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Tories abandon support for grammar schools
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/6658613.stm
The Conservatives are to abandon their support for grammar schools by saying academic selection is unfair to poorer families and limits social mobility.
Education spokesman David Willetts told the BBC that middle-class children dominated the grammar intake, saying "not many poor children" got in.
What do you think?
I went to a grammar school..hard for me to comment because I obviously didn't go to a comprehensive to be able to compare and contrast. I don't think it was an inherently bad thing though and I would have no problem sending my children to a grammar school.
The Conservatives are to abandon their support for grammar schools by saying academic selection is unfair to poorer families and limits social mobility.
Education spokesman David Willetts told the BBC that middle-class children dominated the grammar intake, saying "not many poor children" got in.
What do you think?
I went to a grammar school..hard for me to comment because I obviously didn't go to a comprehensive to be able to compare and contrast. I don't think it was an inherently bad thing though and I would have no problem sending my children to a grammar school.
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Comments
The problem with selection (and this means grammar as well as academies) is those who have the money and the time to fight for it make it work and the poor get left behind.
Each school should have a catchment, and if that catchment is largely poor then the school should get more money than those in richer areas.
Speak for yourself.
I came from a relatively poor household and ended up in Grammar school, not sure how it works over there but it doesn't cost anything to go to Grammar school's here if you pass your 11+.
I'm not against the idea of Grammar schools, I just think that a wider demographic of people should be allowed to go to them. Mine was an all boys Catholic one run by priests for fuck sake lol!
Scrap them.
Mine was all girls, it had a fair mixture of pupils though from different backgrounds, religions etc. Lots of posh people though but some normal ones too.
Why have them at all unless you want to filter out the crap children?
Kids of all backgrounds and all abilities should socialise at school, its really good for them and its really good for the future of society.
What you want is a return to grammar schools for academically bright kids, but a decent vocational education for those who aren't. At the moment comprehensive's don't fail the poor, but bright - they fail the poor, but not so bright...
How is this possible? If kids of all abilities were in the same class then the smarter one's would get held back. It's a noble idea of all kids running about getting along but it's not really feasible is it?
Like I said, Grammar schools should have a wider cirriculum so kids who maybe aren't so good at the standard Maths, English and Science but excel at other subjects could go to them anyway.
Plus more money should be put into comprehensive and secondary schools to improve the quality of services and teaching to the children who maybe aren't so bright. A local secondary school here helps students as young as 15 get apprenticeships as joiners, bricklayers and so forth.
I'm not suggesting that everyone is in a set class, you can screen students and put them in different classes for different subjects. But having them all on the same site (including special needs kids) is good for people, it means they come into contact with a wide range.
I'd totally agree with you on the skills front - getting some kids to try out bricklaying and what not at age 15+ is a great idea.
Don't children in normal comprehensive schools get streamed into sets based on their work/ability around year nine anyway? Isn't that usually based on a couple of tests the children have taken at the age of 13 and the ones who do really well are put under pressure to get good grades while the ones who do less well are segregated from their more intelligent counterparts in another room and made to feel as if they are stupid?
I just don't really see the difference between separating children in grammar schools and comprehensive schools and separating them in terms of ability based sets from about year nine onwards. At the end of the day I think trying to teach a class of 30 odd kids whos ability range from really struggling with the material to not finding it a challenge at all would be so difficult, there is no harm in grouping children of similar abilities together as long as all schools get the same funding opportunities etc.
For the record, I went to a grammar school in quite a poor area, there were people there with a range of abilities from all different backgrounds, don't feel like it lacked diversity in any way.
Its an unfair system certainly, perhaps it makes people think they are 'failures' and give up at the age of 12. I'd rather see mixed schools, with perhaps separate classes.
I think the Tories are again just saying what they want people to hear. They are the elitest party naturally. They dont want them proles getting a good education and upsetting the system!
Streaming by ability beyond one or two subjects within comprehensives doesn't work in practice, timetabling it proves a nightmare and there simply aren't enough teachers for it to work for the most part. Instead there's the attempt at a one-size-fits all solution which doesn't work.
Grammar schools are certainly preferable to current trends... Grammar schools at least select on ability. By contrast the 'good' comprehensives are generally in more expensive areas - a child's chances of getting into a good comprehensive are very closely linked to where their parents can afford to live.
It's amusing how Labour types (and David Cameron too) it seems think grammar schools are divisive but have no problem with religious schools.
