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 do think disadvantaged children are inherently less " clever" in terms of what is measured in the 11+. Learning potential is at least 50% genetic. Clever parents tend to have better paying jobs. This is one study that refferences this :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/and a graph which
shows the heritability increases over the lifespan.

I do believe you to be correct with this theory despite the unpopular nature and why grammar schools should not be castigated for their cohorts.

This believe with one exception that being children with special needs that are exceptionally bright are sometimes unable to display it.

Sorry Goldencup for not referencing you !

and actually superselective grammar schools have lots of (frequently undiagnosed) SEN.

“and actually superselective grammar schools have lots of (frequently undiagnosed) SEN.”

DS’ superselective grammar is full of high functioning autistic boys. Some diagnosed, some not. Just like Cambridge university. These kids tend to be bullied and made fun of in a standard comp setting and they fully deserve to learn at their pace. My DS had an assessed reading age of 18 aged 8. His primary cohort thought he was weird. We had him assessed, turned out he wasn’t autistic, just anxious with an off the scale IQ. He gets really stressed around kids who vape etc- why would the Labour Party expect him to be miserable until 16 or until he could go to some specialist Maths school? He is far happier with boys of his ilk. We pay enough tax. I don’t see why we should have had to pay for private school in addition. And we didn’t tutor for 11 plus, that was easy for him. He can just see patterns.

One size fits all really does not work. And all children with SEN deserve education tailored to their needs (smaller class sizes, more attention, quieter environment, encouragement rather than draconian policies). We spend thousands upon thousands keeping unhealthy and elderly people alive very happily and rightly so, but why don’t we give our children the same? It makes zero sense to me. Who decided it would be better to force SEN children into mainstream in most circumstances?

Great we are going down the eugenics road....

@VineRipened most schools aren't that big even in London.
(To be fair I found out the Comp I went to is now one of the biggest in the country but still has under 2k pupils. Those my family members and friends went to have under half that number. )

Also those dynamic young teachers mentioned don't get the support claimed. My friends, acquaintances and colleagues who as "dynamic young teachers" have left teaching always complained about the shit they got from the leadership team even when they taught in the most deprived areas.

@Goldencup
"Massively unpopular view completely expect to be taken to pieces for it."

Too much like shooting fish in a barrel. And such a distasteful attitude I don't want to get involved.

Just to say it goes against all the "social mobility" arguments for selective education.

Many of the people in traditional 'working class' jobs are now migrants with aspirations for their children so not sure the graph still holds.

A child on a given level of intelligence will do better in a family where the parents are intelligent and supportive. Not fair for children from poor families to miss out on opportunities.

With Google translate and AI not sure speaking 4 languages and Latin will be much use. Being able to code or work at a trade might be more lucrative currently

How can linking scientific papers be an attitiude ?

Of course disadvantaged children aren't inherently less clever than privileged ones. Surely no one actually believes that? What they lack, or might lack, is a stable home environment, a supportive parent (or parents), lesser access to all that 'cultural capital' which is often found in wealthier homes, family and/or peer groups who may not value education that highly etc etc etc. Honestly, I despair of people who think every child has an equal chance to do well.

Also those dynamic young teachers mentioned don't get the support claimed.
Which is criminal Reugny (sorry 'at' sign not working on my keyboard at present!), as study after study has shown that a great teacher is the single most important factor in academic achievement. Contrary to common belief, it is better to be in a big class with a great teacher than a small class with a mediocre one. And for the record no one in my family is a teacher, but this what the data repeatedly shows.

I don't think anyone suggested every child has the same chance, that is clearly not the case.

However denying the effect of genetics dies nobody any favours either.

This is quite old now but very interesting

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blank-Slate-Modern-Penguin-Science/dp/014027605X/ref=asc_df_014027605X/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310805565966&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4441716884874682729&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045120&hvtargid=pla-484206502284&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

I've been involved in a lot of threads about selective education over the years and it's been obvious that there are many people who think that poor/disadvantaged kids are thick. However, I don't think I've ever been on one where anyone actually SAYS that out loud. Wow. I'm quite shaken by that actually.

