Bits of news on the grammar school issue

[HPFA]

Two snippets of news

schoolsweek.co.uk/film-company-targets-grammar-teachers-in-recruitment-video/?utm_content=bufferb7668&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Unclear exactly why grammar teachers are being targeted to tempt people into teaching. Perhaps to tempt recruits by suggesting they can have a nice career only teaching the easy kids.

And another piece of news:

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-church-england-not-interested-opening-new-grammar-schools

This is perhaps hardly surprising. Since faith schools are already so heavily criticised for being socially exclusive it would hardly do the C of E's image much good to open up schools explicitly targeting the already advantaged. Still welcome news to those of us on the pro-comprehensive side.

noble Frankly, it sounds like it could mean whatever anyone wants it to mean!! I suppose it's going to depend on whether a MAT would use it to a) get round the law and impose covert selection b) use it to keep the government off their backs whilst in practice not causing too much actual damage.

Incidentally, hadn't realised before my rapid learning curve in educational politics just how little oversight there is on what MATS get up to. Sounds like a scandal waiting to be exploited by a decent opposition. Except....

just how little oversight there is on what MATS get up to

Have you seen how many MATs have refused to justify huge pay increases for their CEOs? Public money scandal, especially in a time of huge budget cuts.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exclusive-secret-deals-behind-rocketing-school-ceo-pay

Noble

I had a Twitter conversation (with someone expert on MATS so fully believed him) where I found out that if a school is converted to a secondary modern by another MAT school becoming a grammar they can't do a thing about it. So they can join the MAT as a comp (believing the promises about help, support etc) and can then be turned into an SM, EVEN THOUGH if they had known that they would never have joined the MAT. That just seemed unbelievable. I mean, you join a gym which gets turned into a Bingo Hall and find you can't get your money back but have to stay a member????

Yep, there's no mechanism by which a school can leave a MAT, no matter how much they might want to, no matter how much they might disagree with its ethos/decisions.

Won't it help small schools like our local one set more appropriately? It's a small school. Not enough children play instruments to have an orchestra / band. Mixed ability sets in GCSE for some academic subjects - the alternative would be running less options.

You can't bus kids back and forth all day, the travel time would ruin the timetable. We do it in our sixth form but that's because they travel during lunchtime and free periods, it just wouldn't work at KS3/4. Realistically the kids would have to spend all day at the school to make it worthwhile.

Yes it would have to be all Day.

The alternative, Hive, is to get more children and expand the school! Is there no need for new housing in your area? You must be unique.

A very odd day for Headmistress of Michaela getting positive feed back from lefty teachers

tomisswithloveblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/perhaps-im-not-a-conservative-small-c-after-all/amp/

And the article she is responding to (linked within the piece) is also very interesting.

But the simple fact is that if we had many thousands of grammar schools, Michaela would not and could not exist. I wouldn’t be able to find the staff to make it happen. And that would mean that all those children either at the bottom, or simply in the middle who are more than capable of doing intellectual work, might never do it. And social mobility for anyone but the brightest would no longer be a possibility.Schools like Michaelamake social mobility a possibility for anyone who chooses to work hard. Grammars make social mobility possible only for the brightest.

Well, Indeed HPFA - Wilshaw and Gove also don't like the idea...

It's a funny old world.

There are things about Michaela I'm not wild about but give her her due- she believes every child can benefit from her sort of academic education and she's sticking with her principles.

Gove's views on grammars seem to change according to whether he thinks the PM will give him a job though....

True.

"My enemies enemy is my friend"

It's very rural. Yes it's expanding but it's not a big school by any means.
A lot of children are bussed here anyway as is common with small villages.
Strength in numbers can help with ability to offer options and give students the possibility of learning with children of similar ability. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Wow, I just had the following exchange on the Guardian comments page:

*Diane Abbott is a case in point. She's against grammar schools, but sent her child to a private school. See what I mean. Champagne socialism, private school for my child but the state comp for yours. I don't blame Diane, and I admire her for putting her child's education before her career, but hen why expect the rest of us to send our kid to the local comp. Hmmm.

ME:You are aware that entry to grammars is through an exam aren't you? So most of us won't have the choice except to send our child to "the local comp" or secondary modern as it will be. Does that suddenly become a good school when it's for other people's children but not good enough when it was for your own? And if you think the local comp isn't good enough for anyone then wouldn't we be better putting in the resources to improve that rather than providing an escape route for a lucky few?

