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?

"The lower ability children are outnumbered so are easier to manage"

Sorry? Could you say more?

I think what Want2beSupermum saying, BertrandRussell, is that grammar schools make low ability children more difficult to manage, because they end up in difficult to manage numbers in schools elsewhere.

I love the idea of "moving for school"
something that more than half of the population cannot even consider

I certainly could not have afforded to move into the catchment for my kids school
as I do not have a spare £200 k
( price difference, stamp duty, legal fees etc)

round It's not that at all! It's a weird dynamic. My friend taught in a school elsewhere in Manchester and she told me half of her class were lower ability. When she started at her new job in Trafford, in an area that isn't so well off, she has never had more than 5 lower ability children in classes of 25. She puts this down to the fact that when you have so many families coming into the area for the schools you end up with less lower ability children per class. The children are being pushed by their parents academically because that is their value system. There is also the effect of wealth in the area. I have friends who have their children in primary schools. Often mothers are SAHPs who volunteer at school and fundraise. They all had their DC start school almost reading and they were doing simple arithmetics.

talk Even poor people can move. There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving and rents are not high. Trafford has lots of cheaper parts. It's not all footballers and business owners. You can easily move into Trafford for less than £200k. Take a look on righmove. Also, Trafford itself has a low unemployment rate. People might not earn much but they value working.

For all these reasons I don't think you can take Trafford as an example of why grammar schools work. I don't think it's the best approach for the UK. I'd like to see schools set up so they enable students to explore the arts, science, literature, sports and music. Every child needs to be much more exposed to these areas. I find it shocking that so few comprehensive schools offer single science GCSEs.

To do this they need to change their method of inclusion for special needs. It horrifies me that DS who is diagnosed as ASD would have to fail in a classroom before getting into a specialist class. Absolutely terrible for him and the other kids in his class.

They then need to look at class sizes and respect teachers a whole lot more. 25 kids in a class is a lot when it comes to homework and differentiation in the primary years. They also need to consider summer school for some kids. We have this in our district and it works very well to limit the summer slide. I would also like to see proper plans for after school care where kids do enrichment activities and have homework/ reading help.

This grammar school talk enables this government to divert the conversation away from the one we as a society should be having.

want2be
Even poor people can move. There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving and rents are not high.
Link please ......
I've dealt with UK planning and housing policy for 20 years
I've clearly missed a trick ....

Trafford's schools do well - because they suck in kids from the surrounding are
the kids of Trafford are the same as everywhere else.
Kingston is not magically brighter just because Tiffin is there.

Class size - not supported by evidence
Selection / segregation - not supported by evidence

but hey, its a Bank Holiday this side of the pond

www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/housing/housing-advice/housing-options-service-trafford/homelessness.aspx

If you are considered homeless you can get help with the deposit and moving costs. It's not in detail on that page but if you are low income you don't pay. Greater Manchester has a housing shortage and there has been a push to encourage people to move out of the center. There is also a lot more proper housing association properties available which is excellent for those who are low income.

Also smaller class sizes isn't for the benefit of the students but for the teacher. DD has 15 in her class. The teacher has 40% less homework to mark compared to a teacher with 25 in their class. I hear on MN all the time how long Hw takes to mark and I believe teachers when they talk about their long hours.

Here is the link for deposit assistance.

www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/housing/housing-advice/housing-options-service-trafford/trafford-bond-scheme.aspx

If you are considered homeless you can get help with the deposit and moving costs.
Well, no shit sherlock, homeless people get help
that is a weeny teeny bit different from There are grants available to help cover the cost of moving
which is what you said
and its bollocks

Trafford is no more representative than Kingston
so lets all put it back in its little corner and
LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE

This gives a good overview of help available with moving costs.

www.housingcare.org/downloads/kbase/3100.pdf

There are housing trust homes available in Trafford and they include cost of removal (as in moving).

So you have help with a deposit if necessary, you have help with moving to a housing association home and you have housing association homes available. If you are low income and are motivated to move it can be done.

TRAFFORD IS NOT NORMAL

Would you put your kids out on the street just to get a poxy homeless grant ?

Do you have the FAINTEST idea what the housing waiting lists are in London and the South East (start with 3-5 years)?

Moving house for schools ONLY applies to the arrogant rich
so lets just drop that one shall we ?

talkin I'm confused! Are you reading what I'm posting because I actually agree with you that you can't take Trafford and expand it across the U.K. It's impossible to do because the general population of school age children in England and Wales have parents where the rate of unemployment is higher and A much higher proportion with SENs.

You have a much lower proportion of kids with SENs in Trafford because they are drowned out by the children of parents who move there because of the schools. I'm just saying the barriers to moving to Trafford aren't that great. Nothing to do with being arrogant or rich. Not everyone lives in London. Plenty of people are in greater Manchester area through lancs and Cheshire who can move to Trafford to take advantage of the schools if they want to.

Moving house costs more than the median UK salary - in stamp duty, rent depisits, legal fees
Even before trying to finance the house.

Moving for other than work is just not an option for the vast bulk of the UK.

Better to make the schools improve everywhere than put more hurdles in peoples' way

This is an interesting thread. Someone upthread referred to making schools fairer by introducing a lottery system. Brighton and Hove (where I grew up) have done this, making lots of people very unhappy.

Well, of course it makes people unhappy - it's bad for those who just want to go to the school in their local community, bad for congestion as children move around the City trying to get to random schools miles from their friends, homes and families, and bad for people who like to think they have a choice. I believe Brighton only operates it for those who did not get into their catchment schools/those who did not want to go to their catchment school, so I doubt it makes much difference to social equality, anyway, as the wealthiest will be most able to place themselves in the right catchment and even move around if catchments change. It probably just adds to the stress of there not being enough school places to go round.