Tories shit all over the comprehensive system with a return to the 1950s and a nationwide 11+

[noblegiraffe]

That nice comp down the road that you had your eye on for your kid currently in primary?

BAM, now it's got an entrance exam and your kid is going to be bussed out to a secondary modern. We're staring down the barrel of a return to the two tier system across England.

Word on the street is that Theresa May, because she is a total fucking thoughtless idiot who doesn't have a clue about education and couldn't be arsed to read the Green Paper consultation responses from people who do, has kept in the imminent White Paper on grammar schools the option for current comprehensives to convert to grammar schools.

Heads will be preparing their applications to convert as we speak, because no school wants to miss the boat and become the secondary modern of the area.

Everyone with kids in primary should be very worried about this. Even if you think your kid should have a good shot at getting into the grammar, the test is unreliable.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/government-set-allow-existing-schools-convert-grammar-status-white

Given that these will in many cases be Tory constituencies I'm hoping this is something their MPs will contemplate when the legislation comes before the House.

Ah, so you've given up pretending you have a social conscience and now you're trying a different approach.

Clavinova

I want Tory MPs to reject this legislation and I'm wondering if this is an effective approach in persuading them to do so. It's fine for Theresa to get some good headlines in the Daily Mail. Quite different for Nicola Blackwood MP to explain to the parents of Kennington why they must lose access to one of Oxfordshire's top schools for the greater good.

First of all which Oxford school has expressed a desire to go selective !

You are assuming that at least one school wants to be selective !

I suggest the Comprehensive that achieves 75-80% GCSE that 'lives' in a area with 3% FSM will be the last to shake up their 'happy home'.

Why should they , when everything in their little garden is rosy...

Flying None of them. Does Nicola Blackwood want to take the risk that one of them will? And if they don't what if someone wants to set up a free school? Will she side with them or with the parents besieging her surgery complaining their schools are about to become secondary moderns? Will she enjoy the LibDems putting thousands of leaflets through the door saying "Nicola Blackwood refuses to stand up for local parents?" in this Remain constituency?

I suggest the Comprehensive that achieves 75-80% GCSE that 'lives' in a area with 3% FSM will be the last to shake up their 'happy home'.

Very possibly. And when the struggling school next door applies to become a grammar no doubt parents in the 75% school will happily accept becoming a secondary modern and will not besiege their local MP with complaints.

I suggest the Comprehensive that achieves 75-80% GCSE that 'lives' in a area with 3% FSM will be the last to shake up their 'happy home'

As. HPFA points out, that's reliant on the school down the road not getting their application in.

It also assumes that the comp isn't part of a MAT which decides to designate that comp a 'centre of excellence'. I'm sure that the local residents who apply to that comp would be pretty annoyed if they get a place at the comp but then their kid is bussed to a less desired school within the MAT instead, which is now going to be totally possible.

Hi Noble

I am really hoping that the anti-campaigners can get this sort of messaging to the wavering MPs out there. Obviously won't affect those cheering on grammars but there will hopefully be quite a few that see the possibility of getting involved in all sorts of nasty local disputes, where they will be asked to side with one group of parents against another.

Grammar schools were introduced when the country's demographic was very different. We had a lager proportion of working class manual workers and this gave them a chance to get a better education.

Actually we had a dearth of 'managerial types' so the government realised they would have to recruit from the ranks so created grammars to get a few, that's why the numbers were fixed at a certain %.

Comps do not suit everyone. Our local one only offers one language (French) as there is not enough uptake and they are seen as too hard. Their language trip is to Disneyland Paris! I mean, really? Talk about dumming down.

Well ds2's grammar school does football tours to France and teaches French via worksheets. While ds3's mixed ability school gets all year 7's over to France where they are given money and told to order particular items from the local market - later years build up the trips. He has already exchanged letters with a French boy and is now involved in making a video in French about his school. They also are encouraged to use French in cookery (as that's what posh kitchens do).

So poor language teaching may be more about the particular individual school rather than the type of school.....

"I suggest the Comprehensive that achieves 75-80% GCSE that 'lives' in a area with 3% FSM will be the last to shake up their 'happy home'."

