Labour to reduce number of Grammar/Selective school places?

[Another76543]

This thread is not about private schools. It’s about the Labour Party’s dislike of state grammar/selective schools. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has, in recent years, stated that she wants fewer children in selective schools, and more in comprehensive education. Angela Rayner has also expressed her dislike of the grammar system.

Does this mean that, under Labour, the number of selective places will be reduced? Will parents have less choice over the type of education their children receive?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=OW21Tu38Txo

They don't harm anyone else

Statistically, they harm the education of the majority of children who are not in them, who would do better in a comprehensive system.

But I do agree that they are a distraction compared to the huge issues of SEN and social work support, underfunding and loss of experienced staff across the whole of the school system.

An interesting thread. I think what it has confirmed for me- perhaps ironically given some PP’s are arguing the opposite- is that the systematic behaviour and attainment issues in some schools can’t be fixed by hoping that the well behaved kids will act as a role model somehow, or keep everyone a little more on the straight and narrow and heading towards a book. The impact of parents who don’t care about education and appalling behavioural standards far, far outstrip the impact and benefit of a few kids who read Shakespeare and they shouldn’t be used as canon fodder in this way. The other thing for me is that the parents who do care about education won’t stick out the social experiment, by which I mean, at the first sign of a major issue they’ll prioritise their own child in whatever way (move schools, advocate for their children, get a tutor, line up some fab work exp) so there isn’t a level playing field anyway.

I don’t agree with a system that tries to level everyone down, just to avoid seeming elitist, under the pretence that everyone benefits. I think it’s clear they don’t. Bright kids, from driven families, do tonnes better in my view with like-minded children. That’s exactly why people fight tooth and nail to get into grammars or private school scholarships. And yes, they’ll always be outliers, children who would genuinely do well anywhere.

The government should focus on tackling antisocial behaviour, which will be very very difficult. Having quiet Martha sit next to troublesome Jonny in the hopes that he’ll behave, isn’t the solution and that isn’t Martha’s job.

@Bibbetybobbity I agree. The practice of spreading a small number of academic, well-behaved kids around year group with many non-academic, poorly behaved kids in the hope that they'll "bring up the others" is wishful thinking. The academic kids are being "used as fertiliser". It's unethical - nobody asked the fertiliser how it felt about being used, and nobody considered the impact and opportunity cost to them.

I think schools need to be more willing to prosecute criminal behaviour in disruptive kids and their parents. Eg criminal sentences for bullying / abuse. This idea that ‘kids are kids’ when the same behaviour outside school would get them a jail sentence is wrong. Permanent explusions should also be used with disruptive children being educated seperately. Once schools do this I suspect the kids on fsm who want to learn will flourish.

This 👆

And it’s not even on the table at the moment so I don’t know why people are getting their knickers in a twist about it!

Some faith schools are pretty important for specific demographic groups, no? There's a C of E primary school near me that is about 90% non-white and 50% FSM. It seems like a lovely school (Ofsted good, behaviour outstanding) and is clearly valued by the local black community.

Also near me are several schools for the Orthodox Jewish population, which is sizeable. It's a very specific curriculum and environment. You couldn't just chuck those kids into the comprehensive system.

If you allow faith schools like those to exist, I don't see how you can seek to ban other ones.

@Bibbetybobbity @notquitetonedeaf

This is sort of what I was getting at with my posts upthread; my daughter’s primary is very open about doing this as part of their ‘narrowing the gap’ agenda (I’m a governor there so party to some of the discussions around it). They have stopped all grouping by ability in all years except Year 6, so all children are taught together at all times on mixed ability tables. There’s also a new buddy system in the core subjects, so for maths and English each higher attaining child is seated next to a lower attaining one to ‘support and inspire’ them. House points and awards are no longer given for academic achievement, as the focus is now on ‘intrinsic motivation’.

This has always been a ‘thing’ (as an academic child I remember being seated next to the class ‘naughty boy’ at primary in an effort to calm him down, and was constantly being sent to help struggling children once I’d finished my own work in maths etc), but it worries me that these practices now seem to have been formalised and made official policy, with little thought given to the sensible, well behaved children being used as de facto teaching assistants.

We’ll be voting with our feet soon and moving DD to a more middle class, traditional primary, where academic achievement isn’t taboo and we aren’t all expected to pretend that everyone has the same abilities.

@TempsPerdu that’s so interesting, thanks for sharing. I’d be similarly opposed to the buddy system- what a cheek!!!!!! Outrageous as you say that this is an overt, formalised policy. No, no, no…

We had this in primary.

DD has significant SEN. Her EP report said she needed to be sat at the front of the class, given support and scaffolding.

Instead she was rotated among the "naughty" boys. When I protested, I was told 30% of the class had SEN, mainly behavioural and emotional problems and as she was well-behaved she wasn't a priority to be sat at the front and there were no resources or time for any support.

