Prescott back stabs Blair.

[RudolphsAuntMabel]

Hurrah for John Prescott!! (never thought I'd say that!).

Has told the telegraph that he will fight Tory Blair on the school reforms - the ones that will allow state schools to be selective - 2 tier class system.

I for one agree with John. I was lucky enough to go to a great state High School where the girls in my form were from all different backgrounds and I firmly believe that's a good thing. If you give state schools the option to be selective with the pupils they take and more control over their own finances in the way Tony wants a lot are going to take children from more prosperous back grounds so kids like I was will miss out on a fantastic education just because their parents aren't wealthy.

I love John Prescott!!

God yes. Blair is such an arse

I would like it to be possible for children to leave school early if that is their wish with the total guarentee that the years they miss will be available to them at a later stage in their lives when they are ready to learn, free of charge.

What possible point is there in trying to teach if someone is determined, as a stroppy teen, not to learn?? Bettwe that they go out, grow up a bit, and come back to learn when they are ready

Madness

exactly

On a positive note, a girl at dd's school (state comp) who had been having problems (truancy, general going off the rails) is now being allowed to attend the local FE/HE college 2 days per week to do an art foundation course. She is in Year 10. I think that is an enlightened approach.

I agree completely about the need for more vocational education. Some of the most difficult children in our school come back from work experience with the most glowing reports, and even for some (unusually) offers of jobs!

So why are they stuck in school, which is largely still teaching academic subjects in an academic way? ALL students have to cover some poetry in English, and much of it is pretty inaccessible to many of them. It just doesn't make sense.

Our school does offer many non-academic and less academic courses. But then it struggles to persuade anyone at all to study subjects such as MFL and Humanities, even though many of them are academically able kids who would benefit from that approach. But they're in an environment where it's not cool to be bright, to study, and work hard; so for a laugh they sign up to do motor vehicle studies or something.

I realise that setting, streaming, and selection do cause problems for those children on the borders. But actually IMO the vast majority of children are not on the border in any way, and both the academically able children, and the more practical/less academic children, are suffering by being forced into this "one size fits all" approach of education in this country.

We do this, and it can work well for some kids. The trouble is that for some kids this comes far too late and the kids behaviour has often suffered as a result. Then the FE collage expells them too....

We are not allowed to address behavioural issues at an early enough level to sort them out. Without being able to behave in a class, kids will never learn.

I'm all for nurture groups as well, where they kids emotional probelms are addressed.....fail to do that and you will fail the child

Roisin, I so agree with you. In fact I don't know of anyone working in education who would disagree. But the decisions are not made by people who know anything about education and kids, are they? But a woman from the treasury department , who is fed a sanitised view of the issues!

I don't work in education and I agree with roisin too!

In our town you select before you get your 11+ resuls
This was the first year of doing it and it sucked
alright for me who knew ds would pass.
You put your first and second choice
If you were not sure if your child would pass you were advised to select the comp (excellent school in iteslf) then if you passed the 11+ you can reapply back to the grammar (boys and girls here take the top 35%), by putting the grammar first, you had no show at the comp as it is so popular.
However this backfired this year as for the firt time, lots of people put the grammar first, so th people who put the comp first, then passed the 11+ reapplied and lost the appeal - before you do the appeal you have to accept or decline the comp place due to oversubscription.
So these parents reapplied at the grammar - but for the first time since its opening it was over subscribed by boys who HAD passed the 11+ and put it as first choice.
this also happened at the girls grammar.
Now there are two more high schools in outlying villages, not great schools, so for people who had wanted grammar places... not an option
So people then reapplied to other grammars in the county and now face huge commutes
it is not necessarily the tiers of education, but the parental choice.
We moved to this area because of its secondary education. I could easily see how this richness of education could blow a parents dreams od schooling apart.

Epiffany, as you live just down the road I know wht you're on about. Which are the other grammars in the area give me a clue..... Certainly is the sh*t hole behind my house in Rusk.. They've got rubbish pass rates and have little or no control over the kids. The 3 schools in town though are all pretty excellent though aren't they. Hoping my DS's can go to one of them (not the girls one obviously - though I went there).

roisin - I agree up to a point. but don't really see what's wrong with academically able children doing motor studies. It's a practical skill and useful in lots of academic subjects (physics being the obvious one, but also maths and problem solving in general). It's probably more useful to the majority than humanities.

The ones in Grantham and Boston Rudolph
Amazong know one kid from Heckington now goes to Boston Grammar.
The 3 schools are great in town though - the girls grammar is so well eqipped now, the boys is next for refurrbishment - they got turned down for funding to widen the role by and extra age classe each year - disappointing

I failed my 11+ and went to a secondary modern. I ended up at a grammar school because I passed my 13+. This was in the early 1970s. I don't know how common the 13+ is today. However, two of my year 7 son's friends who narrowly failed their 11+ last year are resitting it this year. The Bexley LEA allow children to sit a 12+ and 13+ exam, so this means 11 is not the absolute cut off age for secondary school choice around here.