That sounds similar to DD's school, except that they are the fourth worst funded school in the country. It just happens to be in an area where all the primary schools are outstanding and most of the children have stable backgrounds with parents who care about their children's education. So they are one of the schools that will "gain" in terms of funding, but will lose out in real terms, just as all other schools are.

Claireblunderwood - I also live in Islington and I know exactly which academy you are referring to and I know for a fact that the "language aptitude" test is just a way to get more of the middle class kids that they are after, but who would otherwise be outside the distance catchment area...

In fact, Islington is a good example of why grammars are a really bad idea, as it will make the worse performing schools even worse and so kids who want to do well but who don't make the cut will be completely stuffed.

As one who lives in Oxfordshire - Nicola Blackwood will do whatever she thinks will support her parliamentary career - she gave up caring about her constituents' opinions long ago.

When the 1944 Education Act brought in Secondary education for all, there were supposed to be technical schools - which would probably have taken the bulk of children, but in most authorities they never got off the ground. Secondary Modern schools were something new, (although I suspect based on Secondary schools which the then progressive authorities like Sheffield had introduced in the 1930s) and supposed to be different but have parity of esteem. However, it was a new system in the main. By the 1960s that had clearly failed, and middle class parents did not like their children failing. Whisper it quietly, but not all grammars were good - some were pretty mediocre.

Undoubtedly some Comprehensives work better than others, but why on earth bring back a system which was worth trying 70 years ago, but was seen to have failed after 20 or so years? Why on earth not look to see what good comprehensives do to get results, especially those not in especially 'leafy' areas? Theresa May being a grammar product is not IMO a good advert for the system.

I was thinking about the MP situation in my area. My school would be a logical choice for a grammar conversion because it's the highest attaining in the area. However, we are not stuffed with high attainers in the way that a grammar school is, and imagining an instant conversion (I know that won't happen, it would be over time), we'd be booting out over 800 kids. These are local kids, many walk or cycle to school. There aren't any other local schools overrun with high attainers for a straightforward swap, so the local kids would have to be bussed elsewhere, and the catchment would be huge. Where the catchment would have to extend to would be covered by a different MP to the school. Presumably the local MP wouldn't want to have to explain to his constituents why the local school is now serving kids from miles away while they have to go elsewhere.

Well, noble - so much education policy is London centric that they never think of the practicalities of people in rural or even semi-rural areas. All this stuff about 6 choices on the Secondary transfer form - in a lot of places there are one or maybe two schools which are within reasonable travelling distance, so parents want them to give good opportunities to learn and decent pastoral care.

While the Tories want to make money available for children to travel to grammar schools, if other children are not able to go to the local school because it turned into a grammar, they will have to fork out to pay for them to attend the Sec Mod if it's more than three miles away.
I get the impression that TM and chums just haven't thought things through.

One poster says that her children are bussed past two good comps to get to a grammar while kids near the grammar go elsewhere. It probably seems reasonable because that school has always been a grammar, but to then impose a similar situation on the children local to a comprehensive by it converting is mad, and hopefully local residents won't take it lying down.

I think the mistake is to assume the intake of a high performing comp is anything like a grammar so the change wouldn't make much difference. It will make a huge difference.

So how would grammar supporters argue that it's reasonable to displace 800 kids from their local school in favour of kids from further away?

I'm in Trafford which has 7 grammar schools. The top performing school in 2016 under the new progress 8 measure was... the fantastic secondary modern that DD goes to 😀. It's not even an academy. T M must be spitting with rage. DS is at a grammar school, but in all honesty if I could turn back time, he'd be at the secondary modern too.

Strumpet. Its the school that Bertrand will not usher its name ! I think Bertrand should write its name 100 times !

Strumpet. You will be aware that if Trafford gave up the 11+ the 'Secondary Modern' you talk about would produce worse GCSE results than it currently does !

The 11+ system has allowed Wellington to develop (Bertrand that name keeps on getting stuck in your throat) and become the great school it has...

'Strumpet. You will be aware that if Trafford gave up the 11+ the 'Secondary Modern' you talk about would produce worse GCSE results than it currently does !'

Strumpets post is about progress, not GCSE results.

Strumpet is not posting about Wellington school either.

What happens in rural areas where there is only one school?