New analysis - Grammar schools in England

[IntheMotherhood]

There's been quite a bit of engagement from various MNs recently over disproportionate focus on % A*/As league table and what this does to providing an actual education to our children.

There's also been discussion on super selective schools, specifically grammars and the continued obsession on 'getting in' being a pinnacle of 11+ academic ambition for many families.

Does it really make a difference if your child is of high prior attainment? Does the individual perceived benefit(s) of going to a Grammar outweigh the larger social disbenefit(s)?

Thought this new analysis published online today in the British Journal of Sociology of Education might be of interest.

Make yourself a cuppa and enjoy.

"....Using the full 2015 cohort of pupils in England, this article shows how the pupils attending grammar schools are stratified in terms of chronic poverty, ethnicity, language, special educational needs and even precise age within their year group. This kind of clustering of relative advantage is potentially dangerous for society. The article derives measures of chronic poverty and local socio-economic status segregation between schools, and uses these to show that the results from grammar schools are no better than expected, once these differences are accounted for...."

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2018.1443432

[cantkeepawayforever]

Where have I suggested narrowing down?? You are completely misunderstanding my point.

An exceptionally able mathematician is not 'narrowing down' if they do all the other lessons with their peers BUT HAVE MATHS LESSONS THAT TEACH THEM SOMETHING.

[cantkeepawayforever]

In fact, i would be quite happy for them to spend less hours on Maths lessons than their age peers - because they may well need fewer hours to grasp each new concept AS LONG AS THOSE HOURS TEACH THEM SOMETHING.

[noblegiraffe]

Oh but dance schools and the like do narrow down. Hours and hours spent on dance training. You’re saying you don’t want that?

[cantkeepawayforever]

No, I don't want that.

My comparison with dance schools, SEN Special Schools, music schools etc is only to do with 'provision of appropriate expertise effectively in 1 place' NOT to do with narrowing of the curriculum.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Maths has the advantage that you DON'T need to practice it for hours to get better at it - unlike music, dance, many other sports. Hence my very first point about co-location of 'High Ability Special schools ' in a subject of exceptional strength with good comprehensives, to allow teaching across the curriculum at the appropriate level in all other subjects.

[TalkinPeece]

cantkeep
for the lad in DDs year
at primary he worked with the secondary - but stayed in cohort for all but maths
in secondary he worked with the college - but stayed in cohort
at 6th form he worked with Warwick, Imperial and Cambridge
but stayed in cohort

I'll not name him but he's visible on the publishing line already
but staying in mainstream school did him no harm and multiple benefit

staying in cohort is critical
or leave completely as dance and music students do
(not a good outcome for maths)

[cantkeepawayforever]

Talkin, that is pretty much exactly what I would want for EVERY child of that level of ability.

However it should be as accessible whether you live in Cambridge or Cwmbran, Salisbury or Skelmersdale - and I don't think it is.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Hence me wondering - and only wondering - whether identofying and collecting together those children who are in need of such provision in a small number of locations (Special Schools, if you like), co-located with decent comprehensives, would eliminate the 'luck' element which currently exists in the identification and nurture of such students,

[noblegiraffe]

Maths has the advantage that you DON'T need to practice it for hours to get better at it.

Um. If you practise maths for hours you’ll definitely get better at it!

[noblegiraffe]

What annoyed me about when we had our exceptional student was that there was no guidance anywhere about what to best do with them. We had to find our own way.

[TalkinPeece]

cantkeep
DH goes to schools all over
hence I rather obsessively read the league tables
the correlation between racial mix and outcomes is rock solid (and inverse by the way)
For areas with no HE provision its nigh on impossible (see maps multiple)
AI should allow such provision should be location irrelevant
BUT
the heads are luddites
its so hard
he comes home from events in such towns on an utter downer

[cantkeepawayforever]

Noble, yes of course. But there isn't the same '5 hours a day' muscle memory / fitness / technique need that there is for e.g. dance. Does that make sense?

So dancers at White Lodge (or even the level below) need to work for an inordinate number of hours to reach their potential.

An 11 year old mathematician does not NEED to work for many hours more than their contemporaries (and thus narrow their curriculum) in the same way.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Talkin, exactly. And it wastes SO MUCH potential.

[TalkinPeece]

I guess I'm odd
out of my class at school (30)
one became a world class ballerina
one became a world class scientist
one became a world class artist
one became a world class actor
one is a world level entrepeneur
we all bunked the same classes in lower 6th
this obsession with "specialist schools" is just bilge

properly resourced state schools have the time to track down support for exceptional kids
so the true issue is funding

[cantkeepawayforever]

So if you were a standard comprehensive school maths teacher in, let's say, Skelmersdale, where is the road map to follow if faced with an exceptional student?

It SHOULD be obvious but is it? If it wasn't obvious to Noble in a big, Southern city in a large comprehensive, how would it be obvious to another teacher in a deprived community elsewhere in the country, remote from HE?

[cantkeepawayforever]

I also don't think the comparison to your school class is relevant (wirth the possible exception of the scientist).

All the others almost certainly honed and developed their talent in extracurricular provision, not in school. We have already established that for e.g. Maths, the provision IN SCHOOL is expected to be what enables them to reach their potential.

