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

Yes BILD is a 'proper organisation' but I am not sure you understand what learning disabilities are. Knowing the numbers of people with LD's doesn't tell you anything about the numbers with SEN. They're different things. Many of the people BILD is concerned with are in special schools.

Bert my comment was actually in response to Clavinova's - that 10% wouldn't be high. It might be well above the local average in fact, which by definition would be extremely high. For a grammar school it would be impossibly high in that same area because DC on FSM cannot all be in the top quartile or decile of natural academic ability.

flyingwithwings - it seems highly likely that you would have failed the 11 plus at age 11, given the way you describe yourself. Successful diagnosis of dyslexia and HFA is still very much of a minefield these days, particularly for bright children already masking their issues with coping strategies, and 11 still very young to have accurately diagnosed it and put measures in place to support such a child through 11 plus exams. Unless, of course, said child has very clued up, well off parents who get past the obduracy of their child's primary school and pay for tests themselves. Even then, it's touch and go so young.

So, why are you so keen on grammar schools, which are the worst case scenario for disadvantaged children with potential but SEN, because they will always miss the boat on that one?

I have learning disabilities . I suggest you google the National Autistic site , you will be amazed to learn that some people with learning disabilities have PHDs !

I know that - many despite failing the 11 plus...

Leading me to wonder what the point of a confidence sapping exam at 11 is.

flyingwithwings I have to say that my DC2 didn't respond as well to being labelled thick and lazy as they are being labelled as having dyslexic and dyspraxic traits.

Since the labels have been changed they have gone from hating school and working at expected levels to loving school and exceeding.

I suspect the understanding that DC2 needs some support and a slightly different approach to their learning have made a difference.

I think the idea of labelling a DC as thick and lazy rather than having SEN in order to prepare them for harsh realities is just plain cruel if it isn't true.

Round i totally failed my 11+ in 1982 ! However, schools such as Simon Langton Boys Grammar in Canterbury suggests what is possible for HFA.

www.thelangton.org.uk/special-educational-needs/

Mum you while be aware then that it does DC no 2 no good if every single Tom, Dick and Harry jump on board.

It just reduces the resources available in helping those that are unable to reach their potential !

You will be aware then it does no DC No 2 no favors....

The obvious problem being only 3 boys not a more appropriate 30 admitted each year, also there is no similar provision provided for girls !

The NAS may now represent the neurodiverse more than those with learning disabilities - but within the field of learning disabilities the term still has quite a specific meaning (including a low IQ and problems with daily living skills) and would not generally include peoplle getting PhD's. It would be more appropriate to talk about learning difficulties for someone able to access postgraduate education with some form of SEN.

BILD runs a lot of physical intervention courses - that's a lot of what it does - and really they are working with the more severely learning disabled.

On which note I am off to visit my learning disabled son who may or may not be worth investing education money in.

Flyingwithwings- your attitude to lower attaining kids is just hideous. I wish I could report your posts, but I suspect they're not deletable. But I suppose it's better they stay- they do show your true colours, after all.

What are my true colours !

What is my attitude .....

Where have i said reduce spending or investment in children with special needs or significant learning disabilities.

Why is it wrong to put forward that people with learning disabilities are able to succeed academically and need to be supported and funded properly to do so.

OK i will use the term 'neuro - diverse'

Lower ability and learning difficulties are not norms.

flyingwithwings - you are talking about a superselective grammar school with very low levels of economic deprivation and, actually, very low levels of any type of learning difficulty, including autism, despite being able to offer them some extra support. Its disadvantaged pupils also make less progress than other pupils at the school: -0.25 progress 8 score compared to 0.41 for pupils overall. It is very much a school where the ethos and teaching style strongly favours those from an already academic background with considerable amounts of pre-existing parental support and encouragement, more often than not backed up by a reasonable amount of cash.

OK a more mainstream Comprehensive school .Centre

Hinchley Wood NAS Cullum Centre will welcome its first intake of four, Year 7 students in September 2016.

The National Autistic Society, together with generous financial backing from the Cullum Family Trust, has provided a model for an innovative resource for young autistic people to be able to thrive in our mainstream curriculum.

