Tories pour millions into new grammars while state schools discuss the possibility of a 4 day week

[noblegiraffe]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/theresa-may-unveils-plans-new-generation-grammar-schools/

In a cowardly move, the Tories are publishing their White Paper on grammars before publishing the responses to the Green Paper which, the best thing Justine Greening could say about them was that they were 'not overwhelmingly negative'.

What a bunch of fucking shite. And where are they going to get the thousands of pounds required for free transport for golden ticket poor kids? The only potential money-saver here is that we know that the vast majority of poor kids don't get into grammars. Why not save this money and put it into the school that the poor kid would be going to originally? Then everyone would win, including the poor kid who isn't faced with a long commute, the poor kid who didn't get into the grammar, and the 90% of kids who aren't 'grammar material' (decided by a faulty test which puts kids in the wrong school aged 10) who would see more investment in their education which is desperately needed at the moment.

I'm not sure what you mean, goodbye?

The overall average FSM in the area served by the schools listed is around 23%. Until ALL schools in the area - primary and secondary, because it is often a divide in the primaries that then leads on to different preparation for the secondaries - have around this average number of FSM, then there is still a problem. Can you spell out how the current actions of grammar school heads and the government move rapidly towards this?

And can you also explain to me why any actions taken are better than focusing on improving the education for all pupils in all schools?

1. No not rapidly, not across the country.

1. I don't see any mutual exclusivity.

goodbyestranger Thu 09-Mar-17 12:25:10 I'm not sure that either fact qualifies me to tell Bucks/ Herts parents what to do in terms of housing though.

So this comment was relevent to who?

the only advantage of living closer to a school is for the last place in the event of a tied score. That is pretty niche.

Whilst some Grammar Schools don't have a catchment many do. Sadly a lot of parents think that Grammar schools don't have catchments and every year a fair number of them are caught out as a result.

Mum you linked to a thread a tiny tiny way up the thread, re Bucks/ Herts housing issues and addressed it to me!

Far better not to have any catchment for any school - I'm not an advocate of catchments.

Goodbye, if you don't see any mutual exclusivity, consider it as a matter of simple finance and energy.

If the finance and energy put into the proposed new grammar schools in fact went into existing schools, would more children, or fewer children, be helped?

For example, if the same amount of money put into new grammar schools was used in bus fares for disadvantaged children living outside the catchment of 'good comprehensives' in leafy areas, and the same amount of energy was used in changing the admissions rules to give them priority there, what would be the result?

If the money earmarked for free school building was used to renovate and expand existing good schools instead?

goodbyestranger Thu 09-Mar-17 12:48:04 Far better not to have any catchment for any school - I'm not an advocate of catchments.

It would seem that Grammar Schools prefer to have them. Tiffin introduced one in 2013.

At the moment, I'm not sure we have any way of judging which schools actually are good schools. Who knows how many schools have built their reputations by cheating on coursework and controlled assessments? It's going to be fascinating seeing what happens when the first exams-only GCSEs results come out. Our local comprehensive is going to be in for a shock, I suspect. In addition, there is the widespread use of tutoring. There really should be some way of compensating for that when evaluating how 'good' a school actually is.

You're generalizing from the Tiffin particular Mum.

can'tkeepawayforever that assumes a finite amount of energy. On the financial front, where the finite argument is obviously relevant, I suppose the answer to your specific bus/ admissions example would be that potentially a different set of DC would be helped, but I'm not sure why it would more, or that in economic terms more disadvantaged DC going to a leafy comp would be as efficient as the same number of the more able disadvantaged DC going to a high achieving grammar.

On the capital for building work - how do you calculate that overall more DC would benefit from expansion/ renovation of existing good schools? I'm not equipped to answer that question - it's extremely complex and one would need access to masses of numbers across tall the areas where new schools and expanded grammars are proposed.

