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.

have, not having.

I don't know how many Mum but my husband teaches in one.

Molio why should it follow that super selectives treat their students as one amorphous mass of league table cannon fodder? I get the impression that some people do have this impression of QEB. It stems from their A level cull.

How many do QEB suggest leave on average, out of curiosity? Is it done rigidly on sixth form entry requirements or more subtly?

Molio my DC does not go to the school nor do I plan on sending them there. It might be better to read this thread to get a better idea of what people think about the situation:
www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=29654

I like his school. He's very happy there, it provides excellent extra curricular activities & it allows him days off to pursue a particular extra curricular activity without any problems at all (is very supportive indeed). He's there because he chose to put it first on his CAP ( the local comprehensive was in second place).

The fact he chose the grammar & we all like the grammar (it's a good school) doesn't stop me seeing what is good in other schools - and I honestly believe the teaching in the comprehensive is first rate & they take a very individual approach - I like that.

The comp will probably be third choice for ds3 - just because he's a funny fish and I think it might be too large for him. He's more academic & harder working than ds2 but I'm not convinced ( yet) the grammar school will be the right school for him either - a school is about more than its results.

Every school has pros & cons - the most important factor for me is that my child is happy wherever they are. From what I have seen (as parent, teacher & high achieving pupil) I'm not at all convinced that high achievers need specialist teachers. If someone is competent to teach GCSE/A levels they're competent. The best teachers I've seen have been found in my eldest son's SLD school tbh.

What every school does need (and is of far more importance than selection) is a good head teacher and SLT - then pupils across the board tend to do well.

A good HT and SLT is absolutely necessary but not sufficient. The HT and SLT need good teachers capable of getting the best out of the kids they teach. IME (which is similar but not so different from yours), I come to a different conclusion about the sort of teachers needed for teaching high ability kids, especially as they get older.

I went to a superselective eons ago, and always felt it was a bit of a fluke that I passed the entrance test. The education was very good (though not as void of bad behaviour as some seem to imagine) and I ended up with good results and a place at an elite university which I am fairly sure would not have happened if I had attended the local comp which had a bad reputation and poor results. So I've always been uneasy about selective schools because I don't think the selection processes are fair (but again much of life isn't fair either), and mainly that there is the suspicion that their presence reduces aspiration/achievement in the remaining schools. My experiences of true comprehensives is that a few are great but many are not and there is as much if not more inequality about who gets to attend the good ones as there is inequality in the selective system.

summer on the Latin again, I assumed what was meant was the WJEC latin certificates (before OCR was mentioned at least), which are worth 2 full GCSEs (in terms of equivalence) and might easily be confused with iGCSEs as the variants of those that are taken by state schools are often called certificates too (no idea if OCR have done anything similar to WJEC or not). (I tend not to be overly pedantic on terminology, but do take your point)

Frogs - when did you last visit a comp? They have changed enormously over the last ten years or so I think. A generalisation but broadly true.

Interestingly a local selective (faith) school has just has a bad run due to a dodgy head. When we were looking for ds2 we didn't even bother looking as he wouldn't have been in with a chance of a place, but the current year 7 is half empty so I will look for ds3 as I assume they'll take any old heathen at the moment & parents I have spoken to seem happy with it (new head just started).

just over a year ago jimjams (dd was at one). That was a good one but we had to travel to it and it wasn't an option before sixth form. Local options not so good (and one of my dc attended one of them briefly too, so I'm not relying entirely on heresay there either).

Ah okay fair enough. I do agree schools vary, although they seem to change in 'favour' quite quickly. We sit between two comprehensives - one was 'the' place to go ten years ago and everyone wanted to get their kids in there. Then something changed and all I hear are bad comments now. The other one is the one I have mentioned above, with a very mixed intake that does very well for it's students. The mixed intake means it isn't particularly sought after, but I have been very, very impressed by the teachers and the head, and their results.

Locally one of the girls' selective schools (traditionally the first choice one) seems to be going through a bad patch, and everyone I know with a daughter there complains about it. They get good results - but the parents I have spoken to suggest that the results come at a cost. If I had a daughter I'd probably choose the second choice school - the results aren't as stellar, but every parent I have spoken to speaks highly of it.

I find it so hard choosing a school. In ds2's case I really wasn't convinced the grammar was the right place for him, but he has absolutely thrived there - maybe we need to follow our children's gut feelings, he was keen to go there and has loved it from day 1. (That's me telling myself tbh, as I struggle to choose a school for funny-fish ds3!)

DS has an A* at A-level in a subject for which he attended none of the lessons last year because of health issues. (In fact, if I'm reading his UMS scores correctly, he got 100%, which is possibly overkill.)

So, yep, I'd agree with Jimjams that a bright child doesn't always need the highest teaching input for good A-level results.

going with our childrens gut feelings has mostly worked well for us jimjams, two different children both bright, one suited a top set but the other seemed to fare much better with more mixed ability teaching. Schooling is very definitely not a one size fits all.

