Grammar schools proposal so appalling that a cross-party alliance forms to fight them

[noblegiraffe]

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (Lib Dem), former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (Conservative) and former Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell (Labour) have written a joint piece for The Observer condemning the plans by Theresa May to open new selective schools.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/19/help-poorer-pupils-selection-social-mobility-education-brexit-grammar-schools

"The formation of their cross-party alliance against grammar school expansion, which is opposed by about 30 Tory MPs, spells yet more political trouble for May on the domestic front. Last week, chancellor Philip Hammond was forced by a revolt in his own party into a humiliating budget U-turn over national insurance rises for the self-employed, and Conservatives lined up to oppose planned cuts in school funding.

Launching their combined assault, and plans to work together over coming months, in an article in the Observer, Morgan, Powell and Clegg say the biggest challenges for a country facing Brexit, digitisation and changes to the nature of work, are to boost skills, narrow the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers and boost social mobility. By picking a fight over plans to expand selection in schools, May will, they argue, sow division, divert resources away from where they are needed most and harm the causes she claims to be committed to advancing.

Before a debate in the Commons on social mobility this week, the three MPs say it is time to put aside political differences and fight instead for what is right. “We must rise to the challenge with a new national mission to boost education and social mobility for all,” they write. “That’s why we are putting aside what we disagree on, to come together and to build a cross-party consensus in favour of what works for our children – not what sounds good to politicians.”

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/18/cross-party-alliance-grammar-schools-theresa-may

I have to go out but the partially selective school evidence looks very flawed to me - I can see several partially selective schools in London not included in the study - Grey Coat Hospital, West London Free School, Prendergast, St Marylebone and yet they've included a school that only selects on sports aptitude (with only 10% high achievers) and several partially selective modern/comp schools in Kent and Lincs when the highest achievers have already been selected elsewhere. Seems a nonsense study to me.

Yes, Clavinova, there is also Graveney, Kingsdale, Fortismere, which are all very successful schools in non-affluent areas. Many kids on FSM.

Not to leave out Charter, Dunraven, and some of the Harris academies which are achieving excellent results with a mixed, banded intake.

Create a nonsense education system and you tend to get nonsnse reports out of it. What we have at the moment is a politically created mess, with politicians intent on making it even messier.

A banded intake isn't the same as a partially selective school.

I just looked up Grey Coat and West London. Both of them scored 0% for low attainers in maths and English GCSE which hardly refutes the report.

A partially selective intake with banding usually has a 4 tiers (i.e. the top tier is considered gifted and talented) and there is movement between them. Then within those tiers there are also tiers so it is broken down very well. The groups work at different speeds. My DD is in the very top set for Maths. There are kids with autism and SEN in her class who are very high functioning at maths. She actually benefits from them. So, it can work, when the school is run properly. But, you have to have the curriculum in place with teachers who can teach it.

She wouldn't be doing the math she is doing in a classroom at the school down the road. She'd be linked in via computer to some program and working on her own. That is a rubbish experience for Secondary School.

basic banding in selective. 25% at the top, 50% in the middle, 25% at the bottom. That's why sometimes a child who lives further away, but scored higher on the banding test gets into a school and a child who may live closer, but is in the middle 50% doesn't get in. It depends on the year group. Partially selective schools, usually have a band above these with a small % of places.

Grey Coats-for example has 15 places for language aptitude in the year 7 intake. The rest fall under their admissions requirements, which is highly weighted in the CofE faith.

It's much more environmentally friendly to improve local schools than to bus children in from all over the place. If we can't afford to fund existing schools properly, where is the money coming from to provide the less well off with transport, anyway? Being a commuter is shit and unhealthy enough as an adult, without starting it off in childhood. The answer to poor local schools is not to create a different school elsewhere, ban 90% of all children and 95% of local children from using it, and let the original school continue to underachieve whilst pretending to yourself that it is suddenly providing an adequate education for the children left, now those oh-so-tricky high performers have left.

