I want a system that offers every child what they need to achieve their potential and their ambitions. An education that offers them that without a gamble as to how they do on a particular day, or that they have the right balance of maths and literacy in equal measures, or that they are mature educationally (despite summer birth date) by a certain date.
I want comps that can push and challenge the most able, while offering different learning speeds and subject lists to others.
I want an evaluation and league table system that measures A*s against high attainers as well as the basic A-C pass rate, A league table that takes into account how many kids take and pass Grade Music exams, take part in extra curricular sport, and arts, and how many do DoE. (for example)
A comp isn't a one-size fits all institution, with every child following a middle of the road curriculum at an average pace. A comp is a school that has many different learning styles and paces for different groups.
And some of the BEST teachers are those who can help a dyslexic child to read, or engage a reluctant or unconfident learner. Some of the BEST teachers get huge satisfaction from that. Some of the best teachers are those who can get classroom control over reluctant learners. I went to a selective school and saw an article written years after I had left by a former teacher. She was a GREAT teacher, and she wrote about how her years in my school were the deadest and most boring of her career because we were so conformist and easy to teach, and she got more original ideas and fun and job satisfaction out of her rough-comp pupils once she moved on.
I have a child who would be a grammar child if I lived in a grammar area - and I am not in favour of a return to a segregated education system. I don't think it serves anyone that well. Mine didn't serve me especially well - no better than a top set in a good comp would have done.
I have no beef with parents who choose the existing grammars - they are available and we all choose, as far as we can. what suits us best from what's available. But as a policy I don't support extending the grammar system. The current super-selective grammars have little effect on surrounding schools because their intake is a small minority. But I would not want to see a Kent style situation spread or replicated.
Theresa M's ideas seem to make much of kids moving schools if and when needs be - but WHY? What's the effing pint when it could all be cone in one school? I was listening to a teacher at a sixth form open day recently saying that if students moved for sixth, the first term was lost in many ways, as friendships and familiarity were being established. Why build that into a system for a child to move to grammar at multiple entry points rather than just keep them in one school and they move sets?
I think that responding to the consultation paper will be more effective than petitions, though, as that is the official consultation being undertaken.