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.

Thanks Talkin - I shall be bold as well as bloody and resolute (and parenthetical)

TheWordFactory
I fully accept that 'top ten' is probably a pretty poor admissions tool in the UK : the US education market is so different.

What I was more thinking along the lines of is to encourage all schools (even lovely ones like my local) to put their top ten students forward for taster fairs and Top200 open days - and for Oxbridge to make a point of inviting them - even if they will not make the cut, but to show them its not an alien place.

I know from friends who are there that departments like Physics are bastions of state school geeks - scary numbers of girls as well ....

you ma ynot get many more comp students to get the press off your back, but as a way of widening participation among schools who think "its not for us" it might be worth a punt.
And if each school sends a teacher you can (on home turf) get the staff to realise that the Bullingdon photo is as embarrasing to the Uni as it is to gorgeous Gideon, dopey Dave and bonking Boris historic, not current.

Talkin the top few % of kids need different teaching altogether if they're to be challenged and thus do as well as they can.

I don't see what your Head of French monopolising the top sets has to do with anything at all. What I said also has nothing to do with what makes a 'good' teacher. It's about which teachers are capable of challenging those at the very top end and by no means all are. Some teachers wouldn't last a minute at the very best schools but that doesn't make them 'bad' teachers necessarily. They might be fine elsewhere, just not in charge of delivering appropriate lessons to the brightest kids.

Molio
I'm bored of your mortar lobbing.

The most "off the bell curve" child I've heard of lately left school at 18 with 7 A* A levels in Maths and science subjects : having been happily at state comprehensive schools right through.

Unless you have a constructive idea rather than just sniping in an unpleasant manner, please stop responding to my posts.

Molio Some teachers wouldn't last a minute at the very best schools but that doesn't make them 'bad' teachers necessarily. They might be fine elsewhere, just not in charge of delivering appropriate lessons to the brightest kids. I do find it interesting that you consider the very best schools to be those that educate the brightest children. QE Barnet does tend to get discussed on the elevenplus web site regularly. It appears to have a number of short falls that do leave people questioning how good the school really is.

Molio your taking the wrong one to task here. I am the one you should be replying to.

Some teachers won't last a minute at the best schools, no, nor would some last two seconds at a really 'challenging' school, but what makes you so sure that the selective schools do have the best teachers? Undoubtedly some selective schools are resting on their laurels, or ignoring the fact that parents are paying for tutoring.

MumTryingHerBest
"Do the top universities in other countries display a similar mix i.e. private/selective/comp?"
TheWordFactory
"I don't know the answer to that. France certainly have a disproportionate amount of privately schooled pupils at their Grandes Ecoles. That said, private schools in France are not the same as here in the UK. The fees are low and the social mix within them far greater."

French private schools are selective schools whereas French state schools are not selective until lycee - and remain, generally speaking, much easier to gain admittance to than private schools. It therefore stands to reason that the highly selective grandes ecoles would have a higher proportion of ex-private school pupils than of ex-state school pupils.

Nevertheless, there are, IMO, many problems of inequity to entrance and success in HE in France and those problems are, when they are addressed at all, very poorly managed.

I'm not here to 'have ideas' Talkin. I accept that you're irritated by my being a bit dog with a bone about your 'challenge'. That's fine although evidently you don't like being wrong. But I'm not sure where your knowledge base about super selectives comes from? It's not sniping at all; it's being very faintly irritated by your insistence that I know nothing about an area I happen to be very familiar with. I tend not to make sweeping statements based on nothing.

Incidentally my DS got almost those results (6A* not including a Maths). I don't regard him as off the bell curve. He was surrounded by people like him both at school and definitely now he's at uni.

LaVolcan I shouldn't think for a minute that even the top selective schools have the 'best' teachers. but when they're recruiting new staff, they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp. And I completely agree that some of those teachers capable of delivering proper challenge might be hammered in a school with serious social challenge. Horses for courses, as ever. As for resting on their laurels: a school which does that will go downhill fast, certainly within a few years.

they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp

Molio, that's a rather loaded way of phrasing that, isn't it? I agree with some of what you're saying, i.e. one teacher may be more effective at stretching high attainers, another at motivating kids who struggle, etc. Does that make one of those a better teacher than the other? I'd argue not. Does one of them deserve to be dismissed as 'fine for a comp'? I find that quite objectionable.

Molio - they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp.

Err, why? Unless you are trying to say that able children don't go to comprehensives. (OK we have to define what we mean by comprehensive - a Kent Sec Mod isn't one, whatever it calls itself.)

I tended to think myself that the best teachers are those who could cope with any child of whatever ability.

I think for example of a music teacher we had once, who could legitimately boast that he could get any child to sing - a most welcome improvement on his predecessor, who couldn't even get her choir to sing in key.

I agree, La Volcan. You could argue that teaching in a comprehensive school demands more of teachers than teaching in a selective school, as they need to be able to teach both the most and the least able. So actually it might make more sense to talk of some teachers being 'fine for a selective school', but that we need to encourage the very best teachers to work in comps.

