Seriously though, why ARE some state secondary schools allowed to select a proportion of their intake? And I'm not talking about religion here.

[Mintyy]

And why don't they all operate on the same admissions systems?

When you believe in and indeed embrace the state system (rather than private) it is quite a shock to discover that there is no single system, it isn't straightforward, and you will be exposed to a whole weird world of cheating/jostling/playing the system amongst your primary school parent chums to get their dc into the school with the best results. Even if the results simply reflect the fact that there is a selected element within the intake!

It sucks, doesn't it?

Some schools do practise selection by the back-door, as it were. One of the most common is uniform - they will insist on it being bought from a traditional small supplier where a pair of black trousers cost £45 rather than the £10-15 from the high street. Multiply this by the whole uniform including sports kit and the difference will run into hundreds of pounds especially if you have more than one child in the school. Obviously the majority of their pupils are solidly middle class despite the school bordering a small council estate

I agree tiggy - it's a minefield.

And it's the complexity of the 'market' which is disadvantaging poor children.

There are dc's in my son's year 6 class who would have a strong chance of a sports or music place at my son's very popular m/c dominated comprehensive which is out of borough but within a 45 minute commute. I was talking to the very young mum of a child in ds's class yesterday - boy is a fantastic singer - and asked her whether she was considering the school. She hadn't even thought of applying to any out of borough schools, seemed not to be aware that you could, and a bit flummoxed by the idea. I've come across quite a few parents who are the same and just find it all very worrying and confusing. They tend to pick the 'safe' option of the nearest comprehensive, or try for places that they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of getting (super-selectives for a child who isn't particularly high-achieving, or church schools with rigid religious criteria which they absolutely don't meet). They overlook the less obvious choices - high achieving partially selective comprehensives which are out of borough, or not absolutely local to them.

I was thinking about a voluntary scheme where pushy m/c parents like myself were paired up with disadvantaged parents who were tackling the schools selection process for the first time - kind of like a mentoring programme, where these parents could be supported to negotiate the system to gain a good place for their child, rather than getting the places nobody else wants, which seems to be what's happening at the moment a lot of the time.

If you have more than one child with different talents/interests then specialist comprehensives are a real problem as it is not possible to be in the catchment of two schools which cater for different interests. If children are in consecutive years it could mean needing to move house between start of term in September and October deadline for following year admissions - not financially easy and v disruptive for dc at start of important years 6 and 7. IT could theoretically be possible for families with larger gaps.

I think the only fair system would be a lottery (with perhaps some way of stratifying to ensure fair proportion of wealth/ ability) but if there is a private school sector this fails as the best 'prizes' might well go to those who don't 'play' the lottery.

I think I've found when it the current system of partial selection was introduced (under new Labour)

"However, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 permitted selection of up to 10% by aptitude for certain subjects for which a school is a specialist college (section 102), and also permitted the retention of partial selection that existed prior to the 1997 entry, provided that the proportion selected was no higher than that in 1997 (section 100)"

meditrina I think I've found when it the current system of partial selection was introduced

the OPs post was not so much to do with when it was allowed but more to do with why.

Following on from both posts I've made in the thread, as was hoping it would trigger the memory (perhaps of Labour Party supporters?) who might know the reasons for this policy.

My apologies for not writing all of what I was thinking.

Actually the grammar schools in Bucks do not have 100% high achieving. They can have at least 10% who are not due to successful coaching either in private schools or at home. There are at least 30% high achieving in many of our secondary schools who, in many cases, did not have the benefit of tutoring or being prepared by a prep school. That sucks too!

I think the religious selection is actually the worst. The highest achieving secondary modern school in Bucks selects on C of E grounds. It does have a catchment area but it is tiny. This, effectively, screens out a lot of SEN children. Children in the nearby town are not in catchment and never get a place. This is where the majority of SEN children live. They have to go to one of the worst performing secondary schools. I have never found selection on religious grounds to be "religious" because it is effectively about preaching to your own "club" membership and not, in any way, reaching out to others who are more in need. It is the opposite of what I think religion should be about.

"Actually the grammar schools in Bucks do not have 100% high achieving. They can have at least 10% who are not due to successful coaching either in private schools or at home."

Semantics.

If a child can be taught how to answer challenging maths questions or write well it really doesn't matter how they got there - whether by their own talents or by lots of support and tutoring. I believe in a growth mindset. I honestly think most children without learning difficulties would be able to achieve well at GCSE given the right support - although some might have to work very, very hard indeed.

The bottom line is that regardless how much tutoring a child has had, if they can complete a level 6 SATS paper and pass then they are by definition 'high achieving'. They may not be fantastically bright but they have achieved highly.

"I think the religious selection is actually the worst"

I agree.

Especially as it has absolutely bugger all to do with the child's spirituality, which is not in question.

It is all about the parents, and they're not attending the school!

The reason for the partial selection policy, I believe, was given as parental choice. Andrew Adonis was the architect of it and it was assumed that parents with children who wanted, for example, a technical education, would get to a school with a technical specialism. Likewise a language specialism, or a sport specialism etc. Frankly, it was a way for existing schools to get more money and they adjusted their curriculum to make sure the specialism could be delivered. It took money away from LAs and redirected the money to the schools directly from central government. This might work in an urban setting, but in the countryside you may only have one school so it was pretty useless for many parents. Plenty of children went to schools with specialisms they were not interested in by default.

