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effective reintroduction of grammar schools
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4349972.stm
'master classes' for people who are in top 5% of 11 yr old exams
the 'clever' 11 year olds dont need more help, its the oens who leave being unable to read or write or do simple arithmetic that need help
'master classes' for people who are in top 5% of 11 yr old exams
the 'clever' 11 year olds dont need more help, its the oens who leave being unable to read or write or do simple arithmetic that need help
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They don't have time........
no, 2ndry schools should have streaming however the age of 11 is too early to tell whether or not theyre a genius or not - exam training and all
a bright child doesnt have to be pushed at a young age since the concepts are barely taught, its just skills - after primary school, all a child should have really learnt is reading, writing, listening, doing simple arithmetic and some other random skills depending on the childs hobbies etc.
we have a far more severe problem in this country with basic skills, id rather help the bottom 25% who leave school being unable to read, write, spell and do basic sums, than help the children in the top 5% who got it almost 1st time (i was in top 5% of my primary school and secondary school easily, however it meant i had more time to read, socialise and learn things for myself).
I'd rather give those oppurtunities to the people whom the education system has failed, i hanged out with lazy 'idiots' at school, they weren't thick, they joined secondary school slightly behind, due to a mix of bad education/personal problems like my mates mum died and from there they stayed behind
where will these lecturers come from, they're overworked as it is
im thinking of going into college teaching, i wont teach secondary school because i dont and have never gelled too well with people of those ages, whilst im willing to teach those who want to learn more about a subject and you feel pride in arousing their curiosity aobut things. Children tend to have such curiosity, and formal education all but kills it in most kids, the only ones who survive are those who have out of school interests
i have personal gratitude for my 4th year of primary school teacher, all he done was try to get us to think, he made us practise memory tasks and pattern recognition, which combined make great mathematicians
grammar schools exist purely for those who cant afford private school, but can afford exam training for their child (whom tend to be not so clever in doing things for themselves)
This isn't the "re-introduction" of grammar schools, this is giving those who need advanced tuition the opportunities to receive it. Those who are not strong enough for it will presumably be removed from the classes, and those who develop later will be promoted to them.
Teaching children in classes suited to their academic ability and interests is the best way to teach, it is a proven fact. "One size fits all" does not work, because neither the strongest nor the weakest can work in those conditions.
The problem I have with grammar schools is that they segregate based on an arbitrary exam, and there is no way to recover from being placed in the lower school. Streaming has the benefits of ability-tailored teaching, but without the problems of getting stranded in a school too good or too bad for your needs.
I had a comprehensive education, and I wasn't tested enough often enough, and it made me lazy and bored. I was fine in classes that were streamed, but I was too often lumped in mixed-ability classes full of people who simply were not as bright as me.
Grammar schools exist because there are children with greater academic ability than the majority. Just as we may have schools for those with particular "special" needs, such is the case with grammar education.
Why should I have been taught at a level which was "beneath" me, just to fit a political ideal?
I would question the validity, but the number of passes at A* shown in the league tables would support the assertion that grammar schools give good grades...
Can anyone prove that if we took identical people, put one through a comprehensive, the other through a grammar, that one would on average turn out better than the other?
I say this because I went to a bog-standrad comprehensive and I did fine, and don't really understand why anyone else would not..........
But to claim that streaming in Comprehensives and selection into grammar schools are fundamentally different ideas is utter nonsense. The disadvantage of the 11+ is that is a once only test, but that's no reason to abandon it completely. Those that peak later can transfer for sixth form or will be streamed into the higher sets of comprehensives.
I will vigorously defend the Kent grammar school system against New Labour idealism. Thankfully the County Council is true blue and pro-grammar schooling. Maybe you're intelligent, and would have done well at a grammar school?
They aren't fundamentally different, but streaming into different schools effectively changes the entire scope of a child's life at the age of 11. A child hasn't even got through puberty, and if he gets sent to the wrong school because he had a bad day/hayfever/whatever, he is stuck in that mould for the rest of his life.
It is every reason to abandon it as a selection tool for schools. If you have a bad day you can't go back and have another chance at it- no other exam has that finality, and no other exam has that scope to destroy a child's life in the way the 11+ can and does.
The other major drawback is that the exam is entirely arbritrary. There is no set level you have to reach in order to pass it, it simply divides the year group by how many places there are at a grammar school. Get a good year and you will fail to get in; get a bad year and you'll walk it. You will also be casting children into a failing school over the difference of a few marks, with no right of appeal or re-sit.
The highest set of a comprehensive will, by default, be worse than the lowest set of a grammar school.
Sixth form is too late, GCSEs have been and gone and a child has spent his formative years stuck in a school he is beneath or above.