Mixed ability teaching does benefit 'more able' students. It can help them cement their knowledge (teaching what you have learned is an established way of deepening understanding), it builds confidence and, (most important to my mind) provides them with a better understanding of the challenges of others. This last will help them throughout their lives.

I think we should understand that education shouldn't just be about absolutes - exams and grades, but about soft skills and socialisation of which this feeds into.

I know that the good people of mumsnet will shoot me down for this but all of you with more able children you don't want damaged by contact with less bright kids should accept that a race to the top for the brightest creates a race to the bottom for all the others. That's just not good for society as a whole.

But in today's world it is about exams and grades for the most academic. Those are the keys to unlocking the next step.

No aspirational parent is going to be happy at the idea their child failed to get into 6th form or university because they didn't hit the grades - but they did help the child next to them scrape a pass.

DD is in a comprehensive that both streams and sets. For GCSE they set for every single subject. DD is doing one option twice (long story) and is in the top set and the bottom set (timetabling) and says the difference is vast. She makes all her progress in the top set and uses the other as revision. The top set kids all want to do well, are at a level where they bounce off each other. The bottom set class are mainly there because they mistakenly thought it was an easy option and few have any real interest.

Honestly it is going to take a tsunami of change for people to look beyond their own bubble and accept that concepts like social mobility and equality of opportunity mean that we all have to do our bit.

Private schools, grammar schools, religious schools - they're the educational equivalent of the gated community and all the assumptions and attitudes that come with this - and our society is all the worse for it

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Yes, that’s exactly it - in DD’s class there aren’t enough ‘traditionally academic’ children to go round, so it ends up also being the ‘sensible average’ children and even the quiet, ‘under the radar’ ones with SEND/SEMH issues are partnered with the ones causing issues.

It doesn’t really work well for anyone, and no one’s needs are truly being met.

Why is society the worse for the existence of different types of schools?

I thought diversity was good for society?

You are wanting to go against basic human nature.

My child will be competing for jobs on the global market. Damn right I am going to do everything possible to give her the edge to do that to the best of her abilities. She's my priority in life.

I'm not interested in her being some pawn in people's social engineering project - had enough of that back in primary.

I suspect 99.9% of parents in the world feel exactly the same.

Because they select based on ability/ income/ religion and sustain societal divisions based on these criteria. These divisions are life long and pass down through generations.

Lets have our kids learn in one big melting pot so they can learn and understand each other.

Why?

Children are different, why would you stick them all in the same "melting pot"? Where is the individuality?

As I said, above, communist uravnilovka at its best. Melting pot, FFS.

It's not communist. It is just not selective. You can have big schools, little schools, space schools, sea schools.... you just need those attending those schools to be not selected based on the criteria above.

Honestly it is an utopia but I do believe that as a society we are massively selfish. We're not prepared to put ourselves out much for the benefit of others. I believe that if we understood 'others' because we grew up with them the world would be a better place.

Idealistic yes. Communist no.

Edited for a typo :-)

There should be choices in education that cater to different skiils, abilities and interests.

People are all different and one size does not fit all. You cannot make everyone the same and equality of outcome is not the same as equality of opportunity.

I think we've already concluded that those statistics don't actually exist.

And you've contradicted yourself in your last sentence.

Can you explain the contradiction?

Overall, attainment of matched cohorts in selective and non-selective areas is very similar.

The distribution of attainment is somewhat different - children at the top of secondary moderns, in particular, do somewhat worse than children of matched ability and background in comprehensive areas (so their education is harmed).

Depends if you view schools as there to fulfill a socialist utopia, or as there to teach your DC to read and write.

I’m in the latter camp. I don’t need them to melt into a pot of anything, they’re doing just fine as they are, and it’s not their job to shape others where their parents have failed

@IFollowRivers

"Because they select based on ability/ income/ religion and sustain societal divisions based on these criteria. These divisions are life long and pass down through generations.

Let's have our kids learn in one big melting pot so they can learn and understand each other."

So following this logic (and this is NOT a serious proposition!!) of creating a truly fair and level playing field where in the words of Mr Starmer every child has the same educational opportunity :

Generally speaking (although there will of course be exceptions) people with higher IQ or intelligence tend to be in higher earning jobs than those with lower IQ / intelligence.

IQ / intelligence is between 60 to 70% hereditary: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/

High IQ / high income people tend to get married and have children with other high IQ / high income partners. And this continues for generations.

This means that on average the wealthier children will be inheriting high IQ and over generations this creates inequality.

So to address this inequality and create the truly level playing field where every child has the same chance, people who have higher than average IQ should only be allowed to have children with partners of lower than average IQ and vice versa.

As I said this is NOT a serious proposition but is simply being used to demonstrate that true equality where every child has the same chance from birth is absurd and completely un achievable despite it seeming like a noble aspiration.

You've said that people not in grammar schools (ie in a comprehensive) would do better in a comprehensive. So other people going to grammar schools will have no effect on them as they are already in the best place for them. So their education has not been harmed by grammar school.pupils.

It's an odd argument to make.