The secondary school near me was a sports specialist school. Heavens knows how? They were never brimming over with successful teams or even outstanding facilities. Some schools chose to implement the 10% selection and others did not. For example the Bucks grammar schools continued to use the Bucks 11 plus but if you went to a grammar school with a language specialism, it was obligatory to take at least one language at GCSE out of a choice of 5 MFL. Also 2 languages were taught from year 8. Another grammar school was performing arts. However if you wanted the sports specialism you had to choose the secondary modern over the grammar school. Unsurprisingly, if you were selected for a grammar school, no-one chose the sports specialism secondary over the grammar school. Likewise for good comprehensives. No-one really cared what the specialism was at the poorer schools, they only wanted the good schools, whatever the specialism.

The whole lesson from this is that all schools should be good. If everyone was happy with their nearest school, then there would be little incentive to shop around. I can see why music might make you choose a certain school, but that is usually supported by a healthy parental income and, in my area, the time and money to take your child to the music centre for orchestras and ensembles. They are not full of children from the struggling secondary schools.

High achieving is level 5 SATs not level 6!!! So we have level 4 children in Bucks grammar schools. Do you think grammar schools are full of only level 6 children, nicole? You are not correct and it is not semantics.

tiggytape But now the birthrate is so much higher, more children from every local area fight for every local school and anything that takes places away from local people is much more contentious.

Add into the mix:

Parents who see "selective" or "X% A*" as "best"
League tables (top 10, top 100)
Immigration
Reduction in surplice school places
Failure to plan school provision in with housing developments

Surely it's time to either accept/adopt selection across the board or scrap it completely.

The comprehensive experiment was doomed to fail the moment they allowed church schools to continue to be selective whilst shutting most of the grammars. All that happened was that the "parents who care" suddenly found religion to get their kids into a decent church school rather than the "bog standard" comp, and so many comps never stood a chance and it was virtually inevitable they'd only ever attract the poorer performing kids.

Comps will only work if there is NO selection, i.e. a level playing field, so no grammars, no church schools, and a real geographical limit on your options. Utopia where you automatically go to the local "comp" within easy walking distance. No selection at all means a broader cross section of pupils so less chance of disruptive and poor performers ruined it for everyone.

In our town, there are two poor comps - even at a time of rising population, their rolls are falling! The bus stops all over town are full of kids waiting to be bussed to the nearby city for the church schools or across the county border to a good comp (at least 10 special school buses cross the county border!). What chance do the town's comps have when the only kids who go there are from families that don't value education! It's a downward spiral.

So, either ALL selection needs to be stopped, or we do need to go back to allowing selection, i.e. a choice of a grammar, a church school and a couple of "comps" for each town or for each district of a city.

It's crazy having to bus your kids to a different county, to pretend you're religious, or to have to have your kids tutored for years, to get a decent school. We either have to accept full selection or none at all - this middle ground and fudging the situation has been going on for decades and needs to be resolved.

Millymollymama High achieving is level 5 SATs not level 6 It is defined as those who are above level 4 on the DfE performance tables.

taxguru Surely it's time to either accept/adopt selection across the board or scrap it completely.

I agree

"The whole lesson from this is that all schools should be good".

Yes!

"Do you think grammar schools are full of only level 6 children, nicole?"

Almost every grammar school in Kent seems to have over 75% high achieving children. Most have 85% +

In my area the grammars are super selective. They have no low achieving pupils and about 3% average achievers.

To add, the children in my dc's school who sat the 11+ were almost all achieving at level 6 in writing and maths. Several got academic scholarships to very good private schools. Only one got into the grammar.

My ds passed his level six SATS maths and got level 5's in his other SATS. He didn't even get past round one of the grammar tests.....

In my LA the specialist schools did not select at all, and few parents seemed to choose because of the specialism. The popular schools remained popular and vice versa. What was confusing was that the specialist schools that did select the 10% were to select on aptitude not ability, hence many discussions about the definitions of the two words.

Yes, MumTryingHerBest but realistically, in a grammar county the schools are not stuffed full of level 6 children! Maths level 6 is achieved by some but level 6 English is more unusual. Plenty of state juniors have children going into the grammar schools who do not have level 6 SATs. It was only a few years ago that no-one in a primary school took level 6 anyway!!! The Bucks grammar schools still clearly have level 4 SATs children though.

I think in lots of areas plenty of parents do not get a choice - for all sorts of reasons. This is why all schools must be good. I totally agree schools screen children out in urban areas. Not much point for a school with a huge catchment in a rural area - where else could the child go? It is also interesting that many rural counties struggle to have good schools for all and Ofsted have commented on this. Parents in these areas have no choice.

There are grammar schools which are super selective and county wide grammar schools that are less selective. You cannot say all grammar schools are the same, nicole. You child may well have got a place at a Bucks grammar school where there is no Round One - just two selection tests which produce a single mark which is either above the pass mark or below. In an area with lots of grammar schools of course the selection mark is lower and therefore you would not expect to see Bucks grammar schools at the top of the super selective League tables. It would be impossible to achieve this. However, many would be closing if they just took level 6 children!