Labour advised to finish closing all grammars

[twistyizzy]

Advice currently being given to Labour by same group that support VAT on private schools.

Perhaps they should have read the manifesto?

Even if you don't have private or grammar schools I don't think it will ever be a level playing field.

Someone upthread said that what kids need is good schools and inspiring teachers, whilst I don't dispute that what I think is most important is their parents. Children that grow up with parents who have aspirations and understand and will push the importance of a good education is more important than anything else. Parents that will support their children's education alongside the teachers/schools, ones that want their children to be stimulated and have an all rounded education and essentially succeed.

My ds goes to selective Catholic grammar with no catchment and an "untutorable" exam (just maths and English test). Its selection criteria advantages the disadvantaged.

It's in the poshest area of Trafford but it has a lot of children from deprived areas. These kids are travelling 90 mins on public transport to go to the school. If they hadn't got a place they would have to go to a school rife with issues that include drugs and knife crime, and academic underachievement is the least of their worries. I was on public transport this week and clicked how far these boys were travelling wearing the uniform I recognised.

If they made the school comprehensive then all the boys from a bad area will go to school in the bad area and go on bus trips to Blackpool and not have nice art rooms, drama studios and PE facilities; and all the boys whose mums and dads are CEOs or lawyers or inherited wealth living in the posh area can go to the nice school with the swimming pool and geography trips to Iceland.

I am not per se against getting rid of selective. In any case it doesn't affect me. I think Labour have got other things to worry about in education.

I don't think they want to dismantle the private school system either just wring some money from it.

The VAT on private school fees Brigade are always so vitriolic. Pretty sure there's still some Tory bots whirring about.

It depends on the comp.

DD's which employs banding tests for entry appears to stream and set... although they are rather opaque about it.

Certainly her tutor group (remains the same for all 5 years) is not mixed ability and it appears the year is split in two and then set within that, In Y7-8 they set for English, Maths and Science and the rest of the subjects are taken within your tutor group (which are basically set to start with), and then in Y9-11 (3 year GCSE pathway) they set for all subjects.

Disruptive kids are not necessarily low ability either. It's more the case that setting allows children to learn at a pace suited to them and not feel like the dunce of the class, or be bored or spend half their time as an unpaid TA.

Regarding tutoring... where do you draw the line between reading with your child, exposing them to museums and educational experiences, and helping them with more complex maths? DD was never aiming at grammar, would not have been right for her, but I did give her some Bond Books... she LOVED NVR and would do it for fun. She's ND and just naturally seems to get patterns and scores very high marks.

With VAT on tutoring - not sure that's possible. We have a whole variety of them for DD (zero help these days for SEN of the SpLd variety in state) and half are not even based in the UK. The other half don't earn above the VAT threshold, Lots of 6th formers at DD's comp offer tutoring - are you going to charge them VAT?

Perhaps you would also have hated a Comprehensive school?

How are they different from private school offering education to children? Is it not a luxury?

A poster claimed that grammar schools reflect the local population. I said that claim was false. Someone asked me for a source and I provided one.

The suggestion was that grammar schools are full of kids from the local council estate being given a leg up. The table showing that the FSM intake of grammar schools very much doesn't reflect the local population refutes that.

It's possible and, indeed, often more effective, to mislead by omission, by not making clear inconvenient, albeit relevant, details, than by outright lying. Although Bojo was an equal opportunity trickster. I digress.

But I think we've got to the bottom of our disagreement. Thank you for engaging civilly.

I don't disagree with you, I think there are children who are being helped outside of school and there are children who are not being helped outside of school. That's the distinction. But in order to even the score, we'd have to refuse to allow parents to read bedtime stories, or take their kids to museums, buy them books etc... and I don't think anyone wants that! I think we need to get schools to a place that nobody needs to pay extra for tutoring, or books, or any kind of education. That's my personal stance. I do of course appreciate that it's nonsense and that it's unattainable, but I nonetheless think it's what we should be striving towards. These conversations that focus on how much to deprive various children of in the name of equality make me angry, I want conversations about how to make it better for everyone. If we want to attack children at private school, we should attack children who are being tutored. Grammars (at least in my experience) have a much more diverse makeup than many comprehensives where people can buy their way in - let's prevent wealthy people buying up all the houses next to the best schools before we stop the schools taking the brightest from a huge catchment of rich, poor, black, white etc etc. This is pure ideology and will do nothing at all to actually help those most in need; at best it will reduce everyone to the same low level, at worst it will increase the wealth divide as those who can afford it buy up all the houses near the best schools.

no, I didn't say full of kids from the council estate. I said there are many lids there from council estates. And about 10% PP I think, and about 10% with SEND

edit - sorry I mean 20% PP

Can you show that the problem was Labour not being clear about their intentions with the money, rather than the reports that you were reading, wherever they were from, being vague?

