Labour advised to finish closing all grammars

[twistyizzy]

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

The unions are absolutely captured.

schoolsweek.co.uk/labour-faces-pressure-to-ditch-tory-rshe-reforms/

It's up to parents to protect their children.

I'm torn about grammar schools as I went to one but chose not to even try to send my two very bright and academic DCs to one. We did move to a more expensive area to get them into a decent comp though.

The grammar school was brilliant for me back in the late 80s as I'm from a very deprived area and the local school was absolutely awful. I was the first person in my family to stay at school past 16, first to get A levels and go to uni.

If I'd gone to the local comp there is no way I could have done well. Learning and intelligence was mocked, bullying was rife and every summer someone set fire to the school library.

My brother went there and did very badly, he then sent his DCs there and it didn't seem to have changed much in the intervening period. (Yes I judge his parenting decisions)

So basically the grammar school worked for me as a way out of the local school/area, I was mostly there with very middle class girls, some of whom had been tutored to get in way beyond their actual abilities.

Nowadays it seems like extensive tutoring is the only way to get in and so it seems the social mobility part has failed.

The OP shared a tweet that seems to oppose abolishing grammar schools, ironically, a grammar school teacher thinks all the Mumsnet opinions are rigged by think tanks.

You realise most children go to comprehensives/converted comprehensives don’t you? It’s a very sweeping statement to say they are horrid and unsafe.
At my expensive private school, one teacher was shagging the sixth formers and another wouldn’t ask the girls any questions. He was go bright red if he had to talk to one. Another could have very nearly killed a pupil who wound him up. The incident did shut us all up though. Obviously my experience (of one) makes private schools sound horrendous but they obviously aren’t all like that. There must be nice and safe teachers in the private system too!

I'm the OP and yes I oppose the abolition of choice in education. We need choice so that parents can choose the best school to fit the needs of their DC. What we don't need is a 1 size fits all mono-culture of Labour approved schools.

“You realise most children go to comprehensives/converted comprehensives don’t you? It’s a very sweeping statement to say they are horrid and unsafe.“

And where exactly did I say that? I am looking at various comp options too for my Year 5. Personally, when looking at a school, I look very carefully at the cohort and the leadership and try my best to glimpse the dynamics with staff. I look for schools were staff are happy and work well together and are supported by the parent group and management as a whole. Plenty of comps have that, plenty don’t. There are hardly any failing or inadequate grammar schools though.

Choice is an absolute nonsense in education. It is a luxury to make the middle classes feel better, but in reality no one knows enough about the nearby schools to actually make a choice, and more than that there are plenty of parts of the country where there isn't a choice. If the nearest primary school is 4 or 5 miles away and the secondary school 10-15, then you don't have a choice.

“Choice is an absolute nonsense in education.”

What nonsense! If you have been a Governor, have lots of local friends in teaching, have been on the PTA, have lived in an area for ages you most definitely know what is going on in various schools and people do talk and make choices. In London, we get tons of choice of schooling even at primary now that there is no baby boom anymore and all schools oversubscribed.
And it is exactly why the quality of schools can go out of favour quite quickly because parent groups and what they think matter loads. Especially quite middle class influential ones. The reason our state primary was so good was not because people were rich, but because people volunteered, cared to help out, cared to do the homework etc and support the teachers. The teachers themselves had kids at the school, stayed for most of their careers, all heads were always experienced ex teachers and the whole community worked together really effectively, including during Covid. State schools like this exist. It is trickier at secondary level especially if a school goes beyond a certain size, but it is possible.

@Araminta1003 Where I live there is the local comp. To get to another school would require a car and a parent to take a big chunk out of their day to drive you back and forth. There’s no public transport that could get you to another school in less than an hour. As it is most children walk or get the school bus. The catchment covers a huge area.

I thought you may be in London. It’s like another country.

No because the few ruin it for the rest. It will never be fully achievable while we have a culture that in some corners, celebrates deriding education or just doesn’t care about it at all

It seems to be ineffective management to allow few individuals to cause an entire school to fail.

Like "A world-class society can never be fully achievable because there will always be few who undermine it"?

At my daughter's state primary at least 1/3 of parents pay out for grammar school tutoring - £50 a week for 2 years.
The children who are tutored and fail the eleven plus then invariably are sent to the local "sporty" independent school (there is another super selective independent locally),
They'll invest thousands also in music lessons/ stagecoach/ gymnastics in the hope of music or sports scholarships and are quite open about it.

Sharp elbowed middle class parents who don't want to "waste" their money on school fees when it could be spent on their £2 million houses, ski trips and expensive cars.