If giving children a fair chance to find their level in their own time, and not to have their entire destiny mapped out before they've even reached puberty, is "New Labour idealism", then I will take that every time, thank you very much. I will take "New Labour idealism" ahead of tossing children onto the scrapheap over a difference of three marks any day of the week.
Why are you in favour of destroying children's lives before they have even begun?
I would have been shafted by the grammar school system, as I was a late developer when it came to many aspects of academia, and I for one would never want my child to have to suffer that. I may have got into a grammar school, but it would have been a close-run thing. A very close-run thing. My SATs and GCSEs were mediocre at best, but by A'Level I won the award for the best results in the school, and I got into a prestigious university.
If I'd been sent to a comprehensive in a grammar school town I wouldn't have achieved that, I would have been cast on the scrap-heap.
Ripon Grammar School.
Ripon College.
As you will see, you are consigning a child to a significantly poorer school over a difference of a few marks, and that is a blight that the child will have to carry for the rest of his life.
Lets compare the OfSTED reports.
Whilst the grammar school's teaching is of a high standard, and 20% of it is of a very high standard, the comprehensive school's teaching is poor and worrying. The lower tier school is merely "improving". It has nothing to do with resources, and everything to do with the fact that the Grammar School can cherry-pick teaching staff as well as it can cherry-pick its pupils. That means the weaker pupils in Ripon are stuck with second-rate teachers, and they ahve literally no hope of every improving their lot.
If you think an exam before a child has even hit puberty, and even understands how important it is, is a perfectly fine and moral way to shape a child's entire life, then I pity you.
As I say, I'd rather take the "New Labour idealism" that gives everyone the same chance in life as opposed to this conservative "look after the rich already" attitude that you seem to favour.
Of course, it is of no concern to you that poverty has a huge impact on childhood academic performance. Shove the poor in their ghetto school where they belong, eh?
Do you think teaching everyone to a universal average standard is a "perfectly fine and moral way to shap a child's entire life"?
The facts, as I have just illustrated with Ripon.
I personally believe all grammar schools and private schools should be abolished and closed down, and that everyone should have the same opportunities as the next person. No doubt you'll wail about how it's a person's "choice" how they give unfair advantages to their children, but hey.
Done properly, the comprehensive system is the best. I don't believe in mixed-ability education, because it doesn't work for anybody, but I don't believe in making the tiers so far apart that the gulf cannot be crossed.
The figures speak for themselves. You will get a better education at a grammar school, because they can cherry-pick staff and pupils. Which is all well and good if you are lucky enough to pass the 11+. But what if you're not? You get stuck in the crap school, and get to go nowhere.
The bigger picture is that most people will not pass the 11+, because most people cannot pass the 11+. I suppose its one way of dividing people into groups with potential and without it, but I don't think its a very fair, ethical or moral way to do it. It should be done on ability as an adult, not as a pre-pubescent.
A common fallacy is that comprehensive education has to be about treating every pupil the same. It doesn't, and isn't. But every pupil should have the same access to quality teaching and quality resources, and they do not because of private and selective schooling.
The best teachers will always go to the best schools, and in grammar school towns that means depriving most of their expertise.
I suppose I am arguing for more grammar school places- one for every child in a town. Which kinda defeats the whole point of them, surely?
To claim that there is a great difference is misplaced inverse snobbery and simply untrue.
Then why select at all?
If the comprehensive was as good as the grammar, and offered the same opportunities in life, surely all the grammar-school nuts wouldn't actually give a toss if their school was merged with the equally good school down the street.
If there's no difference, why do people care?
But schools cannot physically hold more than a couple of thousand pupils. So if you want a good school place for every pupil, and will accept streaming, you soon end up with a system surprisingly similar to that of the grammar schools.
Surely you can acknowledge that the reason for the success is selection itself?
I don't, I want to offer it to everyone, regardless of the results of a purely arbitrary examination in childhood.
Those who shout about the virtues of the grammar school system want to deny the education to everyone "beneath" them financially and academically.
If every school was the same, with the same standard of teachers, then everyone would have the same opportunities. Streaming would ensure that teaching was tailored to the pupils in question, and that if their ability changes they can have their teaching changed, quickly and easily.
Grammar schools lock pupils into one style of teaching, regardless of whether it is suitable for them or not. This applies to early bloomers as well as late ones.
Quite why you oppose an equal opportunity for all this is beyond me.
Maybe if I lived in your fantasy dreamland I'd agree, but back in the real world selection is the best system for the selected, and they matter just as much as those with special needs.