If we're linking to studies and suggesting that poor kids don't get into grammars because they're thick, here's one showing that it's because they're poor.

"High-achieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds who perform well at primary school have less chance of getting into a grammar school than their more affluent classmates who perform less well, according to new research....

Even when 11-year-olds have the same level of academic attainment, the most deprived pupil has a 25% chance of attending a grammar compared with a 70% chance for the least deprived pupil."

[[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/09/grammar-schools-new-figures-reveal-favouritism

Well the nature v nurture debate is as old as time. I certainly don’t think a handful of popular psychology books by Steven Pinker have solved it!

Obviously genetics is a factor, though the study you linked to shows it’s actually quite a small factor, and one surrounded by nuances and qualifiers. A well-educated middle-class person in a professional job is most likely to choose a partner with a similar background. They will have the wherewithal, both academically and financially, to perpetuate that virtuous circle for their own DCs, who will benefit from their parents’ cultural capital, academic expectations and so on.

But none of that adds up to the wealthier child being inherently more clever, they simply have more opportunities.

Regardless of the heritability of IQ and correlation between IQ and income, there is very strong evidence that early childhood experience significantly affects brain development. There have been multiple studies on how poverty in particular affects brain development. E.g. (In the US) Poverty Disturbs Children's Brain Development and Academic Performance - Scientific American
"The researchers found that children who grew up in families below the federal poverty line had gray matter volumes 8 to 10 percent below normal development."

I recall another study where they gave mothers in low socioeconomic groups some extra money each month and the result was an observable increase in brain function in the children.

So you wouldn't expect a child who had grown up in poverty to be as academically able at age 11 as a child who hadn't, even if they were born with the same IQ (on average of course).

This is in no way an argument that it's not worth educating poor children. A good education can probably go some way to reversing those detrimental brain changes, even as late as 11.

But I think it's unhelpful to pretend that disadvantaged children are underperforming on tests for entirely superficial reasons (like testing using language which would only be familiar to middle class children). Because knowledge about brain development should inform policy and here my take would be that a policy focused on early intervention (ideally preschool) and specifically reducing poverty for parents of young children would have the biggest affect on outcomes.

@Circe7 there is not, however, a strong correlation between volume of brain and brain functionality/intelligence. This is obvious with a quick look around the animal kingdom and there are plenty of examples of very clever species with small brains and large species with large brains that aren't nearly so clever. And within the human race brain size simply correlates most strongly with body size and there's no correlation with larger people being cleverer (there is certainly a correlation between poor nutrition in childhood and being physically smaller though)
https://xkcd.com/552/

Since I’ve already expressed my grave doubts about the reliability of social research, I can happily say that I want nothing to do with the ‘poor children are stupider’ argument and the graph. Looks like a load of offensive garbage to me.

But then I’m sceptical about the social sciences altogether.

@YireosDodeAver
Sure but the researchers weren't stupid. They looked at specific areas of the brain which are important to cognitive processes like the hippocampus and compared the sizes of those. The researchers are postulating a link between poverty and academic performance (it's not something I made up). And you can test it in the other direction in that if you look at someone with a high or low IQ you can see that reflected in their brain scan.

And it's not just one study. There's now a large body of neuroscience research (rather than just social research) on this. This article in the Guardian summarises some of it. The neuroscience of inequality: does poverty show up in children's brains? | Inequality | The Guardian

I don't think that's necessarily bad news because, as the article says, it has huge policy implications. I would actually be more in favour of reserving places in grammar schools for children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds having read this - similar to the banding suggestion upthread.

Childhood trauma has a massive effect on pediatric development. As a mother of two high IQ ASD children, one of the reasons they were unable to function was their environment was traumatic for them. Putting them in a calm, highly structured environment with support has taken one child and completely turned around her life, the other is talking and almost a straight A student (he got one B).