LaVolcan Kent Sec Mod isn't one, whatever it calls itself. The same with Parmiters and the Watford Grammars, despite the fact that they feature up at the top of the comprehensive school league tables.

Molio when they're recruiting new staff, they do need a different sort of teacher to the sort who might be fine for a comp. Interesting, so where are the "Super Selective" teachers coming from? Are they all graduates fresh from "Super Selective" teacher training, University professors or industry leaders at the top of their field as evidently you seem to be of the opinion that non of them will have worked in a comp.

I think (apologies for serial posting!) that this is a classic example of subject knowledge (which arguably you need to be better at to teach the most advanced kids) being prioritised over pedagogic skill (which arguably you need to be better at to teach across the ability range). It makes me think of the way that teaching undergraduates is a much more respected occupation, in this country and most others, than teaching pre-schoolers. I think that teaching young children well is much harder, but we don't value it as much because it's about teaching skill rather than subject knowledge.

Yes Amber you're right, it wasn't phrased carefully that's all. I simply mean exactly what you've said. Kids in super selectives need teachers who can stretch the most able, or they'll become monumentally bored and stop learning. It's entirely fatuous to try to label a teacher like that 'better' than one who has to manage challenging behaviour every day. The two requirements are different and the two skills are different. Of course in comps with similarly high ability students then those students need that same sort of teaching, but the logistics of a comp will make it very difficult to earmark those teachers purely for the most able groups. Up to a point it can work, but it's obviously far harder than if you have a pool of staff solely to teach very able students. Which is why I think super selectives make sense.

Mum perhaps you didn't see that a little way up the thread I said obviously there are those sorts of teachers in comps, but that as Word said, it's a question of effectively concentrating resources. The teachers will come through the same route as all teachers obviously, but they'll be particularly able themselves. It's hard to imagine that a teacher who scraped a 2.2 from a poor quality university is likely to be able to stretch 17 and 18 year olds with the ability to go to a top university and emerge with a very much better degree.

Amber I think it's about more than subject knowledge. It's about pedagogic skill as well.

I would suspect that the teacher who only scrapes a 2:2 from a poorish university isn't likely to put themselves forward for 6th form work.

I know that you are not saying this Molio but it doesn't follow that those with good degrees make good teachers.

I do wonder where you are based Molio because a) you keep making generalisations about comprehensives, but I am not convinced that it is based on any more than hearsay, and b) superselectives are only available to a very very small number of children - almost all based in conurbations, making these arguments totally irrelevant for the majority.

Here is the list of Grammar schools.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammar_schools_in_England
Which of them are "super-selective"?
by which it appears to mean no catchment limits, just fill the places from the top mark downwards

Utterly genuine question as not living near any of them I cannot tell the difference.

TalkinPeace Which of them are "super-selective"? I am so glad you asked this as I'm not entirely sure which schools are actually "super-selective".

I know QE Barnet is one, how many others are there?

Here goes My attempt to list the Super Selectives:

King Edward Camp Hill Boys/Girls Handsworth Girls Birimingham
Stratford Upon Avon Grammar (Girls) King Edward Stratford (boys)
Wolverhampton Girls High , Chelmsford County High, Colchester County High
Colchester Royal Grammar, King Edward Chelmsford, The Judd Tonbridge (boys) Skinners Tunbridge Wells (boys) Tonbridge Grammar (girls) Kendrick Reading (girls) Reading School (boys) Colyton Grammar (mixed) Pate's Grammar Cheltenham (mixed) Henrietta Barnet (girls) Hampstead Garden Suburb Queen Elizabeth's Barnet (boys) St Olave's Orpington (boys), Wallington County High (Girls) Nonsuch County High (girls) Tiffin Girls/Boys Kingston Willson's School (boys) Sutton Grammar (Boys).

I make it 26/164 grammar schools are "Super Selective" grammar schools.

smokepole Here goes My attempt to list the Super Selectives: Do these all dominate the intake for Oxbridge in the state sector?

Kendrick school has 'designated areas' to deal with over subscription which is mostly Reading postcodes and some nearby ones which are within the orbit of Reading, so by that token it wouldn't be super-selective.

La Volcan Though by any over measure other than that ?.

Mum. Yeah probably right these are in the whole the biggest senders to Oxbridge. Although Altrincham Girls Grammar (In theory takes top 30% of ability range whether true ?) would be up there. This year I read they sent 19 to Oxbridge.

Though by every measure other than that La Volcan.

OK, now I'm really confused.
Accepting smokepole's list
there are Superselectives whose sphere of influence includes other Grammars (Colchester / Southend ; anything in Kent)
so who gets first dibs on which kids?
does the SS take the top, then the normal grammar the middle and the Sec mod the rump?

and I have to admit, having grown up in SE London, the idea of St Olaves being SuperSelective makes me chuckle

smokepole Mum. Yeah probably right these are in the whole the biggest senders to Oxbridge. It wasn't a statement, it was a genuine question. Do all of these schools send a high number of students off to Oxbridge?