£240 million allocated to new grammar schools in the Autumn Statement

[noblegiraffe]

I just want this thread here to reference whenever any poster says 'there's no money, schools will just have to reduce photocopying costs/sell the playing field/charge parents £500 per year/not give teachers a pay rise and schools/teachers/parents will just have to accept it'

Money can be found when it suits the whim of the PM.

kesstrel - I was commenting on what you said, not what the article said, except to the extent that the article did not appear to back up what you were saying. If you look at what I have written, you will gather, in any event, that I do not actually believe London schools have done something phenomenal. However, the fact remains they have enough funding not to be contemplating mass redundancies and/or four day weeks. So when education in some counties has got to that level of underfunding, it comes across as pretty offensive to argue more funding won't help. So why not get off your high horse and agree that schools are being seriously underfunded in some areas?

And possibly admit that £240million towards new grammar schools is not going to achieve much?

Oh, and also ask the DfE to stop holding up London schools as a beacon of excellence, when the reality is they used to be awful and are now quite good at getting good exam results, which is a massive improvement by their previous standards, but does not mean the rest of the country should mimic them and mass academisation follow.

I was commenting on what you said, not what the article said, except to the extent that the article did not appear to back up what you were saying

Well, given that what I actually said was:

"Not everyone agrees that it's the extra investment in London that has made the difference. Some argue that it's demographic changes, with a much larger proportion of immigrant children from higher-achieving backgrounds, that is primarily responsible for the improvement there, due to those children and their families having higher aspirations and a better work ethic. Correlation does not prove causation, unfortunately."

I have to ask, in what way does the article not back up what I said in my comment above?

You also wrote:

Another interesting thing is that "disadvantaged" schools, as they are referred to in the article, get more pupil premium money. Still, it's nothing to do with the money, apparently.

This comment also puzzles me, because the article, in fact, specifically talks about pupil premium money, and compares students who attract this money in London with students who attract that money outside of London. It doesn't say that pupil premium money doesn't help; just that pupil premium students in the demographics that appear to have raised overall standards in London in fact do just as well in schools outside of London.

Returning to your claim that you were commenting on what I said, not what the article said, you wrote the following:

So why not get off your high horse and agree that schools are being seriously underfunded in some areas?

Yet nowhere did I say that schools are not being seriously underfunded in some areas. Current levels of underfunding are a different matter to what the paper I linked to is discussing.

You also wrote: And possibly admit that £240million towards new grammar schools is not going to achieve much

Where in the comment above did I suggest that it would? Where did I say I was a supporter of grammar schools?

Sadly, this tactic of misrepresenting what people say is why it seems to be impossible on here to have any kind of serious discussion about how to improve less successful comprehensive schools.

Sorry, kesstrel, but when you don't make clear what you are saying, then of course you are open to misinterpretation. Which correlations were you referring to? The monetary ones, or the demographic ones, or both? In what way does your article fit into a discussion about £240million for grammar schools? What exactly are you trying to say about funding? Either schools in many areas need more money or they don't, yet you appeared to be arguing that they don't, because it cannot be proved that any improvements made have anything to do with money - oh, unless we are talking about pupil premium money .

Another correlation is that schools which get less funding because they have fewer pupil premium children make less progress. Given the fact extra funding normally coincides with extra time, resources, manpower and attention given to a particular group of children, it seems likely that extra money and extra focus actually go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive. So now, maybe more money and focus should be going into those coastal towns you think nobody wants to live in, and more general funding should be going as a matter of urgency into schools which are generally so underfunded that they cannot afford experienced teachers. And I still think £240million to grammar schools is failing to address the real problems. So what is your opinion on that, given that that is the subject of the OP, so forgive me if I interpreted your comments in that light and therefore did not comprehend what the hell you are actually trying to say about anything?

Grammar schools lead to marginally higher grades for those who get in and worse grades for those who are just below the pass threshold. Thus they have been proved not to work.

No that proves they do work, what you probably mean to say is that Secondary Moderns, have been proved not to work. However this evidence is based on 163 Grammar schools, so to even use the word 'proved' is misleading, I think 'indicate' would be a better word. Also from what I have read, no one is advocating we bring back Secondary Modern schools.

“Pupils eligible for [free school meals] appear to suffer marginally less educational disadvantage if they attend grammar schools”

So it would seem the best outcome would be to make sure more children on FSM go to academically selective schools.

In a system where we already have massive selective comprehensives, based on money, faith, sporting ability, musical ability, how sharp elbowed your parents are etc etc it makes no sense to restrict academic selection.

