Scrap school catchments now

[Momentumummy]

If Labour wants to eventually end parents buying privilege through private schools, it needs to go after school catchments. How can it be fair to decide schools by distance to gates when it often depends on ability to pay rent or mortgage which will usually be higher in catchment for good schools?

The only fair system is a lottery one by borough (at least for secondary when kids are old enough to travel alone). You should be allocated a place within your borough but it should be randomized and not based on distance to gates.

I live in an area which is one of the wealthiest in the UK and our local comp is inadequate. No amount of money will give that school a dramatic turnaround as a critical mass of parents simply don’t value education. The assistant head freely admitted that they don’t stream or set for subject until GCSE as it makes it easier to manage behaviour.

I really wanted to send my children to a great local comp but the aspirations there were so poor. I’m not going to risk my DCs education there if I can possibly avoid it.

That said, I don’t expect my choice to be subsidised by others - no free school transport, for example.

BREAKING NEWS: Schools where pupils are selected (or self-select) on academic ability get more A level A grades.

You do realise that schools that select on academic ability will, on the whole, get better results? It's not rocket science.

They do have pushy parents on the whole but that doesn’t make their academic ability any less. Yes, they’re already well-educated because their ‘pushy’ parents have done their job but the vast majority are also exceptionally bright. And yes, I am speaking from experience.

Perhaps vast majority are as bright as those kids in comprehensive school, except their parents didn't push them to grammar schools by age 11 because these are not "Special Need" . And I'm speaking from experience and also a lot of research evidence.

“You do realise that schools that select on academic ability will, on the whole, get better results? It's not rocket science.”

Yes, of course but the regulator highlighting it specifically and clearly means no sane Government is going to overturn and mess with those types of school too much because if they do, results will look worse and it will be on them.

Are we back to comprehensivefuture @Overturnedmum ahem @overtutoredmum? Because they have been going for years with no tangible impact on policy, if anything free schools, academies with sometimes suspect admissions criteria/suspensions? So droning on for years has not lead to much has it now? In fact, massive step backwards with huge private school boom. Maybe better to focus on shitty parenting and in particular the huge impact of screens there rather than the old grammar school chestnut? Bit dull and a bit passé.

@Araminta1003 "It is very clear what type of centre produces the highest proportion of As at A level, independent then grammar"

0f course. A school which has a cohort of only high ability children will have a higher proportion of top grades.

"In fact, massive step backwards with huge private school boom"?

On really? Massive you mean 7% of the school population. We can see there are step forward and comprehensive school thriving and improved. I don't see why one can addeess school mobile policy while discussing why grammar isn't adding any value and bad for society.

I think, to make the point statistically valid, you would need to establish whether, at a statistically representative cohort size of matched socio-economic background, the proportion of the entire cohort getting As at A level is greater in grammar areas or in comprehensive areas.

@cantkeepawayforever - academically speaking yes, of course. However, that is not what your typical busy, full time working educationally motivated parent will look into in depth, all they see is BBC news reporting that 50 per cent of A level grades at independent schools are A or above, and 45 per cent or whatever the exact threshold was, at grammar. The matched socio economic background aspect - most people choose for their kids to be in a cohort like them or slightly above for betterment. That’s it.

I don't mean to be rude but I would be very unhappy if you were going to teach either one of my children on the spectrum, one who's very academic and the other not.

From your posts, you'd decide they were not going to be as able as NT children based on their diagnosis it seems. A teacher should be able to see all of the children you teach as individuals.

Sometimes, being very gifted is the first thing that people notice before anyone realises a child is on the spectrum.

@shockeditellyou

"The assistant head freely admitted that they don’t stream or set for subject until GCSE as it makes it easier to manage behaviour."

I think this is the major problem with state education. The system is run for the benefit and convenience of the teachers and the far left ideology of the unions. Children's education (especially the education of brighter pupils) is completely irrelevant.

How can it be in the interests of the pupils to sit in such mixed ability classes? The teachers know this, but they can hide behind the ideology of fairness and don't have to dread teaching the disruptive (and possibly violent) bottom set each week.

Not really. There are certainly children in comprehensive schools who are as bright as kids in super selective but they’re in the minority. I’ve taught in the full spectrum of schools, including the highest achieving grammar school in the country and whilst the bottom couple of sets there were definitely on a par with the top kids in comp (but had been pushed academically) the very top sets were worlds apart. Sometimes the kids aren’t high achievers because their parents are pushy, exactly; sometimes the parents try for an academic school because their child really is academically exceptional. It’s unfortunate in those circumstances that parents from poorer backgrounds either don’t recognise the same attributes in their own child or are unable or unwilling to steer them in a more academic direction, whether that is because there are no options available to them, they are lacking in education themselves or because they don’t value education in the same way as the other parents.

Depressingly it often stems from the child and their family’s expectations. Remember my dad as a senior teacher pleading with some of the bright kids to stay on and do a levels they just didn’t see that for themselves though very able. Their parents and siblings left at 16 so they assumed they would. Hopefully different now.

There are certainly children in comprehensive schools who are as bright as kids in super selective but they’re in the minority.

Not true at all, all the data suggests otherwise. Comprehensive school have far more bright kids compared to grammar school in both breadth and depth, at absolute number sense.

So very bright kids in areas where there are no grammars… where are they?

Of course very bright kids are concentrated in super selectives. But where there is no such school available they will be scattered in low concentrations in comprehensive top sets, surely?

Or as ‘worlds apart’ kids are they magically flying across counties to attend a super selective?

Maybe they've learned to mask their inate abilities to avoid putting a big fat target on their backs?

I really wouldn't discount this possibility given the culture in a lot of comprehensive.

On the topic of grammar schools, aren't people forgetting that most children sitting the grammar school test have been tutored which certainly rules out the poorer families. My cousins children were both tutored for grammar school - it's just expected that you'll do that if you have a good chance of getting in.

This puts families who can't afford this at an immediate disadvantage.

@Emmanuelll "This puts families who can't afford this at an immediate disadvantage" Coaching is the most obvious way that disadvantaged children are discriminated against in the selective system. There are many others.

@ThisOldThang "Maybe they've learned to mask their inate abilities to avoid putting a big fat target on their backs?"

Possibly. But how do you explain the statistical fact that outcomes are very similar for similar cohorts in selective and non selective LEAs?

Or @ThisOldThang the bright kids do something super smart and stick together. I think if you'd seen my DS and his friends in action you'd have quailed and re thought your opinions about the populations of comprehensives. They weren't shy of demonstrating their abilities. And they may not have been pushed at school, but they pushed themselves outside school, reading and chatting and generally relishing their intellectual abilities. Utterly self motivated. And guess what? They ended up in the same places as those super pushed kids at grammars.

Honestly these threads are daft. Grammars are in such small areas of the country. And yet the voices of their advocates are so loud on MN.

Crazy

This!!!!!

Agree! Very few areas have grammars ours doesn’t.

”Target on their backs” what on earth does that mean?! I can assure you that in my children’s state school the girls work as hard as they can - there is certainly no shame in being clever - quite the opposite. Think you have watched too many episodes of Grange Hill.