Please can someone answer this simple question about state selective schools?

[Hakluyt]

If selection at 11 is such a good idea, why do wholly selective authorities not produce significantly better exam results than demographically similar wholly comprehensive authorities?

What about the ones who are going to empty our bins, help us onto our bedpans, sweep our streets and fix our cars? Not to mention harvest our food, operate our supermarkets, cut our hair and service our power stations.

I don't follow Hak, what are you saying ? That we are in danger of producing a generation where no one is qualified for these jobs? That selective education is bad for them ?

I think the German model of a technical college is excellent is that what you are driving at ? Fwiw our local high school has a fantastic food tech lab, Dct and mechanic facilities.

Tbh what concerns me is that those are the only jobs a state education will prepare you for. As the president of the TUC said this week we are in danger of reverting to an upstairs downstairs culture with the toffs at the top.

why shouldn't dc with A/A* at GCSE go into those jobs Hak? I agree we should compare results of all dc not just the most able, but lets not pigeon-hole anyone into particular roles

LaVolcan - the comp I'm referring to (where Talkin's dc go) is in a fully comprehensive LEA - there are no grammar schools or secondary moderns. Although 20-30 of the high achievers get 12/13 As or As at GCSE only 60% of the middle achievers get 5 A to C (ie 40% don't even get 5 C grades inc English and maths). These poor results are repeated throughout many comprehensive schools in fully comprehensive areas.

I think this whole thread is bizarre.

It stands to reason that if you take a population of children, cluster all the ones who are already falling behind when they start school at three, the most challenging, the most badly nourished, the unfit, the poor and disruptive children into one set of schools, and all of the best supported, affluent, healthy and able children into a different set of schools, you are going to create two very different sorts of learning environments, and the outcomes in terms of learning will reflect that across the board.

I also suspect that able and affluent children in state schools have a fraction of the money spent on their education compared to similar children in private schools, because the spend per pupil in state schools is heavily weighted in favour of children with special needs and those from deprived backgrounds. Why should education be the only sector where the belief that 'you get what you pay for' is disregarded? (by way of example - the spend per pupil at my dd's community comprehensive was £6073 per pupil. The nearest private school charges £14592 per year......)

"Just look at the cabinet 80% privately educated -why ?"

That shower of morally illiterate cunts is the best argument for banning private schools I've ever heard.

Why do threads on selective schools always end up banging on about the top 10%
Simple
They are the only group who get the option of their own school and their parents are often the pushiest.

If the top 10% were told to lump it, like the middle 70% are, then the whole rationale for selective schools would go out the window.

However
Schools that are missing their top sets (either by official selection as in Kent or by choice selection as with my local school) will always find it harder to get the teachers who can get satisfaction out of working with high fliers mixed in with nudging the middle to do their very best.
They are therefore trapped in a position of only being able to use VA to show how good their teaching really is
but Twonks like the unlamented Gove regarded VA as "accepting failure"

So mini we need to enable morally literate dcs to do the job....and almost certainly do it better. That might mean investing a bit more in their education. Which happens in a selective school because "their share" is not being used for other things.

A third of my P7 class went to grammar school in the early 80s. All were in receipt of FSM and all were working class. None were tutored.

From a recent report into social inequality in medical education:

"Also we found that students from selective schools (the majority of which are private schools) were predicted to get higher grades. One of our criterion for selection for interview was predicted grades of two As and a B. If the teacher predicts three Bs then the student is less likely to be invited for interview.
At interview the student from the private school performs well and is offered the standard 2 ‘A’s and a ‘B’. The student from the state school does not even get an interview even though getting 3 ‘B’s at some state schools must be a huge achievement. Come the exams the student from the private school gets an ‘A’ and 2 ‘B’ grades. She or he is however in a pool from which students will be selected, having already been interviewed. Because not all
students offered a place will obtain the required grades, that student gets a place. In the meantime, the student from the state school who also got an ‘A’ and 2 ‘B’s was never interviewed so was never even offered a place. Who has the greater potential? The state school student who surmounted adversity having obtained higher grades in an inner city school or the student who got all the benefits of private education?

The fact remains that about 20 per cent of our students do not get the required offer yet still get given a place at medical school. The majority of these are from selective/private schools."

I think there is still much more to inequality in medical education than just which A levels you get. There is still a perception amongst many that this isn't something which people like them aspire to. I think it's changing, but change comes slowly.

"Which happens in a selective school because "their share" is not being used for other things."

So what do you suggest? A huge increase in tax payer funding for state schools so that able students in state schools have the same amount spent on them as able students in private schools? And forcing all schools - including private schools wishing to keep their charitable status - to take their fair share of more challenging children, so they're spread across the whole education sector rather than being concentrated in comprehensives?

I didn't think so.....

I'm sure you're right LaVolcan.

That was me ! state educated predicted ABC only got an interview at the last minute got the offer then got 3 As. I got there despite not because of my education.

Which happens in a selective school because "their share" is not being used for other things.
Que?
Schools get a budget share for each pupil
They get extra money for each FSM pupil
They get extra money for each SEN pupil
They get extra money for EFL pupils
etc etc etc
Schools without the pupils with extra needs rightly do not get the extra funds

Upper set kids are more likely to be able to receive set of instructions and carry them out unaided even if they prat about in the course of it
Lower set children need assistance
its a no brainer

BUT
In a mixed ability school there are trained staff to help all kids even those with very narrow areas of weakness

" but lets not pigeon-hole anyone into particular roles"

Except for the top 10% who are going to "pay down the national debt and keep us in our old age"?

It is more expensive to run a mixed ability school though . You need a lot more resources.

And who aren't supposed to take apprenticeships because level 5 & 6 at KS2 should aspire to more?

Never mind that engineers etc. are highly skilled and well regarded in other countries. Here no, PPE at Oxford seems to have more Kudos.

It is more expensive to run a mixed ability school though . You need a lot more resources.
Yup : but the number of pupils of differing abilities will not vary
and there is a finite pot of money
so if there were top, middle and lower ability schools, guess where the money would have to go ....

I think that's why Technical schools never really got off the ground in the old days - too expensive to equip. I suspect there would have been a lot less dissatisfaction with the system if they had done. People would have probably thought 'well, I am not too fussed about my children learning Latin, but I do want them to get a good spread of O levels.'

Mini - the spend per pupil at my DC's schools is £4k. :(

Where on earth did I say I wanted to ignore the 10%? Was it where I said of course they were important? Or somewhere else? Or does thinking about the 90% inevitably entail ignoring the ten?

What a bloody stupid thing to say.

Is it more expensive to run a 'mixed ability school' with these resources than to run four with just those resources and two with just books and Latin things? Why?

Hak, perhaps the Wiki page on Tripartite Education in UK will provide you with more info, particularly the Survival of the System in Northern Ireland bit.

We still have grammar schools here, but since the abolition of the 11+, it has become more difficult for WC children (and more importantly unemployed class children) to access grammar school places as now they have to pay for the entrance exam and tuition, which wasn't the case before.