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

No Bertrand we simply want schools that push our kids to the absolute best of their ability(not to the middle)and consistently keep pushing with vigour so they develop resilience and are fully equipped to compete with the wealthy few coming from the private sector. We want a formal and firm ethos.

You are the one who keeps suggesting that parents want their kids protected from the rest.

This moral superiority reminds me of one of many other threads on this subject of the greater good.
I had been arguing with two multiple buy to let owners about the morals of that and how actually it is poor housing and temporary accommodation that has a greater effect on children's stability and success in life.

I bumped in to them on the millionth anti grammar thread that week, going on about caring for society as a whole .

I have a dc in grammar, one in sec modern.

I've looked back, goodbye and that's not what I said. I disagreed that the main plank of the anti-grammar argument is that 'the most able encourage the less able'.

I think the issue arises from a misunderstanding of the way the grammar school advantage may be operating.

If you cut off say the top 25% and tell them they are "academic" and likely to do well in school then most of the time they will. Their teachers will also have that belief and that will help.

The other 75% will have less confidence, less belief in themselves and their teachers may also expect less from them.If one year Kent decided in secret to simply allot the grammar places by lottery it is likely that you would still see an advantage to those selected so long as they believed that they had been chosen because they were clever.

Of course there will be many individual exceptions to this but measured over a entire school population it is likely that these two factors will give an advantage to those selected over those who have not. So in comprehensives it isn't that the brightest are pulling up the rest or that "the rest" are dragging down the brightest, but that you have not given an artificial advantage to the selected or an artificial disadvantage to the unselected. Of course setting will also have this effect (which is why researchers often don't like it) but at least in a comprehensive you can be a bit more flexible than if you have two different schools.

There is a lot of movement in the sixth forms here in west Kent, between the secondary moderns and grammars, also the SS grammars that we have too.

I don't believe any parent wants "the common good" in preference to what is best for their own child. Some children do better in a selective education system and some do better in a comprehensive system. Parents want the system that is best for their child.

But any new free school can poach parents from existing schools regardless of how many parents wanted to keep the status quo.

Yes, but a comprehensive free school can't select the easiest children. You can't seriously believe that a new free grammar school is the same as a free school that is comprehensive.

The anti grammars say being in a grammar makes many kids feel,like crap,that being at the top of a comp in the top sets is better.

What happens to the confidence of the rest in that scenario? Or do we ignore that fly in the ointment as after buying into the the best comps MNers have their elbows well sharpened to ensure their kids are in the top sets.

There is a lot of movement in the sixth forms here in west Kent, between the secondary moderns and grammars

There was a link to some Kent blog that showed that the traffic was mostly one way - grammars to secondary moderns...

Yes they can HPFA if built in the right area.

Ginger, you CANNOT both say that you choose to send your children to a grammar - and want there to be more grammars - and want the common good, ie what is best for all.

It's not possible to sustain both positions at the same time. They are mutually exclusive.

Oh I can,I just did.

Green, can you explain your point? As I have explained, my elbows are not particularly sharp.... My DCs are in a mixture of top sets, not top sets, and mixed ability classes?

Oh, sorry, yes, you can say it. You can even, personally, believe it. It does rather fly in the face of the evidence, though, doesn't it?

Plenty of parents push and tutor their kids to ensure they get into the top sets in comps.You don't,others do. What about the kids in the bottom sets?

I think that the difference between flexible setting, and being in separate institutions, is just that - the flexibility. A child can be top set English, middle set maths, mixed set Art - and there isn't the psychological effect of 'they "passed" and are therefore "better than me" of separate institutions.

There was a link to some Kent blog that showed that the traffic was mostly one way - grammars to secondary moderns...

I must have missed that, was it an opinion piece or stats?

It's just with having three dc in schools in west Kent, anecdotally, that is not correct.
Where are the places being filled then that are left by the swarms going to the secondary moderns?
Are the spaces left empty?

No not really as saying you have moral supperiority because your kids go to a comp is simply ludicrous.

Of course absolutely nobody who supports comps puts their kids first and forgets about the rest.

The difference is that there is no intrinsic reason why all comps should not be good. Most people would like a choice of good schools, they would be quite happy not to have one school be much better than the rest. Of course if there is one school that is perceived to be much better they will want their kids to be there but if after making that choice the other schools improve then that is no detriment to the school they have chosen.The existence of grammars makes that more difficult because the other schools tend to be less attractive for teachers to work in and have a higher % of students requiring extra help.

Green, that is genuinely not my experience - in terms of tutoring, at least. I would also say that there is not a clamour around 'must be in the top set' in the same way as there is around 'must get into the grammar'.

IME as a teacher, it is much more common for children who are genuinely struggling to have a tutor than it is for someone 'middle to upper borderline', EXCEPT in the 1-2 years before the 11+, when EVERYONE taking the exam , IME, has some form of tutoring.

I work in a high-achieving, not academically selective school. It is Catholic but has been undersubscribed for years (not this year but our Y11 cohort last year was undersubscribed in Y7) so anyone who wanted to get their child in could. A lot of local middle-class types won't send their kids to our school despite our outstanding Ofsted and results because they see it as a school for ethnic minorities . Our LA has one super-selective. Despite the fact that the progress 8 measure favours super selectives (it treats all high achievers the same and super selectives make sure through additional testing that they only take the top slice of the high achievers) the local super selective still had a much lower progress 8 score than we did. Our high-achievers have a much better progress 8 than theirs just in case you think we're only outperforming them because of pushing low achievers.

Can't I've worked with enough Sen kids to know that kids in the bottom set for English and thus with a handicap of poor reading and writing will more than likely be in the bottom sets for many other things. Poor maths has an impact on other subjects too.

Sarah

I think it may have been this one:

www.kentadvice.co.uk/peters-blog/news-a-comments/item/918-transfer-to-grammar-schools-in-the-sixth-form.html

Can't I know plenty who tutor and push their kids to get and stay in top sets. Plenty of threads on MN to illustrate this too.

Have you also not seen any of the Sats angst threads due to Sats having an impact on setting at secondary.

I'm sorry, i think i've lost track of your original point? Was it that higher ability children within comprehensives tend to move rather separately through the institution, and thus might as well be in a separate building?

IME, not really - at GCSE, Art / all Tech subjects / Business / Childcare / Music / Computing or ICT / Drama / RE and probably others aren't set, and other options are only lightly so. The only subjects fully and tightly set are English, Maths and Science.