Article arguing for selective education

[BonsoirAnna]

Here

MillyR - but no-one needs to support their child through all their homework. I have two secondary-aged DSSs and they have plenty of homework but only ask us for help on bits of it.

I don't think that working class people in the state system, for example, are somehow more experienced in 'real life' than people from a top independent school. I just think that there is a benefit to having a mix of people from different backgrounds within professions that will work with the public.

If you hit the real world as a young lawyer, you may meet working class people at work, but that isn't really the same depth of experience as being born into a working class family, community or even from simply having working class friends.

Anna - yes I agree, that you shouldn't have to help with all of the homework. I think the same is true of the 11plus though. I was around when DS did the papers, but I didn't feel the need to help with it all. I just answered queries and explained when necessary. I expect the process will be the same with secondary school homework.

Do you know milly some of us working class types have professional jobs and mix with people who have similar jobs.

I haven't read all the thread so apologies if I'm repeating anyone here, but I wanted to offer my point of view.

I went to an all-girls grammar school and despite leaving school (with 10 GCSEs and 4 A Levels) 17 (ouch) years ago I still have "issues" that I can trace directly back to school.

I was one of the 'stupid' ones in my class, so I lost all confidence in my own abilities - something I've never quite overcome. I doubt myself all the time. In every school there are going to be kids that the teachers ignore and I was one of those unfortunately. On my last day, one of the teachers told me I was one of the girls she wouldn't remember because I wasn't very good and I wasn't very bad - doomed to a life of mediocrity!

What I'm trying to say is, that I think if I'd gone to a comprehensive school, with streaming (I thought they all streamed - perhaps not?) then I'd probably have been in the top or second set for everything, I'd have had more attention from teachers and I would have had more confidence in myself.

We recently moved back to the area I grew up in. I don't have a daughter, but if our new baby is a girl, I don't want her to go to my school.

So don't fall into the trap of thinking grammar schools are wonderful, because they're really, really not.

There are always going to be both good and bad personal experience of grammar schools, and comprehensive schools. I went to a bog standard comprehensive and pretty much had to self teach to get through my exams with good grades, despite streaming. But that was a long time ago. I had one year at a private prep and from that year my eyes were opened to what a two tier system is currently in place, never mind the opprtunities in music, drama and arts that you just don't get in the state system.

typing one handed feeding babe excuse garble.

Interested in the amount of homework Milly mentions. I think 90 minutes a night for Year 7 is far too much - when the hell do these children get the time to do other stuff? Like hobbies, or even just to relax?

And I know Year 10 is important but really, three hours a night? Is that actually necessary in terms of learning enough to pass the exam, or is the system creating homework for homework's sake?

This is a very sore subject for me at the moment. I live in a very deprived area, where almost all the schools in the top two thirds of the secondary league tables are either fee-paying, church schools or schools that are hugely, hugely oversubscribed. My lovely, bright (but lazy and not at all studious) 10 year old will be applying for schools over the next few months. The ones she has a realistic chance of getting into are all really rough - the two nearest schools to us featured in a 'bottom 17 schools in the entire country' list a few years ago. None of these schools offer separate sciences.

I feel very bitter and angry that my taxes are going to subsidise schools that are not open to my child - namely church schools and fee-paying schools. The primary school she is at now is fantastic - it has a very mixed intake. However next year a good third of the brightest children from that school who come from socially stable backgrounds will be hived off into church schools, some of the other bright ones will go private, others will be competing with my daughter for the very few places available to non-siblings at two successful comprehensives. If she doesn't get in to one of these good comps. she'll be educated for the next 5 years alongside a disproportionate number of really difficult, disruptive children from deprived backgrounds. I don't want this for her: I want her to go to a school with a mixed intake which reflects the makeup of the society in which she is growing up.

How can thi sort of social apartheid by good for the majority of children? To separate off the educationally ambitious children and the brightest children from the rest? It might be great for those who are so privileged, but it's crap for everyone else.

Why not have sets for different ability levels in each subject? If a child improves they can always move up to the next set. This avoids the problems of having only mixed-ability classes for everything, but without an 11-plus.

Independent schoos aren't subsidised by taxpayers, sabire, though the paying customers do pay tax for a state education that they don't use.

You're obviously in a difficult position and I don't blame you for being worried.I'm not of the school of thought that says bright, well-supported children will do well wherever because some of them will do a lot better elsewhere- and have an enriched education which is difficult to measure. That's why so many parents try to get their children into successful schools.

The utopian vision of comprehensive education has never materialised in reality ( only in a few places) because people will try to play the system ( understandably) for their own offspring, leaving those who don't care or don't know how to at the bottom of the heap.The mixed intake you want is obviously not available - I don't think it was planned that way, it just developed. But what's the alternative? Ballots could be fairer but not popular.Selection by ability banding can work - some of the original City Technology Colleges ( now Academies) still do this. Comprehensive was only ever meant to be about ability, not social background.

Meanwhile, you have try to get a place at one of the good schools, appeal, move, pay or undergo a quick religious conversion!