I'm from one of those immigrant families you speak of 😆 Education seen as the gateway out of poverty and highly valued.

The bright student idea is simplistic. Some kids just work damn hard to get the results they want. Not sure why professional tutoring is wrong, surely that just shuts out anyone without well educated parents or those where English isn't their first language?

But the national average for pupil premium is 27.1%

I guess work damn hard can get the results without grammar school.

I didn't say it wasnt.

I am telling you what I have seen and experienced over years of teaching in grammars, and sending my children to grammars.

I don't have strong feelings in favour of grammars.

I don't care if grammar schools are abolished. I think comprehensives are better, but also that there are not really many genuine comprehensives about now, with academies and everything

I am just saying what the reality is around here, as a lot of posts are very ignorant.

I wasn’t referring to any particular area one way or the other. I was responding to this from a previous poster:
No, because the current admissions code prohibits "any new selection by ability"
I was pointing out that academies are absolutely selecting by ability and getting away with it. Not sure what you think the relevance of Kent being a fully selective area is, only grammar schools are permitted to select on academic ability, and that goes for Kent too.

I am telling you what I have seen and experienced over years of teaching in grammars, and sending my children to grammars.

But you don't seem to understand that your experience doesn't trump data. Particularly if your experience is only of teaching in grammars and sending your kids to grammars. It's an extremely narrow experience. 'Oh we have loads of kids from council estates'. Right, do you know what that should actually look like?

If I understand correctly, you are a teacher, one who pays careful attention to the details of school funding and has obviously read at least that part of their manifesto with a critical, and possibly cynical, eye. The vast majority of parents, let alone voters without children, would have not have paid such close attention to that. I accept that I was, perhaps, overly optimistic. However, I am cynical enough to believe that Labour was very happy to allow, if not actively encourage, the general belief that they intended to increase school funding by the amount of the VAT revenue, that the announced measures were on top of what otherwise would have been spent on education.

If we are going to shut down grammars can we also shut down Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and LSE. All the high quality researchers and lecturers can go and teach at other universities around the country and it will lead to better outcomes for society. The only reason unemployment and higher education outcomes are so poor in parts of the country is the unfair advantage those universities have. Let's shut them down.

If we force Waitrose to close, all the food they sold will get sold by other supermarkets and Waitrose customers will have to shop at Sainsbury's Tesco and Asda and this will be good for everyone at Tesco and Asda and mean food taste and price ratio outcomes will increase. I'm sure I can find some fake research by some biased researcher to prove Waitrose is bad for society and actually Waitrose shoppers would be better off in Sainsbury's which has banded and streamed food by quality anyway - you can get taste the difference banded food which is appropriate for foodies and then normal and Sainsbury's basic.

Everyone in my area used to shop at Waitrose and then it closed and became a Sainsbury's. The whole community has been much happier.

Any other "elite" things we can close?

Can we close down any car repair shops which have good MOT pass rates? People prep their cars before the MOT - it's not far on cars which arent prepped.

Also can we please stop children training for sports teams it's not far on the kids who don't train. All the places on town and county sports teams are taken by those kids who practice. It's so unfair if we closed down swimming pools and swimming clubs and penalised swimming lessons outside of school everyone would be much happier and it would probably be greener too.

Yes, because I have taught in comprehensives for decades.

and I went to a comprehensive and I live on a council estate

Can you show Labour being happy to encourage that belief? That's what I'm asking. You seem to have had the view that the VAT money was going into a general school pot, and are blaming Labour for that view. But was that coming from Labour? Or from sloppy articles in the press? Or people posting on social media?

@OvertutoredMum

Yes, in either. I don't think the problem is grammar schools specifically. It's making sure all schools are good. It says alot about the UK system where some schools need to be avoided like the plague.

Decades? And years in grammar schools too.

And yet your experience still doesn't beat the data.

What school specifically? Grammar?

I don't recall Labour going out of its way to respond to this:

“The glaring omission in the Labour party manifesto is a commitment to protect school funding.”