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

The music and drama depts in the local comprehensives in our non grammar area (Herts) are excellent. I’ve heard the nearest private school doesn’t offer drama or music a level.

in areas without grammar schools eg our area of Herts the comprehensives are excellent so this policy can and does work. We used to have grammar schools so the change isn’t to be feared

What is the point you are trying to make here? Have you done enough research to understand how grammar area operatr, or how other country abolish 11plus or early stage selective education before you ask any questions here?

Extensive research now shows that grammar schools don’t significantly enhance educational outcomes. Without concrete evidence to the contrary, your narrative now shifts to accepting that life is inherently unfair, and that quality education is largely dependent on family support. This suggests there’s no use in attempting to make the system fairer or more efficient. Even the new Prime Minister and Chancellor, who come from supportive family backgrounds, so shouldn't event try.

No SergeyB - you are misunderstanding my posts entirely and deliberately. I am saying you need to work on instilling certain educational values in certain parts of the population and think very carefully about how best to achieve this. Most kids go to state primary with middle class kids and the parents have had years to copy those values if they wanted to. Lots of immigrants do precisely that. Those who are not doing it do not want to for some reason.

I hired a very overweight working class nanny deliberately who was very young years ago. Because I did not want my DCs to grow up classist. It taught me a huge amount about working class values and obesity. She started off saying all the time that she feels really sorry for my DCs because they are not getting an ice cream van ice cream and crisps every day and in the park etc and the local theme park a lot etc etc. She did not get why I insisted on breastfeeding, making my own bread, limiting sugar, never allowing the older kids to have fizzy drinks, insist on a raw carrot and apple a day kind of thing. And quiet focussed time for toddlers every day so they actively learn to decompress and concentrate. She just did not inherently get it, because she was not brought up that way.
We do not need academics who are middle class themselves to pontificate over what will make the biggest difference. We know it already. Just ask most teachers.
Post Covid a lot of kids have had huge disruptions already. Why would anyone in Kent or Bucks with kids in grammars just because more seats are now Red embrace radical change there? It is going to cost those MPs their seats in the next election. It is lunacy to go and mess with education whole scale right now when we are still catching up from Covid. The answer is not to scrap SATS KS2. We all know that that will just be to hide the fact that the catch up is not working. We are not stupid.

She isn't saying that. She's saying that the profile of high achieving kids is the same with regards to parental involvement. Parental involvement is key to attainment, no matter how much income of the parents. Getting rid of grammars/private schools etc won't change that. You will only get equality in education when you tackle parental involvement. That's what makes the difference to outcomes and attainment, not random government initiatives.

You appear to speak on behalf of all the teachers in the country, which I do not acknowledge. It seems you devalue academic research from universities, yet you aspire for your children to attend these same institutions. How does emphasizing early childhood education and improving primary education conflict with reforming and eliminating outdated secondary schools that add no value? How can you claim that reforming schools in areas where only the top 30% attend will cost the government seats? Everything is on a massive scale, relatively speaking, and therefore no one should take any action.?

@SergeyB the most urgent issues right now are:

• smart phone and social media abuse - go do some research on who plonks their babies in front of smart phones in prams
• vaping and county lines
• childhood obesity (massive lack of exercise in some nurseries/primary schools and how to fit that in)
• child dental health

Forget the private and grammar schools and top set outstanding comps because they are not the issue. They are just a symptom of the cause. If the Labour Party were to just tackle that we know they don’t actually care about making a real difference to children’s lives and social mobility. They just want to have something to pretend that they did something cheaply. Tackling the above list is far harder and far more important.

@SergeyB - the dogma around selection/elitism is such that the next on the list will be elite universities. I hope you are signing up to that too. Are you?

Yes!

• grammar schools "elite"
• Indy schools "elite"
• Ballet schools "elite"
• Drama, dance and music schools "elite"

Next has to be "elite" universities surely?

The first response currently is to end/dismantle these instead of actually reducing the cost to attend/creating more of these types of education facilities so that more DC can attend them. It just doesn't make sense. To improve chances and wider equality surely you create MORE of these so called "elite" institutions as this makes them cheaper and more accessible. To reduce access just doesn't make sense as it makes them more "elite" and therefore the inequality gap widens.

In fact, if we want to be current on research let’s talk about smart phones and how inappropriate exposure to smart phones is tantamount to childhood abuse. It is the passive smoking of the 70s and the smacking/caning of the 40s. Let’s talk about current significant issues. Sadly, politicians and many academics are inherently outdated and using old pre Covid data. That is why it is important to talk to actual parents and teachers and listen very carefully rather than just use some report to cover your backside.