It's not, is it? And the fact that schools as well as children change makes it all the harder to guess at 11 whether your child and the school will be a good fit later.

DS was very happy at his (comp) school, DD rather less so, and I can't put my finger on why.

Have encountered some shocking physics teaching (across a range of school types). That's a subject I'd say the teacher really does need a proper understanding to teach as if they get it wrong it can lead to misunderstanding and confusion in the students. It also seems to be a subject that is often taught by general science teachers who don't have adequate physics knowledge. I don't think a higher level of knowledge is needed for brighter children, (except if they are asking questions beyond the syllabus I suppose and even then if teachers will admit they don't know when they dont rather than bullshitting that's acceptable), but teachers don't always seem to have enough physics knowledge to actually teach the syllabus accurately which is more concerning for all abilities.

Hm that's true - my physics A level
teacher was shocking - although I think it affected those of us who were thick at physics (me!) rather more than my physics-genius friend (she was doing so maths mechanics at A level anyway which helped).

It is difficult Birds. Sometimes it's friendship groups (which is luck of the draw to an extent in any school), but even when they seem to have a great group of friends sometimes things don't seem to work well for them for no discernable reason. When my dd asked to change school in year 9, there didn't really seem to be anything wrong with where she was, dh & I had no complaints and even she couldn't articulate why she wanted to move, but she was much happier once she did.

Could well be friendship groups at the moment, I think. I'm keeping an eye.

I must admit in looking for a secondary school for bright but quirky ds3, I'm really searching for somewhere I think he'll have friends and not be overwhelmed. If I find that school he'll be going there, and that comes before selection/results/qualifications of teachers or anything else really.

I may have to make a bit of a leap in the end though and see how it works out.

Have skimmed to catch up on the thread having been out at work most of today

Happygardening My £40k figure about WC was more the total cost including fees and extras and exeat transport and the like
I pay no school fees but I cough up at least £2500 a year per child on the twiddly bits and transport

I'm getting rather bored of the your comp is exceptional broken record.
My kids school is not exceptional.
Here is the league table of secondary schools in the county
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/group.pl?qtype=LA&superview=sec&view=aat&set=1&tab=149&no=850&sort=ks4_13.ptl2basics&ord=desc
DCs school is not even in the top 20 comps in the county.
It is NOT EXCEPTIONAL FOR BRIGHT KIDS TO GET GOOD GRADES IN COMPS
State selective schools are available to so few that the emphasis should be on getting the best out of those without access to the 164 grammars
and on ensuring that the 90% of the population who cannot afford school fees get value for money from the mainstream state system..

PS
I refuse to feel any guilt for not sending my children to a school
that went two terms without an MFL teacher in post
that went a term without a science teacher in post
that refuses to publish any results information on its website
and that if it were not a sponsored Academy already would have been shut down long before they got their shiny new (half empty) building.

I'd give up my holidays and wine and work more hours to send them private rather than use my local school TBH.

The school I wanted DS to go in selects like this. The candidates sit a test. They are then banded 1-5 and from each band an equal number are taken so it doesn't matter how many are in the band. However, once in the band, you are scored against the criteria A-G. My DS was assessed at F so had hardly any chance. When we got the rejection letter, there was a breakdown of who got in. Of 120 pupils, 39 already had a sibling there, so basically a third. I think that's so unfair for secondary school. I can understand at primary school as parents will probably have to take their children but this is not usually true at secondary school

''It is NOT EXCEPTIONAL FOR BRIGHT KIDS TO GET GOOD GRADES IN COMPS''

Nor, unfortunately, is it not exceptional for bright kids to not get good grades.

For those kids with intrinsic motivation, comps are fine, unfortunately my DD is not one of those kids.

Not criticing your choice at all Talkin, I would do the same. You were lucky though to have a good alternative, not everyone does.

Out of interest, do you think it would be exceptional for a bright kid to do well at your local comp? I wonder if the parents of the dc that attend it are so enamoured of the system?

Your dd's comp is way above average I am sure both from its results and curriculum (offering Latin sets it apart from most). 'not even in top 20 comps' in a high performing county is hardly a damning indictment.

Frogs
Latin is gone : DS will not get it because the teacher has retired and has not been replaced.
Is Hampshire a high performing County? : wordfactory has often said that we send less per capita than London

My local school : bright kids - sorry, does not compute. Cohort of 65.
Kid from there is at college with DD .
Her motivation to get an A in MFL with a string of supply teachers should mark her out NOW as an exceptional student : but I suspect the outreach team at Oxbridge whose staff include people who neither approve of or use comprehensive schools will not spot her potential
I would rather the school closed and restarted, but the £16million building that is not fit for purpose has to be wished away