and really if given a choice would become a Grammar School overnight.

I doubt it. Plenty of teachers in comps wouldn’t be happy with their school becoming a grammar. Plenty of heads wouldn’t want to convert. There’s a strong sense of moral purpose in teaching.

What might be a factor though would be the knowledge that if another school nearby converted, that would have a negative impact on your own school.