NAS Cullum Centre students will spend the majority of their time in the main school, but the centre will provide specialist support from trained staff, such as learning in small groups and therapy sessions, as well as a calm setting to which they can retreat. NAS Cullum students will have a primary diagnosis of autism on their statement/EHCP, will be high functioning and have the academic potential to achieve at least 5 good GCSEs (currently A*-C grades).

Each year Surrey SEN will offer places to four students with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) Statement with a primary diagnosis of autism. Places in the NAS Cullum Centre are allocated by Surrey LA after consideration by a multi-professional team at Surrey's COIN Panel. Places in the NAS Cullum Centre at Hinchley Wood are limited and will only be considered through SEN case workers or educational psychologists in conjunction with families.

Please note: Hinchley Wood School is not the Admissions Authority for places in the NAS Cullum Centre. For all details, information and advice on the admissions process plese visit the Surrey County Council website: www.surreycc.gov.uk/send and www.surreycc.gov.uk/admissions.

If you are considering the Hinchley Wood NAS Cullum Centre for your child and you would like more information before you speak to Surrey please feel free to contact Miss R Smith (Head of Centre) or Mrs K Cullen (Assistant Head teacher) for more information.

This article from 2016 quotes DFE statistics and states 15% of the population have SEN. here
It doesn't include the ones with flaws in their characters though.

Learning difficulties may be more relevant to SEN and grammar school discussions. Learning disabilities - you are (on the whole) talking p levels and AQA certificates for waiting in a cafe (and I say that without judgment - my son has a whole bunch of those sorts of certificates and we're very proud of him for getting them).

If you start talking about learning disabilities in the same sentence as PhD's you really are dismissing the lives of those with LD's.

Learning difficulties - fine. And yes of course there will be some who fall into the mild LD range who can get GCSE's and people like my son with very severe learning disabilities and who is non-verbal who can remember places he visited when he was 2 - but you're talking a completely different cohort than grammar schools.

Anyone grammar school supporters care to address the issue of who will be teaching middle and lower attainers maths when all the maths-qualified teachers go to work in the grammar schools where they get the opportunity to teach A-level and top sets?

Grammar schools polarise teacher shortages, and there aren't enough maths teachers to go around. Arguing that surely some well-qualified maths teachers would leap at the chance to teach foundation and resits over A-level is not in accordance with the evidence, so you're going to have to justify damaging the maths education of the rest of the kids.

Do you think it essential to have a maths degree to be able to teach foundation level GCSE? Genuine question. Since there's a shortage on maths specialists then surely you allocate according to what level of qualification suits which area of teaching best? There aren't enough maths specialists at the moment, so given that that's the premise, would you allocate the A level students the non maths specialist in preference?

You don't need a maths degree to be a qualified maths teacher.

Do you know what's happening in maths teaching at the moment? People are teaching maths who don't even have A-level maths, or even a good GCSE. People with no teaching qualifications at all. People are teaching maths to groups of 100 kids. Kids are being herded into computer rooms and left to teach maths to themselves.

At least in a comp the foundation kids have a chance of occasionally being taught by an experienced, qualified maths teacher.

I know you don't need a maths degree but I thought you were narrowing down your comments to those - the most skilled. My mistake. As a very broad brush thing though, when things are short, decisions have to be made about how to make ends meet. Deploying the least qualified to teach A level students whose own ability may well outstrip the teacher's doesn't seem to me to make a whole lot of sense. You may think differently of course.

So in your good comp noble, what proportion of maths teachers in the department fall into the 'no qualification at all' category? How often are groups of 100 taught together in one room? And how often are your computer rooms full of kids herded in to fend for themselves? Also, I don't really get how some classes would 'occasionally be taught'? Do you mean that in your comp they're timetabled 'occasionally'? That sounds a bit random.

Interesting that one of the reasons people give for choosing private school-even private primary- is graduate teachers. But it's suddenly not important for state schools?

By qualified maths teacher, I mean someone who is trained to teach maths, not someone who has just been dropped in the classroom because they had a slot on their timetable. I've taught another subject that I wasn't trained to teach and I know how hard it is and how much less competent I was compared to maths, even though my subject knowledge was way better than the kids I was teaching. The training does make a difference.

Even at my school, maths isn't always taught by maths teachers, and when we advertised last year we didn't get any applicants.

Occasionally taught means shared classes, or a class that doesn't have a maths teacher one year is prioritised for one the next year.