This is just an aside. I have little direct experience of secondary schools today so don't feel able to discuss this. (And as I went to secondary school in the 1970s, I know my experiences are well out of date).

but your views are just as relevant as everyone elses. I went to secondary school in the 60's!

"On Sunday, Mr Prescott told the Telegraph: "I'm not totally convinced major reform is necessary."

He defended comprehensive schools and warned against any move that could pave the way for their abolition.

He said of the White Paper: "Since I was an 11-plus failure, since I do believe that produced a 'first-class/second-class' education system, I fear this is a framework that may do the same."

Hmmmm, let's see now, John Prescott is, er Deputy Prime Minister - some 'failure'!

My Dad came from a poverty-stricken rural background, brought up by illiterate grandparents after his father was killed and his mother had to go out to work, on a farm cottage with no electricity or heating. Through his own graft and intelligence, he came 3rd in the county when he took his 11-plus in the mid 40's(no doubt against kids from a more affluent background), got into grammar school and was able to go to University. He became a teacher himself and flatly refused to teach in comprehensives.

I've heard 2 Labour MP's now (Prescott included) slam the idea of a 'two-tier system' and the 11-plus because THEY failed it. Isn't it a bit like saying they were no good at school sports, so no school should do PE?

I see absolutely no problem with a 2-tier system based on academic elitism if those who are less academically able are not thrown on the scrapheap, but given a good education appropriate to their needs and abilities. The academically able from poorer backgrounds should be given a state-education on a par with any of the top public schools. My DH (from a far more affluent background than my old man) went to one of the latter, and there's not a difference between him and my dad on an intellectual or educational basis. That's something to be proud of, to my mind.

DH went on to be a teacher too, and left the profession post-97. He wouldn't trust our kids to a current state education...

As things stand right now, the gap between the privately and state-educated seems to be widening. And it's interesting that the proportion of state-educated children entering Oxbridge is reckoned to have declined since Labour came to power in 1997.

and I'll just add that I flunked the 11-plus myself,

That's really interesting, aelita, and no wonder you're proud of your dad.

I don't quite understand what it is about his experience that makes him so dead against comprehensives, though? I went to a "bog standard comprehensive" but got into Oxford (no-one in my family had been to university before that). I don't think my own experience would have been any different if I'd gone to a grammar school rather than a comprehensive.

I appreciate that in the 40s, you had to go to grammar school if you wanted to get on. My own mum (from similar background to your dad) deliberately failed her 11-plus because she knew my grandfather couldn't afford for her to go to the grammar school. I don't think that grammar schools always operated as a route out of poverty.

Sounds as if you had a lot to try and live up to, aelita. My dad was bitterly disappointed that I didn't get a first at Oxford (I got a 2:1). He felt I'd really let him and myself down.

Same here! He put me under such intense academic pressure from such an early age (remember him screaming at me when I was age 7, drumming my times tables in so I could get the gold star at school for being the first to learn them) right through my education, that I simply gave up. He still sees no problem with the fact that he opened my O-Level results for me, . The whole exercise was for his benefit really, not mine, though I can feel fairly magnanimous about it now, given that I'm doing okay. This is the same guy who had ex-pupils beating a path to our door to thank him for being such an amazing teacher..

And you were the first in your family to go to university, never mind Oxford, and got a 2:1?? I'd be so proud if my kids did that well! I swear never to give them grief if they don't though (honest!)

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aelita - going from what people have said so far it seems to be about the area you live as well. I am very, very lucky to have 3 excellent schools within 10minutes and 2 more within 30mins. 4 grammar and one secondary modern. All schools currently take anyone from any background and people go to the school most suitable for them - if they passed the 11+ - which I feel is fantastic. I was lucky enough to attend one of the grammar schools, my parents struggled like hell to take care of my brother and myself and there was no spare cash so state education was the only way we could go, and the only way I want my kids to go. IMHO the problem's will arise if schools are given the ability to select children from more affluent back grounds therefore causing a 'class' divide. Kids that are from wealthier families will have little or no experience of the snotty nosed kids from council estates (like DH and myself) and that can't be a good thing.

I agree education at state schools should be on a par with private but sadly when people are still more than happy to pay xamount of cash for what they consider to be a better education it's just not going to happen.

For me the interesting factor isn't where all this Labour lot went to school, it's where they send their children. I don't know about John Prescott but I wouldn't be surprised if he did send his kids to the local school. But all you have to do is take a little look around the other MPs, to find private school children (Dianne Abbott and others), grammar school children and selective state (Blair and others). And also don't forget, this lot have the money to move house wherever they want in their constituencies to ensure that even if they tow the party line, they make sure they get the best for their children.

All anyone really wants is a good, local school for their child and at the moment, the system isn't working as it should but so far, I can't say that anything any political party has come up with has sounded like making any difference.