News: Announcing the End of G&T

[DadAtLarge]

Article on Mixed Ability Classes Failing our Brightest Pupils
(Just one in a series of how schools are failing intelligent children)

• millions of bright children are being failed by the "one size fits all" comprehensive system, according to a former Downing Street advisor.
• bright pupils would be better served by expanding the influence of the country's 164 grammars.
• academic standards had suffered because of an obsession with fairness.
• the number of children eligible for G&T has ballooned from 180,000 to 700,000 but its budget had remained almost the same
• the budget for G&T is £7 per gifted and talented child per year.

Today, the government has announced scrapping National Strategies. link

Does that spell the end of G&T?

Anna - I was a council house grammar girl in the '70's and there certainly wasn't the diversity you describe. Socio-economically, I felt like a fish out of water. Most parents had m/c professions and certainly owned their own homes etc. Farmer's daughters (whereas my background was farm labourers)

Grammar schools represent one of those fine examples of an idea which is currently not working well in practice, which leads people therefore to think, mistakenly, that they are a bad idea per se.

It doesn't have to be like this. The system is simply being mismanaged.

this could well be so UD

but I am not convinced that it worked that well in the past either

imho for it to work at all, there would have to be some changes from the grammar schools as we know/knew them:

a more fluid transition, so that children are not stuck in either system at age 11

opportunities for the grammar school children to do some practical subjects at secondary level

some chance for grammar school children to mix with comprehensive children for some activities

a pay system that attracts good teachers to the comprehensive schools too, so they are not left with the teachers that can't find jobs elsewhere- so maybe slightly better pay to teach at a comprehensive to compensate for the more academic bent of the grammar school children

Oh, I definitely think it should be more fluid, yes. Your suggestions seem sensible.

(That's been the problem with grammar school discussions on here before - I've been pelted with endless variations on "Why! Do! You! Want! To! Bring! Back! The 11+? It! Is! So! Divisive!" And no matter how manner times I answered "I ! Don't!", they refused to believe me...)

The trouble with the grammar debate is we all have a picture in our heads of the way our local school system operates, which may be nothing like everyone else's. For example, like Seeker I am in Kent and I just do not recognise the scenario she describes.

I was a parent governor at the grammar my DSs go to and the boys come from as many different sorts of backgrounds as there are in the town. My own DH works in a supermarket and grew up on a council estate, so you could categorise my boys as being from a disadvantaged background...

As for fluidity, I also worked as a TA at one of the high schools in the town (can't be a comp in a grammar area) and knew of at least 3 boys assessed in later years (Y7 and Y8) based on their school work and transferred to grammar. My boys tell me that people have also left their school to go elsewhere when it has turned out they can't keep up.

You can't look at the GCSE results from a non-grammar school in Kent and say "that's a failing school". The High School my DS1 went to got 17% A-C. When you consider that the top 25% of the kids in the area have gone to grammar you wouldn't expect a result much higher than that. By contrast, the school I went to many years ago which was a grammar and went comprehensive got 16%, and is also on the earlier link. That is a school in an area with only comprehensives, so that result is diabolical.

We are just about to move from a grammar to a non grammar area and I'm quite concerned. In this town if your child passes the 11+ it doesn't matter where you live, they will get a place. With comprehensives it comes down to being in the "right" catchment area. We don't have a large house-buying budget so that is difficult. I think selection by ability is much much fairer than selection by postcode or by bank balance.

How does it work if everyone who passes gets a place? There must be a finite number of places available.

Interesting, elvislives.

My children go to an incredibly socially diverse primary school - a officially recognized area of social deprivation is in the catchment area, but there are also a significant proportion of middle class professional families and 'down from Lunnons". Children from the estates simply do not pass the 11+. I could look at my ds's year 3 class and make a list of the children who are going to grammar school and I bet I will be almost perfectly accurate in my predictions.

There is some mobility, but to move - particularly from High school to grammar - requires a level of parental confidence and awareness of the system that most disadvantaged families simply don't have.

I agree with UQD that the Grammar admissions systens are flawed and I think that it is a matter of volume. In an ideal world, the children would be asked to do something like write an essay where there is huge scope and the most creative, imaginative minds would shine through. Unfortunately, because Grammars are so oversubscribed they often resort to multiple-guess, computer-marked papers where it is difficult to display individual talent and the right answers can be taught

The accusation that Grammars are unfair because they are full of MC kids makes me cross. What is the role of Primary schools in this: why aren't they (or the LEA) identifying disadvantaged G&T kids, nurturing them and ensuring that they have at least as good a chance as anyone else? It is they who are failing/oppressing the disadvantaged, not the middle classes.

Where I live the Grammar schools have their own entrance examinations. One school assesses using only maths, english and writing without assessing non-verbal reasoning. I think that puts dyslexic children (for example) at a disadvantage as they are less likely to perform well in the english and written exam. Apart from that I know that many parents who can afford to will tutor their children. Most children from my ds's school go to grammar. I used to work in a less affluent area a few miles away and only a couple of children would pass.

The problem is that, in order, supposedly, to ensure a level playing field, primary schools are actually not allowed to actively prepare children for the 11&divid; - the intention being that all children are thus equally unprepared/prepared. In reality, some schools -such as the small private school near us that practically guarantees success (99% last year), and a lot of parents who understand the system DEFINITELY prepare their children.

And it is definitely not a "level playing field" test. For example, there was a question in one paper that required candidates to know 3 meanings for the word "sage". It is very unlikely that a child from a home without books could answer that!

