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

That study does not factor in indies and that parents whose child does not get into a grammar are more likely to turn to independent sector, so you are cutting out a sizeable proportion of high achieving kids (just not highest) from the results for the comps in selective areas.

Me being 'facetious' is in response to your attempts to rubbish a large scale study which doesn't support your views.

Oh well.

@GreenTeaLikesMe "Sets and streams (rather than GS/SM) also cater for kids with spiky profiles who are (say) weak in languages but ace at maths and hard sciences - if you try to put a kid like that in either a GS or a SM, they will inevitably be at a completely wrong level for some of their subjects. "

I hate to be tedious-particularly when I agree with you, but sets do this and are a good thing. Streams don't, which is why they aren't.

I don't understand what's wrong with grammar schools if comprehensives stream their children.

If the argument is that classes should be mixed ability, it's just not feasible in some areas. DH a teacher- there are year 9 kids that can hardly read & write + there are year 9 kids who want to have deep & meaningful discussions about the religious & political messages in Shakespeare. Trying to teach them both in the same class is at best ridiculously inefficient & at worst a total waste of time.

If streaming is OK, then I don't see why grammars aren't.

In areas which are truly comprehensive pupils are offered a great education together. A bit like life.

I've not read such an out-of-touch comment for a while. Maybe look up Astrea and the "great education" it provides.

I'm not attempting to "rubbish" your study so please don't feel hurt. I'm just testing the assertions made and you will note that I did potentiallyagree with part of what you claim. If it's valid it will stand up to scrutiny. And it's not me giving my view; it's you, which you are attempting to support using evidence (which is a good approach ). I just see the obvious flaws in your argument that's all.

The other thing I do when looking at this sort of evidence is who prepared the survey as usually they have their own biases and predetermined outcome in mind. Most academics in universities are left wing so I suspect an alternative conclusion for your report would not have been allowed. This means that it's findings are sadly unreliable the parameters would be politically skewed. That is the unfortunate and sad result of the politicisation of higher education

@anonhop i dont think anyone is recommending streaming. My DC attended a comprehensive that operated Sets. I think thats what most comprehensives do. It means pupils can be moved between sets for various subjects as appropriate, rather than being labelled and pigeon holed at the age of 10.

The Labour party's attitude to education reveals their true nature. They're totalitarian at their core.

Are you suggesting you don't trust any academic research because you think it's biased? Wow.

@anonhop "I don't understand what's wrong with grammar schools if comprehensives stream their children."

I'm assuming you mean set, not stream.

For a start, at a comprehensive school you are not put into sets based on a test you took when you were 10 and left there til you are16.

Thanks @Bumpitybumper Had a quick look at the top 10 LA areas and there is a mixture of selective and whole grammar areas. You can see that whole grammar areas have some low performing comprehensives but the super selective areas have comprehensives that perform much better.

I would be interested to hear of any studies that compare the outcomes for different ability children within comprehensives separated by super selective grammar, wholly selective grammar areas and wholly comprehensive areas.

@Workasateamanddoitmyway has a point. DC who do not get grammar places in a grammar area may have worse results than DC in a non-grammar area after controlling for previous academic attainment, social background, ethnicity, SEN, sex and birth month, but that's still not a fair comparison. The proper comparison should be against DC in a non-grammar county who would not have gotten grammar places based on similar admissions criteria. That is because success at getting a grammar place is not fully explained by the controlled variables. Differences may arise from things such as parental pushiness towards education or behaviour under the stress of testing. Such missing variables which lead to differences in performance at the 11+ can quite possibly lead to biases in performance on GCSEs.

I wouldn't think that was a "wow" view! How many right/centre right university professors do you know know? Particularly in the arena of sociology/education?

But seriously in this particular study, it seems to have been carried out with a particular outcome in mind. Any study can show anything if done in a particular way within particular parameters and biases. So I question everything these days. And it's very annoying for me too.

@EmmaGrundyForPM @CurlewKate

I understand. The comps near me stream, so I thought it was standard.

I understand your point in terms of sets, but realistically most children will be in higher sets for most academic subjects or lower for most of them. So I don't see a huge problem with roughly splitting into grammar & non grammar. In my town, for example, grammar was able to offer more languages & non grammar had facilities for more vocational courses. It's not perfect for every child, but it did seem to make the best of limited resources

*I would argue that high achieving students do just as well in comprehensives ...

We all have to live together. It baffles me that we think children should be segregated.*

I went to a bad comprehensive as a 'high achieving' student. I wasn't pushed or encouraged to do better. High achieving students do ok in comprehensive schools, but arguably not as well as they could achieve if they were encouraged. The difference between getting a 7 and a 9 for example. This is because the teachers have to spend the majority of their time helping the less academically able get up to a grade 4 or 5. But mainly because they are having to deal with so much bad behaviour.

As for your second point - I was bullied horribly at school because I didn't fit in with the swearing at teachers/ truancy/ smoke behind the bike shed set. As an adult I choose not to live near or associate with people who bully me. I change job/ move house/ actively avoid nasty people. School wasn't a preparation for life, it just damaged my mental health.