This is why policies around families really matter. Divorce courts matter. The custody arrangements for children’s today are for the benefit of parents, not children. My ex husband is a covert narcissist and his behavior is extremely damaging to our children. The courts want an impossible amount of evidence which is expensive to obtain and takes too long before they protect the children.

As to the poverty aspect. The UK has the most oppressive tax regime for parents. It’s absolutely ridiculous that I need to make £250k a year just to break even because I need 3 children in private school (small classes) and a full time nanny because the after school provision doesnt cover the school holidays. If making less than £100k a year I’m better off working one day a week and qualifying for housing benefits, school meals and preferential entry for my
children to educational programs that I otherwise couldn’t afford to do time or money wise.

The Labour Party need to put together a better plan than charging vat on private school fees because it doesn’t answer the bigger question of how they plan to address the massive amounts of poverty and inequality our children are currently experiencing.

I agree with every word you have written.

But I think it's unhelpful to pretend that disadvantaged children are underperforming on tests for entirely superficial reasons (like testing using language which would only be familiar to middle class children).

But that's ignoring the research that shows where the disadvantaged children perform just as well academically as the other children in primary school who do get into the grammar, they still don't get in. The test is a barrier. Obviously one of the reasons for that is the massive tutoring industry, which is why some grammar school proponents were desperate to devise a tutor-proof test for entry to grammars. And they failed. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/12/tutor-11plus-test-grammar-schools-disadvantaged-pupils

I can't decide which is more horrifying belief. Disadvantaged kids are thick or disadvantaged people are rubbish parents. Oh, and you can't simultaneously believe that the 11+ tests raw talent AND that disadvantaged kids are academically behind because of their backgrounds and that's why they're not suited to grammar school.

Government could easily decide that DC on FSM get automatic placements in grammars based on teacher recommendation and observations over many years. Good primary school teachers absolutely know their bright but poor pupils. There need not be some arbitrary test age 10/11 for all. However, if uniform is costly and transport too there needs to be funding for that. And sometimes there is also parental resistance along the lines of “not for the likes of us”.

Some grammars have tried lowering the required entry score for FSM and PP - I haven’t read much about how that is working out.

Just because the current system isn’t working optimally does not mean that a grammar system itself is flawed. It works very well in many other European countries, especially those that fund their schools properly. If you for example said that each normal comp is allocated 10000 per pupil and superselective grammar 8500 that could work. However, not having schools that work for academically gifted children is not the answer. Nor is having many SEN kids unsupported in huge schools with inexperienced teachers. It does not make sense for society as a whole, good education for everyone is what gets people out of the poverty trap and makes them healthier and leads to more tax revenue later on. It is well worth investing in, but all our Goverments are short termists and hateful and ideologically driven.

Look, as someone who grew up in care your faux outrage is a bit much. Yes, a disproportionate amount of disadvantaged families have poor parenting - I know this and have lived it first hand. A lot (not all) of problems in schools stem from poor parenting and a lack of boundaries. I'm not saying that being disadvantaged means you have a low IQ, but I think there is a definite link between disadvantage/ poor parenting / poor schooling. I understand there are complex reasons for this but it still exists. If you refuse to recognise this link then you don't stand a chance of improving social mobility in a meaningful way.

I have family in a privileged European country and an acquaintance who is a single mum on benefits there with serious mental health challenges. Her one DD qualified for the absolute best nursery in town for free from 6 months old for as many hours as the mother wanted, with proper support from a social worker. And it wasn’t just any nursery- it was a nursery with staff so well paid and qualified that they absolutely understood children that may present with challenges. That level of support continued into school years with high quality interventions and free wrap around childcare, noting that the childcare was well paid and well qualified. That is how it is done properly.

People keep citing Finland as an example for a true comp system. You only get that working when you do the very early stuff right from pregnancy.

People on low wages having to choose the cheapest nursery absolutely can impact as well.