New Grammar Schools: good or bad?

[thing47]

I see Liz Truss has announced she is in favour of creating more grammar schools (Rishi Sunak has opted for saying he will allow existing ones to expand, which is in keeping with current Conservative philosophy). What does everyone think of this? A good idea, or not? I know we have quite a lot of teachers on this board, be interested to hear what you all think.

I get why people want them though when we have private schools plus lots of the excellent non grammars near me are prohibitive due to house prices.

I get why people want them though when we have private schools plus lots of the excellent non grammars near me are prohibitive due to house prices.

I get why people want them though when we have private schools plus lots of the excellent non grammars near me are prohibitive due to house prices.

I have recently changed my view on this

i passed 11+ and went to grammar school ( was from a poor background) & then went to Uni on full grant and worked in a high paying job ever since.

I was always a supporter because of the education I received.

However my DS1 who is very severely dyslexic was at the local secretary and although bright was put into bottom sets due to his learning difficulties. The mental impact of being in those bottom sets was significant. We spent 2 years of his GCSEs telling him everyday he’s wasn’t thick! He wrote himself off at that point & we worked hard to get that self belief back.

He graduated recently from a top 10 Uni with a 1st and starts a demanding job soon.

One of his 1st responses on hearing the exams results was - I wish I could go back to school & show them this.

We need to improve educational attainment for all , not write students off at a young age.

You can’t tell children at 11 they are a write off & set the course of their life based on that.

I went to a grammar school in the 70s and 80s. I'm from a FSM family and had no coaching although others may have.

The benefits were no-one was bullied for being a nerd or a swot. There was no disruption. People actually wanted to learn, they were enthusiastic in the subjects taught. Teachers could teach at a much faster pace, go into far more detail. No-one got bored. I loved it. The school turned out a lot of scientists, doctors, vets, teachers, dentists.

My ds was bored stupid at primary school. By year 6 he was already angry and alienated. I looked at our catchment senior school but it had a 41% pass rate for boys for GCSE maths. It offered no choice of languages in years 7-9. it had no library. It just wasn't going to be enough for DS. I spent most lunchtimes in our library just browsing. The internet doesn't prompt that.

So although I'm a single mum, DS goes to the local independent - half fees, half maths scholarship. He is happy and absorbed, his maths is better than mine at 14. If I couldn't offer DS an education at least as good as I had, I would feel like I'd failed him. Even if it costs me my pension.

Grammar schools should be for the nerds & swots. They are not a social statement or something to coach for. They do not make other schools or pupils less valid. They should be for those who genuinely want to spend their time researching the bacteria growing in the boys changing rooms 😀

Grammar schools are not the problem, it is people's attitude to them that is wrong.

How do you know which "box" to put them in at 11? Decisions made at 11 mean they can never be a nerd or a swot?

I went to a similarly “high performing” Leeds comprehensive school at the same time that Liz Truss was at hers. I feel very let down by my old school and the following comments from a former pupil at Roundhay school, which I recently read in the Yorkshire Post, resonate with me:

“I felt let down by the nasty, destructive culture that thrived among the pupils. I failed to pretend convincingly that I did not want to achieve anything, and the worst thing you could do was let on that you were willing to try. It was, as I discovered, social suicide."

My own DCs have a very different educational experience. One is at a top ten “superselective” grammar. Being successful is celebrated. It’s not something that is used as a weapon against high performing pupils.

I don’t know what Liz Truss personal experience was at school, but a successful outcome is not just about results. The fact that she went to Oxford does not mean that everything was great at school for her. The seven years that I experienced were the most miserable of my life and I have suffered MH problems as a result. The environment was toxic and not conducive to learning.

In Bucks which is a grammar county, there are no real sink secondary schools.

A quick look at the league tables shows that the top schools for progress are all grammar and the bottom are all non-selective. The worst one had to be closed in 2019.

Take a look at Kent, which is also a grammar county.

Bad idea. Would be better to have well funded comprehensives with sets. No child told at 11 they are a failure. possibility to move up a set with hard work or down if you struggle.
Grammar schools affect the local area in a negative way as the rich tutor the poor can't and the alternative to the Grammer will always perform badly and have more behavior problems.
We have non grammar areas of this country with high performing comps so the evidence exists to support this.
The negatives of grammar areas are also well proven and very very obvious in a grammar area.
Or is the plan that every single child attends a Grammer school?

I think in an ideal world all schools would be high standard and equitable. Realistically, I think Grammar schools should have a quota of 80% children who would qualify for the Pupil Premium (low income households)…weren’t they initially set up so bright poor children could have a top class education?

It depends on how they are operated. When I went to school, in the dark ages, every child took the 11 plus, we didn't even know what it was; it was a similar test to those we had been taking every year as part of results in our school reports.
Those who passed went to one of the reasonably local grammar/selective schools, along with other state school children, nobody was tutored, in fact my parents wouldn't have been able to afford a tutor.
If the grammar school system went back to that, I would have no problem. It shouldn't be only for children whose parents can afford a tutor.

Yes for top 2%, No for top 25%.

Creaming off the top 25% at 10 years old means that you create a school bereft of academic role models for the next tranche down and you can struggle to attract excellent teaching staff, who don’t have their A level classes to balance out their Year 9 set 8s!