In my opinion, it's about achievement, but more so about behaviour. If we could segregate schools by the behaviour of the children, that would be the best way.

The comprehensive schools here (a grammar school area) absolutely do have streams. They even call the top stream, the grammar stream. They have an admission policy that demands everyone sit a banding assessment before having a chance of being offered a place. They will take a certain number from each band and the top achieving children will be granted a place in the grammar stream (one head has decided it’s less obvious to rename it the ‘accelerated learning stream’). They do this whilst at the same time denigrating the existence of grammar schools.

One particularly vocal opponent of grammar schools, the head of the largest comprehensive in the nearest city, had an admissions policy in his own school that gave priority to 25% intake based on their musical ability. This largely meant children who achieved a certain grade in a particular instrument. If there is a bigger signifier of middle class privilege than being able to afford music lessons, exam schedules and instruments, then I’m not sure what it is - but he did so without irony apparently, whilst demonising the evil of the selective grammar system at every opportunity.

Research in the social sciences is very different than that in natural sciences. Three of the reasons for that are (1) most studies involve small samples which are more likely to give spurious relationships, (2) it's practically impossible to run controlled experiments to isolate and determine causal factors and (3) many important, potentially causal, variables cannot be measured. Because of this, a social science researcher can plausibly draw a large number of conclusions, but with little confidence. And some conclusions are more "socially acceptable" than others.

I couldn’t agree with this more, for some reason which is unfathomable to me my parents decided to send me to a comprehensive outside of our catchment area which was in the middle of a council estate where I was one of the very few middle class kids who didn’t smoke or swear, and I was basically invisible because I sat quietly doing my work and waiting for the other kids to catch up, one of my teachers couldn’t remember my name from one week to the next, I was bullied, the other kids behaviour was awful, we hardly ever got homework because most kids just wouldn’t do it if it was set. When I went to sixth form at the Catholic school down the road it was like another world, well behaved kids who wanted to learn, I wasn’t bullied for being a swot.

If your DH is a teacher I would expect him and you to have a good grasp of how schools work.

Comprehensive schools do have sets but not for all subjects or across all years and the set up does differ between schools. Extra support should be in place for children who don't have the basics. It is perfectly possible and actually advantageous for "less academically able" children to still listen and absorb discussions that more academic children are leading on in class sometimes. They might not write, produce written work or read around the subject in the same way as the more academically able but it doesn't mean they can't engage with it at all. By GCSE level there would be less movement between sets for example in maths they would be being taught content for foundation level or higher level papers. Some children who are less academic would be taking core subjects and potentially some more vocational courses too. As previous posters have pointed out this means that children who are, for example, ace mathematicians but poor at English could study at the appropriate level for them in the school.

To get into grammar you have to be or be tutored to be an academic all-rounder. Of course there are academic all rounders in comprehensives too but their classes won't always be filled with other children with the same academic profiles as them. It allows for more variance within the cohort but should allow them to flourish in different ways.

This is an older study (2016) but it indicates that children in selective areas who don't go to grammar schools don't do as well as children in non-selective (comprehensive areas) https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/grammar-schools-8-conclusions-data/

Gosh, this thread is depressing. That explains how there have been 14 years of this shit though.

I don't understand what you mean @coldsummer1312

Why is it depressing? What does it have to do with 14 years of Tories?

Are you in favour of the brightest kids being informal classroom assistants to the less able? To being levelled down to the average pace and ability of the class?

Or something else?

(I'm a life long Labour voter -until Thursday- but I'm puzzled as to what you are getting at. Could you explain/expand?)

Profound comment.

@Fightthepower

That sounds great in an ideal world.

DH is a teacher & has a good grasp of education, thanks. In practice that support for struggling students simply isn't there. What I'm getting at is that he can't tailor lessons to his students.

It's so much better to be able to tailor the content to students. It's wishful thinking that kids who struggle with the basics in English will happily sit quietly & soak in academic discussions of Shakespeare. They'll get bored/ frustrated & act out/ zone out.

If you want more state school/ non-wealthy kids to go to top universities & be pushed intellectually, grammar schools are great for this.

@anonhop I'm saying from experience that comprehensive schools can and do deliver this. For example my DC is doing GCSE now and Romeo and Juliet is on the curriculum. In the top set they will be doing different work to the second or third sets and there will be smaller groups who need much more support and intervention (and yes this is massively underfunded but the provision is still there.) A friends DD at the same comp is in top set English, but foundation level maths and science but flourishes in art & textiles. A comprehensive school accommodates this. It's certainly not a utopia but can serve children very well helping them develop skills in different fields.

Comprehensives can push children intellectually too. If Child A passes the 11+ and goes to grammar or passes but goes to the comprehensive school they are likely to achieve the same good results.

I should add they study personal and social development lessons and have debates on topical issues etc altogether in tutor groups and assemblies still.