This is why I oppose grammar schools , and in particular eleven plus exams that cover the year 6 curriculum so you cannot pass the test without tuition or at least a parent researching this and providing workbooks - a way for the already privileged to entrench their privilege and smugly pull the ladder up .

At least parents who pay school fees are honest in that they are paying for their children's advantages - the eleven plus tutors customers would rather take the places away from the naturally bright - and then be smug about it. Openly say grammar schools are better as then you are entering university from state school so have lower offers and access to state school open days - especially for Oxbridge

Not sure why so many are saying "well, my grammar was excellent and the local comp was shit!" as if that's not proving the point.

Instead of one great school for all the clever kids and one terrible school for the kids deemed not bright enough at 10/11, we could have 2 great schools. It is hardly a "race to the bottom" wanting all children to have excellent opportunities.

@CornedBeef451 sums it up well: "If I'd gone to the local comp there is no way I could have done well. Learning and intelligence was mocked, bullying was rife and every summer someone set fire to the school library.

My brother went there and did very badly, he then sent his DCs there and it didn't seem to have changed much in the intervening period. (Yes I judge his parenting decisions)"

How does Labour propose to stop those who don't care about education mocking & bullying academic children? Imagine that happening from year 7, by year 11 GCSEs the poor kids have been worn down by their disruptive but "cool" classmates with no future.

We accept different abilities and motivations in sport and musical abilities, I don't understand why it's any different when it comes to academics...

But if there wasn't a grammar, and instead half of the children at the grammar had gone to the comp, it would be a completely different environment!

@dontjudgemeagain you have clearly never attended a bad school 😂 that's just not how it works! Those kids are uncool, bullied and derided by their peers. Most will conform and go to great lengths to hide the fact they are studying or trying.

Sadly, disruptive and badly behaved kids at that age will have more influence over their peers than the clever ones.

I feel like most t people commenting on clever children "raising" the standard haven't ever attended a rubbish school!

I tend to view the grammar/secondary modern system as a historical relic since I haven't lived in an area that had this system since I was at primary school.

I was in the first year of comprehensive education in my area, and, tbh, my parents were too worried about me going to the ex-secondary modern - my catchment school - to send me there and I went to a private school instead, from a state primary.

It was quite a leap of faith for me, therefore, to send my children to (different) comprehensive state schools. But I'm very glad I did. They have both done/are doing very well and I've saved lots of money on school fees (though it would have been a stretch for us). Neither of them have been – or needed to be – tutored at any point. They've had great teachers and they have both learned a lot. The one who has done GCSEs did far better than I did and is now doing well at A-level.

I hear some concerns further up the thread about what happens to the academic children in a comprehensive school. In my experience, they find friends who are similar to them and also friends who are not similar to them but who they get on with and learn from – and may not have met in a selective school.

There are kids who mess around and don't do well. (No school libraries burnt down though!) But who those kids are is not necessarily predicted by class or family finances. Issues such as SEN and children who are stressed by whatever's going on at home also probably play a role in this.

The grammar school/secondary modern system doesn't work because it writes off too many of the kids who go to the secondary modern and who may have done very well in a single comprehensive school. But the comprehensive system probably does need people from all backgrounds to send their kids there in order for it to work as well as it could do. I think the comprehensives my kids have gone to probably have achieved that very well.

Independent schools might already be doing this. I'm led to believe that pay at very highly selective schools is lower than you'd expect, and pay at schools geared more towards the so-called "clotted cream" is higher. People are rational and cash payment is only part of the reward for doing most jobs.

@Changed18 - out of interest does this comp your kids go to have an Ofsted Outstanding or Good? Is it a pricy catchment or not? (Either expensive area like St Alban’s, Cambridge etc or people move into under 1 mile catchment type thing?) Does it have any significant teacher recruitment issues?

Worked in many "bad" schools, actually! Just not sure how exactly you think siphoning off the most academic children improves those schools? Should we just leave children who can't pass a test at 10/11 to wallow in shitty schools?

Thanks. I guess you mean that even with a marginal difference in pay, some teachers will always prefer certain teaching environments when there is a perceived consistent difference in the cohort mix between schools. This will inevitably cause an imbalance in teacher distribution in the area. Especially with the presence of independent schools, this approach won’t be effective.

In London, we get tons of choice of schooling even at primary now that there is no baby boom anymore and all schools oversubscribed.

That's not the experience of many families around the country.

If the grammar schools are state then surely they could just stop being academically selective and be open for all. No reason for them to close. Just from the next cohort be available in a catchment, or other locally approved, admissions policy and not be based on any form of academic basis.

Absolutely. They can just drop being selective.