To imply that we can either invest in grammar school education or in comprehensive schooling is just meaningless rhetoric. You can have a grammar school system and better comprehensive schooling. But that would involve making a lot of shit teachers redundant, and their unions are too powerful to allow that, so the govt takes the easy option and makes plans to abolish the grammar system. Apart from when their children are involved. Harriet Harman sent her son to my school, Tony Blair sent his to a selecting school and Diane Abbott took hers out of the state school system and sent him private. I don't know how else one could demonstrate a lack of faith in the comprehensive system at the highest level.
the reason crap teachers stay in work, is because there isnt enough potential teachers, almost everyone studying at my university wants to go into finance of some sort, unless they want to be lawyers or doctors - im like the onlyperson in my dept who wants to teach
Do you agree with sending a child who fails the 11+ to an inferior school?
Yes or no, given the stats I have shown to illustrate that comprehensive in grammar towns are inferior schools.
Indeed they do.
But they don't matter more, which is what the grammar school system implies.
Grammar schooling is about better education for the privileged, and keeping the "bright" (usually rich) away from the "stupid" (usually the poor). If the grammar school was exactly the same as the comprehensive down the street, nobody would care if it was abolished. And certainly not if the comp was better than the grammar.
The comprehensive system would be much better if selective and private schools were abolished, removing once and for all the huge imbalance between the resources at the selective and private schools, and the resources at the "failures" school down the street.
A comprehensive system gives everyone the same opportunities. A grammar school system denies those opportunities to people who fail an arbitrary examination. It denies opportunities to those who are poor.
As for you trying to imply hypocrisy, I would send my child to a grammar school for exactly the reasons I want them to be abolished. I'm sure it sounds awfully hypocritical of me, but I want my child to play the system as much as he can, and get every benefit he can from such an unjust and immoral educational system.
I want that system to be abolished, because I think it shafts the poor and the weak at the expense of those who are already privileged, but I think it is a sign of a bad parent to play politics with their children's lives.
i can type properly, i just choose not to in this situation
I go to a grammar school and I had ZERO tuition for the 11+ exam.
That's a sweeping generalisation you have just made and I think it's pretty damn wrong.
And quite rightly too.
The next thing they should do is remove the charitable exemptions private schools receive. And then they should shut the places down altogether.
Assisted Places was a way of making a tiny minority get to the top by trampling on the rest of society.
How does it not make any sense?
A school has the same resources to all pupils. It has the same buildings, the same teachers. The only thing that streaming does is ensure that all the pupils in the class are capable of working to the same stanard, and those who are striding ahead or lagging behind can be easily moved to another stream, where their intellectual peers are.
Streaming rewards hard work, and allows all pupils to receive the same resources, but tailored to their intellectual ability.
Selective schooling does no such thing. If you are struggling in a grammar school's bottom set, can you be helped by being moved down a set? If you're in a comprehensive's top set can you be helped by being moved up a set? No. You are stuck in a class that is not meeting your needs.
Streaming does not create a concrete boundary, but selective schooling does. Those in the good school are ring-fenced, and those in the bad one are stuck there, no matter how talented they are, and no matter how much better they'd be with the bright kids down the street.
The opportunity is the opportunity to gain one if you are good enough. You get the same school and the same teachers; it's up to you how you use them. You aren't stuck in an inferior school with inferior teachers.
You are obviously not grasping my point.
Because it isn't.
You do the best for your child, always. You don't let politics get in the way of it. What would keeping my child out of a good school achieve for society?
I want to see private and selective schooling abolished immediately. But until it is you have to live with the system in place.
Did the education system fail you in someway?
My personal perspective is that people should have the choice of whether or not to go to a Grammar school. I think that grammar schools really do help some people to fulfill their potential, it just depends on the person. I don't think that people are automatically disadvantaged just because they go to a comp. Sure the teaching quality and other things may not be as good in the comp as it is in a grammar school, but I believe that if somebody really does want to achieve they will do their best whatever the situation. No matter what their class, ethnicity, culture and stuff. Everyone can try no matter what.
I went to a streaming comprehensive school, so I managed to get through it OK in the end.
A grammar system could well have dumped me in the crap school, and there's no way I'd have got the a'Level results and the place doing law at Durham that I did.
But grammar schools are selective, your "choice" is dependent on passing an exam when you are a child.
A very noble opinion, but a bit of a rubbish point really.
Yeah, everyone can try reallyreallyreally hard and do well. I went to quite a poo school (chronically underfunded), but I got excellent A'Levels because I worked my arse off, spending every Saturday morning doing work in the city library.
The point is that the amount of effort in a good school is dramatically less. Yes, the cream will often rise to the top, but its not the cream that people should concern themselves with. A mediocre person in a grammar school is at a huge advantage over a mediocre person in a "rejects" comp, as is the case in grammar school towns, and will be much more successful.
And, like it or not, people are restricted by their peers. A bright person in a "reject" comp will suffer because he will be brighter than his peers.
Selective schools, either on intelligence, finance or both, are morally and ethically wrong.