Worst forms of selection in schools: Views of M'snetters

[thankgodimretired]

Interviews?
Questions concerning parental income?
Academic selection?
Previous school reports?
Decisions made by committee about whether to exclude certain individuals from attending?

Having just recently retired from the teaching profession, I am struck by how little things have changed over the course of my working life. There are certainly less overtly selective schools in the state sector than when I started out teaching in South London in the late 1970's. But the independents, grammars and faith schools appear to be more socially exclusive than at any time.

So Talkin, are you suggesting that the 11+ test is that accurate?

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm asking a question. I look forward to hearing the answer.

Tbh Talkin your scenario is a bit not quite like how it happens. You assume there's a neat 10% from each school in the 'sphere', but there won't be. Not for a super selective with a wide catchment, which is basically implied in the definition. So a false premise really.

Talkin

I don't think the data is collected (although clearly it exists somewhere)

I can add some colour for North London. Our local comps (two co-ed, secular, one co-ed, faith) have a very low intake of "high attainers" and have a very low output of AAA, AAB, ABB students at A-level, with GCSEs following that pattern too.

There are 4 or more grammars (2 co-ed and at least 2 single sex) out of borough that any bright kids is pushed towards - at least from our state primary and the other primaries I know around here. Add in the odd fee paying parent and the input into the local comps is predictably skewed towards mid-low attainers and lots of FSM.

I've been to four open days and had one-on-one meetings with the head and teachers at the local comp. They have a process to help high attainers and get a couple of students into RG unis each year, but they acknowledge that they don't have a cohort to justify the time, effort and resources needed to get the best out of those students who are bright but not highly self-motivated and also not enough to attract parents away from the grammars, independents and single sex faith schools.

All that said, the local comp is "outstanding" has great facilities and motivated teachers. They do a great job of adding value to 95% of their intake. But if you're a precious parent of a high attainer (me ) it's not likely to attract.

North London is probably the worst place in the country to draw general conclusions from Dad.

Talkin, you're trying to impose a scenario which doesn't exist. By definition a superselective can take in anyone entitled to education in this country who lives anywhere in the world. People may move if their child gets a place but not if it doesn't. Admittedly this is going to be a negligible number. But the point is that superselectives are different creatures from Kent type grammars and in an area with a superselective there just isn't a culture of failure amongst those at comps: it's not going to be the case that the 'top set' at all the comps all took the test and failed. Plenty won't have taken the test at all, for a myriad of reasons.

It does seem to me that some parents here are projecting. A child shouldn't need to feel a sense of failure at all. It will only feel a failure if the parents fail to handle the test outcome properly, and that's the parents' failure, not the child's.

Molio

I agree that North London is probably at one end of the "spectrum" but at least it's actual evidence rather than conjecture and extrapolation.

Does the country divide, like for everything else, into two:

1. London and other large cities; and
2. Anything outside large conurbations?

From posts I have read in the past it is more complex than that.

Somewhat patronising to suggest everyone other than you is conjecturing and extrapolating. Plenty of posters are in possession of knowledge and facts and are not speaking merely from anecdote.

Molio

All I did was offer my direct knowledge.

You were the one that mentioned "to draw general conclusions from" - not me.

As far as I can tell, no one is extrapolating anything here - unless you are "drawing general conclusions" from my experience?

Or perhaps you just don't like counter-examples?

And yet more mansplaining .

There isn't any UK wide data on this. Certainly nothing from the usual suspects.

However, the universities involved in the widening access schemes (not just Oxbridge) mine the figures. Not me I should hasten to add.

And the trend seems to be, that there is no trend. Some areas which have a lot of selection, both state and private, still have high ability children in the remaining schools. Some areas with very little/non existent selection have very few high ability children. And vice versa.

There is no pattern.

So you really can't say that the existence of a super selective effects the remaining comps to a degree that there are no high ability children and thus there is no point the schools having an eye on highly selective universities.

Even North London which is of course a weird and wonderful place, doesn't have a predictable pattern. Some schools situated close to a selective school still have high numbers of high ability students. Some, a bit further away, don't. I would conjecture that this follows all manner of other patterns, including the immigrant population and where they come from.

Some colleagues feel that our energies and resources are best served by targeting those schools with reasonably high concentration of high ability pupils. Others feel that there will always be some high ability pupils in every school, so each is deserving of attention.

Interestingly, when we look back at the schools we visit, the reaction we receive from schools and our assessment of how much effort they're making does not correlate to the concentration of high ability pupils.

Imperial for example, have done some great outreach work, including some schools in the most deprived areas of London, with very low concentration of high ability students.

I too have built a great relationship with some schools who actively want to improve their systems of dealing with their high ability pupils. It's a complete pleasure doing business with them.

TheWordFactory

How would you want to see the selection of undergraduates by universities improve from here?

Presumably, there needs to be more paths for potentially great graduates from under represented schools. How could that be improved?

Also, if more students were recognised for their potential at university does that imply we need more capacity at universities or would others lose out?

Perhaps you can womansplain it to me.

Dad you really are a bit of an old mansplainer I'm afraid.

I happen to be extremely open to any decent quality information whichever side of a particular argument it falls: my background is law. I'm wary of generalisations drawn from particular experience and it's true that I do support super selective education for the highest ability kids. And the widening of access to those schools and thus the widening of access to the best universities. I have a professional interest in it in the same way that Word does. But what I'm not interested in is 'winning' any argument on MN per se. Nor in imperious demands to 'link' to research, if only because there's reams of the stuff. However I am slightly interested in attempting to correct misinformation which appears on these threads with regular monotony though it barely makes a ripple, since ideas about grammars are so entrenched that all that tends to happen is repetition about how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out. It's a very dull argument I think.

