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

But girls do better in an all girls environment - so why are you wanting to ban those? Yeah drag down anything that works. Down with competence in education and parental choice.

My girls go to an all girls school and it's been great for their confidence.

Well we can't have anyone trying to better themselves can we?
Hell fire what if they do so well they become Prime Minister?
That won't do at all!!

Successive Tory governments since the sixties could have brought back or significantly expanded grammars and selective education and didn't. Indeed, a huge number closed when Thatcher was Education Secretary in the early 70s.

To wring hands about something that Labour hasn't even mooted is pointless.

All the studies show that mixed ability teaching is better for every student. Standards rise not fall overall.

There is a tiny indicator that grades for the 'best students' (what a horrible way of putting it by the way) fall slightly but these students will gain in soft skills.

What we should aspire to is better access to great education for all not for an elite (however that is defined). Comprehensive schools are a way of achieving this but the system needs investment as a whole. Aside from the VAT thing I can't see any party committing to this.

And the idea that schools need to represent 'real life' is a very questionable principle in itself. Schools are artificial they aren't like most people's experience of adult life whatsoever.

So trying to say they have to be conforming to some strange definition of what real life is, is most odd.

@whatcom22
Where is the country do you live that still has secondary moderns?
Both my brightish children went to the local co ed comp and still went to Cambridge.

I think it is like in breeding. if you send all of a certain type of child to a very selective school (Eton anyone?) they are bound to develop similarities of outlook. In my opinion, it isn't healthy.

There is a tiny indicator that grades for the 'best students' (what a horrible way of putting it by the way) fall slightly but these students will gain in soft skills.

So it’s not better for all, thanks for proving my point. You can learn soft skills without having to forfeit your education.

while I don't think its impossible in the future I think it would be politically very difficult in the areas where grammar schools exist and it wasn't in the manifesto so they wouldn't have a mandate to do it.

Of course Labour wants parents to have less choice of schooling. The essence of socialism is to deny choice. Everyone must go to the same type of school and achieve the same results because that is “fair”.

I agree with this. I'm in a non selective area and my DS goes to a great comprehensive, is in the top sets and doing really well. My DBro and SIL live in a grammar area and have primary aged children and just trying to work out whether to put them in a rough, badly performing comp or start tutoring for grammar.

And I'm glad that worked for your children @Grapesichord but one size does not fit all. Just because your kids achieved the holy grail of Oxbridge, doesn't mean reducing school choice is any kind of answer for most children.

It's not just money, it's parental attitude towards education that's the biggest problem in my opinion. The naice schools I'm talking about act as effective social filters and are full to the brim of children with interested, well educated parents. If I contrast this to the parents we're like at the school I attended on a council estate then the difference is stark. You could have sunk millions into that school and you would still have had issues as the parents mostly didn't want to and couldn't support their children's education effectively. They discouraged homework and placed absolutely no emphasis on education. There were huge issues with behaviour and attendance as a result of this and honestly the school was never going to get the same engagement as the naice school enjoyed.

I think redrawing and tweaking catchments could be the answer in more urban areas. In my local area you could definitely draw the catchments differently to ensure a more even split of poorer and richer areas.

What you are describing is social engineering. You disapprove of certain types of children, you disapprove of Eton, so such children mustn’t be allowed to go there. Who gives you the right to say?

Let's apply the same "logic" to hospitals. Do we shut down hospitals with better outcomes for patients thinking that this will improve outcomes at worse-performing hospitals?

Children who are academically able/bright with supportive families are not responsible for improving the outcomes of other children, whatever their abilities/circumstances. This is not a burden for schoolchildren to bear.

Comprehensive education works very well where there is no choice - on an island, or rural areas where there are no other schools for miles and miles.

What happens in areas with lots of people, no boundaries and lots of school choices is that you end up with a grammar/secondary modern set up anyway. People move closer to the better school, or get their child flute lessons for music places, or get their child into the rights sport for sports places or get their child christened into the right religion for religious schools.

I understand why parents do this- they want the best for their children- but comprehensive schools are not equal.

The poster you are quoting didn’t say “best children”.

They said “best achieving children”

could you please share the links to this research?

why saying "best students" is horrible?

would you like to be operated by the best surgeon or just an average mediocre one?

and why sacrificing these best students is the price worth paying?

The VAT thing is pie in the sky. It gets you no way closer to a 'great education for everyone'. It could easily end up costing the government more if enough private school kids (especially those with SEN) bounce back into the state system.

I have a better idea. Why doesn't Labour encourage more people to go to private schools with some form of financial incentive (perhaps a tax break of some kind)? Get as many wealthy kids as possible off the state's books and self funding so that the education budget that we do have can be spent on those that have no way of affording private school even with incentives. I would also redraw catchments where possible so that they are more balanced and you don't have schools with very difficult catchments and those with very prosperous catchments.

@Ereyraa why should 'the best' (still an absolutely horrible way of describing them by the way) do better at the expense of others?

Being put in the bottom division (or secondary modern or similar) can damage someone for life emotionally. Being in a room where the ablest being up the less able is a much more nurturing and community building experience for all.

We do all live in the same country you know. Breathe the same air. Want the same things. Why can't our children have access to the same education?

@Teentaxidriver
My opinion not my right. It is important to understand the distinction.This is a discussion forum!

Surely if we lived in a real democracy the government would focus on providing good education that meets the unique needs of every child and every family. Britain has the money. Why are the politicians getting us to fight each other over who gets the least shit options in a shit pile that they created? We have gotten used to accepting such poor treatment from our government

Your last point on London schools, what extra funding have they received? I know our local Primary (Midlands) as it’s in an affluent area doesn’t get the same funding as Primary schools in the north of the Borough as its more deprived.

Because is isn’t the job of more able students to ‘bring up’ less able students, certainly not at their own expense.

They are students, the teachers are there to teach them all, not to socially engineer them to try to stop any people feeling emotionally damaged in later life.