Justine Greening grubs around for grammar school support after disastrous consultation

[noblegiraffe]

Despite the grammar school consultation only closing recently, the results not yet being published, and many high-profile education organisations condemning the plans, Justine Greening has decided to try to whip up Tory support for grammar schools by sending an email to Conservative party members and backers asking for them to support a grammar school campaign.

Ignoring all the evidence that this is a stupid and costly mistake, with real implications for parents who want to send their children to comprehensive schools and for disadvantaged children, she has described how 'popular' they are with parents, who perhaps aren't as well informed on education issues as the organisations and professionals who publicly responded to the consultation.

schoolsweek.co.uk/government-launches-pro-grammar-schools-campaign-just-days-after-official-consultation-closes/

Is this pigheaded or just desperate?

Part of the problem is that when people talk about the "best comps" they always seem to mean the ones who have the highest number of advantaged pupils. The school with the highest Progress 8 score in Oxfordshire (one possible definition of "best comp") is actually situated in the most deprived area of the city. I bet you any money it will not be flooded by applications next year from pupils who would otherwise go to Cherwell, the Oxford comp that does qualify as a "house price school".

It seems fairly obvious to me that the current administration do indeed think that the best schools are those with the highest proportion of advantaged pupils, hence all the latest proposals being focused on getting a token few marginally less privileged children into grammar schools and private schools. In other words, getting the taxpayer to cover the cost of largely maintaining huge divisions in society and underfunding education for the majority.

"Would love to hear the plans on getting the poorest kids into the best comps."

The four good/outstanding comps nearest me have between 10% and 40% FSM.

The nearest grammars are between 1.9% and 2.5%

People have got to stop insisting that there is just as bad a problem of access to poor children in good comps as there is in grammars - the data shows this just isn't true.

Grammars are in a league of their own when it comes to social exclusion.

There was a lot in the consultation about faith schools and other education options. Talk of any of that is all very quiet... I wonder if the non-grammar school stuff is the govt's real agenda to push thru.

More intelligent people tend towards better paid jobs
More intelligent people pass their genes on to produce more intelligent children.
Therefore parents with better incomes will tend to have brighter kid overall.
That is the main reason grammar schools are skewed towards higher socio economic groups

And yet so many of these intelligent parents with intelligent children do not have confidence in their own genes and coach their children rigorously in exam technique for the 11 plus, and get their kids to memorise lists of vocab etc from an early age.

Oh yes, and also pay for private primary schools, because they are not entirely confident that their genetically superior children will pass the eleven plus if they attend state primary schools.

Sutton thinks otherwise Mini

www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/top-comprehensives-socially-selective-half-national-average-proportion-pupils-free-school-meals/

There are several thousand comprehensive schools in the U.K., not 500. There are not 2,500 or so failing comprehensive schools, just several thousand schools of less interest to the Sutton Trust. It is hardly a surprise that the majority of schools getting the best results will have more children from wealthier backgrounds in them, as with wealth comes easier access to any extra help required, higher donations to the schools themselves, and in all likelihood, exposure to a wider vocabulary, more investment in education in general, and more "mind broadening" experiences in the home. The schools don't actually have to be better at teaching, so widening access will not necessarily result in the maintenance of high achievement levels - more likely a flattening out of differences.

Green the Sutton Trust is confirming Mini's views not contradicting them.

Roundabout - excellent point.

How HPFA?

Pushing aside the view that kids on fsm aren't the only kids that matter.There are far more comps so far more top comps schools excluding kids on free school meals.

I love the blanket refusal to except that parents buy houses to get into the catchment for the top and better comps, the huge school bus industry whare parents pay £1000s a year to bus their kids to preferred and better comps and the lack of desire to,push for a lottery system. Posters have time and again shown their own experience of this to match Mini's anecdotal experience.

Posters start thread after thread bemoaning grammars yet never once do you see the same posters campaigning tirelessly for a lottery system even though it is obvious that it would benefit far more children.

The fact is the parents who bemoan grammars like their naice comp on the right side of town which excludes the riffraff and have no desire for a system that takes away their choice.

My children are quite happy and doing well in their one of the 2,500 comprehensive schools, GreenGinger2. The fact is, the majority of people live nowhere near the top 500 schools, bus or no bus, lottery or no lottery. And there is no way on earth government is going to subsidise thousands of children's long bus journeys to get to schools the far side of town from where they live, complete with accompanying pollution and congestion. It is not a model that has proven successful in other countries, so far as I'm aware? There is nothing particularly desirable about forcing long journeys to school upon more people.