Hmm, but I don't think that's quite the argument though (I mean - how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out).

First off, I'd say the opposite doesn't make sense either - that the upper end should be privileged at the expense of the rest (although can see that super-selectives, assuming that enough people were happy to send DC quite long distances to access them, affect the rest less than a kent-type situation). But also, nobody would say the upper end 'should lose out' - it's just that where the debate gets heated is when we disagree on what 'losing out' constitutes. Some people think losing out is not doing GCSEs early, or taking your maths with older pupils, and some people think it's standing near thick people in the lunch queue.

Bold fail again!!

and some people think it's standing near thick people in the lunch queue.

I have to agree with you there TOSN - no matter how many times some of us say that children in Comprehensives can do just as well, a certain number of people will never believe it. Not all comprehensives, I grant: some schools have the name 'comprehensive' and aren't.

One of the arguments which gets put forward for grammar schools, is that they can have a large enough cohort to offer extra subjects e.g. Further Maths.

The schools my children went to operated as a consortium in the Sixth form to get round this problem. Two of the schools were within walking distance, for the third it did involve a cycle ride, so this solution wasn't entirely without problems.

Molio all that tends to happen is repetition about how unfair it is for the middle range kids, and there are more of them, so obviously those at the upper end of the spectrum should lose out. Fair enough if you think it is right that some children should have exclusive rights to state school places simply because they are above average in their academic ability.

I believe the argument for selective schools is stronger where there is a surplus of schools places. However, in areas where there is a shortage of places, I really do have to question how this can ever really be justified. without a doubt, in this situation, children with lower academic abilities are loosing out.

Well it's a curious way of putting it Mum - that 'some children should have exclusive rights to state school places simply because they are above average in their academic ability'. A child of lower academic ability would derive nothing from a place at these super selective schools except a likely loss of self esteem, due to their inability to keep up with fast paced teaching. In what way do children of lower ability lose out? Teaching should be appropriate to the ability of the child, nothing else makes sense.

I've been mulling over this thread (which is a great example of a thread with a decidedly unpromising starting point turning into an interesting discussion!). Here are my musings, for what they're worth:

• Most people who are in favour of selection by ability seem to feel that way mainly because they think that high attaining kids don't reach their full potential in comprehensive schools (or at least that there's a danger of that happening).

• Word's view, as someone deeply involved in trying to encourage high attaining kids from all backgrounds to aim for prestigious universities, is that some comprehensives let bright kids down not in the quality of their teaching, or in the peer group they provide, but in the advice and guidance they provide around GCSE and A level choices. (Is that a fair interpretation of 'The deficiency as I see it, is wholly in the poor advice given by the schools', Word?)

• If that is the case, what we should be concentrating on is improving the advice all schools give. And that, to me, sounds like something that's much easier to tackle than knotty issues like school structures or teacher quality. I'm not saying it's easy, and I know it's been a problem for many years, but if it was made a big enough priority it can't be insurmountable, surely?

Molio In what way do children of lower ability lose out? Sorry, I thought I had made it clear by:

I believe the argument for selective schools is stronger where there is a surplus of schools places. However, in areas where there is a shortage of places, I really do have to question how this can ever really be justified. without a doubt, in this situation, children with lower academic abilities are loosing out.

I will clarify why I think this: I live in an area where the brightest get to choose from 7 schools. Those children with a lower academic ability have no choice, there is one school or wait and see where you end up.

TheWordfactory
Thank you.

I suspect somebody at the DFE lurking on this thread will now get a PhD out of researching the topic .
While they are at it an A level results map by where pupils live rather than where they went to school could be revealing - especially around Merseyside

Have your group and your cohort at other Top200 unis considered the top 10 in the school model that I believe Harvard have explored?

Harvard used it to limit the numbers from Andover and Exeter
but Oxbridge could use it to highlight to schools that their top 10 pupils, no matter what the school, might be worth that bit of extra effort in careers advice.

TOSN bold fail - you need a space after the asterisk and before the brackets

Amber teaching needs to be different too. That's far more easily done in a selective school than in an all ability school. Of course there are exceptionally good teachers teaching in all ability schools, well able to challenge their most able students. But it's certainly not the case that all teachers are capable of this.

All students in all schools should have the maximum possible help to find an appropriate path on leaving school. That's a very odd notion from someone so set on all ability schools........ Also, very obviously, the top ten pupils at one school won't possess the same level of academic potential as the top ten at another. So that approach wouldn't work.

.. teaching needs to be different too. That's far more easily done in a selective school than in an all ability school.

A sweeping statement, which I am not at all sure is correct. Staff do specialise within schools i.e. at my daughter's school a HOD of French was notorious for allocating herself the top sets only. Other members of staff and IMO better teachers felt that being able to adapt their teaching to draw out the best from all pupils made them better teachers.

Or were you just talking of the 'open your books at page xx, exercise yy', style of teaching?

talkin that method of selection has been discussed, yes.

And it is quite seductive, especially when some schools send so many.

But the arguments against it include the fact that school A may have no suitable candidates and school B might have 50.

Also, how do you measure the top students? Highest GCSE results? Highest A levels? What about where students had exactly the same results?

And if you ignored the first point, and devised some algorithm for the second, you'd get some very disgrunted department heads who felt that they were losing out on applicants from school B and being forced to offer places from school A.