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

Where is your evidence for this?

You have the option of private education. However, for state-funded education, given its constraints and social objectives, the goals aren’t always aligned with what a minority of parents believe is best. Often, their perceptions are not accurate, similar to the situation with the NHS.

Selective education doesn't cause kids to need free school meals. It doesn't cause the divide between rich and poor.

It allows poor kids who could never afford the fees for Birkenhead High to pass an exam to go to a good school that meets their needs as a smart kid and escape from the scrotes who'd swot-bash them daily.

You are implying all comprehensive schools aren’t up to the calibre of grammar schools which simply isn’t true

My tribe excluded the molesters and batterers. I was sure of that at five, never mind.

You clearly hate smart neurodivergent girls, to want to dump them in mixed comps with the boys who commit 300 reported rapes per year of their classmates on school premises in England and Wales.

The nature of the selection at age 10 causes most of the kids needing free meals to be in one school, while most of the kids who don’t need them are in another. This creates a social divide that hinders social mobility.

The number of school refuses for a start!
In our local comps, the small number who achieve more than 5 GCSEs.
Number of SEN kids in Indy sector because the state can't cater for their needs, or they can manage their needs with the smaller class sizes.

My lived experience of school premises sexual assault is "scaremongering". That's a new low, even for you.

Boys commit 300 reported rapes per year of their classmates on school premises in England and Wales. And that's just the reported ones.

Gosh, some of the language being used on here to refer to non-grammar-school kids is appalling. 'Scrotes' - really?

I get that some people may have had a horrible time as a bright kid in a comp - I'm guessing 20 years ago? But children who don't pass a test on a single day at 10 (especially considering the fierce amount of tutoring that goes on today) don't deserve this kind of blanket dismissal as feral dimwits. I honestly can't believe this needs saying.

I get that people may have had a horrid time at school and I honestly do feel for you - it's shit that this happened during such formative years. But extrapolating from your experience to venting this kind of vitriol towards the vast sweep of ordinary kids today is frankly out of order.

As a counterpoint to your experience, I was a child from an extremely poor background (that's me, not my parents). My family were what would be described by certain news channels as the 'underclass' - not working, on benefits. I had free schools meals right the way through school, was undernourished, one bath a week, yadda yadda. My mother didn't put me in for the 11+ - it wasn't even on her radar. Off I went to the (non-leafy) comp, hearing the snide comments from the grammar school girls on the bus about the 'stupid kids'. Maybe they now refer to the children at the local comp as 'scrotes'. I got straight A*s at GCSE, higher than any girl at the local grammar school that year. Straight As at A level, then on to Oxbridge. I was in mixed classes for a fair few subjects. Yes, there was occasional disruption, but the teachers were adept at differentiating work and I got my head down. It was fine.

And I wasn't some sort of major exception - there were plenty of academically bright children in my year, along with others who were lovely and kind, but not so good at exams. Often the latter were highly talented in another arena or had outstanding people skills. The majority of them have grown up to be decent, hard-working adults. There are plenty of bright, engaged and decent kids in comps and secondary moderns up and down the country. You cannot dismiss children in this blanket way.

Also can we just identify that the grammar test itself is severely flawed… I didn’t pass the grammar test and got 10 A*s/A at GCSE, a lot better than a lot of grammar school people I went to sixth form with…

If I hadn't gone to single-sex grammar, I would have refused school.

Girls need single-sex schools and smart kids need grammars.

Those who put themselves forward (or are pushed by their parents) at age 10 to pass an IQ test are, in my opinion, only a very small portion of smart neurodivergent kids. Evidence suggests that grammar schools do not enhance the academic ability of most students.

Why would you have refused school?

Interestingly the ECHR protects the plurality of education and parental rights to choose an education that fits their religious and ethical/moral views.

When I say "scrotes", it should be obvious from the rest of the sentence that mentions violent and sexual assault that I am referring to bullies and molesters. Not all comp kids and not all sec modern kids. I have no problem with calling boys who bully and molest "scrotes".

Comps do not have the resources to separate the bullies from their targets and also teach effectively. @T34ch3r testified that she resorts to using well-behaved studious kids as trainers, pacifiers, and human barriers as part of classroom management. Girls and smart kids are disproportionately adversely affected by this and I don't consider that acceptable.

Single-sex selective schools provide smart kids and girls freedom from that whilst allowing extra funding to be allocated to boys' sec moderns for behaviour management.

I, and girls like me, are not your classroom slave labour and we are not your human shields.

Hmm, let me see:

• I was swot-bashed from Reception onwards.
• I was molested at school by two older boys aged eight.
• I was autistic but undiagnosed until my 40s.

My 11+ result was my ticket to the safety and acceptance of a girls' grammar.

OMG tell me you didn't read anything I wrote without telling me that you didn't read anything I wrote.

Evidence suggests that grammar schools do not enhance the academic ability of most students.

Academic ability was not my concern aged 10. My concern aged 10 was not being sent to a school where I'd have to watch my back, fear the schoolyard, be mocked as "weird", have my glasses broken, be pushed over, be battered, or have boys shove their hands into my knickers.

It wouldn't matter to me if you proved beyond all doubt that grammar schools have no academic benefit. That wasn't why I went there. I went there to be safe.

Comprehensive schools often have resources and strategies in place to address bullying and ensure effective teaching. 95% state school in this countries are comprehensive schools.

Academic ability was not my concern aged 10.

Look at your own posts; you are flip-flopping grammar school being a place between neurodivergent intelligent girls and bullying community shield. It is so hard to judge which one.

Often, not always.

The nature of the selection at age 10 causes most of the kids needing free meals to be in one school, while most of the kids who don’t need them are in another.

This statement made me think - for those who argue that Grammar Schools are a way for working class children to do better, what % of Free School Meals pupils do the Kent and Bucks grammars have? I assume that if they really are the havens of social mobility we are told they are, FSM children should be a majority.

Yes, I know that FSM is only one measure of poverty, but it is a good indication.

You continue to post as if all grammar schools are single sex @MaidOfAle even though I have already told you that you are wrong. The arguments for and against single-sex schooling are many and varied but it's a separate argument from the grammar schools v comprehensives one.

For the record, I have 2 DDs and I 100% totally and utterly disagree with you that girls need single-sex schooling, that is an opinion not a fact.

The assumption that there is no bullying in private and grammar schools is ridiculous. I think using individual cases is invidious, but it's what everybody else is doing....One of the worst cases of bullying I have ever come across was in a well known London Prep and followed the child to his public school. It would obviously be ridiculous to say that private education is riven with bullying, based on that one example.

The ones that are up to grammar school are surrounded by a poor kid exclusion zone called "a catchment area that poor families can't afford to live in".

I was outside the catchment area of the nearest good comp and wouldn't have wanted to go there because of it being mixed. The mixed comp near me had my molesters in it. The 11+ and a bus pass basically made being outside any catchment area not matter.

You can exclude all poor kids from good schools by having 100% comps and watch house prices soar around the good ones. Or you can let the smart poor kids go to good schools via 11+ and then at least some of the poor kids go to good schools.

Who has said there is zero bullying in private or grammars?