Problem is, it has to be an academic test. How can it be that without, to an extent, being the kind of test which well-read children will do better in?

it is often argued (whether truthfully or not) that you can get a good social mix in grammar schools so that no child need miss out on that score by going to grammar school

but personally I think it is also an advantage for dd to go to school not only with children from different social backgrounds but also with children with different abilities and with children with SEN

imo this is an education in its own right and not something I would want her to miss out on

When I passed the 11+ (1967) I remember it was just an IQ test, and right up my street. Cornsilk's description of the entrance exam would exclude science buffs and those good at languages wouldn't it? Is that the norm?

Because we are in a Market town with fewer higher middle class demographics, I think the mix at grammar is reflective of the environs.
But ds1 has a lovely friend in his yr. Who told ds1 how lucky he was to have uni educated parents who earned enough to provide travel and enrichment. His parents are thwarted grammar school attendees ( now taxi driver and shelf stacker- not a failure just restrictions of the town) who have told their son ( who also has cerebral palsy) that no matter what you do we cannot support you in further education.
Thankfully he has higher hopes.
I guess uni is now the deal breaker financially?

hocuspontas - Some grammar schools set their own entrance exams and they can differ. There is another local grammar school which does include non-verbal reasoning which I think is fairer. Funnily enough the school that includes non-verbal reasoning in it's entrance examination achieves better results.

Hi mummyrex,

I know that you "don't HAVE to send a child to a Grammar School even if they pass". The problem is that you DO HAVE to send them to the secondary mod (usually erroneously called comprehensive these days) if they fail and lots of children that would benefit from a grammar education do fail because the selection exams aren't accurate enough or maybe they haven't been prepared well enough for them.

I actually think the answer to stretch the more able isn't more grammar schools, but to overhaul the curriculum so that it's more challenging and ensure all schools teach those capable of more the extra stuff.

This is fantastic news!!!!!

This means that teachers don't have to teach to tests. It gives the flexibility for lots of learning styles. It means that learning can become FUN again!!

I hope it means there is still the funding to get writers and artists into schools. A lot of that has cone from ring-fenced G&T funding in my experience.

"Some grammar schools set their own entrance exams and they can differ."

I don't THINK this apples to State Grammars. There are ex-grammar schools that keep the name but are now fee paying and they do have different entry requirements, but I think LEAs which have grammar schools have the same admission policy across the LEA. If you see what I mean.

I think that might be the case in Trafford. Not 100% sure but recall reading it on here.

Seeker - the state grammar schools where I live have different types of entrance examinations from each other. They don't take the 11+ into account at all.

That's interesting, cornsilk - do you have to apply individually to each one? That miust be a nightmare!

Yes - have to fill in different forms for each grammar school.

As an "outsider", it does appear that the British school system is very much a postcode lottery as described by elvislives. Those with money either buy a nice house in a nice area or put their children into private schools. Those who don't are more likely (and I stress more likely) to find themselves living in an area with schools that are achieving lower academic results. This seems unfair to those living in those areas who could achieve more by being in a grammar school.

Like elvislives, I went to a grammar school (in which the children had a wide variety of social backgrounds) which is now a failing comprehensive. My parents still live in the catchment area of that school so had I been born a couple of decades later that's where I would have gone as my parents would not have been able to afford otherwise (father was a factory worker, mother laundry worker). It is difficult to say what I would have achieved of course but I very much doubt that I would be living here in Belgium.

My brother and family, who live not so far away, live in the catchment area of a much higher achieving school (it is relatively new school and was therefore able to avoid all the pitfalls of the transition from grammar to comprehensive). When they were looking at house details a few years ago, I noticed two things. Firstly, those houses that were in the catchment area of the higher-achieving school mentioned this FIRST (so obviously top-selling point) and secondly, similar houses in the two catchment areas (despite for the most part being the same geographical area) had significant price differences.

Here in Belgium we have a three tier system: the academic schools, the technical schools and the professional schools (for trades mainly). I'm not convinced this system works either. My sons moved from the Belgian system to a British school to finish their education. My youngest did A level maths, physics and design and technology (and French). As it turns out he wants to do robotic engineering but there are some in his class who want to do product design for which they need a high level of maths and/or physics as well as DT. This would not have been possible in the Belgian system. To do DT you would have to go to the technical school but the level of maths and physics at those schools would be of a lower standard than in the academic schools. In the academic schools you do useful subjects like Latin and Ancient Greek instead! I much prefer the British system of wide choice. Here it is very, very limited.

I have always been an advocate of grammar schools. It is a fallacy to assume that all children are equal. Some are better at literacy, some at maths, some at music, some at science etc. Their talents should be celebrated and promoted rather than shoved into a system where we eductate everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

However, for a selective system to work, we as a society need to move away from the position where the only measure of success at school is exam results in accademic subjects and the only successful outcome is going on to do a degree which industry increasingly has no use for. I personally would place a great deal more value on a properly trained plumber than someone with a degree in [insert bizarre and useless subject of choice].

If we stopped pushing pupils who have non-accademic talents to conform to an accademic norm, and stopped funding third rate degree courses, we might be able to use the money to have properly funded apprenticeships.

All that said, I like Cory's suggestion about truly comprehensive schools. Children streamed according to ability and talent in a wide range of subjects. If we dropped SATS and all the other meaningless targets, perhaps there would be more money to do this!