Very good point, thank you. As I said, I can't make my mind up on grammar schools but your comment has certainly made me think.*

People still exist who actually listen to an alternative point of view??What is the world coming to. I feel immensely cheered.

This is on the BBC today... makes one wonder whether any new grammars are being thought up because the government assumes they won't just be money pits and , therefore, they can 'prove' the success of Free Schools?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39608489

I spent lots of yesterday reading that comments page! I can't help but think some of the commenters are on a day trip from The Daily Mail.

Oh and this headline of course :

Revealed ; how free schools boom helps England’s richest regions

We have a free school in our town that does serve a less affluent area but totally put itself in direct competition with the actual school which served the actual area! Which is now in crisis to be fair, it was before

When he opened the school the messianic Tory party member head said ALL students would gain C and above in maths and English. he rapidly backpedalled on this , and now his website boast about 57& of students gaining above C in both. Admittedly, it's better than the average for the town (which is pulled down by the dreadful results of the school he killed) but, like Benjamin the donkey, I have a long memory!

I must look up his Twitter to see what he says about grammars. he has a shockingly political Twitter feed, which means he struggles to recruit.
He is comprehensive school educated and used to say a good local school was what the town needed and that ALL children could succeed. I would be very surprised if he isn't banging the grammar drum now.

I would be very surprised if he isn't banging the grammar drum now.

The people I would really shoot in this debate are those Heads saying "Well, of course I don't want to become a grammar but I may have to to stop someone else doing it" Not only is this the feeble excuse of anyone who has ever collaborated with a policy they know to be wrong, but its also clearly untrue. If Heads of existing schools really don't want to become selective they need to band together, form a "Grammar-free zone" and make it public. If a Head refuses to join at least it will stop them using this pathetic excuse.

Not strictly relevant but I came across this school in Singapore

www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Pages/The-Story-of-Northlight-A-School-of-Opportunities-and-Possibilities.aspx

It's a specialized school that caters for the children in Singapore who don't pass the PLE (that's about 2.5 % - don't know how to match that with their English cohorts). It has apparently been very successful but you can see from the article it takes a lot of thought, commitment and money. Can't help thinking in England the school would be a dumping ground and nothing like this level of care would be bestowed on it.

Flying may be interested as I think it's the type of school she had in mind in her three-part system.

I've just checked his \twitter : lots of enthusiasm for free schools but nothing on grammars. A deliberate silence possibly. He is setting up a new school in an underperforming local town where there are already two secondaries - both now in a MAT; one has always been viewed negatively, one very positively. I'd be watching that space closely as the new free school is in direct competition with that MAT... it's not at all outing to say the town is St Neots. Watch that space.

However, on the face of it, he remains anti grammar.

To cheer you slightly, Central Beds, which is next to Bucks with its grammar schools HAS announced it will remain a grammar free zone!

The head of my school went to one and hated it. It's the only opinion I've ever heard him state.

The thing is , the government has left an area of potential weakness by declaring that the grammars will only be "where parents want them". Of course this is a lie BUT it means that if local councils, schools and parents can join together to say they do NOT want them it will at least make it clear that any subsequent attempt to impose them is by government fiat and not parental demand. If schools could do this before the Parliamentary vote it might encourage Tory rebels, if not to defeat the policy entirely at least to propose amendments giving more rights to those who do NOT want them

Beans did you see this article in the TES that pissed off an exceptional amount of teachers?
www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/if-we-keep-going-about-education-funding-cuts-teachers-and-teaching

Haha Noble - you sussed out who I was talking about

Everything he says irks me, even if it was just 'hello'.

He did once rescue me from a car crash though but wasn't as helpful as the hunky builder

I follow him on Twitter, he posts the occasional smug thing about Brexit too so he's my 'look my twitter feed isn't just an echo chamber' defence.

Interesting to read your summary of his free school, I've only read his self-publicity. Some people saw his ridiculous 'teachers should accept a pay cut' article as paying back the Tories for the cash and support they've given him.

Exactly that, really.

The school has a decent reputation locally but not amazingly so and has no sixth form, unlike all the other local schools , so far. It's a typical free school, in an utterly unsuitable building (they're constructing a roof top gym!) with no car parking at all (not even for staff).

It's a pretty good case of lies, damned lies and statistics. Its first Ofsted was RI. Best results in the town is not much to speak of, especially since we are a borough. The two schools outside the town but in the borough get markedly better results. It's a funny old town with now a mish mash of upper schools, 11- 18 schools, 11- 16 schools, middle schools, 9 - 16 schools, and several private schools... who knows , maybe a grammar school would go unnoticed in all the chaos!?