As far as I'm aware worldwide evidence suggests that disadvantaged kids do better where there is no streaming, setting or selection of any kind. Given that grammars do exist it is perfectly honourable for them to extend access in the ways described by goodbyestranger. I doubt its politically possible to get rid of setting and streaming so comprehensives don't necessarily do what's best for the disadvantaged anyway. DD came home with her options form yesterday and said "this is the one for higher ability kids, the lower ability kids got a different one"??? So we comp supporters can have some blocks in our own eyes too. I tend to think that comps abolishing setting would lose too much middle class support for this to be desirable, I'm not sure whether this is inconsistency on my part or just a reflection of reality

But when Theresa May says expanding grammars is about helping the disadvantaged she is either a)deliberately lying or b)so hamstrung by her own prejudices that she is unable to understand basic logic. If academic setting is inherently detrimental to the disadvantaged then extending it is bound to be their detriment, despite the good efforts that goodbye has described. It's the equivalent of saying you're going to prevent lung cancer by encouraging non-smokers to take up low-tar cigarettes.

goodbyestranger Thu 09-Mar-17 13:05:55 You're generalizing from the Tiffin particular Mum.

So how many Grammar schools don't have catchments?

No idea Mum. How about you look up the admissions policies of all the grammars and come back to us on that one?

My LA has one girls' grammar with no catchment.

My LA has a single grammar and that also has no catchment.

I suppose he other thing I find frustrating about this is that it is NOT about a planned national attempt to 'improve education' through creating grammar schools in areas where education s currently poor and all other means have been tried. [I mean, i don't know if that would in fact work to improve education, but at least it would be a planned and coherent policy.]

It is being done through the 'free school' process, whereby schools aren't opened, as a priority, where they are most needed, but where people (often academy chains, or perhaps religious groups - few 'local parent power' free schools have come to fruition) most want to put schools.

I can't help feeling that it may be an attempt to make free schools look better in the data, in the same way as lumping 'coverter academies' (all good or outstandign schools) with 'forced academies' 9usually failing schools) enabled the government to point to the giood performance of 'academies as a whole'.

If new free schools can set selective admissions policies that exclude difficult pupils, then the performance of free schools will go up, ergo 'Free schools are driving up educational standards!! Whoopeee!!'

If the new grammars are new free schools only, then there's a chance there will only be a few, where parents want them.

If the White Paper allows current schools to convert, then we're totally fucked, it'll be an arms race.

Surely all schools have to have some sort of oversubscription criterion? Even if you have to get an incredibly high score in the test, there has to be some strategy in place for more kids getting that score than there are places?

Bertrand, a relatively common approach for superselective grammars is to rank from the highest mark downwards, then stop when the school is full. That may mean, of course, that everyone who gets in has marks within 1 mark of each other, if they set the test badly. However, they do add other 'fudge factors' - age, for example - that spread the scores out, with distance being the tiebreaker within the final score.

It's not a catchment, as such, and obviously the distance tiebreaker is ONLY between the final scores, so someone living 40 miles away may get in with a higher score, but someone half a mile not get in because they got the 'cutoff' score and the other children in the tiebreaker lived closer.

BertrandRussell Thu 09-Mar-17 13:43:11 Surely all schools have to have some sort of oversubscription criterion? Even if you have to get an incredibly high score in the test, there has to be some strategy in place for more kids getting that score than there are places?

All my local schools rank same score applicants by distance. One parent I know is two marks below the cut off but is 29th on the waiting list.

BertrandRussell SS QE ranks same score applicants by distance also.

So basically they all have some sort of catchment area............

No Bertrand it's a massive stretch to say there's a catchment when the only time that comes into play is when the last score happens to be a tie. For our school that tie-breaker has only be used once in recent years. It's almost irrelevant.

noble I thought the rumour was that current schools will be allowed to convert.

BertrandRussell Thu 09-Mar-17 14:20:00 So basically they all have some sort of catchment area.

That was my understand of it. If there isn't a formal catchment one normally forms based on the previous years distance cut off.

There are blip years where distance allocations go out further than usual (there are a number of Bucks Grammars that this has happened to this year, whilst others have shrunk considerably) but the parents I know that have moved into those areas have researched the distances over the last five or so years and made sure they are well within the shortest distance.

Mum there either is a catchment or there isn't. It's not possible for there to be an 'informal' catchment. The best one can say is that DC tend to come from ten miles one way and ten miles the other but if a child can apply from literally anywhere then there is no catchment. The point about distance being the tie breaker for the very last place is of very limited relevance. That tie breaker criterion in no way means that there's a catchment in the proper sense of the word.