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?

As a parallel, the independent sector also has selective, superselective, comprehensive and the equivalent of high schools (ie only a few high attainers).
Parents don't complain if their DCs end up in the latter, they see it as best suiting their DC. However they do have a choice, the schools provide extracurricular and are paying for an education which they hope will best help their DC progress. Some parents send their DCs to 'selective' others choose to send to 'comprehensive' independent. Again DCs may suit different environments.
Selective vs high school does in theory allow pooling expertise of teachers who are best skilled to teach the different ends of the spectrum. Many teachers are n't equal proficient at both.

Afaik in the German system they decide at the age of about 10 (after 4th Class at their 1st school) although I think there is more fluidity to move between different types of school.

If you hadn't been able to afford private school though LaQueen do you still feel that your DDs would have altered so radically at a comprehensive school? The majority of children go to state schools so there are surely other parents who are committed to their children's learning at them.

Also my XHs school (one of the top private schools now if league tables are anything to go by) seemed to have issues with awful behaviour such as children climbing out of windows in lessons, from what he's told me. Although maybe things are different now.

Honestly the hysteria about the horrors of comprehensive schools on bloody Mumsnet makes me .

My best friend's 14 year old ds is at a top private school (you will have heard of it) has already been caught watching hardcore porn online and has spent his entire holiday grunting at her and playing on his x box.

I don't want my son having anything to do with him atm!

My DH is of an age where he was selected for the "technical grammar" or some such (passed the 11+, chose or was chosen for a technical education, did mainly O levels rather than CSEs but did a couple of technical CSEs). After he'd started at that school it merged with the grammar school, and there was also a secondary modern/high school for those who did not pass.

I went to a selective private school but neither of these automatically mean we want our DC to go to selective or private schools. It will depend on where we are living when they are old enough and what the schools are like there.

My dh went to grammar school, I went to a comprhensive school. We both got a 2:1. What does that prove? precisely zero.

Absolutely LaQueen about the German system, it's honest and works for everyone equally. Children are sometimes mis-cast as it were but those in the 'fachschule' leave with more confidence and don't feel left at the bottom of the heap. They also earn well and go into decent apprenticeships. All careers are taken seriously, not just the Doctor/Lawyer obsession we have here.

The UK just constantly tweaks the system but will never face the elephant in the room - private schools. Yes they have them in Germany but they are boarders for those families who travel a lot.

My knowledge on this is a little outdated, I would like to know if it's changed. I hope not.

Because the model adopted in Kent is flawed.

IMNSHO, for the same reason that setting doesn't always produce good results. Selection, whether at school level or within a school, doesn't in itself produce good outcomes. What it does is to make it possible to change other things so as to produce good outcomes. You can provide really stretching work for the top set that makes them work hard (not limited by what's on the GCSE syllabus!) and you can provide truly appropriate (challenging but achievable) work for the bottom set, even if what's appropriate for them doesn't put them on track for the magic C. But if the whole school is focused on GCSE grades, maybe neither of these things happen: the bottom set teacher kids herself that if she only teaches the GCSE material well enough they'll get Cs, and the top set teacher kids herself that maximising the chance of an A is the same as providing genuine challenge (and maybe ends up with neither challenge nor A, as the kids disengage). I forget which highly selective school it was whose Good School Guide review said that public exams were seen as almost incidental, and occasionally there was a last minute scramble to make sure the syllabus had actually been covered, but that seems exactly the right approach. Children should learn what's appropriate for them; looking towards exams for years is stifling whatever their level.

FWIW, I do believe that mixed ability teaching can provide great results for all students - but it takes an exceptional teacher to do it well, and even an exceptional teacher needs plenty of preparation time; it's easier to get wrong than teaching fairly homogeneous sets.

Here's an interesting study being planned. Here's hoping it'll be high quality; some of the existing research on setting is shockingly badly done.

news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/09/04/major-study-to-look-at-setting-by-ability.aspx

One of the biggest differences is the standard of behaviour expected in the classroom. An example I can give is DD2 last year (yr10) got a detention for asking 'two funny' questions imitating lauren from Catherine Tate. 'Miss ,Is Shakespeare a Northerner' 'Miss, Is Stratford Upon Avon Near Scotland' . She got an instant after school detention for those questions, no matter how funny ,they are not acceptable for a English set where everybody is expected at least an A in Language and literature. In DDs1 school this would have caused laughter with the teacher joining in even in year 13 because DD1 tried it .

I suppose if you are trying to help students attain C grades, a bit of fun or comedy does not go a miss. If you are trying to get A* A grades it becomes serious and leaves little time for 'disruptive' behaviour.

Rabbit. You are quite correct, about Kent being flawed 'not allowing DD1 a grammar place' despite scoring 380 because of 104 on NVR!.

So nobody really much wants to engage with the question of why wholly selective areas don't have much better results than wholly comprehensive? Could it possibly be because the "top set" people are going to do well whether or not they are put in a seperate school so they don't have any chance of interacting with someone with an IQ of 90 in the lunch queue?

So, LaQueen when you said, "I sincerely believe in the grammar system and I would still totally advocate it even if both my DDs failed to get in", what you meant was, "I don't give a shit about the 80% of kids that the grammar system fails, because my DC won't be among them."

And you called Hakluyt a hypocrite?! Wow.

'S like saying to Katliss Everdeen's mother, "Well, since you don't support the concept of The Hunger Games, you have no right to try and stop your DD being chosen as a tribute"

Hak, can you give some statistics or data to illustrate your point?

I believe you mean utmost LaQ.

"It's not about that, it's about aspiration, discipline and the vision of the SMT. That's what makes a good school a good school."

And in your opinion do you only find that in grammar schools?

Mintyy- if you look at prh47's post at 13.55 you'll find some interesting stuff. There's a Sutton Trust study that I'll link to shortly which says more- but it's oldish.