Doesn't any success of grammar schools just indicate that comprehensive schools need to make more of their most able children? All that seems to have been proved by separating the more academically able/better prepared for the 11 plus into entirely different schools in the U.K. is that everyone else tends to suffer, regardless of whether they are studying the same subjects as in the grammar schools, or a more practical curriculum. Why the need to keep them apart?

suppermummy
If you have grammars across a large area - such as Kent, by definition you have secondary moderns.

And if you look at the research that was published in the summer, the improvement in bright kids is so trivial (1/3 of a GCSE grade per subject)
that it is not in any way worth the stress and cost

There were murmurings at my school yesterday (high attaining comp) that we should consider converting to a grammar school (terrible idea) simply because it seems to be the only way to get more funding from the DfE.

Why the need to keep them apart?

They are already being kept apart in schools where you need to be wealthy to live close enough or be able to prove you are Catholic enough, or again wealthy enough to have been tutored in an instrument, or clever enough to play the system and rent in area without getting caught.

They are called comprehensive but they are not, of course those lucky or wealthy enough to get into a good comprehensive supports the system because it advantaged them. But on the other side of the fence the inequality is just as great as ever.

Where has it been said that Grammars will be funded more than other schools?

suppermummy
I am not rich, I live in the catchment of a dire comp, I got my kids into a better comp a few miles away.
The failings of comps are best dealt with by improving comps, not by undermining them.

supper A share of 240 million for grammar conversions is more funding than schools that don't convert will be entitled to.

Supermummy - so are you saying the system is currently unfair, so we should feel obliged to make it more unfair still? In areas with lots of grammar schools there are lots of children in those grammar schools who were privately educated at primary level. How is that improving on the status quo?

If you have grammars across a large area ...by definition you have secondary moderns

But no one is suggesting we replicate the old Grammar system that Kent holds onto. If in an area you have good/outstanding academies, free schools, faith schools, grammar schools, UTCs, sports academies, music selection, special schools and all the other types and hybrids of types that you can get, then NO by definition you do not have Secondary Moderns.

... it is not in any way worth the stress and cost

The average difference might be small, however that is only an average. I suspect a lot of pupils at Grammars do not or should not be there and they drag the average down. The solution would be to move them out of the grammar at the end of Y8 and move in the 'so called' late developers.

The difference at the top end of ability at Grammars could be more significant which is what I thought was the whole point of academic selection. How were these stats even arrived at because if your looking at the top end of ability it probably doesn't differentiate between someone who got 80% and an A* and someone who got the same grade but 95%. The new levels 8 and 9 might give a more accurate picture.

How many secondary schools do you think one area can support?

roundaboutthetown

I am saying the current system is already selective but the only area not allowed to specialise is academically. So some academic selection makes the current selective system more equal.

How many secondary schools do you think one area can support?

In what I used to call a LEA their must be close to a few dozen secondaries. Why?

Not in my LA! But also the idea that a student would be able to go to any schools within their LA is odd, this would mean travelling quite a long way for some students. I believe that schools should be part of their local community - 11 year olds shouldn't be travelling long distances just to access state education.

Supermummy - the same skewed demographics will nevertheless result. The school's getting the best results will attract the wealthier parents. Nobody has yet created a selection test for any type of school that does not ultimately appear to advantage exactly the people who are currently already benefiting from the status quo.

I believe that schools should be part of their local community

Why cant they be, my local faith schools are very much part of community but admit pupils from all over the place.

11 year olds shouldn't be travelling long distances

That's a choice parents make, go to your nearest school or consider travelling a bit to go to one that fits you better. Its a choice every parent makes already, academic selection doesn't change that.

the same skewed demographics will nevertheless result

Not if done properly but even if it does its wont be any worse than we have now, and maybe 3% on FSM getting better grades is better than 0.

Then maybe the argument will be made to end all selection of any sort.

Parents won't be able to choose not travelling over travelling for their non-Catholic less academic 11 year old if their local schools are a 100% catholic and a grammar school. The schools choose, not the parents.

We wouldn't have skewed demographics now if "it were done properly." It's just that nobody has worked out how to do "it" properly. Kent and Buckinghamshire certainly haven't worked out how to do academic selection "properly", despite having been practising it for years. And travelling to school benefits the wealthy, as the poor don't always get a free bus pass, even if there is a bus to get them to school in the first place.

Roundabout"
so forgive me if I interpreted your comments in that light and therefore did not comprehend

Try reading the comments of user7214743615 at 10:22:29 and of Badbadbunny at 09:52:59. They are both directly above mine, and introduced the subject to which my post was a response. It is not unknown for threads to diverge from the direct topic in the title, but if you have problems with this I suggest you direct your criticisms to the two posters above.

kestrel - I have no problem whatsoever linking their posts to the OP. Only yours went off at a tangent. The fact that nobody followed your tangent is not my problem.