[TalkinPeece]

cantkeep
I'd have to ask DH (but he's a beer ahead of me)
but I know from work he's done
that old style LA clusters work a treat ... as in sharing best practice
and then following that up the lime till the HE centre is located
and they DINE OUT on those kids

Academies have destroyed such networks in many areas
but they are there
TBH my DH is in STEM networks - I'm always happy to share in a PM

[cantkeepawayforever]

I suppose the question is, would that maths teacher know where to go? Lancashire is fairly un-academised, so maybe there would be LA networks, perhaps.

Or would they find, as Noble experienced there was no guidance anywhere about what to best do with them. We had to find our own way.

[TalkinPeece]

cantkeep
You are so right
BUT
teachers have the resources available - DH (and I ) are on the forums / websites / facebook / linkedin groups

I guess the point is that teachers have to be given the confidence to look (bye bye Gove)

DH and my living is based around this formula - its tough , day in , day out

[IntheMotherhood]

Morning folks- this is turning out to be a really informative thread.

So my key takeaway from all the many insightful comments is:

• that there's no real social or academic case behind a grammar system if conditions can be met to improve investment and trust into comprehensives and teachers.
  

• looking through the case of selective education through a 'special needs' lens would include a high 'ultra able' threshold and one that is tutor proof ...but how would you identify these kids and really, at what age should the provision kick in from?
  

Huge over simplification of the situation but the point is that continued state funding of grammars keeps us further away from this being a real and nationally consistent option for our children.

I hope more threads on MN will have the potential to create the social change needed from parents' side. E.g policy change needs to be coupled with how we value league table information that reinforces the system we want (promoting mixed ability schools and minimising perverse incentives).

Happy Easter all!

[Piggywaspushed]

Just to butt in about the networks:

1. Teaching School should have replaced LAs in many areas as hubs
   
2. in terms of maths , it is one of the subjects that does seem to have local and regional hubs, compared to most others
   
3. there are generally professional associations for each subject
   
4. a university nearby with an education department often has a specialist in the gifted child
   
5. I genuinely believe truly gifted children are more worried about and accommodated than poor old (above) average Joe, who we seem to forget about in any debate...

[Iceweasel]

I think there are kids, not the few doing a maths GCSE at 11, but far enough ahead that they might not have a handful of similar peers to bounce ideas off of and work with in class.

My DS was the outlier in a school year of 100 until he started in a selective class at another school in year 5 (test with no catchment, like a super selective grammar, kids bussed from all over). At the first school the teachers could provide for his academic needs in class, but he chose to work with peers doing work that was too easy rather than work alone. He was allowed to choose, but we still had school refusal and other issues. At his second school he was still top at maths but not an outlier. The difference that being with peers at his level made to my child was incredible.

I think kids do need access to similar ability peers (not only similar ability peers, that is not what I'm saying). If grammars don't work then we need something else. So, I'm very interested in this discussion.

[sendsummer]

Many counties have used early specialisation and intense practice to build up their national mathematical expertise or chess champions as well as dancers, musicians, sports etc. I would agree that may be to the detriment of the DC but perhaps not for the national economy.

As an aside my DCs have attended superselective schools and equivalent in private and even with that level of selection the ability range for different subjects is large even taking out the outliers. Ditto at the most academically selective universities.
My DCs' enjoyed learning at the pace that was right for them by their schools being able to further diffferentiate by subject setting
That system allowed us to be completely slack parents.
Studies showing lack of benefit from selection don't factor in the parental or other input that some families do to compensate a suboptimal learning environment (before students become self sufficient.)

[Devilishpyjamas]

I think that superselectives are slightly different from regular grammar schools, as often only 1 or children from each primary school gets in and they have no obvious impact on local high schools. They could arguably be seen as providing a similar function to local special schools

Utter bullocks. And I have one on a super selective, one who attended a special school and one who is at comprehensive. To compare the learning needs of bright kids with those with severe learning disabilities is utterly offensive and complete pie in the sky bullshit about how ‘different’ or ‘special’ high achievers are.

That sort of attitude does explain some of the arrogance I see at the superselective though.

IME - the teaching at the superselective is old fashioned. Stand at the front and deliver. There is little effort put in to anyone except the extreme high achievers and very clever children may quickly develop the attitude that they are thick. My son is in year 11 and I still don’t really feel the staff know him.

The teaching is much better at the comp and staff-pupil relationships are better. My son knows exactly which football teams staff support for example. I was in school last week with my year 8 son and one of the teachers came over to us and told my son that he’d been shown a piece of writing he’d done, that he was there when the head of department was reading it and that he’d had a massive smile on his face and that he’d used every device they’d talked about. It was lovely to see such positive feedback and it’s really given my son a massive boost in confidence. That sort of feedback would never happen in the grammar.

Incidentally my comp attending son is much more academic (in the sense of enjoying research and analysis) than my grammar attending son. My comp attending son is like a mini-academic in the way he approaches history study. However, superselective boy is a lot better at exams and achieving a result under high pressure and time pressure - he’s not brighter - he’s a performer.

[MumTryingHerBest]

Iceweasel - My DS was the outlier in a school year of 100 until he started in a selective class at another school in year 5

So you think academic selection should take place at primary level?