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?

"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 !"

Let me get this straight - you think the schools/teachers sabotage their own pupils if pass rates look like they're going above 85% in order to maintain their "camouflage", but at the same time the devious fiends can't be bothered to change their name from e.g. "Watford grammar" to "Watford comprehensive"? As cunning plans go, that's right up there with Baldrick's.

Everyone knows there's a bunch of partially selectives in Herts, with some such as DAO functioning essentially as grammars, albeit with a small tail of lower ability from those who get in under the non-selective criteria. But they're not representative of comprehensives. Whether they're "good" or not is a separate point. Certainly the 800 pupils who held a protest outside one of them a couple of years ago about the senior management team's failure to deal with racist incidents didn't think they were "good".

Everyone knows there's a bunch of partially selectives in Herts, with some such as DAO functioning essentially as grammars, albeit with a small tail of lower ability from those who get in under the non-selective criteria. But they're not representative of comprehensives. Whether they're "good" or not is a separate point. Certainly the 800 pupils who held a protest outside one of them a couple of years ago about the senior management team's failure to deal with racist incidents didn't think they were "good".

And the right-on Islington middle classes fight tooth and nail to get their children in to DAO. Well, well.

I did not say that schools sabotage their own results. The point I was making is that because of the law regarding the creation of new Grammar Schools. These schools are required to take a few outliers to ensure they cover High Medium and Low criteria to be a Comprehensive .

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.

Are you sure? With about 90% of schools being non-selective, and 88% of all schools being graded good or better, that’s really quite a lot of schools that you are talking about, nationwide?

Or are you falling for the ‘high raw results’ fallacy, where you are setting a particular percentage of high grades as the mark of a good school, rather than the quality of education provided to pupils of all abilities, for some of whom a great school will enable then to reach 2s and 3s (rather than Us and 1s) at GCSE.

Subsidiary point - in your opinion, can a secondary modern, the other school in a grammar system, be good?

If so, what makes it good and a comprehensive not good?

If not, why do you want to create more of them?

If a sec mod can’t be good, or is more likely to be bad, why is that?

That’s my question to Coldcaller, who maintains that the only good Comps are the ones they think want to become grammars. I just wondered whether their ire was also directed towards secondary moderns or whether it was just for Comps.

You’re being pedantic and not addressing the real problem.

The reality is children who do well at school have parents who push them. The reason Trafford schools are so good is because you have a large number of parents attracted to the area because they value education.

I have my children at a private Catholic school. It’s a fantastic school for my autistic children. My daughter has 10 in her class, my son has 9 in his class. My third child has 22 in her class and she is pulled out daily for reading help. She is also given extra help in aftercare with the school librarian. The fees are $8,400 per year. It’s very accessible and a lot of parents don’t pay the fees. I’m not Catholic but we are fully accepted. There are same sex parents whose children attend the school. It’s diverse in every way.

My eldest child had a horrific experience at public school in the US and I hear similar stories all the time in the UK. Quite frankly the lack of provision for special needs students is shocking and embarrassing. We have enough money to fund an army and give the elderly subsidies which are not means tested but we don’t have enough money to properly educate our children.

There needs to be reform in education but it starts with reducing class sizes, increasing funding, paying teachers properly and making sure there are more men in the classroom teaching. The school day should be 7-7 so children are not left roaming in the afternoon.

"can a secondary modern, the other school in a grammar system, be good?"

Like most schools: often good for some pupils, rarely good for all. Describing schools as good or bad is often too broad-brush. What matters is the fit between what the school offers and what the child needs. If you're in the middle of the ability spectrum that the school typically caters for, then their provision is tailored to you. If you're at either edge, the fit is poor, and the farther out into the wings of the distribution you go, the worse it gets.

Was that from my post? If it was, why did you change it? In particular why did you remove the question about causes?

This is a discussion forum.

Posters will take what points they like out of your post to answer.

In my case having a friend who went to a secondary modern I would ensure no child of mine goes to one, and I would make sure I live (like I do now) in a Comprehensive area.

Was that from my post? If it was, why did you change it? In particular why did you remove the question about causes?

The question was originally mine, and was in response to Coldcaller, who asserted that no Comprehensives were good except those who were desperate to masquerade as grammars and would convert if it were not for legislation. I was curious about how that left secondary moderns, which that poster would create more of through the creation of grammars.

I’m happy for the question to be quoted and the point expanded in whatever way is chosen.

That’s neither helpful nor sensible: what was repeated was in quotation marks, so it looked like a straight quote, which I couldn’t find. But I had asked questions in a similar way. So I queried it.

Selecting points to answer is different, although one would hope they’re not misrepresented.

Anyway, it seems that it was another poster’s question.

@Aintnosupermum "The reality is children who do well at school have parents who push them."

You have a typo there. I'm sure you meant "support" not "push"

@Aintnosupermum No school shouldn't be 7-7

However youth clubs and places you can go if you don't want to veg out at home should be available to all. They aren't because the politicians we have in government now have never needed stuff like youth clubs, play schemes and cheap entrance/equipment hire at leisure centres themselves.

The research that was published in the mainstream media isn’t worth the paper it’s written on for many reasons, not least because of the way it measured ‘success’. They weren’t directly comparable 🤷‍♀️

Grammar schools are also very unfair. A test taken by a child at 10 means nothing and really doesn't mean that a child who passes it is brighter than one who doesn't
I lived through the time when we had grammar schools and secondary modern schools and know first hand how divisive and unfair selective education is.
The answer is for all children to receive a good education not for some children to be creamed of and provided with something better.

Posters on MN are from many different backgrounds with a skew to more middle class ones including academia. Those who bother to post research tend to be people who work in that academic area.

I do agree with this, but in a broader sense. All children’s public exams measure at a time and in a way that is highly imperfect. So are degree awards.

My main criticism of changes in education is in adult ed. A person who, for whatever reason under-achieved when a child, should be encouraged to drop back into education. First degree funding cuts for older students have impeded that.

A return to late Victorian/Edwardian values in continuing education wouldn’t be all bad!

Pfft.

Education research is widely regarded as a highly politicised and unreliable field.

@CurlewKate push is accurate and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I push my children, in part by supporting them but also push them in other areas.

As an example I pushed my son to try band. He auditioned and liked the drums. I’m now supporting this by paying for drum lessons, a place to practice and paying for aftercare so he can attend band practice. I don’t pretend he decided to do band on his own initiative. I also pushed my daughter to audition for the school performance. She wasn’t able to complete the process and my support has been helping her accept the consequences.

@Reugny 7-7 as a school day. This is what most top private schools have. It gives the children enough time to complete homework, sports and other extracurricular activities. I’m also not opposed to the old schedule of having a half day on Wednesday and Saturdays.

7-7 as a school day. This is what most top private schools have

bloody hell do top private school parents not like their kids?

bloody hell do top private school parents not like their kids?

Would you say the same about parents who put babies into full time nursery to enable them to work full time?

Children doing those hours are often doing extra-curricular things they love. The kids really don’t see it a hardship. Even if parents are around to pick up earlier, the children invariably choose to stay late to take part in the numerous activities they have a choice in.

You don’t generally need to put your secondary school child into 7-7 school to enable you to work.

Nursery isn’t usually 7-7 either. That’s an incredibly early start in the morning for one thing.

That made me laugh!!!