Labour advised to finish closing all grammars

[twistyizzy]

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

So your solution is to collectively cut off one's nose to spite one's face because of location and logistics?!?

You may not have much exposure to real-life Grammars; many of the students are children of immigrants and/or likely to be the first generation in their family to go to university.

1 in 12 U.K. secondary schools do banding.
https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-are-secondary-school-banding-tests

Thank you.

In my view, they're behaving like a magician. Or a pick-pocket. Or Boris Johnson. Distract you with something irrelevant, and hope no one notices what they're doing behind the scenes.

Lets be clear,
Your solution is to continue to privilege the lucky few bright kids that were smart enough to choose to be born to middle class parents living in the right regions.

My solution is disband this bastion of middle class privilege and increase funding across the board, for all regions, so bright kids from all backgrounds have a equal shot at a good education,

Yes, many children in grammars are children of wealthy immigrants. They are actually far less likely to come from a family where no one has gone to university. There are universities outside the U.K…

It's nothing like the 'let's spend £350 million on the NHS instead' pledge.

They have specified exactly which bits of education they are going to spend it on.

Claiming that banding is selecting by ability like grammar schools when banding means that the school has to select the exact same percentage of low ability students as high ability students is a very different kettle of fish. They specifically select for an even spread of ability, not a subset of it.

I suppose you could make it actually forbidden, as in "if we discover you have employed a tutor your scores will be voided" in the hopes that puts people off. Some obviously would continue with cash in hand etc but hopefully the realisation that what they were doing was immoral would convince some people to abstain; I know several people who consider themselves extremely 'leftie' who loudly despise private schooling yet happily spend a fortune on tutoring (and hugely overpriced houses next to the best schools). Maybe they would see that what they were doing was no less immoral than private school. I would personally argue it far more so - not only are they buying a superior education for their little darlings, they're also depriving others of places at the best schools as they couldn't afford the ridiculous prices. But these people are themselves intelligent and highly educated so they would most likely just do the tutoring themselves and tell themselves it's definitely not immoral.

I would think though that if we are going to charge VAT for private schools, that must surely include tutoring? I've not heard people talk about it but I assume that will be the case, and at least it'll be a start.

Again, I don't care if grammars stay or go, but your post is inaccurate. Outside of middle class areas, grammars are certainly not middle class. They reflect the local population. And yes, many grammar school children are the first in their family to go to university

But we know that grammars don't reflect the local population. Claiming that is batshit in the face of the evidence.

Zero chance

whatever, the ones I know certainly do, the ones my children attended, the ones I teach in. Some of the kids are middle class, some are not. Some come from educated parents, some don't.

My son's closest school friend from grammar school is now supporting his whole family, more or less, as he was the first to get a degree, and the first to get a well paid job, and has been able to support his parents by getting them sorted out with a mortgage, and paying part of it himself and guaranteeing the rest.

We have plenty of grammar school pupils from local council estates. We have plenty of singles parents. We just have normal children in our intake, except they are in the top 40% academically

This is simply not true. I don’t care what you thought you saw teaching in a few of them. Your sample size of you and your subjective view is not reflective of the whole as compared to statistical analysis at the population level.

Fine, have it your way. They'll fund 6500 teachers. When the details of the education budget come out, we'll see if the total number of teachers increases by 6500, or if they just claim it was 6500 more than otherwise would have been.

Honestly, your anecdotes of one lad really do not trump the evidenced, peer reviewed studies done by UCL and others on this matter.

We have plenty of singles parents

Shocker for you, but you can be a single parent AND middle class. 🤣

I know :( which is why is feel these proposals are empty ideology rather than any kind of attempt at genuine equality.

Out of interest, do you agree with me that tutoring is also a form of private education and should be treated as such? I take from your username that you are no stranger to tutoring?! (Not trying to start a fight btw 🙈)

The 6500 figure I agree is bobbins and unmeasurable. But their claim that they are going to put money into breakfast clubs, or reforming Ofsted is certainly something that is observable.

that was one example. I have known thousands of grammar school children

I don't think there's any moral difference between a parent with the money to pay a professional tutor to teach their child, and a parent with the education and time to do it themselves. Are you going to ban that as well? If not, how can you justify denying that advantage to DC whose parents aren't as well educated?

Are you in Northern Ireland? Because your claims don't stack up for England.

Agree, should have put 20% VAT on tutoring

Could you possibly provide a source? In my personal experience, grammars attract a very wide range of background as their catchments are so large - though my personal experience is a couple of decades out of date so things may well have changed. I'm sure the last time I looked at any data though it showed that people from deprived backgrounds, including immigrants, did significantly better at grammar than at comprehensives - though again, that was a few years back.

But it won't be observable whether they actually paid for these things by withdrawing funding from another part of the education budget.

My claim was that grammars do not reflect the local population.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01425692.2018.1443432

Page 9.

I agree, sorry - I thought I'd been obvious that I would be as equally scornful of people who realise private tutoring is wrong so take it upon themselves to do it as I would be of people who realise that private schooling is wrong so spend a fortune on tutoring. But I do understand that people of course want what's best for their little darlings, and there's a limit on how much a government can do to prevent that. I think that's probably the salient point.