Interestingly when grammar schools were commonplace the bulk of Oxbridge students were state schooled. (It's now much lower, a bit over 50% state school). Nothing has helped the likes of Eton more than the decline of grammar schools. Grammar schools give public schools stiff competition. Is it a coincidence that many politicians who oppose grammar schools send their kids to public schools? (These same politicians too it seemed before walking into Oxbridge attended a few well known public schools...)
The Tories official abandonment of their support for grammar schools is a shameful move on David Cameron's part. This is from a party where many of its MPs and shadow cabinet ministers have benefitted from the grammar school system. The British education system is a national embarrassment today. The Tories have clearly shown today that improving educational standards is not a priority for them. That's because Call Me Dave is part of the New Labour establishment. He'd fit into any of the main three political parties perfectly. He believes in nothing, and neither do they!
well organised ability sets in normal schools is better imo the school i work out bands kids according the year 6 sats, and the puts each band into cathment area ones and a lottery, which works nicely as they land up with a mixed bag and they seperate every subject to ability from year 8 when the teachers actually know the kids
in regards to academies, if any school had 25million+ thrown at it, youll see an improvement frankly, most schools only get 3-5million a year
More able students just weren't pushed to do well, really.
At the moment, it seems that parents are going crazy trying to get their child into the "right" school, and going to extremes such as moving house etc. (Or so the media would have us believe.) I'm sure that this is more to do with the other schools being very poor than the top schools being *really* good. This needs to be sorted - there's no point making grammar schools or better schools without sorting out the ones that need help to improve the most. After all, if all the good students are poached by other schools then the poor schools will never improve and get the right GCSE pass rate needed to make people think they are good schools.
I had some tutoring in the form of a mock 11+, that was all. And I don't remember it costing much at all. It's something all schools could provide free of charge to their pupils. If a kid needs extensive tutoring to get into a grammar school then I'm not sure they have a place there, so from that point of view money shouldn't come into it.
I started at Uni this year, and you don't have to have done business to do the degree. I have been bored shitless, covering ground I've done before and at a snails pace.
From what I remember, the tests are mostly to do with how you think, so any bright child should be able to answer, regardless of having coaching or not.
Also, you don't "pass" or "fail" the 11 plus. The kids with the highest marks get places, that's all.
Verbal?
When I did my 11+ and I think it's still the same today, there are no set boundaries. They're made after the exams are marked so only a set few can get the top grades.
It's interesting how the politicians who decide this have mostly been to private schools themselves and send their kids to private schools.
I went to an 'independently funded, selective' secondary school, one of the best state schools in the country - and i had to do a test to get in there. Had i not got in there, i suspect my parents would have done what they did with my sister, and sent me to a private school.
It's not fair to stream children according to their abilities aged 11. If we were to have a comp/grammar system there would need to be continuous reassesment throughout children's education, up to year 9 and then again at GCSE level. Some children take longer to develop intellectually, and allowances should be made for it.
I really do think it should be all or nothing though. At present, the state schooling system is a big mish-mash of nothingness, with CTC's, acadamies, residual grammar schools and general comps. The level of education you recieve is utterly dependant upon where you live, and it provides an artificial inflation of house prices in the area around good schools - making it even harder for the poorest members of society to ensure a good education for their children.
are you saying wealthier peopel are more intelligent genetically
i ask one question, in what way?
No, I think she's saying that the more intelligent you are there's a better chance of you getting wealthier in later life and then you can afford to send your children to private schools.
If you're parents are smart, there's a good indication you're going to be smart too.
Two words .. Paris Hilton
She's blonde though.
(To be quite honest I thought the 11+ was abolished around the time my mum took it
Grammar schools were abolished in most parts of the country ages ago but in a few areas they survived and still exist. Odd grammar schools are all over (not to be confused with private schools like Leeds Grammar that is not a grammar school).
Only a few places like Bucks, Kent, Slough, NI I think where most pupils sit the 11+.
:yes:
Ditto in my experience. Without any exaggeration, teachers spent 75%+ of the time trying to get the dumb twats who just wanted to jump on tables to read a book, whilst the 'clever' ones banded together in a corner and tried to do some work, and were instantly identified as a different social circle and hence victimised.
Whilst I'm aware that moaning as a student of a good university that my progress was held back by others will seem selfish to those who think people who are punching you in the face just really want cuddles, why should it be me that has to give it to them?
There is a very direct and obvious correlation to the subjects that were setted and my achievement.
In some lessons the teachers had me 'teaching' other students for fucks sake. For all the good it did, they just took the piss out of me.
I would have loved to go to a grammer school.