If we have more grammar schools we have more secondary moderns. Not comprehensive schools. So not all ability schools, no allowance for later development. Grammar schools only seem to be advocated by people who believe their own children will go to one.
Why segregate kids at 10/11. Why not allow them all to go to the same school and make sure that they have the funding to provide every student with the education they deserve. Whether that be academic or vocational. It is v possible.
I hate grammar schools. My own parents passed the 11+ but couldn't go because they couldn't afford the uniform. So social mobility has its limits. Eventually teachers stepped in for both of them so they could go a year late. But grammar schools have never been for the v poor.

I have had my IQ tested on two occasions. Once as part of a SEN assessment and once when I volunteered to be involved in a research project. On both occasions, my IQ came out as being in the top 0.5% of the population. I have no idea whether my sister's IQ has ever been tested, but I think her intelligence is similar to mine. So I reckon that we were both the kind of kids who would have been considered "grammar school" material.

Except we both failed the 11+. Our parents didn't really believe in selective education and so we didn't do any practice papers. I remember sitting in the test and finding some of the questions utterly bizarre and pointless. The kids who did get in were not necessarily the most intelligent, but they had parents who were dedicated to that goal. Some had been doing weekly practice papers for years. Some had had tutors. There was a local private primary school that seemed to exist primarily for the purpose of getting kids into the selective secondaries.

So DSis and I went to the comp instead. And broadly speaking, it was a comp rather than a secondary modern, because there were plenty of other bright kids there who had "failed" the 11+. And we were fine! The kids were set according to their ability in each subject. There were some kids who worked hard and some who didn't, at all ability levels. I quickly learned that everyone had different strengths, that everyone brought something different to the table.

Going to the comp didn't seem to damage our prospects in any way. Dsis and I both excelled in our exams, graduated with Oxbridge degrees, went on to have successful careers etc. Few of the kids who "passed" the 11+ and went to the grammar did as well as we did academically, and actually, I think they had a less rounded educational experience overall.

My own dd is very bright, straight 9s at GCSE etc. Thankfully we live in an area without grammar schools. There are selective private schools but we didn't think they were worth the investment. So she went to the local comp and she has thrived there, both academically and socially.

There is just no need to separate kids off at 11 years old based on a spurious test that reflects the amount of preparation that has been undertaken rather than actual ability. It achieves nothing, but may leave some kids feeling like failures when their academic careers have barely even begun.

A child can be low income but not pupil premium if their parent has always worked. I think this could mean you'd have 80% pupil premium and 20% coached middle class. It would make it harder for working class children if they are competing with middle class for only 20% of places.

What is a secondary modern? ELI5 sorry

If the top 25% go to a grammar, then the other 75% go to secondary moderns. They don't call them secondary moderns much anymore though.

@noblegiraffe
You have NO idea what you are talking about!

The well above average progress list includes Waddesdon and The Amersham school. These are secondary modern schools. The above average list includes Cressex, The Misbourne, Khalsa, St Michaels and Holmer Green. ALL are secondary modern schools. In some areas, the top 30% of high achievers are not in these schools. Please don’t post about schools where you know 0.

Burnham did close and it had never been a great school for 30 plus years! Lots of DC got places in neighbouring Slough schools. How many comps have closed? As Bucks has opened new schools that are doing well, the loss of one isn’t that remarkable.

A secondary modern is a school that takes all of the children who didn't get in/ didn't try to get in to the grammar school.

They are different from comprehensive schools because schools that are truly comprehensive will take children at the top end of the ability scale as well as the bottom and everything in between. If those at the top end are selected out to go to grammar schools, then you are left with a secondary modern.

I think most parents would choose grammar or comprehensive for their children. Few would actively want their kids to go to a secondary modern, and therein lies the problem.

The well above average progress list includes Waddesdon and The Amersham school.

Have you checked out how many kids on FSM go to those schools compared to the national average, btw? Buckinghamshire must be pretty leafy.

In some areas, the top 30% of high achievers are not in these schools.

And yet when I looked at the schools you mentioned, they still have plenty of high achievers.

Have you looked at Kent yet?

I think most parents would choose grammar or comprehensive for their children. Few would actively want their kids to go to a secondary modern, and therein lies the problem.
It's going to be different for different kids but my undiagnosed dyslexic uncle lost all confidence when the grammar closed and his secondary modern became a comprehensive. It became clearer how much he struggled compared to average.

@Anothernamechangeplease thank you so much
That makes complete sense.

Conservatives continue to trot out this policy for two reasons.

1. Middle class people who might vote tory may like the idea that their children will be educated away from others who misbehave and cause issues in comprehensive schools.
2. It also provides a private school atmosphere and elite idea for free on the state so good for those who don't or can't spend the cash on independent schools.

The problem is obvious. They create a two tier service. It makes it harder for comprehensive schools to achieve higher standards. It is telling children aged 10 that they are not clever enough. It favours those who can afford tutoring. It is obviously not in any way promoting levelling up.

But there are no secondary modern schools, surely. No non-grammar schools in a grammar area are called “secondary modern.” They’re called comprehensives or high schools or “name of school” school. Even parents who live in a grammar area who choose not to send their dc to a grammar school will be choosing to send them to the alternative, call it what you will.

Sure, there will be some who might be more suited to that kind of environment. Nevertheless, I don't think the majority of parents would choose a secondary modern for their kids. It's difficult to see what value this would add for most kids, over and above what a comprehensive with decent setting could offer.

As a pp has said, the people who tend to be most in favour of more grammar schools tend to be the ones who believe that their children will get in. Personally, I think we should be designing an education system that serves all kids, regardless of where they fall on the IQ spectrum... and I don't believe that the grammar/secondary modern system does that.