Gosh the 'better comps' line annoys me.
My child attends a comprehensive with way more than the Nat Av PP and is avoided by the middleclasses in favour of another nearby school.
The other school is not 'better', It simply has a more 'advantaged' intake.
It gets rid of certain pupils in year 9 to a vocational college.
It has expensive school trips and insists on ipads for all children [school dictated].
The school my child attends works bloody hard by ALL children but its bottom line not as good as the low PP, advantaged intake school.
Does not make it a 'worse' school or the other 'better' though.
I do wish the demographic was more even so other school had a bit of challenge rather than relying on advantage/ tutored children etc.

Maybe lotteries in areas where it is a particular problem? But that would be seriously messed up by the existence of any kind of official selectivity in the school application process - so it's out with grammar schools, for definite, and out with parents of any level of wealth objecting to unaffordable journeys not even on bus routes.

I take the point about childrens' backgrounds and home life having a huge impact on results - it's why I hope my DS, stuck in a fecking awful school, will be ok. But it's not just about that. My other son is in a 'best comp' and the difference in the schools themselves is absolutely palpable. Better teachers, better organisation, better facilities. Incredibly systematic focus on attainment for the bright kids with really high targets. Living breathing examples of children who went on to great unis. Brilliant enrichment opportunities. The whole place is thriving, purposeful and calm. There's no question that if children from DS1's school went to DS2's school instead, they'd do better.

Trying to manage a school in which ~50% of the parents did badly at school themselves, aren't interested in education and/or aren't providing a calm, loving, stable home environment is a pig of a job and leads to a horrible downwards spiral of bad behaviour, high turnover of staff, poor staff and low expectations. The kids don't have a culture of hard work and acheievement to motivate them. Only those who have it within themselves do well come out with decent results - and how many teenagers are that organically motivated to get their heads down while chaos reigns around them and getting a 4/5 at GCSE is thought to be a reason for huge celebration? (Obviously a 4/5 is a genuinely brilliant result in some circs but you get my point)

Comps only work if they reflect the local community in all its breadth, including the clever kids (from all backgrounds), the middle class kids, the kids with incredible talents. It creates a community of respect and motivation, and it's just a lot more bloody fun for everyone.

And the whole 'background is destiny' thing is fundamentally what we have to change, isn't it? As a society it's no good (as well as being cruel and deeply immoral) to just blithely accept that a big group of kids will fail at school because of their parents' income or home life. We need to do so much better by these children.

How are we defining 'best comp'? Because people usually define best comp by best results, however headline figures are meaningless at deciding whether a school is actually any good at what it does or not.

One things is for sure: grammar schools will not do anything whatsoever to improve the chaotic schools with high staff turnover and badly behaved children, TresDesolee. Just imagine your ds's school, but with even fewer families motivated to do well in education attending it.

I don't think Mini's figures are correct though. Her nearest grammar schools must be in the London Borough of Sutton - her dc would have been eligible to sit the 11+ for Wilsons, Sutton Grammar and Wallington County Grammar - their fsm rates (last 6 years) appear to be 5.8% , 6.7 % and 8.5% not 1.9% - 2.5%. The worst performing school in Sutton (a boys' sports college) only has a fsm rate of 38.6%, the worst performing comprehensives in her borough must be 60% + fsm. If one of her local comps has a fsm rate of 10% what method of selection are they using - faith, girls only, partial selection? Can she access the 4 good/outstanding comps she mentions for her own dc - or are they the wrong sex/wrong faith/wrong postcode? She can access the grammars in the nearby borough if her dc score highly enough in the test.

Clavinova the figures are different because one is FSM (as in currently on FSM) and one is FSM ever 6.

Ooh good- a grammar school thread for Christmas! I'll be back later......

Although it does occur to me that there should be some sort of file of regular posters responses to things. Then we could just link to "7b!"

Tis a bit Groundhog day here isn't it?
.

I cannot see the current fsm rate for these schools - the 'disadvantaged' figures seem to back mine. There is a much bigger percentage gap in terms of fsm between the best and worst comprehensives in this example than the grammars and the sports college.

Actually, I think it shows that some of the grammars are starting to take more disadvantaged pupils again - certainly in my borough, parents are starting to turn away from the grammars and switch back to the private schools.