Comprehensive grammars???

[mumzy]

just read about free schools on BBC website and the comedian Toby Young who wants to set up a comprehensive grammar school which is for all abilities
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10138787.stm
Free schools being part of the conservative party manifesto the same party under David Cameron who opposes grammar schools.
Could someone explain to me what is a comprehensive grammar school as it seems to be an oxymoron

Thanks jackstarbright! That blog is very interesting....

Loungelizard - you're welcome

I'm thinking about starting a thread in politics on Nick Cohen's opinions on Ed Balls and his leadership bid.

jackstarbright

I would disagree that only 'some' comprehensives work. Most do.

We now live in another comprehensive area and they all seem to work. And there is no way that a top set child would be allowed to do media studies instead of physics. For a start, that's not allowed within the National Curriculum.

My dh dips in and our of teaching and he does not observe better teaching within the private sector at all. Many teachers within our area swap between state and private education, so you pretty much get the same staff where-ever you go. It's just that in the private sector around us you get posher uniforms and - on average - a brighter child because our local private schools do have some selection. (Although none of them are very academic)

Further back on this thread someone asked about the West Midlands school which selects in ability bands - is Thomas Telford School the one you mean?

Not read post very thoroughly but CMD - many schools in my locality ( SE London ) have a banded intake ,similar to the one you describe .
Sometimes the banding is related to national ability scores ,sometimes it's related to ability at time of intake .
One of our local schools ( KIngsdale ) has a banded intake admissions policy and then allocates places within that band by lottery .
Google fair banding .

"related to ability at time of intake " =
related to the ability of the current group of applicants

I am sure he doesn't mean that silly system some schools have where you need to be within a band to get in eg if you're very bright you may try to get into the 70 - 80% band by doing worse as you may not quite be bright enough to get in in the top tranceh 80 - 100. It's ridiculous. Some schools like Watford Grammar are comprehensives despite the name.

Very few of the top state schools ever get nito the top 20 schools in the country though so if women earn enough the best thing they can do for their children is to buy places at a top 20 school and obviously don't marry someone in the Toby Y income bracket or you end up struggling over schooling.

Or, if you marry someone in the 'Toby Y income' (i.e. 90% of the population, married or not...), and your children are very bright, move to a super selective grammar school area where the children there will give the most academic children at the most academic private schools, a good run for their money in the competition for Oxbridge/Russell Group universities. Every single pupil in my DCs' GS 6th form has a place at either a RG university or Oxbridge (Oxford being the university admitting the most pupils).

Money doesn't necessarily = cleverness, I am afraid, but it does buy better results from not very bright/average children in the first place, which is Not Very Fair, but then most people aren't interested in fairness, are they???

Toby Young et al will have to see how all the private schools with the Nice but Dim mixed ability intake manage to get their results and copy them for his school to succeed.

But education isn't JUST about the bright children, it's about the OTHERS too.

(Disclaimer: only ranting about GSs to make a point that it's not only those who pay who are miraculously Very Clever to start with )

Xenia absolutely agree that 'fair banding' admissions is ridiculous. It is a system so mad and convoluted that it's bound to confuse the less educated, and easy enough to 'cheat' for the more canny parents (though at the cost of encouraging their dc's to do badly in an exam .

Even if it 'works' if can only result in brighter affluent kids attending the same school as less able poor kids. With poor bright kids 'propping' up the results of the local sink school. Social mobility killed by 'fairness' imo.

Also - Toby Young is not short of a bob or two (he's a best selling author and journalist). He just wants his kids to have a good state education.

Very few journalists of authors can afford school fees actually. Plenty of newspaper columnists bemoan it but I certainly haven't done due diligence into his personal circumstances.

Anyway the saving grace is that this country has no money to waste at the moment so at least not too much tax payers' money will be spent on this stuff because there isn't much left to spend.

It sounds like it will be a terrible school. Offering lots of classics, just because that's what public schools used to offer.

E.g. copying a system that's moved on...

Toby Young went a comp. and did badly (perhaps he should have done a bit more work! or been more intelligent) and then did better when he switched to a grammar school.

It would be better for all if he put all his efforts in to making sure that his local comprehensive schools are providing a stimulating education for their brightest and supporting the less able appropriately rather than trying to create an old fashioned out-dated kind of a place.

xenia - I love the fact that you are a high earning, motivated woman, but you don't have to go to the 'best 20 schools' to do well. These school generally get good results because they are highly selective.

My comprehensive (and our local ones) effectively achieve the same with their top sets. Everyone from my top set went to a RG University or Oxbridge. We didn't need to go to a 'top' school to achieve this.

And, if our comp. was bad, then that just demonstrates how clever we all were!

sorry prof getting Toby Young confused with Harry Hill!.