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

Oh please Bertrand. The chip on your shoulder is massive. I never said Shit and comprehensive were the same thing. Have you read anything. I'm very pro-comp, but there are failing schools classified as comps that are shit schools. And there are very good, excellent comps as well.

And, there is nothing wrong with learning Latin by the way. It comes in handy for loads of subjects.

No chip at all.

I think that talking about schools improving themselves by introducing Latin is just ignoring the school funding crisis. And thinking that you can get better outcomes for disadvantaged children by introducing more selection flies in the face of all the evidence available- and the chances of disadvantaged children being in your "gifted streams" are vanishingly small to non existant.

Selection simply piles more privilege on already privileged children. It's all about creating an education system greared to the needs of the few, not the many.

There are failing schools, everyone knows that. I am sure there are plenty of schools I would rather my children didn't go to. The lower the proportion of high achievers arriving from primary and the higher the proportion of low achievers, though, the higher the likelihood the school will be in the inadequate category. So I don't see how increasing the number of schools with only lower achievers in is going to improve the situation when it comes to failing schools. If an area has virtually no children in it capable of high achievement, I can see that bussing the tiny minority who do have that capability out might be the only way to help them access schools with enough children of higher ability in them to be able to cater specifically for them, but are there areas genuinely like that, or are they areas where all children are being failed?

Chances of them being in the top sets at comps too are slim. Bright poor kids do particularly less well at comps but then as they're bright I'm guessing they're pretty disposable. You repeatedly say we should just forget about the fact bright kids don't do so well in comps.

Pretty sure this is the prevailing attitude amongst many teachers at comps going by posters on here,hence the lack of enthusiasm for them by many who have bright kids.

"You repeatedly say we should just forget about the fact bright kids don't do so well in comps."

But they do..........

"Chances of them being in the top sets at comps too are slim."

Even if that were true-and I've not seen any data to support it- at least it's possible........

There are kids in the selective stream who are on FSM, who are in social housing, and are on low income at my DD's comprehensive school. I think it probably depends where you live. They do very well because of how the school is run and the excellent teachers who teach there.

For the selective stream, they use a grammar model for the curriculum and they really push the kids in an healthy way.

I know from parents with children in the other streams, they are equally happy with the quality of the education. I think it is a great example of a partially selective school, and it is the best school in the area. So they're doing something right.

"There are kids in the selective stream who are on FSM, who are in social housing, and are on low income at my DD's comprehensive school"

What %age? And how does it compare to the cohort?

No they don't.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/405519/The_most_able_students_report_summary.pdf

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/408908/The_most_able_students_an_update_on_progress_since_June_2013.docx

65% level 5s at primary don't get As and Bs. Pp kids will be included in that. Too often their pp isn't even spent on the more able.

The attainment of pp kids on fsm lag behind other groups thus very unlikely that they are in the top groups. This would probably only be a certainty in an Outstanding school and we all know such children are often excluded by house price. So no it isn't necessarily a possibility.

They would be however be in a top group by default at a grammar. There are measures which are continuously evolving and clearly a priority to get such children in.

The school is located in a non-affluent part of London. In the selective stream 2/3 are test alone, 1/3 is catchment. In my DD's form I know of 5 kids on FSM and social housing, and plenty of lower income families. The 1/3 selective stream catchment would get into the school anyway, but they are put into the top stream based on their sats and end of school reports. The rest of the the school is catchment and normal admissions, looked after, sen, etc and is also banded based on ability. There is movement throughout the band groups if needed. It is a very normal school and they get amazing results across the board, so considering only 20% are selective that's great.

*The attainment of pp kids on fsm lag behind other groups thus very unlikely that they are in the top groups. This would probably only be a certainty in an Outstanding school and we all know such children are often excluded by house price. So no it isn't necessarily a possibility.

They would be however be in a top group by default at a grammar. There are measures which are continuously evolving and clearly a priority to get such children in.*

I must have misunderstood something here. This is saying that there are kids who don't have the achievement levels to be in a top set at a comp but would be able to pass the 11+ and then thrive in a grammar school?

Bright poor kids do particularly less well at comps but then as they're bright I'm guessing they're pretty disposable.

