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

Fight for the deminishing 5% places for nothing, is this a message from a tutor?

I guess I have become an involuntary tutor to my own state DCs over the years, especially during Covid and due to state school failings. As are a lot of us parents these days. Thereby translating to less economic output from myself and resulting in less taxation.

My kids went to a comp that used to be a grammar. It has been an excellent school where kids with all sorts of skills work together. I know kids with dyslexia who have thrived. Plenty went to top unis, medical school etc. Siblings stayed together. Great at arts, music, sport etc

its very over subscribed but otherwise seems to have no downsides

I have. Oxbridge publishes their statistics annually, which disproves your claim.

Evidence, you claimed peer-reviewed studies backed up your argument. Yet then resorted to the soft emotive argument of people being beaten up.
BTW peer-reviewed academia is mostly 99.999% useless information.

To the poster who mentioned data: Data is just one metric to measure performance. Empirically, the fact is that streaming pupils is a natural hierarchy. Grammar schools are an effective way to do this. Streaming also fits in with the Pareto principle. It's just a fact that some children are better in an educational setting from an early age. Labour has an ideology which they have presented to the electorate, scapegoating/othering grammar and private education. Personally, I think this idea will NOT raise educational standards in the UK.

So there is 0.001% chance to be more useful than not doing work to find empirical evidence to back up the fact at all?

Buckinghamshire is a grammar county. Sutton has some of the top super-selective grammars in Britain. It is therefore no surprise that many parents move into those areas specifically for the education.

Hence it is 50 times more likely that children from those areas will go to a top university than those from the other named areas (none of which is a grammar area). That is according to the Sutton Trust.

Oh I didn't move... we pay for a season ticket for DD to attend a top London comp on an aptitude place.

That’s selection bias. The children were selected by the 11+ exam and moved to grammar schools area, so you have a preselected cohort. How about comparing them to top set students in non-grammar areas?

Have you heard of data bias? Haven't we learn enough how data can be manipulated to serve different purposes? Everyone holding a banner: we are telling the truth: look at the data.

Come on. I hope you are really indeed a cool headed thinker without judgement in front of data, opinions, different view points. But the thread doesn't follow the same mindset.

Each government can claim they followed strict procedures/consultation, but this really doesn't mean what you decide lead to where you want to go. It often doesn't.

"Science" "facts" all sound impersonal and portrait an unbiased stand. But what you say doesn't match that unfortunately.

I suggest you understand when you going through "facts" "data", have a look of this link and do keep yourself cool headed and unbiased, because that will be good for you and us. Who doesn't want a successful policy (I mean a genuine one, not a self claimed one).

www.pragmaticinstitute.com/resources/articles/data/5-common-bias-affecting-your-data-analysis/#:~:text=Data%20bias%20refers%20to%20data,feedback%2C%20or%20population%20health%20data.

”I have. Oxbridge publishes their statistics annually, which disproves your claim.“

You haven’t looked carefully then. Private school kids are getting more firsts. Followed by grammar. Then comp less likely and it is statistically significant.

Great, if the data doesn’t support your view, claiming it’s biased or rigged is convenient. I wonder why parents would send their kids to universities or research institutes to learn how to conduct research if it’s all fake anyway. I have yet to see any proper research proving that grammar schools add value, regardless how the data presented.

You are wrong, both Oxford and Cambridge comprehensive school students + sixth-form is the majority.

From a strategic and operational sense 0.001% of usefulness and even success wouldn't be a good idea, would it?
I'd also challenge your comment regarding policy being science-based. Politik by its very nature has very little to do with scientific methodology. It is a consensus to apply an ideology, particularly regarding education.
I'm pleased Labour are at least attempting change after the dour conservatives.

I agree that Labour or some politicians might rely solely on ideology. However, I believe a science-based approach should be used to achieve the desired outcome, which is ultimately driven by ideology.

Find this discussion so weird, as my County stopped the division, very successfully, between Grammar and Sec Mod, and 11+ - over 50 years ago.

No - parents generally move in advance of sitting the 11+

Do you actually understand how the system works?

Sutton is also super-selective so doesn't impact on comprehensives.

It seems you were mistaken. The majority of Sutton grammar school places are not based on catchment; parents have their kids take the test, and those selected move in. Why not compare Sutton schools, excluding grammar schools, with other neighbouring London boroughs to see the performance difference.

You have to look at the proportion of students from each type of school at Oxbridge vs their proportion at the total population level to understand what's going on. Majority of students at Oxbridge are from comprehensives because majority of students in the country go to this type of school. However, 7% of the UK children are educated privately but 32% of students at Oxford come from private schools. This means you are much more likely to get to Oxford if you attend a private school.

There’s preselection bias, as grammar schools select students at the 11+ stage, while comprehensive schools do not. Consider the likelihood of a student who passes the 11+ test for grammar school but attends a comprehensive school instead. Does their chance of getting into Oxbridge decrease or increase? There is research that examines this exact scenario and make conclusions.

Should also point out here that BAME kids (who are often the brightest and who also form most of the intake at grammars) don’t often pick Oxbridge as their first choice for many valid reasons (eg lack of black hairdressers / Indian skin friendly hair removal, racism, perceived classism, wanting to save money / live at home). So using Oxbridge admissions to measure talent / intelligence wouldn’t cover grammar pupils at all.

And the dumbing down of society continues…

You can use whatever measure and talk forever , just show me the data and research shows grammar school add value including BAME students.

Can you quote the research please?

Data are facts, but they are collected and grouped and studied in a defined method. Data can be incomplete for what they were supposed to present and data can be misinterpreted by data user without providing all details.

Science papers need to be put under peer review to undergo the scrutiny before it's recognised to be sound and representative.

If you look into medical research papers, the author often suggests larger and more controlled samples to compare and analyse.

So please quote the "science" and "facts" that you talked about all along and let us see what they are.

https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/berj.3929

Our analysis of empirical data indicates that grammar school attendees are no more likely to attend university, be it a Russell Group or a non-Russell Group institution, than comprehensive school attendees from the same socioeconomic background and with the same level of pre-university attainment.

I can give you a lot of similar literature, based in UK or other countries with similar setting, peer reviewed.

"are no better for grammar school pupils than for non-selective state school pupils with the same level of attainment at GCSE and A-level."

But would those students have got that level of attainment at GCSE and A level if they had not had access to a grammar school?

I would expect the top scoring comprehensive students to do just as well as the grammar school students - but not everyone has access to a good comprehensive.

The only kids in my year at grammar who didn't go to university were a handful who went to Sandhurst and 1 boy who went into the City as a trader. It was a huge scandal... none of us had any concept of NOT going to university. At GCSE the question was over how many A grades, not if you would pass.