Grammar schools not only fail to enhance academic performance, but they also intensify social segregation by dividing students early on. This significantly hinders efforts to increase the target group parental involvement in early years education. The grammar school system makes less privileged parents feel they have no chance to compete fairly with wealthier or already involved families from the divisive age of 10. This is one of the major obstacles to implementing effective early years education.

Feel free to dismiss research or data as outdated if it doesn’t fit your narrative. What makes you think those who dismiss it represent the views of mainstream parents or teachers.

Well @SergeyB - Buckinghamshire is not a deprived area is it? In fact, in the list of least deprived it ranks no7 out of 151 local authorities. So good luck getting rid of grammar schools somewhere like that! It clearly works well there. There is no one size fits all.

To clarify, selecting students at age 10 based primarily on a IQ test, which has shown no proven benefits for individual outcomes, does not resemble elitism to me. It is simply impractical and ineffective. As I mentioned many times, you can discuss elitism on university or private school on the other thread.

No @SergeyB - it is all the same thing private/grammar/top set comp/one of the 150 outstanding comps that is more socially segregated than many grammars/Russell Group unis. It is all different forms of elite education. If you have a moral problem with one form, you must by definition have a problem with another form of it. Because if you attack any element on its own, you feed another one of those elite forms of education.

You raise this yesterday already, let me reply one more time.

This thread is not discussing elite universities but secondary schools and its admissions policy. Feel free to open another thread to dicuss.

As highlighted in the Sutton report, these comprehensive schools will have to review their admission policies to achieve fairness. But it won’t be an excuse to defend the existence of grammar schools.

Now, my turn to ask you one more time, do you have any research evidence showing that brighter students perform better in grammar schools?

Why you keep saying everything is the same thing.

And what is more @SergeyB - if you were to attack all forms of elite education (minus Russell Group uni), then you will feed my business idea. Which is to set up an elite tutoring business in India with friends there in educational groups, teach the reasonably priced tutors there to really understand our various exam boards and then supply it online, registered as a charity and giving free tuition to poorer children with educationally motivated parents. It will be an after school mini school. Is that what you want our country to become?

I think a small group of parents, fixated on a narrow definition of educational success, will pursue this, or some of whom already doing that in the toxic grammar school environment, but its impact on the overall educational outcomes in the state is minimal.

You're on glue if you think that good behaviour isn't correlated to aptitude.

I think that's nonsense. Clever children find clever ways to misbehave.

But reading this thread and seeing the people going on about grammar schools makes me feel sorry for the child who is academically only so-so but wants to work to the best of their ability. It seems that they have to be condemned to schools where the behaviour is out of control. It appears to be just tough luck according to some posters.

BTW Labour was in power between 1997 - 2010 and yet Kent and Bucks still have grammar schools. I doubt whether they will make any changes to the system. I would like to see them make changes but it would be things like allowing Local Authorities to plan properly and build new schools were needed instead of having to find Academy Trusts to found one. Or forcing academisation onto LA schools deemed to be failing. Or letting the LA take Academy schools back into their control.

Personally, I am not attacking elite education. I am opposed to a system that thinks differentiating children by an arbitrary, tutorable test at the age of 10.

@CurlewKate - so what is your proposition for kids currently in schools in those counties that still have the 11 plus? Get rid of the 11 plus next academic year? New intake into those existing grammars by catchment only now? Keep the Latin on the syllabus? Who do you think is going to move really quickly into the streets surrounding those schools?

And what about the superselectives in eg London in otherwise comp areas? Allowed or not allowed? And those that are a mix between the two- some superselective places, some not? I mean it is a real mix on the ground. Just like aptitude places, banding tests in several high achieving comps.
There are plenty of good secondary moderns in the richer grammar areas like Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells, parts of Bucks.
And there are some of the most elite catchment comp schools in the most deprived areas. In those areas where there are not enough rich people so not enough demand for private schools- the remaining rich pay for comp catchment.

In my opinion, schools should no longer use the 11-plus type of examination for secondary school entrances. However, banding tests, if they aim to encourage social diversity and provide fairer and broader access to local comprehensive schools, should be allowed. Catchment access can be reviewed and reformed, as highlighted in the Sutton Trust report and as other European countries have already done and proven effective for many years.

The current Prime Minister attended a grammar school, which was converted to a private school two years ago. He is doing ok. In 1970-1980 a lot of grammar schools got abolished and become comprehensive schools, children and family were doing ok.

@Araminta1003 there is plenty of precedent for the transition from grammar to comprehensive. And of course they can keep Latin on the curriculum if they want to and if they have enough takers. There are grammar schools that don't offer Latin and comprehensives that do.