Well, since you regard the vast majority of poor kids who will do less well in a selective system (according to all the evidence which you have closed your mind to) as disposable I don't think anyone supporting comprehensives will have much of a crisis of conscience here. However, as an admirably honest poster on another thread says, schools should be for the "brightest and best"

According to the Ofsted report 68% of children who attained Level 5 at KS2 did not get A or A star in E and M at non-selective schools.

Pretty terrible, except that a much less reported statistic from the Ofsted report is that 43% of those in selective schools also failed to meet this target. (They stuck it in an appendix so it would be particularly hard to find) So a discrepancy of 25% in favour of selective schools.

Now if you look at figures for the selective counties you will find that roughly 70% of Level 5 students are in the grammars and the rest in the secondary moderns. Added to that the fact that grammars outside the selective counties are often superselective it's probably a good bet that the majority are at the very top of the Level 5 cohort (which is about 30% of pupils) .

So of course there's a discrepancy in favour of grammars - you're not comparing the same cohort - you are comparing two cohorts where one has a substantially higher prior attainment. This was pointed out ad nauseam when the report was released but of course has not stopped it being repeatedly used to "prove" the need for grammars.

I know it's a waste of time since we've given up basing policy on evidence but I though it should go on record

Interestingly said report mentioned that the numbers of high achieving pupils on fsm in comps were small. Clearly comps can't lecture to grammars re social mobility for this group or the fact that too few are at grammars where they do better. What is being done in comps to get them in to the equivalent top sets?

How does selective education benefit the 90/80/75% who are not selected for grammar school?

You can look at each secondary school's website, Ginger to see what they are doing to raise the achievement of PP pupils within their school.

Grammars don't have that responsibity because they mostly exclude PP pupils aged 10.

Interestingly said report mentioned that the numbers of high achieving pupils on fsm in comps were small. Clearly comps can't lecture to grammars re social mobility for this group or the fact that too few are at grammars where they do better. What is being done in comps to get them in to the equivalent top sets?

I don't get this at all.

Presumably the report meant that not many pupils on FSM were high achieving? Your sentence seems to imply that high achieving FSM pupils are somewhere other than comps, well, we know there are only a few in grammars and I doubt there's many in independent so where are they other than in comps?

And I'm simply puzzled by the idea that bright FSM pupils don't have high enough achievement to get in top sets at comps but are able to pass the 11+ and thrive at a grammar. Perhaps Bert or Noble can explain that to me because I'm obviously misinterpreting here.

"And I'm simply puzzled by the idea that bright FSM pupils don't have high enough achievement to get in top sets at comps but are able to pass the 11+ and thrive at a grammar. Perhaps Bert or Noble can explain that to me because I'm obviously misinterpreting here."

Beats me, HPFA.........

Glad I'm not the only one. I thought I was missing something.

You mean a Pupil Premium policy Noble? Very much in evidence on our grammar websites,why on earth wouldn't they be? They are state schools.

I meant HPFA that clearly given the angst on here re the numbers of pp kids in grammars the numbers in comp top sets which bring many advantages (the equivalent) don't seem to be much better. So no room for smugness. There seems to be no national plan to get more pp kids into those top sets unlike measures put into place to up the numbers of pp kids in grammars.

If it helps I do think grammars can be unfairly blamed for low numbers of PP pupils when the problems start much earlier on. It isn't their fault that TM has chosen to promote more grammars on the false assertion that they will mainly benefit "bright, poor kids"

Presumably there are fewer PP pupils in top sets at comps for the same reasons as there are few in grammars? If a school sets in English there is little benefit to being in the top set if you are struggling to read.

But grammars get lambasted for this,one of the main arguments against them. Why shouldn't comps be scrutinised in the same way?

Unless actually those against grammars are simply using pp as an argument when actually the most disadvantaged are of lesser importance to the status quo being held in the comps their DC attend many of which are pretty selective in other ways.

The subtleties do get rather lost but it is the selective system that has been shown to work against the interests of disadvantaged pupils. I have no problems with grammars trying to mitigate the effects of that system but I don't think they will be able to do it

No-one says comps are perfect but non-selective systems worldwide work better than selective when it comes to disadvantaged pupils.

It is Theresa May who has chosen to justify grammars on the grounds of social mobility. You can't really blame those who oppose grammars for fighting on the grounds that she has chosen. Are we supposed to ignore the argument that she is making?

In what ways?

All I've read is that getting into grammars is hard for pp kids but once there they do very well.

Measures are being put into place to ensure they do get there.