Some responses to from Maidenhead schools to the request to consider selection:

www3.rbwm.gov.uk/downloads/download/480/grammar_school_response_letters?platform=hootsuite

Mixed response. Lovely letters from Windsor Girls and St Edwards. And the schools considering partial selection as a bribe for allowing them to move sounds like doing the bare minimum. The rest hedging their bets. I'd love to see all schools standing together and rejecting. But accept there's a pragmatic argument for the schools doing the bare minimum to allow the Council to keep Theresa happy without actually doing too much harm to education in the borough.

Look at the top of the Windsor Girls school letter and the spelling 'Grammer' schools !

I am glad my DDs are not educated by their English department !

Because the single most important thing about that letter is a typo........

Good to know that regions were polling schools about which ones might support a return to a two tier system even as the first round consultation was barely just closed.

Game theorists will be keeping a close eye on those letters! Who is a Hawk, who is a Dove and who is keeping their cards close to their chest.

It would be great to think that everyone will come out as doves (or as hawks, that would screw the system up), but that's all it needs for a hawk to take all.

noble

One of the problems for the pro-selection Council (and MP) is that even if you were actually pro-grammar if you lived in Maidenhead you'd probably be inclined to keep the system as it is. The comps score much better for all levels than the Bucks secondary moderns and you can access the grammars in two neighbouring authorities. Apparently the Council are now considering a poll of KS1/2 parents. Can just imagine the leading questions they'll come up with!

Not at all relevant but one for Noble

twitter.com/mikercameron/status/844260612196749317

Well it looks like 'Holyport' College like the proposals and will become the grammar school . I do hope they might be able to send out a letter that does not misspell Grammar School !

Holyport College is a tiny boarding school run by Eton to justify charitable status, I bet they'd love to go grammar, it would make their job even easier.

HPFA

They're totally missing the point that schools can't afford textbooks any more.

Another announcement, another thread.

I'm so fucking angry about this one.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2884015-Tories-shit-all-over-the-comprehensive-system-with-a-return-to-the-1950s-and-a-nationwide-11

Fucking idiots. What the fuck do they think is going to happen?

The 'market' will decide how successful the new wave of selective schools will be !

This means if parents on the whole don't want them, like posters seem to think the proposal will fall on its 'arse'. It won't because there is large scale demand for them from parents.

Secondly if to a man the whole of education is against grammar schools , why and who we open them !

Noble Do you think we need to have a General Election, considering all these monumental changes to 'society' that are going on.

Of course you don't wish for that, I wonder why perhaps Conservative 393 seats Labour 180 seats.

You have to ask yourself why that is the case...

Let we explain just because the 'left' are vocal , does not mean they are the majority in-fact those that are silent are the majority.

This probably also applies to some people in education, who are keeping their pens dry...

Will open than

them

This means if parents on the whole don't want them, like posters seem to think the proposal will fall on its 'arse'.

The problem is politicians confusing 'parents wanting to send their kids to a grammar' with grammars being a good idea in general.

Of course if there's a grammar nearby parents will want to send their kid to it, because a) the other options will be shitter because of its mere existence and b) parents generally confuse 'high attainment' with 'great school' and 'low attainment' with 'bad school'.

Re General Election: well I don't think May has a mandate at all for what she is doing with pretty much anything (which seems to be fucking the NHS, ruining the school system and destroying the country), so I think she needs to call one.

But Labour are shit and would be destroyed and she'd then get even more of a free rein so obviously yeah, that would be bad.

This means if parents on the whole don't want them, like posters seem to think the proposal will fall on its 'arse'. It won't because there is large scale demand for them from parents.

Come on Flying you know better than that. The whole point of the way the government is handling this is to avoid people having any choice in the matter. Get a few people to set up the grammar and of course people will choose that in preference to a secondary modern. The government then uses this as proof that grammars are popular. I think all the regular pro-comp supporters on these threads are quite open that if they were forced to choose between grammar and secondary modern they would try and get their kids in grammars.